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"Summer/Fall 2008" Winter/Spring 2008" "2007" "Summer 2006" "Summer 2005" "Spring 2005" "March 2005" "February 2005" "January 2005"
"December 2004" Everything has been going really well and we've decided to extend our contract for an additional 13 weeks. We'll now be on Access at least until the end of March. Our biggest struggles still continue to be our lack of funds and staff. We've had to repeat episodes quite a bit, but we're still getting new viewers each week, many of them are seeing these episodes for the first time anyway. It's going to be hard to shoot stuff through the cold Calgary winter, but we still have footage from the summer for another episode that we?e going to edit together and we?e going to put together a bloopers episode after that. We're also going to shoot an episode in Mexico in February, which'll be really cool!
"November 2004" Having our own show continues to take tons of work, but we love hearing all the feedback we get each week. More and more people are tuning in, and we're increasingly getting recognized in public. We've completed 6 of our episodes now and have most of the last two shot. We're planning to take the very best parts of them and put that all together into one "pilot" episode that we'll then send to producers and broadcasters. For now we're continuing to air our show on Access Television via paid programming every Friday night at 1:30am. We may actually have all of our air time and closed captioning costs paid for with our sponsor and advertiser revenue when it's all said and done, so we're not getting rich, but we're at least not going to be in debt forever either!
"October 2004" It’s been an incredible month! Our show premiered on Access Television on October 1st and has been airing every Friday night since. We’ve had a huge response from local media all over the province and a big response from viewers as well! We get emails almost every day about our show and our message board has seen quite a few visitors as well! Speaking of visitors, we’re getting a ton of them on this web site… and our daily average is growing every week! Whenever we talk to people about our show, more often than not we hear “I read about your show somewhere” or “someone told me about your show”. Word is spreading so we’re feeling confident that our ratings are increasing week by week as well! Regardless, we’re working our buns off to meet our various deadlines and keep the business end of it all going. We’re exhausted, but the fact that we actually have our own TV show on the air, along with all the great responses from viewers other produc ers, pushes us to keep the episodes coming!
"September2004" Well, summer is over and we spent pretty much all of it working on our show! We’ve been going at it for about 6 days a week and almost 12 hours a day. It’s been this much work because we’re doing the producing, writing, acting, shooting, editing, sales, web site revisions & updates, and much more, with almost no outside help. It’s crazy how much work goes into one little half hour show! But we’re making it happen, and if the ratings are good, we’ll be able to sell more advertising, and maybe even eventually make enough money to hire someone to do some of the work! The media in Alberta have shown a lot of interest in our new series and so far over the next few weeks we’ll have stories in The Calgary Sun, FFWD, Outlooks Magazine, and The Red Deer Express as well as on Shaw TV Red Deer and CFCN Noon News and during 630 Ched morning news and the Primeau show on 630 Ched. We’ve made posters which we’ll be putting up all over the place and in a bunch of schools, we’ll be having a ¼ page ad in each edition Outlooks throughout our run, and we have a 30 second commercial that will be airing twice during each Friday night episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien! So, all in all, things have been going really well and we’re really excited for that moment when we’ll see our first episode air… it’s been a ton of work, but when we see it finally being broadcast on TV it’ll all be worth it!
"August 2004" We have finally finished shooting our first episode! We’ve even shot parts of our three following episodes already. We’ve started editing the first one and expect to have it completed by the middle of this month. We’re going to then try to have the rest of our second and third episode shot within a couple of weeks. We now officially have the time slot of 1:30am on Friday nights on Access Television. We’re really excited about this time slot as it’s perfect for our target market of 15 to 30 year olds. Weather we’re coming home from the bar, having a party, just relaxing, or whatever, a lot of us are in that age range are watching the tube around this time. We’re also excited about being on this station as it’s available in Edmonton and Calgary without cable, and province-wide with cable on channel 13 or lower (so even people with crappy old tv’s still get it). It’s also available nation-wide on satellite! While producing the episodes, we are also working as sales people trying to secure advertisers and sponsors. We have obtained three so far, which is great, and have had quite a bit of interest from others. Our advertising is quite a bit cheaper than other television advertising, and even print advertising, mainly because we’re just trying to cover our costs, not make a profit. Having a volunteer crew and a low budget have translated into cheap advertising, which is great for us and our advertisers/sponsors. We’re also actively getting the word out about our show. We of course have quite a bit of advertising planned once the show starts airing, but even now we’re out and about telling people about our show. From parades to street fairs, and anything in between, we’re warning Cowtown that we’re going to be taking over the airwaves this fall!
"July 2004" Every time we go to a Pitchfest the response gets better and better! We're obviously doing something right as there is definite interest in our show from a number of producers. Most said they still want us to get a smaller/local producer attached to the project first and suggested we get some episodes produced and aired. This was great to hear since it's just what we've been planning to do. This month we started shooting parts of what will soon be our first 4 episodes. We're going to air the episodes via paid programming starting in the fall. The costs have turned out to be quite a bit higher than we orginally estimated, but we're going ahead with high hopes that we'll get enough sponsors/advertisers to at least break even in the end. Shaw TV Calgary also did a story on us again which aired repeatedly throughout the evening. It's been great to have so much interest from the local media!
"June 2004" We've been invited yet again to a pitchfest, this time back in Banff, where Josh went last year. The organizer of the event has been a huge supporter of our show, and she asked us to do some impersonations at her gala party the night before the pitchfest. We're really looking forward to the party, the pitching, and meeting all sorts of people in the industry. We're also still working away on getting some episodes produced this summer and airing them via paid programming. We've run into some bumps along the way, but we're pushing forward, and we should be on air this fall. Come back soon for all the details on that!
