Welcome to sitcom geeks. I'm Dave Cohen and I'm James Carey and we are joined for this Podcast live from all the way from Los Angeles and it's the second time he's guessing on our show actually he was the winner of our 10-page challenge competition from 2019 god that seems like eons ago. It was wasn't it so we're very pleased one whole pandemic We're very pleased to have Peter C. Heywood back on the show.
Hi Peter Hello, thank you so much. Have a me back. Yeah now. I guess last time we spoke to you You were just just moved out to LA and I think the lockdown had just started and so You're sitting in exactly the same place.
You were sitting a year ago. I guess have you actually moved at all from that chair in that time? I've got a whole new perspective on life. I rotated my desk 90 degrees this last time So it's a whole world you couldn't even imagine the different life I'm leaving now from Schway of LA there It seems to know from your point of view I mean you moved there to you know to get work to be a screenwriter You know as well as develop board games and all that kind of stuff How what has been happening in the last year there because obviously nothing's much been happening in UK And I know the California have kind of locked down fairly heavily but from a screenwriting point of view What how does it feel from a screenwriting point of view?
I could have not moved LA and been in the exact same spot So I got I got here to network and to meet Hollywood people and all that kind of thing and so far have not done that So my timing was as bad as it could possibly be or comment actually Yesterday actually so I'm fully vaccinated now I've had my second shot and I waited the two week period and so I'm I'm free to roam the earth and touch people's faces and sneeze on them As much as I want basically and so yesterday another person in Hollywood is also vaccinated and I went for coffee for the first time since I moved here So as of yesterday, I've actually had a reason to be in Hollywood. We are thrilled to be able to celebrate that with you We are and so the reason we know actually that you have been very busy and the reason that we're talking to you again on the show is because Well, it's all about night crew really or winning script So would you like to tell us what has happened with night crew since you since we last spoke to you? So since you last spoke to me I have gone through a bunch of script development on it And I find I do you guys help me script edit it because you too kind of know what you're talking about it It turns out and so that was incredibly helpful and then I hired a casting director And I got a bunch of people to come in And I got a bunch of people to record the parts in the script and then I edited together and released it So the pilot of night crew is actually online free for download right now at nightcrewpodcast.com Wow, smooth you've really that's spoken like a true LA person and not like an Australian, you know It's like oh you've told the internet somewhere you find it. What the hell's wrong with you?
Send that link through to us again and we will put it on the we'll put it out with the podcast with the notes as well So let's look like Dave is that night crew podcast.com or you can search any podcast catcher for night crew Okay, yeah, I'll send you a Question is you know, what was the plan? Why why have you recorded it yourself what you know because I was thinking earlier today There are lots of reasons that people make their own stuff and that's something that we've probably changed our views on a little bit in the last few years Me in particular I think Dave's always been in favor of it And I was saying to some folk earlier today about the fact that some people go off and make their own stuff because it's like everything this thing It's amazing and no one wants to do it and I will prove everybody wrong and make it myself And so that's probably a bad reason to do it, but that's that's not your reason Why have you gone to the bother and expensive actually making this making your script as an audio comedy sitcom? So there's sort of two or three main reasons As you guys know but the listener might not I run a board game company Jelly Bean games and we produce and publish board games and most of our catalog is my designs And so it's very common board games that someone's like I've made a board game and all of us have published it myself And that's the trap I never wanted to fall into with board games So Especially when I was starting out a lot of the board games that we published with stuff that I knew other publishers were interested in but I thought Thought I could do it myself, so honestly winning the the competition that you guys ran was a huge boost in that direction I was like, okay, it's not just me being in love with my own script This is actually worth making like, you know, some industry professionals who read a lot of scripts and had a competition They they let this one win so that by itself was a big green flag for me that I wasn't just being like well I want to make this but you know, maybe no one else will so that was definitely part of it Um, the second thing is that because I do run a company I'm kind of used to making stuff and I'm Kind of sort of used to control but more than that I want to eventually be a showrunner So I don't know if the term exists in the same way in the UK But in the US the person who you know runs the show is a showrunner So that's a head writer and they oversee a team of writers and they also as well as well as writing it Well, the show run and head right can be two different roles But the show runners is kind of in charge of the show And so they are in charge of what the final casting looks like and what the sets look like and all this kind of stuff I mean, it sounds dark, but they literally run the show and so in the UK the UK listeners, you know, we our heritage is usually The famous sitcom is written by two guys who were at school together And some guy called Sidney Lottaby who's produced every British sitcom for a 30-year period picks it up and produces it in between a series of this and a series of that Um, and the writers sort of may turn up to the filming They may not they're probably there for a rehearsal They might do some rewrites and then they go home and then they watch it go out on TV And it's very much the producers medium And movies are the directors medium and but american tv is the writers medium They are the producer the exec producer They run the they run the whole show. It feels like sort of four jobs in one and it's sort of a job I like the idea of but wouldn't actually like to do I don't think but that's something that you would really like to do Yeah, just to say actually it is starting to happen now in the UK and in fact that it's becoming more the word showrunner is is definitely out there more And of course we have uh jessy armstrong is out in LA now and he's the showrunner on succession So, um, you know, there is a bit of kind of cross cross fertilization symbiosis whatever So, um, also in the UK in drama, it's becoming increasingly a thing as well So people now know that you actually formally exit kon right just like steven moffitt, you know, uh, so he's sort of a showrunner now But anyway, there's peter he's in LA wants to become a showrunner.
