Slashdot Mirror
Made-For-Torrents Sci-Fi Drama "Pioneer One" Debuts
QuantumG writes "The first episode of the new science fiction drama Pioneer One has debuted and it looks like a hit. The pilot was shot for just $6,000, raised through the micro-funding platform Kickstarter, and the production is being supported through donations on the show's website. Donations can be made on a sliding scale with 'bonus' rewards for each level, such as an MP3 of the opening theme and deleted scenes. The show is being distributed through file-sharing systems such as BitTorrent and LimeWire thanks to VODO, the group that also helped produce it. Is this the future of television?"
"This production was possible due in no small part to the willingness of talented, professional people working for free"
I would have to concur.
But what if it kick-starts a world-wide audience of 1 million people willing to pay $10.00 for a season?
All projects have to start somewhere. Whether it is seed money from an angel investor or sweat equity, it doesn't matter. If you're working on a project that you truly believe in (passion, political statement, future earnings, etc.), then working for free at the beginning might make sense.
At this point they have had little to no exposure. With more exposure and perhaps more donations more of those folks working for free might get paid. At that point yeah maybe this is viable. It's seeding HUGE right now and it sounds interesting so just maybe they will make some money on it - who knows. Perhaps contingency payments to those who work on it? Network TV seems pretty crappy lately so perhaps this will shake things up...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
There are a lot of talented, professional people working for free: Linux programmers, Debian developers, Gnome developers....
And don't say they get paid lots of money for it: they certainly didn't get any money when they started.
Are you saying there is less free talent available in the AV arts than in programming?
Ok, it enables everyone to make their owns shows without needing infrastructure to broadcast it (as in a tv/cable station). But youtube (and several clones) are already in that spot. In fact, there are a lot of web "tv" series running in that media already for years now. And are easier to reach the big public that way (there could be even tv sets and dvrs that directly show youtube videos, and that without even getting to google tv). What other thing you could have here? video quality? offline viewing? you have it all there
Every week, Hollywood produces hundreds of pilot episodes. These are screened and the vast majority (~99%) are dismissed, never to be seen by anyone beyond the test screening audience.
If Hollywood had half a brain between the lot of them, they'd start a pilot episode channel via the different on-demand delivery systems (Hulu/Netflix/Comcast VOD/Verizon VOD) and get their pilots screened to an order of magnitude more people.
The difference here is that Pioneer One has put their pilot up on TPB and the like instead of on some Hollywood stooge's desk, and they're greenlighting themselves for more episodes, no matter what.
It's really not as different as it initially appears.
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
Bull. If you leave your pipe wide open then yeah you screw up the provider. However many of us understand the usage of the throttle and by actually using it we don't fill the pipes to bursting. This thing is currently seeding with OVER 20K users for the low def version, if all of those people throttle then you and I can download this pretty easily without anyone saturating their pipe. This isn't too complicated. I seed quite a few pieces of video this way without crushing my bandwidth or pissing off my provider.
Just finished watching this show. I like the premise, I'm going to contribute. If half of the 20K seeds feel the same way then their budget just got a TON bigger...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Are you saying there is less free talent available in the AV arts than in programming?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but good artists are much harder to find than programmers. Good production requires good set designers, lighting directors, casting directors. Not to mention that the AV equipment required and support staff to run it cost much more than a single computer and an internet connection.
I've watched about 10 minutes. So far, you have stilted dialogue, characters talking to each other about plot points received from phone calls, a DHS agent who claims to know 47 languages, and very, very bad acting on top of all of it.
The plot seems original at least, but this is again proof that the BBC has the best model for rewarding good ideas. Publicly funded organizations that pick up new writing talent and help them develop their ideas with professional experience.
I work in the audio field and this reminds me why the democratization of cheap AV gear has not led to better sounding records. No amount of cheap fidelity can replace decades of experience making things sound better. And it can't replace a good producer telling a room full of writers that their scene is a crock of shit.
