A Filmmakers' Tale

An update from OC Members and LYW 07 Award winners Lucas Crandles & Hayden Grubb with some interesting tips for filmmakers:

This is just a little update on things here at DarkHeartProductions. We have been working on animated comedy pilot for three years, in between our short films. It's called 'Wentworth & Buxbury'. We have just learned that the show has been made an Official Selection of the New York Television Festival, and as a result we'll be flying to New York this September!

You can see our entry listed under 'W' here:
http://www.nytvf.com/2008_ipc_selections.htm

And an article on this year's festival here:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6587087.html

A synopsis of our show:

Wentworth and Buxbury are two young, charismatic, but nonetheless unfathomably evil supervillains-in-training with a healthy mutual disdain for one another (and a healthy mutual love of crumpets). A bizarre blend of callous homicidal instinct and the utmost of civility. The pair are sworn arch-nemeses yet at the same time, though they are loath to admit it, they might just be friends too.

And a description of the festival:

There is no better way for independent television creators to get their work noticed by the industry. Winners in previous years have sold to major networks such as NBC Universal Television Studios and A&E. In 2005, the winner of the Audience Award and Best Reality Pilot, Off the Hook, was developed and aired as a series on the Versus network.

In addition, Pilot-makers continue to report that they are finding work and developing projects as a direct result of the connections and relationships they made at the New York Television Festival. Being screened at the NYTVF as an Official Selection has led to numerous writers and producers finding representation at major talent agencies, and annually it results in dozens of development meetings between artists and various production companies and networks. A partial list of the companies that have contacted our pilot-makers during or after the NYTVF includes: A&E, Bravo, CAA, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, E! Networks, ESPN, FOX, FX, HBO, HDNET, ICM, Lionsgate, MTV, NBC, N.S. Bienstock, Paradigm, Showtime, Spike TV, TLC, TV Land, Warner Bros., William Morris, and VH1. The NYTVF is an unprecedented opportunity for aspiring artists looking to make inroads in the TV industry.

We found out about the NYTVF through a cartoon comedy we had heard of called 'Stuperheroes' that was an Official Selection last year. We then did our research and discovered that the NYTVF was one of the largest, if not the largest, television festival in the world so decided we would aim to have our pilot completed for it. Our pilot was made with absolutely no funding of any sort. The only money we ever spent was $200 on a recording studio, and we voiced the pilot ourselves (with the help of a couple of actor friends). We have also never met our animators. One is from Australia but in a different state to our own, one is from Arizona and one is from Canada. Our head animator is Canadian Nicklaus Liow, who is just 13 years old! We built the animating team by advertising our work on animator forums online. We worked through electronic communication, sending two minute clips of the audio we'd recorded at a time. We will be meeting our animators for the first time in New York!

As far as we're aware, there aren't any other significant television festivals out there (or at least ones designed specifically designed to launch independently produced television pilots).

We're launching a new-look website this week to reflect our entry into the television medium, so hopefully by the end of the week http://www.darkheartproductions.com will look a lot more professional and will detail information about the pilot, as well as a one-minute promotional trailer for it. Exciting times for us indeed!