He's written a great script called the night crew and You just started to make it so I think if I want to be a showrunner and I want to you know Learn those skills the best way to learn anything is to do it So I thought okay, let's let's make this and that way i'll learn about a little bit of directing and casting and producing and all that kind of stuff The thing that really tells me that the UK doesn't have the same show run a background is red dwarf in the first I think two seasons of red dwarf the the main room where they most of the stuff takes place is entirely gray And i'm ever reading something with the doug nailer when he's saying that like they just wanted a splash of color somewhere So like can you add a picture frame and so the set people went out and put a picture frame off and painted a gray and they're like no Can you can you add a shelf and some books and painted them all gray and it wasn't until the third season when they They kind of proven themselves and that's when the the main set changes so that lovely white set and the In universe exhalation is they move to the offices quarters and stuff like that really what happened was that, uh, you know, uh Rob granddoug nailer had finally got enough control that they could say okay, he's what we're gonna look like So because I wanted to learn how to show run I figured I would run a show and so I produce a pilot myself Just to learn all those skills and then the third reason is just that I as a portfolio pieces much anything like I'm in the process in the hollywood um ladder of i'm off the ladder I'm desperately leaping and trying to grab the bottom runner to ladder which is a lot of blind inquiries to managers being like Hey, I've read a script read my scripts and if you like it, maybe represent me And so I figured you know emailing and saying yes, I wrote a script is a script also Just to show that like, you know Just to stand apart and have something that you can click on and listen to rather have to sit down and read it Which I'm sure you guys can understand is not the most fun jumping into a million scripts that you don't know You know saying hey click on this link and you can listen to an entire episode of a show that I produced and that'll give you a better idea of my Comedy and quality of writing than anything. I you know any script that I send you yeah So I think there's all really good reasons to do it. It just kind of sets you apart It just yeah, it gives somebody something to click on they've got a ton of scripts and therefore You know, it just means that they're more likely to listen to this as they're doing the washing up or driving around You can't read a script when you're driving even in LA. I believe although the traffic doesn't move Maybe it's the perfect place to read a script What some so um so you kind of Have you you have a script and then you have a produced show?
So how did you how what was it like especially given that you were doing this all sort of during the pandemic? So talk talk us through the process then from I have a script to I have a show So it's really easy. Just go to just go to the website upload a script wait 10 minutes and comes out as a fully produced Oh, yeah, I don't know why everyone doesn't do this. It's actually it's so simple Uh, so the first thing I did from from finishing this uh, so the first thing I did from winning the contest was say okay So this script, you know, I did the episode of you guys and you're like, yeah, it's good, but here's a bunch of notes And I was like, oh, let's try to address those notes So um, I actually did get you guys on as script editors and we went through the the notes process there, which was Really interesting.
I've never done that before. I've only ever written like in a vacuum So I jump on a call I write everything down on post-it notes and by the end of that conversation I had an entire desk covered with about 75 post-it notes that I was like this will be fun to saw through and it was So I kind of went through and you know, but most most of the notes were plot and character based So I went through and read you get the plot read you get the characters and really folks with them And I'm making home dean and cut cut cut cut cut cut as much as I could basically So once I was at the point where I was like, okay, this is as good as I can get it I started reaching out to actors and I had some people in mind that I wanted and no one responded Just I would email people and I would you know use their public emails and be like, hey, look I'm a real person who does real things you can go look at my board game website and just not a no I would be okay with the no, but just nothing just complete radio silence So I'm having a screenwriting discord and I just posted there being like no one's responding Why am I so uncool? I've gotten cool over all these years and someone said why don't you hire a casting director? And to me casting directors they were like, you know, they're a thing that proper companies hire that I could never possibly Interact with a casting director.
That's a real thing for real professionals But I found the LA casting directors website. They haven't put a They have a section where you can post job listings. I posted job listing a few people contacted me I jumped on calls with all of them. I found one who I liked and he liked me like the script and he signed on so he's He helped me out.