Maybe Firefly didn't capture enough audience to pay for the production costs *plus* distribution costs *plus* desired profit? Likely there was another show (dancing with stars? blech!) that was shown to make more money in that same 1 hour slot? I dunno.
as much as I don't like seeing slashvertisements in general, this one is actually fairly on topic. I do hope they do well. It's in our best interest that efforts like this succeed in a big way, and send a strong message to the movie and media cartels.
That, and getting a front page draw on a Sunday on slashdot ought to guarantee they shatter their fundraising goal over the course of the afternoon. Their servers are doing remarkably well considering what's hitting them. Would have been quite the epic fail had they been offering direct downloads instead of torrents.
But on the downside, I bet their monthly traffic allotment just busted through the ceiling and into the gruesome "pay per additional bandwidth this month" point.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I would have paid $10 into a fund to film season 2 and release it under a creative commons license. I strongly suspect that enough other people would have done the same for them to have been able to make a reasonable profit. If season 2 had been good, I'd have put another $10 towards season 3, under the same terms, and so on. Once they'd released season 2 under a CC license, I could have given copies to all of my friends and encouraged them to contribute towards season 3.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's only very recently that actors have joined the ranks of the elite getting paid high sums of money for their work.
Check your sources on that: Jimmy Stewart is generally recognized as having received the modern agency/gross points deal for Winchester '73 in 1950, and many independent producer/actors, including Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle had gross deals in the silent era. Even when they didn't get grosses, contracts actors at the Big Five in the thirties would easily earn an average workers years's wages in a matter of weeks,
Actors who make this kind of money aren't paid because they're good actors, though often they are.They receive this level of compensation because their name on the poster literally guarantees people will come to see the film. If you've ever heard the term "bankable actor" this is where it comes from-- an actor is such a guaranteed draw that a producer can literally get a bank loan for their film on the basis of that actor's appearance in the film.
The actors demand their share of the money because they are the draw. That's what a "star" is.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The TV show didn't catch because it was originally aired out of sequence.
Take a look at the relevant section of the rules for submitting new titles to IMDB:
"Because it's so easy to get "distribution" of a title online, we have some specific guidelines about eligibility for a title that has only been made available online.
The fundamental rule is that you need to demonstrate general public interest. The most common ways to meet this criterion are:
* Have someone very well known in your cast (or extremely well known in a significant crew position). If the person isn't well known enough to merit a solo profile in a notable publication like Entertainment Weekly (or equivalent), this rule won't apply. If you have any doubt whether the person or persons are well known enough-- they probably aren't. And, just cutting in some clips from one of their old movies/TV shows/commercials isn't enough; it has to be something they did specifically for your title. And not just a 10-second soundbite on a red carpet, either.
* Be a tie-in/spin-off of a TV series on a major network, hosted on that network's official site.
* Go viral. Get a staggering number of views, ideally on a site where we can easily verify this claim. Again, if you have any doubt whether your title is "viral" or not -- you probably need to qualify using one of the other criteria.
* Get coverage -- significant, national, mainstream press coverage. That means, for example, that the New York Times is doing an article specifically about your web series (not just the people behind it, or an offhand mention in an article about web series in general). If the press outlet is online-only, it's almost certainly not going to be sufficient."
Sounds to me like the only chance Pioneer One has is to go viral.
I don't know that that's really true. The point of network TV isn't to sell DVDs, it's to sell commercials. If Ford runs a commercial, and viewers go out and buy Fords, the show is a success, regardless of whether the viewers were really enjoying the show.
It may be possible that if a person really likes a show, they're more likely to think highly of its advertisers, but I think the networks are really more interested in attracting the maximum number of eyballs, and the more gullible they are, the better.
-jim
A one-hour scripted drama can cost anywhere from $1 mil to $5 mil an episode.
What proportion of that goes into paying the salaries of a handful of well-known "stars", though ?