The FIRST, ORIGINAL SCI-FI WEB SERIES THAT WASNT... VENUS RISES: No Budget. No Professionals. No Bulls**t. Article by Joseph Negra (Sgt. Nathan Griggs) BEGINNINGS - The Martian Chronicles Part 1: Venus Rising was what it was going to be when 25 year old sci-fi aficionado, Jason Birdsall, wrote the treatment in 2002. He dreamed of writing and filming a science fiction series based on science fact with no aliens, the paranormal, creatures or exploration of deep space. He would also broadcast it free on the ever expanding “world wide web. Maybe it would make some money! Maybe the rights would be bought by a big production company!! Maybe it would bring hot girls to this dashing, up and coming writer/director who was at the time making Star Wars - Star Trek CG mash-ups while eating four bowls of cereal a day dressed in a bathrobe and editing weddings to pay for his upcoming LucaWhedonesque adventure. HAHA! CREATION - Soon sets of cockpits, space stations, cargo bays and cryo-prisons started taking over the garage, family den and college bound sister’s bedroom in a nice sized Colonial style house on Joffre Road in Forked River, New Jersey. Every day or evening (since he awoke around 4pm daily) you would find Jay constructing sets and searching for any sort of mechanical, electrical, military, computer or other parts to fill and create the scenes of what was now called Venus Rises (after finding that a sci-fi movie titled Venus Rising was made in 1995 and in this author’s opinion must have had the same budget as our little production. Ha!). Nevertheless, he had a name, a script, simplistic sets, even simpler computer graphics and one Panasonic AG-DVC200 camcorder that was quickly sold to purchase the better AG-DVX100B model which was smaller to Jay’s chagrin as he felt a sort of penis envy that the DVC200 was “bigger and looked more like a movie camera. The one thing he didn’t have was a cast or money to pay them. ENTER, ME… And a few others in 2005 who “auditioned” for parts after Jason had used up all of his friends and family members who stood in for filming to see what it would look like. He found people through friends, word of mouth and small ads here and there. I was presently working as an academic adviser at Ocean County Community College and taking classes when a classmate told me of this production by a friend of hers that she was going to act in. I drove to the “Realm of VR” and met writer/director Jason Birdsall, Austin Blatt who was to play Demille, my friend Kim Sarnoski who was to be Aeriana and Fred Chandler who was Sam. A few weeks later Fred brought a young Irish accented girl named Ciara Hughes to play Kylara. We all would take turns tearing clothes, applying blood to Demille, screwing sets together, gathering accessories for wardrobe, painting, “oldening” and cluttering the sets as we all felt they were too simple and needed to look very used. We filmed in overly hot sets, tick and mosquito infested woods while eating the occasional pizza if it could be afforded. The cast donated all of their time and extremely small amounts of money towards accessories. However, it became very difficult to keep people working pro bono while they had jobs, personal lives, expenses, time constraints and the inevitable attitudes and conflicts. CG modelers were enlisted everywhere from NJ to British Columbia to the UKs own Steve Cresshead Gilbert who also donated their time to make ships, vehicles, buildings and other assorted 2D and 3D graphics. They would connect with the director via email, chat, message then eventually Skype. DAMN ACTORS! - Over what seemed to be (and what eventually become) years, months were passing and actors were leaving or being fired for personal, time or creative conflicts. Cast members who became friends while working together were also intermingling, having affairs, fighting and begetting egos. The director himself had also fallen cursed to a few of those things as well. The cast had gone through many incarnations. The character Demille had been recast three times (Austin Blatt, Matthew DeRogatis, Rob Fererri), Aeriana twice (Kim Sarnoski, Julia Howe), Sam twice (Frederic Chandler, Damien Amores), Kylara twice (Ciara Hughes, Anne Roig) and this was not to mention how many people came to audition for the roles that now Jason and myself were interviewing throughout. The only character and cast member to remain throughout the entire production was Sgt. Nathan Griggs played by myself, Joseph Negra. We all had great and bad times with a lot of joking around, helping each other and the production grow, learning the good and evils of the production biz, working together and pulling off what we all agreed was NOT a cheesy sci-fi fan club series but a serious and valid science fiction production we were all creating together with no money and getting through it by the seats of our pants. I must say that we took it very seriously and were all incredibly proud of every great moment and tremendous screw up we made. RISING VENUS - We had a simple one or two page website up, stickers, postcards, semi professional cast photos (yes, done by amateur photographers and friends savvy with a camera for free), teasers/trailers (some made with stolen CG scenes from actual movies to fill in what we didn’t have ready). Jason had growing connections with people “almost” in the “industry” as well as low