The image above is a page from the mini comic "Moose's Burial at Sea". This was illustrated by the talented Nic Frey, and written by your's truly. This was part of my ill-fated "Stuffed! Transmedia Campaign". This was a side adventure for Margret Sapphire and her teddy bear, Mr. Gregory, the lead characters in my dark comedy/fantasy feature screenplay, "Stuffed!"
I could write a long book about the mistakes I've made, in life and as an artist. Sometimes I learned from those mistakes right away, and at other times, the mistakes had to repeat themselves a few times, before I clued in. We don't have unlimited time or resources, so we hope to avoid as many mistakes as we can, and learn as quickly as possible.
Hollywood and the film industry can be just as slow to learn. Rely too heavily on sequels and remakes; same mistake made over decades. Rely too much on CGI and VFX; same mistake made over decades. Rely too much on big name actors; same mistake made over decades. There's nothing wrong with the occasional sequel, CGI, or bankable actors, but great opportunities can be overlooked when the formula for success becomes too simple and repetitive. They managed to get away with a lot of those mistakes, repeatedly, for a long time, but audiences are getting sick of the same old tricks.
I wish I wouldn't have made some of the mistakes I did, but sometimes, I just didn't know any better. This goes for most of us. Over a decade back, I was doing everything I could to get my dark comedy/fantasy feature screenplay, “Stuffed!” made. “Stuffed!” is based on my ambitious short film titled “Grow the Fuck Up!”, and involves an emotionally repressed teddy bear. I was two drafts into writing the second draft, when I first heard news about Seth MacFarlane's “Ted”. I'm a big fan of Macfarlane, and was disappointed with the poor quality of “Ted”, but regardless, it threw a wrench in my machine. Because of “Ted”, I had a hard time pitching “Stuffed!”.
The set backs didn't stop me. I saw fellow filmmakers building up audiences on social media, and thought I'd give it a try. I came up with this plan to create “transmedia” content around the characters in “Stuffed!”. I collaborated with other artists to create mini comics, short stories, and a series of video blogs with the Mr. Gregory teddy bear puppet from my short films. I planned a viral “paranormal investigator” web-series that would introduce Mr. Gregory to the world; this materialized as an actual short film titled “Those Hidden Amongst Us: Bar Tab”. I wrote a graphic novel prequel script to “Stuffed!” as well. I did way too much. I almost made a stop motion animation too. The quality of everything I created varied, but none were up to par with the screenplay for “Stuffed!” or the original short film GTFU.
There is nothing wrong with creating transmedia content, but for an indie producer, you really need to lean on the conservative side. I can't remember every detail of my “transmedia campaign” but my plan was to attract fans from not just movies, but comics, animation, literature, and web-series. My first obstacle, was that none of my collaborators seemed to understand what I was trying to do. My second obstacle, was my lack of understanding – and most filmmakers lack of understanding – of how social media works. Some things work really well on social media, and other things don't. On top of that, the companies who created these platforms are more interested in attending to their own goals, than the goals of the people creating content on their platforms.
A long while back, when Facebook was still a few years old, a filmmaking friend of mine got a parody trailer of his to go viral using Facebook. I sought out his advice, and he gave it to me. Six months later, I tried to get GTFU to go viral on Facebook, but the features that were available to my friend, no longer existed. I saw overnight viral successes vanish, as social media sites secretly altered their algorithms. Even so, I was tired of pitching my feature, and thought I'd be able to leverage different sites to attract people to my “Stuffed! Transmedia Campaign”. I accomplished very little, and because of a lack of transparency from social media sites, all I could do was guess. I eventually pulled myself, kicking and screaming, away from my own ill-fated strategy, and focused on less ambitious pursuits.
As an artist, once we get pulled into a project, it can be hard to pull ourselves away from it. It's tough knowing when to hang in there, and when to call it quits. Sometimes, we just need to take a long break, in order to see alternative routes and possibilities.
I posted a couple of the “Mr. Gregory Video Blogs” on my YouTube page; those I'm not too embarrassed with:
“The Purring Pussy” - https://youtu.be/eDZPaxcXzAI?si=dPcGh-QRo0_7StAK
“The Intruder” - https://youtu.be/yt2M4kJTpk4?si=o1QEGMlLnzW3I0Cv
You can learn more about the author, Chris Griffin, at www.angrybearfilms.com
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