Big Secret Project
So I had my big meeting yesterday, it went well, but in kind of a weird way and I can't quite wrap my head around it yet. But in order to really talk about it I have to give the background of what I'm doing and what my project is or it won't make any sense. Besides, there isn't really any reason to keep the Big Secret Project a secret anymore.
Basically, I am developing a documentary television series. About a year and a half ago, in a fit of feeling sorry for myself and hating my job I started daydreaming about what my ideal job would be. It started out as a total pipe dream, something I would never have actually gone after (or that I thought would ever even have a chance of happening) but then shortly after that I met Rich. Rich is a producer in London - he produced several of the movies that Mike has done and I met Rich in Cannes last year. We hit it off immediately and fairly intensely. We spent a lot of time together while the cast was doing interviews and photo shoots etc. We started talking about what we want out of life and I happened to mention my series idea (which I will explain in more detail in a minute) and he jumped on it, telling me that he would produce it in a heartbeat. And so it began.
He and I brought in a Canadian producer that I know and we started coming up with all the details, spending endless hours writing our proposal, refining the format, having conference calls and brainstorming. Eventually (to make a long story short) we got a verbal commitment from a UK production company for just over a million dollars providing we could get another million from Canadian sources. It looked like everything was set and we were on our way. But then life went a little nuts for all of us and we had to put the show on the back burner for a couple of months. When we regrouped all of a sudden my Canadian producer went MIA with no explanation, the deal with the UK company fell apart (Rich's connection with them was through his assistant who was dating the development manager and when she broke up with him he took it out on Rich and told us to take a hike) and Rich and I were left with an awesome idea but nothing else to show for it. Back to square one.
The awesome idea is this: it's a documentary travel series about volunteer tourism. I, as the Canadian host, would take a group of 4 volunteers to a foreign country to work on a project for one month. The projects range from hand raising orphaned lion cubs in South Africa, to a restoration project in the south of France using historical masonry techniques, to working in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. We would also have a UK host take his own group of 4 to work on other projects and we would weave the two groups/projects together in a series of 6 episodes (me with one group at one place, him with another group at another place) and then start all over again for the next two projects with the same hosts but different volunteer groups, different locations and different projects.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that the development manager from a big production company in Vancouver heard about the idea for the show and loved it. She asked me to come to her with my next project, and was disappointed that someone else was already producing this one for me (my thought was next project? I don't even know what I'm doing with this project!) So when my Canadian producer ran off (I still don't know what happened there...) I approached her. Which is the meeting I had yesterday. I knew going in that her company doesn't do documentaries, but that she was excited about the idea. Basically the meeting boiled down to the fact that it's a great idea, but that it's a bit outside the box of traditional proposals that broadcasters are looking for. She thought that if we approached corporations that have a similar marketing campaign (bringing people and cultures together for the greater good) that we could get corporate funding and do the series as either a tie in for their marketing campaign or as webisodes. She feels that as new/young/fairly unknown producers that we might have an easier time convincing corporations to give us 2 million dollars than traditional broadcasters.
I don't have a problem with taking corporate money to make this happen, but I also have no idea how to go about it. And I do sort of feel like if we make the series into shorter webisodes or into basically an ad campaign that while I would still be able to do the work I want (travelling and volunteering for a living) that we would possibly be wasting a really great idea on what may be a short lived marketing campaign. Whereas if we went the more traditional route and managed to get the series broadcast on OLN or Discovery we would have a lot more clout behind us.
So now I feel a bit lost. I have no idea what the next steps should be. I don't know where to go from here. It's fine, I'll figure it out, after all I had no idea where to go when the idea first started taking shape either and I've gotten this far with it. And I do still have Rich firmly by my side. He and I just talked about it and will come up with a plan together, but it feels like the life I really want is only just barely out of reach and it's frustrating. I can see the end result that I want but can't see the path between here and there.
Basically, I am developing a documentary television series. About a year and a half ago, in a fit of feeling sorry for myself and hating my job I started daydreaming about what my ideal job would be. It started out as a total pipe dream, something I would never have actually gone after (or that I thought would ever even have a chance of happening) but then shortly after that I met Rich. Rich is a producer in London - he produced several of the movies that Mike has done and I met Rich in Cannes last year. We hit it off immediately and fairly intensely. We spent a lot of time together while the cast was doing interviews and photo shoots etc. We started talking about what we want out of life and I happened to mention my series idea (which I will explain in more detail in a minute) and he jumped on it, telling me that he would produce it in a heartbeat. And so it began.
He and I brought in a Canadian producer that I know and we started coming up with all the details, spending endless hours writing our proposal, refining the format, having conference calls and brainstorming. Eventually (to make a long story short) we got a verbal commitment from a UK production company for just over a million dollars providing we could get another million from Canadian sources. It looked like everything was set and we were on our way. But then life went a little nuts for all of us and we had to put the show on the back burner for a couple of months. When we regrouped all of a sudden my Canadian producer went MIA with no explanation, the deal with the UK company fell apart (Rich's connection with them was through his assistant who was dating the development manager and when she broke up with him he took it out on Rich and told us to take a hike) and Rich and I were left with an awesome idea but nothing else to show for it. Back to square one.
The awesome idea is this: it's a documentary travel series about volunteer tourism. I, as the Canadian host, would take a group of 4 volunteers to a foreign country to work on a project for one month. The projects range from hand raising orphaned lion cubs in South Africa, to a restoration project in the south of France using historical masonry techniques, to working in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. We would also have a UK host take his own group of 4 to work on other projects and we would weave the two groups/projects together in a series of 6 episodes (me with one group at one place, him with another group at another place) and then start all over again for the next two projects with the same hosts but different volunteer groups, different locations and different projects.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that the development manager from a big production company in Vancouver heard about the idea for the show and loved it. She asked me to come to her with my next project, and was disappointed that someone else was already producing this one for me (my thought was next project? I don't even know what I'm doing with this project!) So when my Canadian producer ran off (I still don't know what happened there...) I approached her. Which is the meeting I had yesterday. I knew going in that her company doesn't do documentaries, but that she was excited about the idea. Basically the meeting boiled down to the fact that it's a great idea, but that it's a bit outside the box of traditional proposals that broadcasters are looking for. She thought that if we approached corporations that have a similar marketing campaign (bringing people and cultures together for the greater good) that we could get corporate funding and do the series as either a tie in for their marketing campaign or as webisodes. She feels that as new/young/fairly unknown producers that we might have an easier time convincing corporations to give us 2 million dollars than traditional broadcasters.
I don't have a problem with taking corporate money to make this happen, but I also have no idea how to go about it. And I do sort of feel like if we make the series into shorter webisodes or into basically an ad campaign that while I would still be able to do the work I want (travelling and volunteering for a living) that we would possibly be wasting a really great idea on what may be a short lived marketing campaign. Whereas if we went the more traditional route and managed to get the series broadcast on OLN or Discovery we would have a lot more clout behind us.
So now I feel a bit lost. I have no idea what the next steps should be. I don't know where to go from here. It's fine, I'll figure it out, after all I had no idea where to go when the idea first started taking shape either and I've gotten this far with it. And I do still have Rich firmly by my side. He and I just talked about it and will come up with a plan together, but it feels like the life I really want is only just barely out of reach and it's frustrating. I can see the end result that I want but can't see the path between here and there.