Those blasted Vikings did it! They invaded our culture and sacked our imagination. They pillaged our entertainment. Like the real Vikings upon which they're based, the History Channel's Vikings hit us swiftly. They hit us hard. Then they left us as quickly as they came and all we can do is wonder when they'll come back to finish the job.
As you can probably guess, I don't think a mere nine episodes is enough for this series. The characters are too rich. The mythology is too vast. The history is too unexplored. If Vikings was a network show, we'd likely be treated to twenty-two episodes (a full season). Even a half season of eleven episodes would be better than a meager nine. But let's face it, the networks aren't likely to take a risk with a show like Vikings. From their perspective there's too much to lose in taking on such an ambitious and expensive production...namely their female audience. Vikings is aimed at a predominantly male audience. But that's fine with the brass at the History Channel because their main demographic is male. You're not likely to find Cupcake Wars or Fashion Star or any other estrogen-laced shows on the History Channel. It's mostly men who like history and it's mostly men who watch the History Channel. For that reason, Vikings is a perfect fit.
But only nine episodes? For an entire season? What else will save us from the nauseating programming that our wives and girlfriends subject us to? Of course, there are sports...thank God...and Game of Thrones, but we don't all have HBO. Spike TV can step in and the History Channel's other testosterone-fuelled shows like Mountain Men, Counting Cars, American Restoration and of course Pawn Stars can pacify us. But we need our fix of original programming that's not reality based.
Vikings is a smart, exciting, adventurous and...oh, I hate to use this word...educational show. It pulls us back into the 9th Century and lets us play warrior with larger than life characters. It introduces us to real history, real mythology and real people. For you purists out there, I know the show's main character, Ragnar Lothbrok, is largely perceived as a legendary figure, but the way he is portrayed on the show is quite realistic. Furthermore, the final verdict has not yet come in as to whether or not the Ragnar Lodbrok (I know, different spelling) of legend was also a real person. I, for one, like to believe that he was (I also like to believe that there was an Arturius of Britain upon which the King Arthur legends were based).
Anyway, back to my point...Vikings is such a great show, that nine episodes for one season simply isn't enough. I want to know how Ragnar will handle his brother's treachery, his pregnant mistress, his wife's fury over said mistress and the political entanglements he has found himself wrapped up in. As I said before, the show is rich and the possibilities for entertainment are endless. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until 2014 to find out what will happen next. Of course, we could cheat and check our history books, but I have a feeling the show's creators will pull in a lot of extra material that the historical record and the legends leave out. No, there really isn't much we can do but wait for season two. We'll expect it to be as good as the first...and hope they give us more than only nine episodes.
But if Vikings wants to truly be like it's namesake, the 2014 season will raid hard, fast, then disappear again into the fog to leave us ravaged and anticipating season three. Are we to be like the villagers of old who took what the Vikings dished out, or will we convert them to our ways and make them live among us in more than nine episodes? Only Father Time and the Gods of Cable Television know the answer to these questions.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
KICKSTARTER, VERONICA MARS and the freedom of the 21st Century!
Anyone who's active on social media or entertainment news is certainly aware of the Kickstarter campaign for a movie version of Veronica Mars. If you're not, I'll summarize: Veronica Mars is a television show that ran on the CW network from 2004 to 2007. It had a loyal fan base, but was cancelled nonetheless. As often happens in such cases, fans and show creators frequently spoke of making a movie based on the show. Sometimes such endeavors work...the most obvious being Star Trek. Usually, however, the box office returns for the movie don't justify the expenses...an example would be Serenity, which was a movie based on the television show Firefly. In the case of Veronica Mars, the studio that owned the show (Warner Bros.) wasn't interested in paying for a film but the show creators convinced them to get behind the film and distribute it if they could raise the production budget from the fans on a website called Kickstarter.
Kickstarter is a relatively new phenomenon. Founded in 2009, Kickstarter is a site that allows people with creative projects to raise funds from average, everyday people. Many different projects such as comic books, plays, music, video games, even food-related projects have found funding on this site. Of course, so have films. Prior to Veronica Mars, no feature-length motion picture ever found complete funding on Kickstarter. The site was mostly utilized by creators of short films and people who were seeking development monies for their features.
Veronica Mars changed all that. With a stated goal of raising $2 million dollars to cover production costs, the filmmakers and crew made an appeal to the general public. The response was overwhelming and people kicked in a whopping $5.7 million dollars for the production. How did they get nearly 3X what they asked for? The answer is simple. They assured donors that every penny raised would go into the production and more money meant greater effects and better stunts.
