BLOG JourneyQuest can’t continue without your support.
Unlike big Hollywood shows, we rely directly on our fans to stay alive. And we like it that way.
Think about it: we don’t have to explain why having the orcs speak orcish is important to an executive who could overrule us. We don’t have a crowd of suits justifying their existence by spitting in our soup. It’s just us, and you.
Remember Firefly? How about Veronica Mars? Or Jericho? Or Farscape? We sure do. We remember trying to save them. But the tens of thousands of us who cared weren’t enough to move the Nielsen ratings. Or to sway advertiser’s or executive’s hearts. The bottom line was that they didn’t understand the shows and they didn’t understand us. (You wouldn’t believe the crap we’ve heard when pitching to the networks in L.A.) So why try to make a show in a system that’s designed to kill good shows?
Another thing. Studios and networks eat up a lot of money, usually out of the pockets of the actual creative artists. Plus, they get so paranoid about piracy that they treat their biggest fans like criminals. Ever had your HDMI system refuse to play a movie that you bought, fair and square, all because of some malicious code in the cable that decided to block the signal? Or maybe you’re one of the people who bought 1984 for the Kindle, only to wake up one morning to discover that Amazon.com had taken it back. These aren’t accidents. It’s a move by the people who control distribution to continue to control distribution, and furthermore, to train you to be happy licensing your media, rather than owning it.
We think that’s ridiculous. DRM treats the people who play by the rules like they’re pirates, while the pirates get to use their media as they wish. Meanwhile, copyright attorneys scour the web for potential file sharers and try to sue them into oblivion. In one famous case, they accused a fax machine of pirating music.
We want to do things differently. Here’s how:
- Release JourneyQuest online, for free.
- No DRM or copy-protection in our work, period.
- Everything is licensed under a Creative Commons NC-SA-BY license, to empower you to share it with your friends, remix it, download it, whatever, as long as you’re not making a commercial profit from our work. (That’s to keep Hollywood out of our henhouse.)
- We’ll make it easy to create commercial derivative works, too. (More info at our Rights page.)
- Our DVD will be region-free and free of copy-protection.
Which gets to how you can support us:
- Share our work! Our biggest enemy is obscurity. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, you name it, wherever you like to go for information, spread the word.
- Become a financial contributor, either one-time or ongoing.
- Share our thermometer widget, embed it on your website, and join us as we work toward our financial target for next season.
- When it comes out, buy our DVD. We’ll have all sorts of extras on it. And because we’re self-distributing, you know that your dollars actually count for something.
- Remix JourneyQuest. Make cool stuff. Write stories, or music, or new movies. Contribute to culture. (And link back to us.)
- Volunteer to screen JourneyQuest at your local convention. We can’t travel everywhere, but our fans are already there. We’ll help you through every step of the process.
- Help us create subtitles in your language.
- Come up with cool new ideas and share them with us!
Will all of this help us pay for the first season and get a second season shot? If there are enough of you who care, it will. 10,000 people who each give ten dollars—whether that’s our net from a DVD sale, or a direct contribution, or whatever—gets us a second season. We know that not everyone who sees the show will contribute. But if twenty non-contributors introduce JourneyQuest to one person who puts in a few bucks, we’re one step closer to making the next season. And the one after that. All outside the Hollywood system. And at a level where we can pay our cast and crew a real wage.
Like it says at the end of each episode, our motto is No Studio, No Network, No Cancellation. We took a risk on something new, put up the money for the show, volunteered a year of our lives to finishing it up, and are releasing it into the wild, like dandelion seeds. And it’s no accident that we made this show for hardcore fans—you’re the people, just like us, who travel the con circuit, work for months on our costumes, write fanfic, and most important, get active about what we love. Forget sitting on the couch. We like to do things. We like the community. And we support what we love.
The networks can’t cancel JourneyQuest. Nor will we let them save it. Whether the show lives or dies is entirely up to you.
your show looks great. can’t wait to see it. I’m a makeup artist in the Los Angeles area and if you ever need one for any upcoming projects, i would love to be involved. Hope to see the series soon.
thanks,
Courtney
If you make a Video RSS page, I can make a Boxee app that will be available to thousands of viewers.
You will want the title of the episode and an episode description for each as a minimum rss.
Contact me if you want me to put the RSS page together for you ( no charge)
I could translate all the webisodes to Italian and portuguese (I’m Brazilian). How can I do that?
We’ll have that worked out soon. Need to figure out the conversion to make YouTube timecode and DVD timecode compatible.
Well, I don’t know the technical stuff, all I can do is translate and leave it to you.
can we pre-order the DVD?
and how much will it cost?
Answers posted on our FAQ. Thanks!
The donate and comment buttons on the support page seem broken. The paypal link on the front page seems to work though.
Thanks! Fixed now.
