NOW SERVING 250,000!
by Russell Johnson
We've been making movies for over 4 years now. Original ideas with the hope that people will become fans of our work. I suppose that is why many indie film makers make horror and/or supernatural movies. The audience is there just waiting for a new movie to come out. They don't care if it's schlock or not. As a matter of fact maybe the crappier it is the more people will watch. It's hard to be a small indie film company and draw a big fan base.
Which makes this Star Wars fan film even more of a surprise. We knew going in to this that it may be a movie we can use to draw more attention to our original works and 12 STEPS would break us into the next phase of our film making careers. But now I'm starting to believe that this fan film IS THE MOVIE that takes us to the next level of our careers and everything, including 12 STEPS, would have to live up to it.
This movie has set a new standard for us and has a built in audience the same way horror and B movies do. If it's good fans will come, and they have. When we launched our website back in 2002 we had and still don't have advertising and were only wishing people would find out about the site and check it out. Since that day and up until April 23rd of this year we averaged 1500 hits a month. Not bad we thought and least some people knew who we were.
Well little did we know that April 23rd was the end of that. That's the date we released EPISODE IV.V: THE UNKNOWN DISCOVERY. Since that day we have had close to 250,000 hits on our site, all in under 4 weeks! We aren't even sure if that's really good or not comparatively, but we're not complaining. Our email list has grow from around 80 people to 143 and counting. Just yesterday we went on a local morning TV show to promote the movie (you can watch clips on the site) and we had 30,000 hits in ONE DAY alone! We still aren't sure how far this thing could go and I believe we've just scratched the surface.
Funny thing is that this maybe the only thing I am known for and I hope that's not the case but I would rather better be best known for this than for nothing at all. This movie is giving me, giving all of us, more exposure and it can only lead to more opportunities for us. It may not be an original story or even original shots but I'm glad my name is on it.
Star Wars and obviously Pulp Fiction fans are loyal and we couldn't be more grateful for that. They know the dialogue, the costumes and the story of those movies better than anyone. It's a great franchise crossed with a great movie and I think that makes this a little bit harder than a indie horror or B movie. There are fans out there waiting to pounce and you had better not disappoint or they'll let you have it. I've watched a lot of fan films and the criticism can be great and it can be brutal. Always some of both but you have to strive for more of the previous and much less of the latter. We understand those fans because we are our audience and this is a movie I'd want to see. I'm just happy and grateful others do too.
We've been making movies for over 4 years now. Original ideas with the hope that people will become fans of our work. I suppose that is why many indie film makers make horror and/or supernatural movies. The audience is there just waiting for a new movie to come out. They don't care if it's schlock or not. As a matter of fact maybe the crappier it is the more people will watch. It's hard to be a small indie film company and draw a big fan base.
Which makes this Star Wars fan film even more of a surprise. We knew going in to this that it may be a movie we can use to draw more attention to our original works and 12 STEPS would break us into the next phase of our film making careers. But now I'm starting to believe that this fan film IS THE MOVIE that takes us to the next level of our careers and everything, including 12 STEPS, would have to live up to it.
This movie has set a new standard for us and has a built in audience the same way horror and B movies do. If it's good fans will come, and they have. When we launched our website back in 2002 we had and still don't have advertising and were only wishing people would find out about the site and check it out. Since that day and up until April 23rd of this year we averaged 1500 hits a month. Not bad we thought and least some people knew who we were.
Well little did we know that April 23rd was the end of that. That's the date we released EPISODE IV.V: THE UNKNOWN DISCOVERY. Since that day we have had close to 250,000 hits on our site, all in under 4 weeks! We aren't even sure if that's really good or not comparatively, but we're not complaining. Our email list has grow from around 80 people to 143 and counting. Just yesterday we went on a local morning TV show to promote the movie (you can watch clips on the site) and we had 30,000 hits in ONE DAY alone! We still aren't sure how far this thing could go and I believe we've just scratched the surface.
Funny thing is that this maybe the only thing I am known for and I hope that's not the case but I would rather better be best known for this than for nothing at all. This movie is giving me, giving all of us, more exposure and it can only lead to more opportunities for us. It may not be an original story or even original shots but I'm glad my name is on it.
Star Wars and obviously Pulp Fiction fans are loyal and we couldn't be more grateful for that. They know the dialogue, the costumes and the story of those movies better than anyone. It's a great franchise crossed with a great movie and I think that makes this a little bit harder than a indie horror or B movie. There are fans out there waiting to pounce and you had better not disappoint or they'll let you have it. I've watched a lot of fan films and the criticism can be great and it can be brutal. Always some of both but you have to strive for more of the previous and much less of the latter. We understand those fans because we are our audience and this is a movie I'd want to see. I'm just happy and grateful others do too.