So I actually just I started by just giving him that list of like here's the people I reached out to And he rather reach out of the public email addresses went through the agent directory and found out who represented them and contacted the agents And then the agents passed it on to the clients and so on so forth And by the end of it, I had I think all but one of my dream casts signed on And then for the other part I didn't have a dream cast for he just posted open auditions and all these professional voice actors Now who I've discovered just spent all day auditioning. This is what voice actors do They audition for 90 percent of the time and actually do parts of the other 10 percent So I just had a big pile of people listen to and I picked up my favorite to them And it's funny. I picked up my favorites and not knowing who they were so I was like, man, this voice is perfect This voice is perfect and then hired them and then found out that they were actually like relatively big names in the world of voice acting Wow, well, that's good that you clearly have a good ear for that Um, you've used the word higher so we should without getting into detailed numbers clearly money was changing hands So how did you how did you work out how much to spend on this kind of thing? Um, you know, because because the temptation is always pulling favors mates rates all that kind of stuff that you just you know But that wasn't really an option especially because you know, you didn't you didn't know anyone where you'd move to and you also you want to You want to do the right the right thing, which is pay people.
It should certainly be tried So how did you how did you kind of calibrate that? Yeah, so it was sort of a two-stage process at the start. I was like, okay Here's how much I imagine it'll cost just pulling out another out of nowhere and looking at my finances looking at my various, you know How much I could afford to put into it and say okay, here's how much it would cost if I was you know Here's how much I'd be having to put into it to just have something made I guess that's the fourth reason I want to make this as well as you know Networking and pro-foolier piece all that. I just wanted to make it I think it's a cool show that I wanted to exist and you know, I'll die aside happy men knowing that I made this thing Um, and so I said okay Look if if if I can just have this exist, I put $2,000 into it If I could have this exist with like my dream cast who I would imagine would be more expensive I'd put up to $5,000.
It's all US dollars So I actually sat down with a friend of mine who's more defined as a we just kind of sketched out like what this probably cost What could this cost etc and that's how we came up with those two numbers And so when I sat down and spoke to my casting director I was like look here's one number if it's just anybody in it Like you know just a good voice actor who doesn't bring any kind of audience And here's my dream cast who have their own like established audiences who can actually click through much the show And we ended up almost exactly hitting that one so the whole the whole pilot cost me about $5,000 There are a few upfront expenses in that like artwork and theme song and the casting director, which wouldn't be per episode So subsequent episodes across less than that the first one was about $5,000 Okay, and that's great that you were kind of comfortable with that number and you know and you've got a quality product And in a way, I guess You know, there's a future for it Which we'll get to in a minute in terms of Kickstarter and all that kind of stuff in terms of recouping We'll get to that but first let's just talk about the you know lessons learned I mean admittedly making a show during lockdown is hopefully a lesson we don't particularly want to have to keep learning But there would be other lessons as well. What what did you come out? What did you come away with? Well, lockdown was interesting because it was A little bit easier to reach these people because normally they're going to events and they're you know going on set They're doing all these kinds of stuff whereas and this was this was not a lot of stuff down This is about six months in but everyone was just kind of sitting around happy to take on work Maybe cheaper than they would have otherwise so I suspect a lot of these people I got cut through a race for them Like you're playing mates rates because they like the script or they like the idea or because they're sitting around bored being like Yeah, sure, I'll do a wacky sci-fi comedy.
Why not? So lockdown sort of works my favorite I think if I've done it the year before or even a year from now I would struggle to get these people and even if they did do it, they'd be like well look for this to be worth it I'd be passing up a day's work I don't know going to wherever the reasonably famous people go and get paid more money than I can offer So lockdown was a bit of a boon in that regard the One thing that definitely didn't help a lockdown is that I think all of these people are very used to going to a studio and having an engineer there so everyone was sort of standing up their own market home and There weren't there was nothing, you know, unfixable but in the final audio We definitely had to do a little bit more massaging than we would have if we'd gone to a studio and just had a tech there to record the whole thing Because you know there was audio spiking and there was background noise and there was a One actor had a dog in the background and we always stopped with the dog as barking and retook But it was definitely all a little bit more complex and difficult than it would have been otherwise one actor particularly We had to be recalled three times the whole thing And in the end we actually went to a studio just to just to make sure we could absolutely definitely get it And then the studio mess up recording so we had to go back again. So we got a little bit silly Whereas if if it hadn't been locked down we would have been going to the same studio from the start and kind of find out these kings Right. Yeah, so those those sort of the advantages sort of cancelled out by the disadvantages, maybe Maybe kind of the advantage of getting these amazing actors was way more than the difficulty of doing it But it was a difficult thing that would be otherwise sure Great.