So...what does the success of Veronica Mars mean for the future of filmmaking? The answer lies in the time-tested axiom that success breeds imitation...especially in Hollywood. With studios tightening their purse strings and looking for guaranteed profits on their investments, its no wonder that makers of lower budgeted films are now turning to Kickstarter.
Zach Braff is the perfect example of a feature filmmaker turning to Kickstarter. Zach is a veteran actor who starred in the television show Scrubs as well as a number of films. He is also a director and screenwriter whose first directorial effort Garden State was a commercial and critical success. But Zach was still having a difficult time raising the funds for his next film, Wish I Was Here. According to Zach, he had an investor who was willing to provide the funds, but the investor wanted to maintain creative control of the project. In order to get around that, Zach turned to Kickstarter with a stated goal of raising $2 million. Less than 12 hours into the first day of his post, Zach has raised nearly half of his stated goal. I think its safe to say that his project could become as successful as Veronica Mars.
As Zach Braff's project shows, Kickstarter is rewriting the rules for filmmaking. It's making studio heads out of regular people. Prior to Kickstarter, studio heads or big money investors were the ones who decided which films saw the light of day and which didn't. But now consumers can decide. If we like a potential project, we'll fund it. Who cares what the big boys in the suits say?
I think Kickstarter has opened up a whole new world for the filmmaker and the filmgoer and it's very exciting. As both a filmgoer and a filmmaker, I'm doubly excited. My partners and I will be posting our film project, Tried and True on Kickstarter in the very near future. Here's hoping we can follow down the path that Veronica Mars has blazed. See you on Kickstarter!
Kickstarter is a relatively new phenomenon. Founded in 2009, Kickstarter is a site that allows people with creative projects to raise funds from average, everyday people. Many different projects such as comic books, plays, music, video games, even food-related projects have found funding on this site. Of course, so have films. Prior to Veronica Mars, no feature-length motion picture ever found complete funding on Kickstarter. The site was mostly utilized by creators of short films and people who were seeking development monies for their features.
Veronica Mars changed all that. With a stated goal of raising $2 million dollars to cover production costs, the filmmakers and crew made an appeal to the general public. The response was overwhelming and people kicked in a whopping $5.7 million dollars for the production. How did they get nearly 3X what they asked for? The answer is simple. They assured donors that every penny raised would go into the production and more money meant greater effects and better stunts.
So...what does the success of Veronica Mars mean for the future of filmmaking? The answer lies in the time-tested axiom that success breeds imitation...especially in Hollywood. With studios tightening their purse strings and looking for guaranteed profits on their investments, its no wonder that makers of lower budgeted films are now turning to Kickstarter.
Zach Braff is the perfect example of a feature filmmaker turning to Kickstarter. Zach is a veteran actor who starred in the television show Scrubs as well as a number of films. He is also a director and screenwriter whose first directorial effort Garden State was a commercial and critical success. But Zach was still having a difficult time raising the funds for his next film, Wish I Was Here. According to Zach, he had an investor who was willing to provide the funds, but the investor wanted to maintain creative control of the project. In order to get around that, Zach turned to Kickstarter with a stated goal of raising $2 million. Less than 12 hours into the first day of his post, Zach has raised nearly half of his stated goal. I think its safe to say that his project could become as successful as Veronica Mars.
As Zach Braff's project shows, Kickstarter is rewriting the rules for filmmaking. It's making studio heads out of regular people. Prior to Kickstarter, studio heads or big money investors were the ones who decided which films saw the light of day and which didn't. But now consumers can decide. If we like a potential project, we'll fund it. Who cares what the big boys in the suits say?
I think Kickstarter has opened up a whole new world for the filmmaker and the filmgoer and it's very exciting. As both a filmgoer and a filmmaker, I'm doubly excited. My partners and I will be posting our film project, Tried and True on Kickstarter in the very near future. Here's hoping we can follow down the path that Veronica Mars has blazed. See you on Kickstarter!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
GAME OF THRONES and VIKINGS...Sunday night rocks!
Sunday night has become my favorite night and it's all because of television. Is that sad? Or am I in league with the rest of the population? Judging by the incredible ratings of The Bible and Vikings on The History Channel and Game of Thrones on HBO, I'd say I'm in lock step with everyone else.
To date, we are three episodes into the third season of Game of Thrones and the seventh episode of Vikings just aired. It wouldn't benefit either my readers or myself to summarize what's happened in every episode of these shows. HBO and The History Channel already do that on their websites. Instead, I'd like to talk about how the two shows compliment each other...which is interesting considering they're produced by different companies, aired on different networks and one is fantasy and the other is based on real history.
