Dead Gentlemen Collaboration
Posted: 25 Jul 2012 23:38
Hi all,
Though the Summer months have taken me out of the Genesis action for various other pursuits, my thoughts continue to dwell on various ways to further the visibility of the game using the remaining funds from our promotional campaign (roughly $3,000 USD.)
One thought that has recently occurred to me would be to somehow partner with Dead Gentlemen Productions, either by hiring them to film a short advertisement for Genesis via Youtube or by sponsoring one of their upcoming productions with enough money to get our website address in the credits for their films.
If you are not familiar with Dead Gentlemen Productions, they became semi-famous internationally about 6 years ago with the creation of "The Gamers" which is a movie about a bunch of college-age geeks who play D&D in the basement of their dorm. Though very crudely made (some would say it was so amateurish it is difficult to watch) I personally laughed out loud MANY MANY times watching it. My experience seems to have been the case for many, as the film went on to become an internet sensation, eventually reaching millions of viewers worldwide.
Dead Gentlemen went on to create a sequel to Gamers, the proceeds from which enabled them to create their latest (and, in my opinion, greatest) stuff, which is titled "Journey Quest." This is more of their spoofing of Dungeons and Dragons (and other) fantasy themes, but this time without the gamers themselves being part of the story. Rather than making Journey Quest into a feature film, they did it in a series of 7 episodes which were released on-line. It was so well-received that they decided to see if they could fund a second season via Kickstarter. This proved successful, and they raised huge amounts of money with all their fan support. The second season is currently being released week to week. In preparation for more future work, they have now started another Kickstarter project to see if they can fund a third "Gamers" film, much in the model they used for Journey Quest.
You can check out their works to see what sort of thing they do:
Journey Quest - Season one:
Episode 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVORGr2fDk8
Episode 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jFcV1F ... ure=relmfu
Episode 3:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSFDR8km ... ure=relmfu
Episode 4:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke8utd-V ... ure=relmfu
Episode 5:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i99jMtnE ... ure=relmfu
Episode 6:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv8S2x-Z ... ure=relmfu
Episode 7:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLM5BWTYonI
If you want to see their original stuff, here's the very old very rough (but very funny) "The Gamers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTEHqAeanw (I'll let you find the rest if you want.)
Also, here is the Kickstarter page for the new Gamers film:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zom ... e?ref=live
The reason I might be able to get us involved with these folks is that I know many of them - we were at college together, and the stuff in Gamers is an all-too-familiar dorm for me personally. The bard in Journey Quest is a friend who I make music with at church all the time, and her husband (also a friend - same reason) plays the fighter in "The Gamers." I'm also good friends with the guy who writes all the music for the films (He happened to star in the VERY first Dead Gentlemen film, called "Demon Hunters.") These guys know me mostly as a fellow musician and the guy who does all the music at their church, but I suspect I could get them to make a crappy Genesis video almost for free if I promised them enough beer. Much better, however, would be to pay them (hey, they deserve it!) so that the quality of whatever they might produce is high (this becomes especially important with regard to film and sound quality equipment and expertise.)
This may not be the direction we want to go with promotion, but these guys have a huge following, and to have our game mentioned either on their productions or by the actors in a special-made promo for Genesis ... dunno ... it struck me as a potential winner!
Thoughts?
G.
Though the Summer months have taken me out of the Genesis action for various other pursuits, my thoughts continue to dwell on various ways to further the visibility of the game using the remaining funds from our promotional campaign (roughly $3,000 USD.)
One thought that has recently occurred to me would be to somehow partner with Dead Gentlemen Productions, either by hiring them to film a short advertisement for Genesis via Youtube or by sponsoring one of their upcoming productions with enough money to get our website address in the credits for their films.
If you are not familiar with Dead Gentlemen Productions, they became semi-famous internationally about 6 years ago with the creation of "The Gamers" which is a movie about a bunch of college-age geeks who play D&D in the basement of their dorm. Though very crudely made (some would say it was so amateurish it is difficult to watch) I personally laughed out loud MANY MANY times watching it. My experience seems to have been the case for many, as the film went on to become an internet sensation, eventually reaching millions of viewers worldwide.
Dead Gentlemen went on to create a sequel to Gamers, the proceeds from which enabled them to create their latest (and, in my opinion, greatest) stuff, which is titled "Journey Quest." This is more of their spoofing of Dungeons and Dragons (and other) fantasy themes, but this time without the gamers themselves being part of the story. Rather than making Journey Quest into a feature film, they did it in a series of 7 episodes which were released on-line. It was so well-received that they decided to see if they could fund a second season via Kickstarter. This proved successful, and they raised huge amounts of money with all their fan support. The second season is currently being released week to week. In preparation for more future work, they have now started another Kickstarter project to see if they can fund a third "Gamers" film, much in the model they used for Journey Quest.
You can check out their works to see what sort of thing they do:
Journey Quest - Season one:
Episode 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVORGr2fDk8
Episode 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jFcV1F ... ure=relmfu
Episode 3:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSFDR8km ... ure=relmfu
Episode 4:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke8utd-V ... ure=relmfu
Episode 5:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i99jMtnE ... ure=relmfu
Episode 6:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv8S2x-Z ... ure=relmfu
Episode 7:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLM5BWTYonI
If you want to see their original stuff, here's the very old very rough (but very funny) "The Gamers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTEHqAeanw (I'll let you find the rest if you want.)
Also, here is the Kickstarter page for the new Gamers film:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zom ... e?ref=live
The reason I might be able to get us involved with these folks is that I know many of them - we were at college together, and the stuff in Gamers is an all-too-familiar dorm for me personally. The bard in Journey Quest is a friend who I make music with at church all the time, and her husband (also a friend - same reason) plays the fighter in "The Gamers." I'm also good friends with the guy who writes all the music for the films (He happened to star in the VERY first Dead Gentlemen film, called "Demon Hunters.") These guys know me mostly as a fellow musician and the guy who does all the music at their church, but I suspect I could get them to make a crappy Genesis video almost for free if I promised them enough beer. Much better, however, would be to pay them (hey, they deserve it!) so that the quality of whatever they might produce is high (this becomes especially important with regard to film and sound quality equipment and expertise.)
This may not be the direction we want to go with promotion, but these guys have a huge following, and to have our game mentioned either on their productions or by the actors in a special-made promo for Genesis ... dunno ... it struck me as a potential winner!
Thoughts?
G.