No, great casts really. There were some really funny people in there. I thought having heard the initial pilot I thought was very strong I'll do some name dropping we got the voice of Tommy Pickles from Rugrats EG Daily She was also on Friends. She was Phoebe's best friend to coverate Smelly Cat So she is one of the characters we got Debbie Derryberry who's a voice of Jimmy Neutron and the Little Green Men from Toy Story Whoa, and then we got some some YouTube celebrities So we got Pro ZD or Sungwon Show who's a voice actor first and foremost but also a four million strong following on YouTube and he's hilarious even check out his YouTube I really recommend it.
He does like seven to ten second sketches mostly Okay, huge following that way And then we got we got two who are a little less well known but like personal favorites of mine Jenny Nicholson He does a lot of pop culture commentary and did a my little pony parody like half a decade ago that she got kind of famous for and then We got a British man called Simon Antony who's best known for being Soudoku Solva on Kraken Cryptic Wow, okay, what a what a cast So how are you doing the most of the recording? We recording it live like on a zoom but with people obviously recording their own stuff at the Could you what were you doing at a scene at the time? How did that work? So we only got we got everyone together once with a table read because I really wanted everyone to hear everyone else and to hear and bounce off each other And just to basically hear the whole thing through once so I could do that final final draft and be like oh that joke doesn't work or There's actually a lot of jokes that only work in an Australian accent So one of characters of robot and for a long time I had been named body like can I be here body in America?
That's body and it confused the heck out of everyone and just like terminology and things like that That just wasn't necessarily clear outside of this drawing context So that was really useful but then for the actual recordings was just one-on-one sessions with each of them So I booked a three-hour session for each character not expecting to take three hours But just allowing that you know we were in for tech issues and people being late or anything break or anything like that and then Generally speaking I think each of them took about an hour per character But I had that three hours book just in case yeah And also if you do a whole read through then everyone's heard the story and Any actor who may be tempted to read only their lines Which is not unknown as now heard all of everybody's lines or at least they were in the room virtually at least when the lines were read My hollywood coffee yesterday my friend is a is a manager and she was saying that one of her clients was famous for only ever reading their lines in a script And she was like you got you got to read the content you got to do it. She's like I'm not in those scenes What's the point? I mean one thing that from what you're saying there it sounds interesting those kind of uh culture It sounds like that that you know we don't have over here But you know you talk about people who have been in big movies But they are also you know the youtubers and whatever It's what you did is that kind of uh is that a fairly common way that people do things in LA Uh which part of what I did sorry Uh just just you know making making your own show and making your own uh radio show Right. Yeah, I well radio comedy is not really a thing here But podcast comedy is starting to take off which is obviously just radio comedy but on the internet's in the radio So you know they don't have the equivalent of the the BBC radio sitcoms But there's been a few podcasts now that we picked up into Amazon has picked up homecoming and law and other various things been picked up into like full tv series People have an understanding of how podcast fiction works Uh so I do I do think hollywood It's sort of more encouraged to you know start your ending and go get it and well, especially Debbie Debbie, Debbie, who's um the voice of mother in my script She's championed this like she's such a she's been so supportive and wonderful and like pulled in like she she was On he reached out to eg daily who's friends with her because i'm voice actors for decades now And said hey the script is good come and do it.
I know it's not much money, but like it's worth it And so I think definitely in America there is more of a um a self-starter sort of culture Where they're like oh he's doing a thing himself that's great. I mean again my casting director He did this for a fraction of his normal fee and he said later he did it because he liked me He liked the script but most of all he wanted to see if I could pull this off He's like this is such a crazy ambitious thing to do Let's let's let's hope the guy out see if he can do it again. So that's a kind of thing they tell you afterwards, isn't it? Yeah And it's probably best that they do Um, I think there's something in that there, isn't that I think maybe it's a writer thing and maybe it's a british thing Is that it's kind of a double whammy of reserved?
Uh, not you know just kind of you know We like to complain that things aren't going our way rather than doing about it And it feels good for a while at least Um, but actually you just increased your chances of of something happening if you do something because you just don't know where it's going to lead Well, that's it. So my my life goal is to be a stick-a-writer Ever since I learned that that was a thing that you could do that that's all I've wanted and so I've I think I'm most of the way Through my second listen through of all of sitcom geeks like every episode. Oh man, I'm sorry A an American podcast called paper team Which is again to to TV writers one from France one from Australia moved to LA to try to become TV writers And just just binging that kind of like I really like to immerse myself in whatever I'm working on and so You asked me like why do yourself and the answer is honestly because of your podcast like listening to your podcast and the way that you guys were like If you want to make something go out, you know, if you want to get this go out and make something And so I kind of got this like little checklist of the different cards into the industry Which is you know submitting to managers making your own stuff, etc, etc I'm winning contests as a big thing over here especially and I'm trying to you know check as many boxes as I can as well as I can Yes, I can just to increase your chances And so I don't think I would have thought of making it little I made it without your podcast You know 130 episodes of saying go out there And you know if you want to have the best possible chance make something and make it well Yeah, well, I'm very glad that people are listening to our advice because also you listen to our advice because you had stuff happen on the first 10 pages You know, which is amazing how often we say that And how often we read scripts where nothing happens on the first 10 pages and it's somebody's first day at work and they're being shown around and that's it Um, it is that first day. Well, it should not get shown around.