I've been watching Game of Thrones since the first episode of the first season and I haven't missed a single airing. Impressive, I know. But before everyone lines up to congratulate me on my ability to watch television, I'd like to steer this blog back to its purpose...to discuss the melding of history and entertainment. I'm not normally a fan of fantasy, but George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones does such a great job of incorporating real history into its storytelling, one would think it was based on actual events and medieval legends. The fact, however, is that Martin birthed the Game of Thrones stories from his own active imagination. I've never met the man and know very little about him, but he is clearly a student of history because the subject permeates his stories. In tonight's episode, for example, I observed so many historical depictions or touches that I stopped counting a half hour into the show. I particularly appreciated the opening scene of the episode when the dead nobleman was put on a barge and pushed down river so an archer could hit the barge with a flaming arrow and turn it into a burning funeral pyre. Of course, that's the same thing Vikings, Celts and other cultures did in real life. It was also a scene that was depicted on last week's episode of Vikings on The History Channel. Several minutes later in the same Game of Thrones episode, many rebellious slaves were crucified along a thoroughfare just like Spartacus was by the Romans in real life (and in the Spartacus movie and television show...I'm not sure if it was yet depicted on the show because I've only seen one episode of it so far. But if it hasn't been, it certainly will be).
I've already discussed The History Channel's Vikings in a separate blog entry, so I won't rehash old material. I will, however, say that Vikings is a wonderful follow-up to Game of Thrones. Its weapons, costumes, modes of travel and frequent references to "the gods" fits so well with the Game of Thrones motif that it would be understandable if someone thought the two shows were merely different chapters of the same story. It's not inconceivable to think that a character could be pulled out of Vikings and inserted with ease into an episode of Game of Thrones and vice versa. It's too bad the two shows weren't on the same network because the cross-promotional possibilities would be a marketer's dream.
If you're a lover of history like I am or merely a casual enthusiast of the subject...heck, if you just like good storytelling, Sunday night is the night for you. And you can watch the shows in any order you like because both The History Channel and HBO rebroadcast each episode several times in the night. Of course, you could also watch the shows whenever you want On Demand. The possibilities are endless! Oh what a great time to be a history buff!!!
To date, we are three episodes into the third season of Game of Thrones and the seventh episode of Vikings just aired. It wouldn't benefit either my readers or myself to summarize what's happened in every episode of these shows. HBO and The History Channel already do that on their websites. Instead, I'd like to talk about how the two shows compliment each other...which is interesting considering they're produced by different companies, aired on different networks and one is fantasy and the other is based on real history.
I've been watching Game of Thrones since the first episode of the first season and I haven't missed a single airing. Impressive, I know. But before everyone lines up to congratulate me on my ability to watch television, I'd like to steer this blog back to its purpose...to discuss the melding of history and entertainment. I'm not normally a fan of fantasy, but George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones does such a great job of incorporating real history into its storytelling, one would think it was based on actual events and medieval legends. The fact, however, is that Martin birthed the Game of Thrones stories from his own active imagination. I've never met the man and know very little about him, but he is clearly a student of history because the subject permeates his stories. In tonight's episode, for example, I observed so many historical depictions or touches that I stopped counting a half hour into the show. I particularly appreciated the opening scene of the episode when the dead nobleman was put on a barge and pushed down river so an archer could hit the barge with a flaming arrow and turn it into a burning funeral pyre. Of course, that's the same thing Vikings, Celts and other cultures did in real life. It was also a scene that was depicted on last week's episode of Vikings on The History Channel. Several minutes later in the same Game of Thrones episode, many rebellious slaves were crucified along a thoroughfare just like Spartacus was by the Romans in real life (and in the Spartacus movie and television show...I'm not sure if it was yet depicted on the show because I've only seen one episode of it so far. But if it hasn't been, it certainly will be).
I've already discussed The History Channel's Vikings in a separate blog entry, so I won't rehash old material. I will, however, say that Vikings is a wonderful follow-up to Game of Thrones. Its weapons, costumes, modes of travel and frequent references to "the gods" fits so well with the Game of Thrones motif that it would be understandable if someone thought the two shows were merely different chapters of the same story. It's not inconceivable to think that a character could be pulled out of Vikings and inserted with ease into an episode of Game of Thrones and vice versa. It's too bad the two shows weren't on the same network because the cross-promotional possibilities would be a marketer's dream.
If you're a lover of history like I am or merely a casual enthusiast of the subject...heck, if you just like good storytelling, Sunday night is the night for you. And you can watch the shows in any order you like because both The History Channel and HBO rebroadcast each episode several times in the night. Of course, you could also watch the shows whenever you want On Demand. The possibilities are endless! Oh what a great time to be a history buff!!!
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