Issue #0

Last year, we finished the pitch package for the feature film Duo: A Geek Tragedy and, sadly, have not been able to find financing. Not a huge surprise considering the current economic conditions. But we really wanted to work on it, 'cause it is a good story and will be fun to shoot. So we got creative.

Todd wrote a series of 4 shorts that act as back story for the main characters. Or in comic book parlance, he wrote Issue #0 with 4 chapters. Which is why we are calling it Duo: Issue #0 (we're clever that way).

We shot our first chapter on Saturday (which is actually Chapter 2, but is the first one we shot), and it went extremely well. Especially when you consider our crew had never worked together before (some of Todd's people, some of my people, an intern and an artist), we had not been in the space before (generally something to avoid, but it was unavoidable in this case), and we had to tear down a real artist's studio in a space too small in which to shoot and build it again in the shooting space and then reverse the process when the shooting was done. Heck, even Todd and I, for all our work together over the past year, had never worked on a set together. But a little independent-no-budget-film creativity (who needs a ladder with such great producer supervision?), and ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, we are out by 5pm.

Todd will start editing Chapter 2 while Trish and I are on vacation. We will post it when it is done. We are going to try and shoot the next chapter on the list (which I think is Chapter 1, but I don't remember; we're not super linear) on or around the Emerald City Comic Convention in early April. Tight schedule since I will be out of commission for two weeks soaking up sun, but Todd should be able to manage.

Mainly, we are filming Issue #0 because we want to work, but we are also hoping we can turn it into marketing tools as well. In the meantime, we have submitted the the feature to the Netflix Find Your Voice Competition. Beating the 1,999 other films that submitted and winning this would give us a good chuck of our budget and distribution through Netflix, so keep your fingers crossed. Semi-finalists will not be announced until May 1st.

Oh and if you were wondering about the public service announcement competition, they have not yet announced the finalists and they have pushed the final decision date back into April.