Yeah, but stuff's happening. You're fine. You're fine Um, the thing I was gonna follow up with was the fact that um Uh, oh, what was it? Oh, yeah The thing I was gonna follow up with was the fact that audio is um, is achievable because it is um It isn't terribly expensive and if you've written the tv scripts then just the idea of building a set and kind of doing Uh, you know, it just would have been unfilvable and in those situations, you know I would probably recommend that so much it just film a scene film your best joke your best minutes Um, film a trailer for a show that doesn't exist but maybe film it as if it already does exist and make people excited and I mean, I guess that would be one way to go in there.
I think one of the things actually 5,000 dogs, they'll say sorry I was just gonna say one of the things um that as you've said you already you learned as you know I want to be a showrunner. I want to do it all myself Um, but actually doing it all myself involves hiring a casting director Um, and that's actually, you know, there's no no shame in in that and you know, if you are a writer and you're not a kind of You don't necessarily have that sort of dynamic background of, you know, startup or whatever, you know, then find find a producer who has that and kind of get it going with them really Yeah, it's a question. I'm extremely fortunate that I have a little bit of a swiss wing come like 5,000 dollars is not nothing But it's also, you know, it's my it's my treat for the year basically It's that instead of instead of going anywhere which is not the option anyway Or you know instead of buying a new computer I bought a sick on pilot basically Yeah, but the other thing too is that a lot of the expenses I could have done myself just not at the It would have taken a lot more time than it would have been at the same level So I was like, okay, I have this money I'm lucky enough to have this money and a bit of a platform through a board game company That I can try to get these, you know, bigger names and try to make this a thing But if I've done all the editing myself and if I just cast friends or people I knew and I know some I know some great people will be very funny And I just wanted to, you know, try to take it to that get Hollywood's attention level basically But without that I could have done this whole thing for $500 or $1000 I think easily It's just that I wanted to I wanted to go all out and just kind of, you know, put my foot to the floor and see how far I could take it And I think it depends on everyone just kind of needs to be clear on what they're trying to get out of it And you know, I've already hinted at the there's that kind of I'll show you mentality which is not particularly Healthy one and the secretly hoping it goes viral kind of thing as well Rather than actually this is a really good thing for the portfolio. It sets me apart from other writers But also there is one of the things to do it is so that you learn new skills firstly You're gonna meet people you've now worked with these really good people that you've admired You now know what it's like to work with a casting agent and you could probably work with them again And again, it's like appreciating that other people are good at things that you know Most people can't write a really funny script and you've written one so that's that's the job done What do you mean?
You can't edit audio to a professional standard? Yeah, duh, you know, get someone else to do that And I think we sometimes think that maybe if you're a self-starter You slightly feel like you have to do everything yourself and you don't and actually this is an opportunity to learn to work with other people because tv particularly It's it's a collaborative process. And if you don't want to collaborate, right? I've been doing it 10 years ago when I had more more time than money I probably would have learned all those skills and a good time doing it that would have been useful skills But I'm lucky enough to be at the stage where I have more money than time when it is Yeah, and I think that's a good thing to kind of learn how to work with people because you know These are new skills that you need if you're investing in your career then you need to do that So I think it's always a question of anyone listening to this thinking what can I do?
What can I make? I think it's just worth thinking what do you want to get out of it? Yeah, and if it's Standing apart is one thing if you just want a bit of experience of directing your own stuff It may be that you discover that you're actually more excited about directing than you are about writing in which case you are welcome We have released you from the desire to be a writer go and direct Yeah, I moved to Hollywood wanting to network and then got hit with a lockdown So I basically treated this as a networking opportunity Anything and I met some really cool people who I'm still in touch with because we're working on a project together And you know I had to pay the money to build that relationship, but it was uh, it's more than that You know, you like for example, I wouldn't I wouldn't be on this show again talking to you guys without having done that Yeah, this is fun for me. So it's all I think also I was gonna say that the sort of the British Buddy mentality and things and James you just said if you don't want to if you want that control or whatever go away and write a novel Which of course is what I did But I'm now kind of in the position that Peter was in and I'm making a book You know, I'm doing it myself and I'm discovering along the way that all the things that I have to do That I can do but actually I might as well be paying somebody to do that And if you think about well and paying money I mean the amounts of money that I would have been paid to write the novel the amount of hours that I've put into that novel From which I've earned precisely nothing at this stage, you know, that that has been a massive financial investment So, you know, you've already made when you write your script you are already making quite a big kind of investment And so it is sort of worth thinking about well I'm not gonna get paid for those hours, but here's an extra thing that you know to help me Along the way and to help to get those things done.
