For me, 2013 was the year of Keith Flippen. It literally took up my entire year.
In January, I remember wondering around Best Buy on the phone with one of my co-producers, discussing Kickstarter. I was at Best Buy because I think we'd gotten gift cards for Christmas. January was the month I began to take the project seriously. Our 48HFP was buzzing. Everyone involved wanted more. I knew that meant we had something on our hands.
February comes, and my co-producers and I put our heads together to build our Kickstarter campaign. We set a goal we thought we could make - $9,000. It was also the minimum we'd need to produce this beast. While our concept may be great, and our design very hockey, it still costs a chunk of money to produce anything of that scale. So we fretted, and tweaked, and come March, made it live.
The timing of our Kickstarter was deliberate. March and April was already packed with travel as we would be touring our Pilot at various festivals and Cons. Every weekend during the campaign, I was out busting my chops promoting, networking, and working. I had some amazing events, such as screening at The Chinese Theaters. And my birthday was smack in the middle, so I got some time to relax.
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May meant pre-production. Finishing the scripts. Creating sets. Scheduling. All that stuff that comes before the camera rolls in order to things to be a smooth as possible. Of course, this wasn't without hiccups. Tempers ran high. Egos were hurt. People learned what they were made of. In the end, we had everything as ready as it could be for filming, more or less.
June and July was the main month of production. Four weeks, 23 hours a week, in the dead of Louisiana summer, in a warehouse with no AC, we filmed. And filmed. And filmed. We were pushed to extremes, and we had a great time. And amazingly, stayed on schedule. We didn't have to schedule additional filming days, and we rarely ran over. It was pretty magical, and something I'm damned proud of.
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August was a bit of a break, but then we threw ourselves into post-production. Editing, music, effects. A seemingly endless amount of work and footage to comb through.
October brought our release. Additionally, we got to participate in NOVAC's Web Weekend and receive critical feedback from industry leaders, and promote ourselves at CONtraflow all the in the same weekend. Then we went live.
November and December meant the intensity was up as the post team struggled to keep up with the workload. I failed my Nanowrimo, but kept on schedule. My parents visited me for Christmas so I could keep working. I spent the evening of the 30, sitting at our music guy's house waiting for the final score to export. Which at least meant that I got to enjoy ringing in the New Year since Jan 1, 2014 marked the season finale.
For the last year, when ever someone asked what I was doing, my answer would be, "Working on Keith Flippen." Every free moment was spent working on the project. I've even started answering the questions "How are you doing?" with "Keith Flippen" because it's been a state of being for me.
The Adventures of Keith Flippen runs a few minutes shy of an hour, which puts it at feature film length. Meaning, for around $12,000 and a lot of gumption, in a year's time, I made a feature. That is an amazing feat. Something that I am quite proud of.
And while 2013 has ended, the world of Keith Flippen has not. I'm busy working through DVD production, and trying to rally the teams for Wizard World New Orleans. 2013 may have been the year of Keith Flippen, but I'd like to see 2014 the year everyone can't stop talking about it.
I'm not sure what the future holds for my show, but it holds a lot of me. I know I can do amazing things. And this year, I plan to. I have so many ideas for new web series, new short films, new feature films, new crafts, new everything. I'm ready to push forward, and I hope, that this year can only expand upon everything I've already built.
For anyone interested, you can watch the entire season now!
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