budget sci-fi websites, fan clubs, amateur critics and scores of online identities on sci-fi and CG modeling sites that not only helped find people to work on the show but also garnering great word of mouth and critiques from true sci-fi fans. Taking a note from my days in garage bands and promoting all over the Tri-State area, we also had my knack for guerilla marketing which now consisted of plastering the series all over social media sites (Myspace, Tribe, Hi 5, Yahoo groups, various others and the newly released Facebook) while also plugging the series in every sci-fi fan site thread on anything I could find (which caused many fights with trolls on Trek fan film threads as they were visibly threatened by this new, grassroots, gritty, non-adorable, non-Trek themed “sci-fact” series). Our very first public mention was in 2006 in a low budget sci-fi review web show called Sci-Fi News with Lynne Gryphon based in Sydney, Australia and broadcast on YouTube, then articles in local NJ newspapers, then came articles and/or blurbs in websites i09, sliceofscifi, frontierchannel, fireflyfans.net, roddenberry, cgsociety.org, coolscifi, wrfrbeameup.blogspot, other-worlds-cafe, geekcred.net, republibot, with many comparisons to Sanctuary and Firefly with a gritty look of Battlestar Galactica. Tech savoir-faire Julia who was now Aeriana and also the writer/director’s new girlfriend took the marketing to a different level and was in contact with more mid-level professionals in the gaming and internet production industry simply because her father had created Rubies of Eventide and Julia was also on every site imaginable. Annie brought attention to VR via fans and connections from her being a Cosplay model and Rob, being an amateur filmmaker, had many contacts in the horror genre and comic based industries. There was talk of Comic Cons, renting a loft in Hoboken for set building, making a float for the well established Toms River Halloween Parade, “big” New York City connections, being picked up from a web based series to one developed for television like Sanctuary was, and what ALMOST became to be, a contract in 2006-2007 with an upcoming Illusion OnDemand channel that “not only premiered Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere to American audiences but has been applauded for returning classic Doctor Who to television after well over a decade of absence. Illusion will also be premiering the upcoming original sci-fi vidcast series, Venus Rises, to television.”(source- Wikipedia) VENUS FALLEN BUT RISES AGAIN - By the time things were just about to take off, graphics and sound designers were not producing or claimed to have paying gigs that came first, time had been chewed away by recasting, re-filming and redesigning all while technology, CG and the internet was advancing by the month. Cast infighting had also taken its toll. Cast members Damien and Annie had a broken relationship and refused to be on set together. “Team Juliason” as I coined it had also broken up in a tumultuous ending. Egos, relationships and opinions on direction of show and characters were constantly in conflict. Rob was steadfast for the most part but he had surgeries and illnesses that prevented him from being available all the time. I, myself, had thrown in the towel as far as helping, promoting, writing or filming due to what I felt was receiving a deaf ear to my input towards the end. Principal photography had ended in 2008 with the last episode not being shot and the Venus Rises Wrap Party at an East Village club Solas in NYC was the last time the cast would all be in the same room together. So, after years of dead starts, openings and premieres, VR fell into the lap of a beaten writer/director who didn’t even want to look at the footage anymore. The internet and technology grew so fast that VR’s production value was surpassed by superior graphics and eventually High Definition. (Which, funny enough, glorious HD TV’s make movies look like cheap video rather than cinematic undertakings and Venus Rises looks great in comparison!) The episodes have now been completed in post production and available for your viewing pleasure. Take into consideration that this was done by regular people… friends… who shared a fondness of movies and sci-fi. We had no real budget and everyone from the actors to CG modelers to sound designers to panel artists to even a sign language consultant and anyone else I may have forgotten to note at this time donated their time and efforts to film something grassroots, handmade in a house for God’s sake!!! Also, after tallying up receipts from Home Depot, Ebay, Army/Navy and stores of the like, Jason Birdsall has spent over $20,000 to make what you will see. That alone is a “budget” and, quite frankly, a remarkable achievement. VENUS RISES now lives on in 2013 as the finale of Series One and the entire Series Two is in production as I write this as a graphic novel with paid artists and courting publishers. Maybe I should not have signed over my likeness rights… Much love to all friends, family and fans of Sci-fi, - Joseph Negra (Sgt. Nathaniel Griggs, Venus Rises) PS - You may see a Nathan back story episode I wrote sometime in the future! (That will also explain why the Sergeant has long hair)
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 03:17:35 +0000
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