So I think that that's great. So let's let's move on then to the Plans now and so we're we're I know you're launching this Kickstarter campaign around the show and the what can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so it's launching on May 11th It's gonna have a $10,000 goal to make three more episodes So basically if you hit that 10,000 it'll be a four episode season which would give it a nice little arc and you know give people more And it's kind of a positive response to it It went out about three weeks ago And there's been a bunch of people being like so more please can we have more now which is obviously very gratifying to hear And because I run this board game company and board games as most people probably don't know the board game industry basically runs I'm because they're such a huge upfront investment Uh to to print a bunch of units so if you have those pre-sales and if you have that you know the whole community gathers around it You buy a game now that you get in my nine months basically So I already have that kind of following on Kickstarter and have a lot of awareness of how Kickstarter works I'm not gonna get myself into the problems that a lot of first time kicks on creators do So yeah, the goal is well, so I say let's let's what are those first time kick stars just do Yeah, so uh so the way that kicks on works is you set a goal And if you can raise enough money to hit that goal than the project funds and if you don't that it doesn't And a lot of people like well, I really want this to happen so I'll set the goal as low as possible So, you know even if it costs 10,000, I said it'll be about $10,000 for me to make three more episodes Probably a little bit more than that but I'm happy to put more money to it to keep making this thing that I'm really enjoying But if I was like I really wanted to succeed that's the important thing and I said $1,000 then cool if I find $1,000 I've now publicly committed to three more episodes, which I can't possibly afford to make $1,000 And so that's a very common mistake people make as well as that Physical things are so expensive people weigh on the rest of me Not only how much it costs to make physical things but how much it costs to ship them from where they're made to you and then from you to out The rewards for backing the thing. Yeah, exactly that the tens or hundreds of men hours that are involved in that And so I haven't actually haven't laid everything out the Kickstarter still finalizing some stuff But we're not going to focus on physical rewards, which is very common for this kind of thing people like oh yeah back this kickstarter for a show and you'll get a t-shirt And you're like, okay, you know, you've raised $10,000 But you've also committed to $7,000 for the t-shirts.
What have you actually accomplished here? And then um the big mistake that a lot of people make is stretch dolls So stretch dolls are a thing that kicks out of where if you stretch past regional funding goals So if we make you know $20,000 will do this, we make $15,000 will do this etc And people again, they get excited by the momentum So they see money coming in they're like oh if we set a stretch goal then we'll hit that and we'll make even more money again failing to recognize that The stretch goals cost money Like if you make an extra $5,000 in a stretch goal and fulfilling that stretch goal costs five, you know, $4,000 You've not really achieved much so the stretch goals with this campaign when you $10,000 with the three additional episodes The 15,000 we do a fourth and it um 20,000 we do it So it'll be a six episode season if you can hit that and then i'm not honestly planning any stretch goals beyond that because You know you could say well, okay, I'll have every 5,000 episode But if you go make a viral something like that hit $100,000 then what i'm just committed to 23 episodes Something crazy like that which sounds like you know, oh man what a problem to have except the contract of the actors doesn't cover 23 episodes Yeah, suddenly you've got a really good set number And also it doesn't update the delivery date. So like what i'm expecting to write and obviously that's that's a extreme example But it's not that extreme compared to stuff that seems i think it's really good to expect to make that many by the same date that i was originally Making for you know, I think i think what you're doing there That was reminding us that you're taking really seriously the public contract you're making and I think Maybe people see kickstarters a bit of a magic wand to uh to bankroll their pipe dream and well if it doesn't work out doesn't work out No, you've taken money and you are gonna you are now on the hook to deliver a thousand units of mp3s or whatever it is So, you know get on it Um, well on top of that i'm running this through my board game companies kickstarter So my company's jellybean games and this is a jellybean production So it's just the same kind of the same kind of brand and so not delivering this is particularly bad for me because These are people who you know, my company, you know, my fans are the people that my company relies on to keep on existing Yeah, so yeah, you kind of put your name on the line and actually i think you know You just want to take a bit of a deep breath i mean if you don't need to do a kickstarter I think sometimes maybe people think that they can do a kickstarter for something that doesn't really exist yet But obviously you're experienced enough to know no no you got to make one and invest in it before you ask for money Yeah, the other audio sitcom that's on the one kickstarter is a British one called woodnova coats I don't know if you guys heard it. Yeah, we know we and they recorded an entire season before launching a kickstarter for a second season So I didn't quite invest that heavily but um, you definitely want to have something to show Look, not only, you know, can we do this here is what you would get and uh, oh, another big mistake that people make a kickstarter's expecting The kickstarter to bring the audience like that's such a weird roundabout way of thinking so As mentioned, I do have a bit of following from jellybean games and while the board game audience and the sitcom audience not exactly the same I deliberately wrote and produced a sitcom to be the kind of stuff we make so jellybean games are kid friendly games I'm sorry the games for kids game for adults and games that they can both enjoy together and you guys listen to the sitcom You know, that's exactly the tone i was going for you can listen to this with your kids I love it.
