Casting + Ogres + General Updates
about 10 years ago – Fri, Apr 01, 2016 at 09:23:04 PM

Hey, everyone!

We're bright and early on Day Three of production and have loads of updates and news for you.

To preempt date-related questions, there are no April Fool's Day jokes in this update.

Casting

First, we're excited (and a little nervous) to announce a last-minute casting change.

This is a case where we investigated EVERY possible alternative before realizing that our original plan -- involving body doubles, stunt doubles, and strategic closeups -- was simply not fair or feasible.

Here are Christian Doyle, Anne Kennedy Brady, and Alyssa Kay with the full update.

For those who can't watch our carefully crafted video at work, the short version is that our beloved Anne Kennedy Brady (Nara) is pregnant and we can't push her through twelve hour days running around in the woods.

After much soul searching, we found an incredible replacement at the last moment, Alyssa Kay, who played Debbie in our production of Dark Dungeons. We flew Anne out from Chicago to help her (and us) through the transition, Alyssa studied the script and the first two seasons, and she will be our Nara for Season 3.

We encourage all of you to help greet her warmly and show her how incredible and supportive our fan community can be. It's always scary stepping into a role established by another actor and we all want to make sure that Alyssa feels welcomed and encouraged as she brings her own interpretation to Nara and her journey.

OGRES

We are also thrilled to give you a sneak preview of one of our ogres, who shot a combat scene yesterday at a toll bridge. (Those of you who were signed up for the RenewJQ campaign may have read this scene!)

GENERAL UPDATES

We'll be shooting at a disc golf course (yes, really!) for the next three days. After a long and grueling day yesterday, where we had to shoot in seventy degree sunshine in a beautiful forest, the weather report says that we're due for more of the same today. Compared to the snow, hail, monsoon, and cold we experienced in Season Two, this feels like shooting in paradise by comparison.

We've only received one redcard so far, which you can view in a prior update, but we're watching Twitter and email for the next violations that get called out. With updates on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, no doubt more will hit shortly.

There's a ton of behind-the-scenes footage to share with you. Ben will upload it as possible from our forest set. Same with Hang With -- we'll livestream when we can find a spot with a decent 4G phone connection.

More soon!

Thanks from everyone on the team. We couldn't be shooting without your support and we appreciate all of the kind messages, the likes and shares, and the passion for this project that we all love so much.

Redcard #1 - Christian Doyle
about 10 years ago – Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 12:01:04 AM

Thanks to Chris Piazzo for tweeting the first redcard of our production!

@Stormchaser_d20 Can I #redcard @EvilDoyle for his Dollhouse pun with the puppet on the live #jq3 video?

We're embedding a playlist so you can see new redcards as they come in.

Progress Update + Thank You
about 10 years ago – Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:58:01 PM

THANK YOU & CREDITS

Wow, everyone, we're still coming down from the craziness last Friday, when 1,431 new backers joined at the last minute and pushed our campaign across the finish line.

With 101% of our goal achieved at the very last minute, it was one of the most nail-biting campaigns we've ever seen. And we couldn't have made it without every single one of you. So thank you to 5,602 backers for renewing JourneyQuest for a third season!

We have many more people to thank!

First, the community of commenters who engaged daily with us in redesigning reward levels, providing support and answers to new backers, and reaching out across the web to find people willing to boost the signal. This is by no means everybody, but special thanks to:

Empirimancer, Morten Poulsen, Fred Ackerman, Jens Mankel, Susan Morris, Emil, joel harris, Kevin Daignault, Andrew Tucker, David Alejandro Hernandez, Chantal Beaulne, Cal Walker, Quinlan Schultz, Rachel Bresler, Christine Peruski, Jason, Madayar, Laura Scott, Charles vieira, and Moritz.

Extra thanks to backer Courtney Rayle, who kept the comments section positive and collaborative the whole time, and Natalie Thomas, who spent dozens of hours reaching out to every genre community she could think of to convince them to boost the signal. We couldn't have done this without you.

Thanks to Paizo Publishing, Pinnacle, Carolina Game Tables, Privateer Press, Jamie Chambers, Matt Forbeck, Monte Cook for their tweets and shares.

Also on Twitter, thanks to @DandRpodcast, @JasonBulmahn, @SarahFrisk, @TrailerDays, @tk210, @kahruveldesign, @G2VPodcast, @humourcide, @syrinscape, @XCompWiz, @s00j, and @ProjektMyra

Thanks to The Once & Future Podcast and Clinically Inane for the long, in-depth interviews.

