a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by Complexity

So, we (writing partner and I) wrote the script to a crazy, Hitchhiker's Guide style episodic comedy way back when. We actually went and produced a teaser/trailer and look-book for the show off our own back. Generated a bit of interest and made it up to the highest echelons of the BBC comedy department before we were told:

1) It was one of the best scripts the commissioning producer had seen - really cinematic in style and reach

2) The head of comedy probably wouldn't like it because it was far too cinematic in style and reach

Then we had a great meeting with the Head Of Comedy who explained:

1) He really couldn't take the project on as the BBC wasn't producing sci-fi comedy at the moment

2) But did we want a writing job on this other sci-fi comedy the BBC was producing at the moment

Thus we swallowed and digested our first show business Zen koan.

So our project floated around for a while before I thought we could redraft it for radio which has a higher strike rate for nascent comedy projects. Which we did. We also went and produced a pilot episode because, you know, why not.

We also included cross-media strands and social media accounts for the characters to show how a well-engineered transmedia project could work. Google key concepts in the show and mysterious ads would pop up leading you into other areas of the story. At one point we rigged Google to pitch the show to commissioning editors from the various big UK broadcasters and production companies when they searched their own names; we got a few meetings off the back of that.

Eventually we ran out of steam as we went on to other projects.

The husk of the show project lives here: http://www.earth101.net/

There you can read the background, listen to the (admittedly poorly mixed) radio pilot, watch a bit of supporting material. Maybe one day we'll rewrite, record a bunch more and release it.

The numbers station aspect was related to a 24 hour stream we ran which would broadcast the pilot at fixed times around the clock. In between, it would send Conet audio interspersed with our own bits of weirdness. The stream is offline now.





mknod  ·  3262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This is cool I like hearing this inside baseball type stuff. Thanks for sharing Complexity.