Latest News about the
Untitled Web Series About A Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time
by Travis Richey
Greetings, Inspectators!
It’s been a while since the last newsletter, and SO much has been happening! Not leaving a lot of time for newsletter-writing, but it’s very important to me to keep you in the loop about what we’re doing on this end, since so many of you made it possible at all.
We have HUGE casting news to announce, and I’ll probably be sending out an announcement on that on Monday (as always, keep an eye on the Facebook page to find out the news first), but I wanted to tell you all about some awesome recent events…
KICKSTARTER SUCCESS! AGAIN!
Last month, we ran a VERY short, 3 week campaign to fund the Prequel Episode of Season 2! Our goal was $10,000, and we raised over $12,000! (minus Kickstarter fees and donations that didn’t go through – no one ever talks about those…)
To be totally honest, I was very worried about this campaign. Even though we raised $25,000 for Season 1, this was different:
Season 1 had a whole lot of buzz behind it. This time, we were counting entirely on fan support. News outlets tend not to cover the second season of a web show.
Season 1 budget: $22,500 for 19 minutes of completed content. Season 2 Prequel: $10,000 for about 6-7 minutes. So even though our goal was less, it was only for one episode, and I didn’t know how fans would react to that.
We are hard at work on pre-production. We’ve got a lot we’re trying to do with this one episode (and it’s budget):
Introduce the audience to Season 2 Nick Acosta’s new style
- Build a custom BOOTH that can be disassembled for transport, storage, and for filming needs
- Build a custom phone Console by Optic Pocketknife creator Brian Uiga.
- Plan some VERY experimental camera work for the first scene in the Prequel.
- Land a celebrity cameo. (Much easier said than done!)
- Pics of the entire process, including the BOOTH and Console construction, are going up on the Facebook page!
OUR VERY FIRST TRIP TO WONDERCON!
The cast and crew were invited to have a panel at WonderCon 2013 in Anaheim, CA a couple weeks ago, as well as a table on the convention floor! The panel went great, though after the 2-hour extravaganza at Gallifrey One, this one felt a little rushed!
Also, even though we were all the way at the back of the convention hall, we met tons of fans and chatted almost non-stop with people who were excited about Inspector Spacetime. We’ll be posting pics from WonderCon soon to our Facebook page.
We learned a valuable lesson, though. Even though we had a bunch of props from the show, costumes (“classic” and current 11th Inspector!), posters and more, our table was not nearly as interesting as some (most) of the other booths on the convention floor. We realized that if we’re going to start doing more conventions, we need to get some banners made, and maybe have something amazing that will draw people in.
Like maybe a full-size red British Telephone Booth, complete with sentient time-travel console?! Yeah. That’s happening:
BUILDING A BETTER TIME MACHINE
When we rented a British phone booth from a prop house in LA for Season 1, it ended up costing us around $2200. For the prequel, when we knew we were going to see the BOOTH again, and even shoot inside of it, so we figured we could make a booth for around the same price, while also customizing it for our needs. We wanted to do things like:
- Have it come apart, so we could shoot inside the BOOTH easier (which also has the added benefit of being more easily transportable and easier to store.
- Include built-in lighting, for the “telephone” panels as well as the inner ceiling
- Be able to mount the console, while hide any wiring to control it
Well, I got a referral from a friend to one John Shearer, an experienced set-bulider and the force behind some of the most elaborate costumes I’ve seen at the West Hollywood Halloween Festival. I met with John and discussed the building of the BOOTH, and he was right on board. John is constructing the BOOTH right now,and we are posting pictures of the progress on our Facebook page. It’s very, very neat!
IN THE FUTURE…
We’ve got a whole lot of exciting news to tell you about, including:
- The Inspector at WONDERCON!
- Season 2 guest stars
- Optic Pocketknife replicas and other toy plans
- Untitled Comic Book About A Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time
- Brian Giovanni’s brilliant soundtrack in CD form
- Creating the BOOTH console with Brian Uiga
- Wikipedia!
- Upcoming Events and Appearances!
- Non-Inspector shoots
- Signing with a YouTube Network
- Untitled Radio Show…??
- One of our main crew is having a baby!
In the meantime,
Check out all things Inspector here: TheInspector.TV
And join us on Facebook for the latest news, giveaways, and TONS of behind-the-scenes content!
Thank you so much for your passionate support,
Travis Richey
The Inspector
Youtube Channel Change!
For reasons that are good and cool and not at all annoying, we’re changing channels on Youtube! Subscribe now to the “TravisRichey” channel as we start to roll out new content in just a few weeks!!
Back to the Future!
We here at Siv-Art Productions are huge fans of this classic film, so we decided to make a shot-for-shot remake of the teaser trailer for BTTF featuring The Inspector and his BOOTH!