"March 2004" Well, they say things change quickly in television, and they're right! We never did work with the producers in Edmonton, and our involvment with the Calgary producer has faded away as well. She has been busy with other projects and rarely, if ever, had time for us, so we decided to go back to working on our project alone. We also went back to our original concept since we had received a lot of positive feedback on it from producers at the Pitchfests as well as from friends and family. So what now? Well, things are actually moving full steam ahead, and looking better than ever! We're currently in talks with tv stations in Alberta to purchase paid television programming locally/provincially so that we can actually start shooting and airing episodes of our show by this fall! We're working on getting sponsorship deals with a variety of businesses in order to cover all the costs. Actually getting our show on the air will give us the exposure, experience, and footage we need to get more attention from the big wigs. We'll be starting with a 13 week committment, and possibly continuing after that if all goes well. It's been and continues to be a lot of time, work, and sacrifice... but it's all worth it because we're going to make our dream come true! "February 2004" Our trip to LA was a great experience and definately worth while. We met with 15 different producers. Many of them were interested in our idea and wanted us to send them the complete package. Many suggested we contact Nickelodeon as they thought our show would appeal to a younger audience. Some of them even offered to pass on our complete package personnally to their contacts at Nickelodeon! The ironic part of the trip, was that at the Gala afterwards we met a producer out of Calgary who after speaking with us for a while started to come up with some really good ideas for our show, and before we knew it, was offering to join us as co-producer! At the party we also met with a group out of Edmonton who were very interested in getting on board in helping with distribution. So, in the end we left with a verbal agreement to all collaborate on our show together... we all laughed at how we each had to fly to LA just to end up connecting with fellow Albertans! Since LA, we've had one meeting with the Calgary producer. She offered to join up with us equally as a co-producer and brings with her experience, contacts, and some fresh/new ideas. We have agreed to change the show quite drastically from our original concept, but we're confident that we're taking it in a direction that will be more successful and still follow the main ideas/goals that Andy and I started with. We can't go into many details as we have a non-disclosure agreement, but the show will be more reality/game show based with my brother and I being the hosts and still having bits of our original concept mixed in. For now the rest of our web site will continue to promote our old concept as we can't share details on the new stuff. We're both very excited... the reality of having our own tv show keeps getting closer and closer. We're both learning a lot about the industry and making some great contacts along the way! "January 2004" In preperation for the Great American Pitchfest in LA the two of us have been hard at work. We are busy preparing our verbal pitch, redoing part of our demo and tightening up the rest, fixing up the packaging, revising the proposal, creating business cards, updating our other materials, and researching companies who will be there. The media was told about our trip and we've been getting quite a bit of attention! The Red Deer Advocate put a story of us right on the front page -- the story and photo took up almost half of the page! Shaw TV Calgary did a story on us which ran in repeats over a couple days and they said they will continue to keep their viewers updated on our progress over the next few months. QR77 radio interviewed Josh which aired on their morning program. Shaw Cable Red Deer also did a story us, and a few others have expressed interest and may do stories once we return from LA. The Red Deer Advocate will be doing a follow up right after we get back. It's been really neat to get all this publicity... but we still realize that we have a lot of work to do to impress the big-wigs in LA! "December 2003" We sent out about 10 packages and have found a few more places to send some to this month. We've had some responses already and they've been filled with positive feedback, but we're usually told the producers are either not looking for new programs at this time or that our concept doesn't fit into their type of programming. However, one producer did really enjoy our demo and and see potential in our show, and although it isn't something her company can take on, she made us a very generous offer. She runs the Great American Pitchfest and invited us to go to LA at the end of January to pitch our idea to American producers. It would cost $400 for both of us to go normally, but she is giving us complimentary passes because she really likes our idea and wants to help us! She had a lot of positive things to say about our show so hearing that and getting invited to go to the Pitchfest was great! We are both very excited about meeting a bunch of producers in LA and we hope that some will see potential in our idea. It only takes one to believe in our show and get us on our way! "September 2003" Well, it’s taken all summer to complete, but the DVD’s and VHS copies of our demo are all completed and looking great, the 21 page proposals are all printed out and looking sharp, the letters are all written, and everything is being bundled up and shipped out to selected producers this week. Other producers who we haven’t talked to yet are being sent a letter along with our "One Page" (which is actually a two page summary discription) to see if they’d be interested in receiving a copy of the demo and proposal as well. Josh has also heard from a couple of interested producers recently by phone who are eager to see the demo and read the proposal. Our friends and family all love the demo and we hope that one of these producers is going to love it too! "July 2003" After 6 days of eating, sleeping, and breathing nothing but BROTHERS from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to sleep, we have sucessfully completed our demo! Absolutely everything was done by just the two of us... the camera work, the editing, the writing, the acting, etc. On a very low budget we were able to create a high quality demo to show to producers and from there we'll hopefully get one to sign us on. Just think what we'll be able to do with an actual budget and crew! "June 2003" After months of preperation Josh had the first meetings with producers and broadcasters at the Great Canadian Pitchfest in Banff. He met with a total of 15 different companies and decision makers. The responses were great. A lot of people liked our idea and saw potential in it becoming a television series. We got a lot of positive feedback and some good advice. We are now in the process of putting together a comprehensive proposal as well as a detailed layout describing individual episodes. We need to also put together a short high quality video demo showing examples of what we plan to do in the show. The latter is the most difficult task of course due to the cost. To have the right equipment, crew, and supplies we'd be looking at spending at least $5000. For now we have completed a 20 page detailed proposal, we're working on the episode layout, and we are making a home video style demo to at least have something to show to potential producers and others who are interested in getting involved with our show. We are actively seeking funding from anyone who believes in our project and sees the money making potential. If you, or someone you know, is interested in helping turn our concept into a successful television program, please contact us! No portion of this web site may be used without expressed, written permission. Privacy Policy |
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