What, No Red Carpet?

October 27, 2010 · No Comments

So, Vampire Zombie Werewolf premiered yesterday with all the pomp and pageantry usually associated with Webseries. That is to say, none really.

And I’m completely OK with that.

See, in the entertainment industry, if you want pomp, you have to pay for it. That’s always been true in Hollywood. But to be honest, I never really knew that until recently. Before I became a savvy Hollywood mover and shaker*, I just figured that lavish premier parties were handed out by some Famous People Support and Cheering Committee. Like a Kiwanis Club for over-exposed super-elite types. If you just became famous enough, people would start throwing parties at you.

Sure, this can be true. Paris Hilton had a few parties thrown at her (In some cases almost literally, that’s why we don’t see her so much anymore, she’s afraid to go out in public and reveal all the party damage she’s taken to the face and neck.**). But those types of parties are actually thrown to sell stuff like vodka. And sell vodka they do. Mostly to Paris Hilton but, hey, a sale is a sale.

Premier parties, however, are generally the responsibility of the production company or the distributor or someone else down the chain who stands to make money if a particular film does well.

In a stunning twist, at these parties the vodka is usually free.

Yeah, yeah, I know the vodka is also free at the vodka-selling parties. Though this would seem to be counterintuitive, it isn’t. Don’t make me explain marketing to you. Because I can’t.

Which bring me back to the launch of Vampire Zombie Werewolf.

There wasn’t a premier party. There wasn’t a mass-marketing campaign (well, there was a PLAN, but you know how these things sometime turn out). There weren’t fireworks. Tanya and I did break our diets to bake cookies in celebration, but I’m not sure this counts for anything official. It’s not a Hollywood tradition that I’m familiar with. I never heard:

”Hey, Brad Pitt, how did you launch your new film? Premier in London? New York? Paris? …Los Angeles?”

“No. Angie and me baked some oatmeal butterscotch cookies.”***

“Did it have the desired effect?”

“Well, it started to. It looked like she might gain an ounce, but then Angie had second thoughts and spent the entire next day gorging on laxatives.”

“But what about your film? Did this event sell any tickets?”

“Not a one.”

While there are little similarities between fake Brad Pitt and Angie’s cookie party and mine and Tanya’s, one thing is consistent. We sold absolutely no tickets. Not that we had any for sale.

See, the point of this whole post is say that we had a great time premiering VZW yesterday. Despite the lack of vodka and laxatives. Or, perhaps, because of it.

Did we get huge view numbers? Nope. We’ll get more. I have no doubt. Once our release strategy is completely fulfilled. But in the meantime, we’ll just bask in the love we’ve gotten from friends, family and the Webseries community at large.

When we released Life from the Inside 4 years ago, we knew no one. There weren’t really any people to know. We know a lot more now. A lot of very talented people whose opinions we greatly respect. And, so far, we’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback. Except for some wary comments on YouTube from subscribers who are upset about the fact that we’re doing a completely new show. It’s like they don’t care that we haven’t posted a new episode of LFTI for a year, no attention paid whatsoever. But, release a new show and it’s all “I miss LFTI!”…

…That’s another post altogether. I love our YouTube subscribers. I do. They’ve been great. It’s hard to see them unhappy…

What I’m trying to say is that we really appreciate all the wonderful support hefted on us from fantastic people who love Webseries. That was our #1 goal, believe it or not. Just to show that we can make another quality product. So far, so good.

So thank you to everyone who has Tweeted us, Facebooked us, Shouted us at strangers, Thrown our swag at a co-worker’s head, etc…

We appreciate it. We love you for it.

Thank you.

Up next: Make a show that can bring in huge numbers! But first I’ll have to research Blip.tv’s policy on distributing porn.

I mean, what if that porn has a really great central story? I don’t know, like maybe a Midwest girl from a broken home, as a protest against political horrors, has sex with one stranger for every victim of global genocide? And she could be a vampire. We could call it Emotionally Deep Throat? Anyway, it’s just a jumping off point…

…maybe I’ll rethink this a bit.