An idea for advertising JQ in Germany (cause you made with Gamers I and II a lot of fans over there) is to find fast a game exhibitor who is willing to present your film at the convention „Internationale Spieltage 2010“ taking place from October 21.- 24 in Essen. On their website http://www.internationalespieltage.de/e000.php4 they speak about over 150.000 visitors.
I could prepare subtitles in German, and if you want I could ask friends, some of them professional translators, to translate into Russian, Czech, French, Italian, Turkish and Macedonian- but we would need the text in a written form.
Steff
Steff – That sounds excellent. We’ll check in with our game exhibitor friends, see if anyone has the time to include a screening in their Essen schedule. Since it’s so close to the date of the con, it could be a scramble to get a screening without a good connection.
Concerning the translations, we’d love to have the help, both with JourneyQuest and with Dorkness Rising. (Dorkness is already translated into German, but we’re missing the other languages in question.)
I just wanted to say that I LOVE all the stuff you guys have done. I watched The Gamers a couple of years ago, and I just recently watched Dorkness Rising and now JourneyQuest. As a girl who DMs and plays DnD, this stuff is AWESOME. I can’t wait to see what you guys have for me next.
Is there a way to dload the episodes? I’d like to show them at my gaming sessions. We don’t always have access to internet where we game, and it’s much funner to watch these with a group a gamers. I’ve seen Dorkness rising dozens of times, but seeing it at Gencon SoCal with a room full of fans has NO comparison.
For now, you can at least use youtube-dl to download the videos: http://bitbucket.org/rg3/youtube-dl/wiki/Home
Given that J-Q is distributed under a Creative Commons license that should not be a problem, though I don’t know what youtube’s policy on downloading videos from their servers is.
As far as we’re concerned, please feel free to download our videos using whatever method you prefer. We can’t speak toward YouTube’s download policy, but this use is definitely covered under the Creative Commons license.
This is a great series adn it saddens me to find the first series comming to an end. I can’t wait to get the dvd.
I am an aspiring film maker. I’m 17 and I’m working my way up as much as I can. I really do hope that one day in the future I may be able to work with you.
I’d like to help out as much as I can, weather it be ideas, products, or just advertising. My youtube channel isn’t very famous, but I’ll do my best in the near future to get the word out someway about JourneyQuest.
Thank you. Be creative and have fun with the show! Remember, the more stuff you make yourself, the more you learn and the better you get.
I absolutely loved the series! My hat off to the crew and cast for the professional level they’ve taken a project such as this! I’ve shared JQ with some friends already and will continue doing so. A donation is difficult for me but I’dd like to do my part as much as possible so I’ll go over the subtitles section immediately! Thank you. Very much.
Love the series so far and also love the fact that you are bypassing the studios so that you retain more control. I own a small business that does WordPress SEO and design. Let me know if I can help.
Thanks! We’re okay on the design side (for now) but some SEO guidance wouldn’t hurt!
Your whole group of folks really did some quality work here. The humor was spot on, the acting was quite stellar – I loved the whole thing. I have to give accolades especially to Anne Kennedy. For some reason when women attempt to act in fantasy-medieval settings, they tend to sound like an overdone Ren Faire woman. (Which, while fine in small doses at Ren Faire, is extremely distracting in film.) Anne made her character smooth, natural, and after two lines I was settled in and engrossed in the storyline and believing the characters. The quality of editing meant that this whole thing came out as a very professional work, both in content quality and aesthetics.
I will be donating, you’ve more than convinced me I need to see more!
I just wanted to say that I think your stuff is GREAT! I watched Dorkness Rising a few weeks ago and have been watching everything you guys put out ever since. As an older gamer (42) its fun to see gaming situations that we played 20 years ago on your show(s). My group only meets 3 weekends per year now due to work/kids and whatnot, but Im making The gamers 1 & 2 mandatory watching before our next session. I happily donated and will continue to do so. Good luck!
John NBCGC (Nerds By Choice Gaming Club)
Hi there, – loved the show, just watched it through on youtube and then donated. (Love the dvd link after you donate!)
Fingers crossed for the second season!
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE everything about you guys! The humor, the low budget, the creativity, it’s just amazing to me what your group has accomplished!
My brother showed me Dorkness Rising a few months ago and since then I’ve been a DGP junkie, I can’t get enough of the first two Gamers movies or JourneyQuest, re-watching them makes it even more fun because you find things you missed before! And I’m proud to say I’m actually going to play D&D for the first time soon because of Dorkness, I’ve always been interested but never actually got off my butt to find people to play with, but after that awesome movie I couldn’t sit idle any more!
Thanks for everything you guys have done and I promise to do my best to get the word out and donate when possible. Keep up the great work!!!