Thanks to GeekDad.com and GeekMom.com for boosting the signal and sharing our stories. Thanks also to pendantry.wordpress.com.

Thanks to Facebook pages like IFLRP, Dungeons and Dragons Memes, Geek Girls, and Nerdy Corner of the Net.

Thanks to Twitch user DragonKing17 for streaming us in the final hours of the campaign.

Thanks to Don Early and Dead Gentlemen Productions for posting about us every day, helping answer questions, and being incredible collaborators and supporters.

Thanks to the many cast and crew who shot videos, wrote updates, shared, and promoted the campaign.

Thanks to everyone whose contributions, shares, and signal boosting we don't even know about. Thanks to everyone we did know about and forgot.

And again, thanks to every one of you. This was a true team effort, led by committed, passionate fans and our team at ZOE, working together to achieve something that sounded impossible.

We can't wait to show you what you've made possible!

Thank you.

PROGRESS UPDATE

PRE-PRODUCTION

The moment the campaign ended and we knew that we'd have our budget, our producers jumped into action: confirming shooting days, making casting offers to agents, locking down crew, pretty much all of the work necessary to take us from here to set by the end of March.

Currently most of the work is taking place electronically and by phone, but we'll be there to record the process as pre-production meetings ramp up, as builds begin, as we pull old costumes out of storage and create new ones.

BACKER CARE

While our producers get the production rolling, our Kickstarter management team is preparing everything to help take care of you.

We're working with BackerKit to implement some custom code to integrate our Patreon and Fan Supported people, as well as to set up all of the pledge questions, survey information, and tons of the add-ons that people requested during the campaign, like Season 1 and 2 DVDs and downloads, orcish dictionaries and so forth.

We're also building something new and cool: BackerKit stretch goals. It's going to take some math on our end, but it's possible that we'll be able to unlock a few new things there, including that Fartherall World Guide or a Second Edition Orcish Dictionary with all of the new words included.

Speaking of Orcish, Matt Vancil is getting ready to begin designing words with all of you! That process will begin with the BackerKit surveys, then he'll reach out as necessary to clarify, choose, adjust or whatever other wizardry he does to turn your submissions into canon Orcish language.

We're also looking at a brief InDemand setup at IndieGogo, to allow people who missed out on pledging the opportunity to get in on the available rewards. We'd received mail asking for this and *think* we can pull it off.

If you are new to Kickstarter, and 1337 of you are, this may sound like a lot of argle bargle. That's okay. Here's what the process will look like:

• In a few weeks you'll receive a link to your survey.
• BackerKit will walk you through it.
• You'll then have a permanent place where you can adjust your address, shipping choices, and add-ons, up until we let you know that it's time to ship.

And remember, we won't charge shipping until right before it begins, so we can negotiate with vendors to get the very best price.

CONTINGENCIES & CHANGES

Invariable, part of the production process is discovering new and surprising challenges and adapting to them. These can mean massive on-set rewrites (like we did for Carrow's first encounter with Death in Season 2), weird continuity fixes ("Let's greenscreen this actor who wasn't there into the scene!"), and sometimes even last minute recasting. We'll keep you updated as we encounter and overcome these obstacles.

The journey is part of the quest and... um, sorry... let's try that again. The quest is part of the journey and...

Sod.

Our JourneyQuest together for this third season will continue until we achieve our goal! Onwaaaard!

THE WRAP PARTY AND SHOOTING DATES

Are you joining us on set or for the wrap party? Great!

We're have dates for you soon. Really soon. And we'll do our best not to change them. Our best guess for today, WHICH IS NOT SET IN STONE YET, is the following:

Estimated Shoot Dates: March 30 - April 17
Estimated Wrap Party: April 22 or 23

Ben will soon be in touch with backers who are spending time on set to figure out dates that will work.

JourneyQuest is Renewed
about 10 years ago – Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 11:24:41 PM

Thank you, all of you. We made it by the skin of our teeth, thanks to your passion, support, pledges, shares, comments, ideas, contributions, and determination.

We'll have so much more to share with you as we continue this journey... sorry, quest... but for tonight, just take time to relax, celebrate, and know that we made it.

And seriously, watch the video. It says it all.

WE DID IT!
about 10 years ago – Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 10:08:41 PM

And we still have time to party together, so come join us for the final three hours of the campaign on a special live Google Hangouts broadcast.

Just click on the link and we'll figure out the tech as we go.

https://plus.google.com/u/2/b/102399263775629689523/events/ca18hh5d0gimer05cn6935je3q0?hl=en

More soon, congratulations and thanks to all of you, and here's to an amazing final three hours!