I love it. I love it. I'm glad that a good time Um, or I know adults who listen to this who don't have kids and don't want kids and they also enjoy the show So a I have that audience and b when I was casting I was casting with an audience in mind Like I said, you know, someone show has four million youtubes writers now I don't think he's gonna make you tubity about it. I'd love it if you did But just him posting about it on his 700,000 follow twitter or you know, Debbie Derry has 800,000 TikTok fans And she said that she'd be happy to because it's a thing that she's excited about and she's in once and she's in once and a Road so of course she wants to talk about it And so I'm not going and expecting you know, the kickstarter to magically bring me an audience out of nowhere Yeah, they really don't and they don't promise to either and I think people just assume hey, I put it on kickstarter Because they keep hearing about successful kickstarter campaigns and they assume that this is kind of a magic money trip And I'm curious to know then what sort of things are you offering what when if someone is setting up a kickstarter?
What would you recommend that people offer that's sort of not so Yeah, so the basic thing that we're offering and this is the only pledge level that we've hundred percent locked in is $19 to get the full season A month or months before anyone else does with no ads and so at the very basic level it's saying look We really want to make this and this is the internet kickstarter. We can't make this without your support So, you know, $20 to support a show that would not like exist it is a big ask and I'm honestly don't know how well Go it might it might not find it might find it the first day It's so far outside my own experience I don't know but the fundamental thing I'm offering is hey the $19 you can help us make the show and you'll get the whole thing and free before anyone else does Yeah, so that's what we're basically the whole thing around so every time I'm running numbers I'm just looking at that and saying like and again This is why it's really important have that first episode because that's that's a heavy commitment But in the world of you know media, I don't think it's a crazy commitment There'll be a lower pledge level which is just like support and you know you'll get a thank you on our website or something like that There'll be a higher one which might be you know in the hundreds of dollars We might give you a producer credit or maybe we'll sell ads to the kickstarter I haven't said that all the details yet, but the fundamental offering is $19 full season ad free before it goes live anywhere else And I think people often when they're setting these goals They kind of think well, what would I pay for three episodes of the thing? You know I can buy it on iTunes and it would only cost me one one ninety nine and it's three of them That's six pounds or six dollars or whatever and you just go no no those parameters are not helpful people kind of if they want something to exist Then usually they're happy to pay above above the odds to be part of creating something that they like but at the same time, you know Well, yeah, in this case we've made it as high quality as we can like the original episode is it's not you know Tini recording in a backyard or anything that it is it is a properly produced show and I think people will hear and understand Oh, yeah, that kind of thing costs money like that That isn't for free and fundamentally I'm going on the basis that people have told me they want more of this I'm hoping that they'll put them anywhere the mouth is and if they don't totally fine It just means that I can't make more like it's as simple as that if you want more help me make more if you don't want more Totally fine. They just won't be more I mean you said it you said this is a kind of very new thing for you and you you don't really know what to expect But presumably you have experience you could tell it you know a good kickstarter Program when you see one so could you give us some examples of where you've kind of your company has gone?
Oh, yeah, we're we're way behind this or you know this thing has really taken off way beyond our dreams What did they have? Yeah, so that when we when we finalize the kickstarter actually open up the wooden coats one because they've done multiple kick sides now I think they did one for season two three four and possibly five or maybe four is the last one and They overfunded each other they did a really good job So we're gonna like I really recommend just Google would know the coats kickstarter. I think they had a lot of stuff right I'm gonna definitely follow that and then the main thing is that I've learned from running I think we're up to 20th kickstarter something like that We've really been doing this for five years we run about four years is just as much as possible be Communicative so you know the main thing that people run into when they want to kick started people click through and they're like Okay, but what is this and what would I get and why do you like just all the questions? So we sit down and we're like imagine you've never heard of this so first thing you'd want to see is like well What is this so cool?
We have the first episode front and we'll be like hey listen to this this is this is literally what we're making second thing Is like okay? What do you want for me? We want your money? How much money do you want this much?