Out of curiosity –
Is the group shot/poster you have of Carrow, Nara, Glorion and Perf as the JourneyQuest profile pic on Facebook available as, perhaps, an advertising piece? If it were no larger than 8 1/2 by 11 (perhaps a bit smaller depending), it might be something folks could use to promote the show on paper by approaching local gaming stores and asking to post it on their bulletin boards… I realize that’s rather ‘old school’ and not very technical, but I thought I would share the idea.
See, I think that’s a great idea… but an even BETTER idea would be to get some tech wizard to set it up like a banner so we can put it on other websites… there are plenty of gamer blogs and whatnot that have yet to be explored and claimed in the name of DG and ZO, just sayin.
Very true. I know the idea is to scatter it to the digital wind like proverbial dandelion seeds. Unfortunately, I am not that technical person, but a downloadable, copy and pastable banner like that would, I agree, be great.
An addendum to my idea that is sort of between my idea and yours:
Perhaps a link here to a printable version that folks could download and print themselves? It could also perhaps be editable to put in individual screening info when folks set those up.
Awesome idea. We’ll put that together as soon as we’re done with the season one DVD!
I can translate the whole 7 episodes to spanish since there are no subs in such language atm (or at least I can’t find them). I don’t believe I’m the only one in latin america who likes the show so it may help you guys =)
Cheers and good luck!
Thank you! We’ll upload your translations to the YouTube videos as they come in!
I really enjoy your show. though im unable to donate anything, i can still spread the word through my many forum accounts, also i have multiple friends who enjoys these type of shows and they’ll most likely donate something themselves.
if you need more money to keep production going, might i suggest a sequel to the best selling sequel to your number one film of all time ?
“Lust Vixens 3 : Swap Meat” is just DYING to be made….
will you guys have the DVD ready for GenCon ??
We should have the DVDs in hand within a week or two!
I understand that a film might be a more financial deal, I really prefer Gamers: Dorkness rising to the show. Maybe because I’m an independent film buff and I just love the way you mingle modern independent themes within teh context of gaming humor, but everything just hit me on a perfect chord. If you had a Gamers 3 donation bar, I would definitely donate some cash. But Journey Quest is the Dorkness rising humor without the “meat” if you will. It’s good for a few laughs, but not on the awesome level of Dorkness, with the modern gaming culture mingling with the humor. I hope you consider this, because I think a lot of people would donate money to Gamers 3 along/instead of a Journey Quest season.
The moment we can move forward on Gamers 3, we will. The first step is getting the new Dorkness DVD released.
In the meantime, we’ll continue working on JourneyQuest: Season Two.
big fan of the gamers dorkness rising. my roommate and i quote it all the time….
just want to know when the ep. 8 is coming…?
Next up will be Episode 1 of Season Two. We’re hoping to shoot this summer.
where do u shoot?
Washington State
come to canada!
Really? I live in Washington state i just saw that you guys work there also in Seattle… i live in puyallup and i love your shows… ill try and donate money as much as i can
P.S. Washington is perfect for filming things in forests and stuff right? place is beautiful
Hi guys great work. Loved Dorkness, Loved the Gamers great to see this as well. Hope series 2 comes along ASAP (yes I have…) Keep up the good work all of you!
first, let me say, love the show. A question for you, what type of camera and sound equipment, and lighting equipment are you using for the production?
Show is shot in 1080p on a Canon 7D with an L-series lens package. Lighting kit is primarily two production quality battery-powered LEDs, tungsten and daylight kinos, and other random tungsten heads, plus a portable package of flags and bounces. Sound is recorded by a combo mixer/boom op with an H4N recorder, a boom, and a couple of lav mics.
Just wanted to add that I have studied character animation at Animation Mentor, I’m not a modeler just a character animator, but if you ever want to wanted to add a cgi character/creature and needed someone to animate it I’ld be more than happy to help out.
That’s fantastic, thank you!
I LOVE JOURNEY QUEST !!!! im a casual gamer/ ultra geek and its just some of the best gamer humour shows iv ever seen. I did a solo play in drama by simply applying the line “lactomancer” i would so donate to u guys but im a poor student who lives off the system and his friends kindness
Much love from AUSTRALIA and keep up the good work
My boyfriend and I are huge fans of the Gamers and The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising. So when we heard about Journey Quest, we were ridicuously excited about it. After watching the episodes free on hulu, we bought 2 of the DVDs, and gave one to a friend as a present for him to spread the love. We are constantly telling friends and loved ones about how hilarious this is, and how you need our help to make future seasons. We bring the DVD to parties and when we travel so we can always have it to show people who we know will be interested. (And hopefully will either buy a copy from you, or donate!)
I can’t wait for any updates, and whenever possible, you can count on us to help try and make your projects possible!
P.S.- I am a recent graduate as a Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media major. (It’s a very facny way of saying television). I specialize in making props/costume pieces. I know this is a long shot, but I would be honored to help you guys out if you ever need any props or anything of that sort!