So where have we been? You may have noticed that we haven’t put a new episode out for the past couple of weeks. Don’t worry. We’ll be back soon with more new episodes of season 1 of CELL. All of you viewers at least deserve to know where we’ve been for the past few weeks.
Danny and Jourdan teaming up at SXSW
First of all, there’s SXSW. For a few days every year, the internet elite descends on Austin for the SXSW Interactive and Film Festival. This year was no different. Well it was a little different. We were there and we were promoting CELL. Jourdan, Danny and Miranda (Danny’s fiancé) hit the pavement handing out flyers while I hit the panels for some learnin’. I definitely learned a lot this year and met some really interesting people. We got the word out to a few more people about what we’re doing and we think that will help us out even more as we push into the middle of our first season.
The biggest disappointment for me was that I was a newbie to the Interactive festival this year and clearly missed out on some great experiences. There were a lot of people I wanted to meet but never made it. Marc Hustvedt was there. Missed him. Zadi Diaz. Missed her. Craig Engler. Missed him just by a hair. I even missed iJustine. But I’ve learned and next year will be different. In LA and New York, web video is a thriving world of indie producers and I’m hoping to tap into that soon. I did make some great contacts and I’m even considering a trip out to LA to hit up the Hollywood Web Television Meetup that’s put on by Tubefilter and others. That seems to be where all the action is, outside of SXSW. So I’ll be saving up and trying to make friends in LA that will let me sleep on the floor.
The stylish tauntaun sleeping bag would work great on the floor
The second reason we’ve been gone is because we hit a small snag in our post-production process. Our visual effects artist has had to back out of the rest of the production of CELL. Because of that we’ve had to scour the planet for someone who could finish off the season within our budget, which is practically zero. You may not realize this but the majority of our production has been done for free. That includes most of our work in post-production. They work really hard to maintain a weekly release schedule with as high a quality show as we can manage. It’s tough because they all have to get paying gigs as well. So long story short, it’s been a bear to maintain and without these people just loving the story  it would never happen. I owe them more than I can express, and I’m trying to figure out a way to help them out.
But I digress. Just today I signed up a new visual effects artist to take on CELL from episode 6 through the end. We’re gearing up again to start releases, but we’re going to make sure we do it right. In order to help out post-production team, we’re going to take a little time and get ahead of schedule. This will give us a little breathing room when we start up again, just in case we have any other unforeseen madness take place.
So right now we’re looking to start up new episodes again on April 14th, 2010. We’re still hitting on a weekly release schedule from that point on and should be able to go straight through the final episode of Season 1.
Big thanks to all of you for sticking with us in this little hiatus. Our viewers and fans are so important and we’re really excited that you’re all really enjoying the story so far. I can honestly say that if you’ve liked the first 4 episodes, wait till you see what we’ve got coming. It’s going to be quite a ride and things will get even more twisty by the time we’re done.
So mark your calendars and set your watches. We’ll be back with new excitement before you know it. Be on the look out for other news and changes to the sites as well. I learned a lot at SXSW. Now it’s time to put it in practice.