Your Stage : Of Mice and Men and Plastic Swords by Craig Walker

I thought that this would be a good time to pop something down about a project I've been doing for the last little while: "LARP: The Crowblade Chronicles" [ http://crowblade.tv ] For the past 7 months (shooting sporadically) and almost a year (from inception to principal photography completion, of this stage), the project has been one which became more than a ‘drive-by’. What are ‘drive-by’ productions? They’re your average short film, one-day appearances, which you go in, do the work, and walk out again, knowing that you’ve done the job and given your best – and then it’s out of your hands. The productions that you do for reel-time and furthering experience. This was not one of those projects. What started as a small idea, which scheduling may have meant that I couldn’t take part in, became one which became quite central to the past year’s amount of work. One doesn’t approach a comedic ‘costume’ series with any shyness, or any hubris. One approaches it wanting to do the best you can and see where the work takes you. As you progress in that journey, you see where the show is going, and what your role in that show is. Now, keeping in mind that in an ensemble show, with less than a half-hour screen-time for each episode, you have little room for ‘character development’. You start out introducing characters and see where that development comes. The more episodes, the more development. However, one should not expect development to any great degree until a second ‘season’ is shot and planned. Until then, you are the character, that’s what you signed on for I guess I have to cite “Two and a Half Men” as an example. The characters are stereotypes and the comedy is in the way they react to situations (hence ‘sit-com’). Most comedies are sit-coms, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach. The cleverness is in the writing, and how you handle the subject matter. I signed on for a one-off Season of a show – which seemed funny and cute, and all depended on the actors and their investment in the show. Mostly, that happened The proof of the pudding is really in the viewing and the reaction. Now I am ready to ink a contract for two more seasons and a follow-up feature which will be the end of the project. Nothing on-going, no reunion specials, a complete arc. The experience was hard, gruelling at times, annoying at others, and ultimately very satisfying. You make a show for people to see and be entertained by, you don’t make it for money (well not unless you’re “in the biz”). Good shows get canned because they don’t equal a formulaic result. If you only have x people viewing it’s not worth the advertisers dollar and so costs networks money in air-time and so – why do it? There’s no stockholder return. Films used to be made for entertainment, not formulaic homogeonised ‘bums-on-seats’ minimums. Thus we see a lessening of creativity. We see endless remakes (which are done for no reason other than capitalisation on a successful, in initial or home release, product). Original thinking is not rewarded as the gamble may not pay off. Risks aren’t taken because people may not make their investment back, or actors may not get famous, or hubris says we don’t need to do anything else like that again because we’ve learnt all we need to… (Hint: You have never learnt all you have to unless you make 100% no errors, 100% of the time. Just sayin’) There are edgy bits to this 1st Season, there are stupid bits, there are crass jokes, and there are some very nice moments. The cast and crew became familial, which is honestly a good thing, because it doesn’t always happen even in theatre (to the extent that most of them are on the verge of signing onto the second season with no guarantee of sales or remuneration, because they believe in the project). More projects should be like this. The larger picture is that more series’ should continue past their so-called ‘commercial’ use-by date if the fans make it possible. The most recent teaser is here: [ http://youtu.be/lqqHw2ah15s ]