Here's what you'll get for it and then the third thing is like you know, okay, and then what else I need to know It's like well we're a production company that's existed for five years. Here's the cast here's what their involvement was you know It basically just sits it down You know if you can find someone who knows nothing about it Sit down with them and the kick started get them to go through the preview page and ask you questions And you'll find that people will be like with board game the big thing is shipping people don't put how much shipping is anywhere I want this board game But I need to know how much it'll cost me because I live in Zimbabwe and the post it is completely different to your next Line neighbor and so yeah, just being really clear and Communicative and then in the kickstart update so I actually have a staff member who's a big part of a full-time job He's just writing kickstart updates for various projects because I said we've done 20 over the years and we always have about three or four kind of Being fulfilled at once so she every every two weeks every month she sits down and says okay What is everything that we know about this project that's happened since then and just communicate that to the back It's because the worst thing you can do is just have this radio silence that goes on for three months And you know they're like hey, so last we heard you were you know recording the new episodes did that happen did everyone die? You know we know we're gonna drill and they drill these wild inferences But yeah, just a couple of pictures of hey, we're making it we'll go quite a long way Yeah, you know that kind of Personally I backed to make a new music album and suddenly died I Actually happened I thought well, that's 30 quid I'm never gonna see again You're a comedy writer. I thought that it was terribly sad and he was you know someone I love really but yeah There you go you went to the way so you basically went to the way can I as many sandwiches as you could like I should have done that But it is interesting that yeah, I have seen over the years, you know I've backed things or you know and kind of a lot of things have happened There was a period where a book company called Unbound and they had a lot of people I knew did that but then there were a few people who just Never was you know never heard anything more again, you know and that does happen a lot doesn't it?
Yeah, I think with the problem with unbounded It feels a bit a little bit like quite often its names that you've heard of asking for money to make stuff and you're thinking Why am I giving someone quite famous money to write a book? Can they really not edit you can they really not write this yeah? You know like like anyone else was hopefully my lack of fame brings me great success Well, there you go. I think people want to fund the underdog, especially if you're British you crave you crave the underdog You just want to you know you want to do that so anyway?
I've got the unbound website in front of me and there's stuff on there We should you know, which looks great and it's a they do a good job and I in fact We had Lucy in on the show quite a while back. I was gonna say that's how I've heard of unveiled during my second listen to her I was like yeah, yeah, that's right. So his book His book was produced by a man and I backed in I got shipped to me too Great book as well. Shakespeare sort of Shakespeare modernized No, no, that's great cool.
Well, I think we should wrap this up. That's been really helpful What's you know the other thing often say to people is he would have heard since you've listened to the show a couple of times It's you know, it's kind of good to have another idea that's ready to go If you working without you know, say what it is, but is this all consuming or have you already got another side? if this one works, I know the next sitcom I want to do and Specifically one of the actors I worked with this I was like you're so good at this And I want to write a thing entirely around her and then reach out and be like hey You want to collaborate on this or something like that? So the thing for me is that like I said, I want to make stuff so even if this fails even if this you know It doesn't even hit one percent of its funding for some reason that would be embarrassing But also it's a possibility like it's a complete unknown project that just might not happen Then I will take those lessons and for the next one make it all for two thousand dollars instead of five thousand dollars And the kicks out of the second one would only be no six thousand dollars for three more episodes kind of thing So I definitely want to keep on going down this path just because I love it and I love making stuff and people seem to really Enjoying it so far Definitely and they're gonna enjoy going to listen to it I listen with my kids and actually people who don't have kids will listen to it and just go Oh, yeah, I guess you could listen to that one kids, but it doesn't sound like a kid show It just sounds like a funny show, you know, like, you know, it's not dissimilar from from another show also setting something that flying school cabin pressure Which I know is a bit of an impure.
Yeah, it's like habit. It's like a means red dwarf is sort of generally speaking Yeah, what's not like and lots of very funny jokes as well. So Well, so all star cast. Yes, they like report calm.
They'll be a link in the show notes Peter We're really grateful that you come on the show. Thanks very much. Yes, cheers Thanks very much for listening everybody and there's patreon and stuff blah blah blah if you're playing a drinking game and waiting to see How long we mention patreon then no, no, no, no, no, no patreon. It's it's it's like kickstarter really isn't it?
You like what we do you can sign up to patreon and you don't have any of those problems of paying for shipping Yes on your computer. Yeah, yeah, so join us and you get you know basically get an extra podcast a month Which we do where we do a zoom call and you can ask us anything and there's loads of stuff like that extra audio early access and Access to a facebook group as well actually where we kind of chat and people are really kind of supportive and help each other out and say Hey guys, have you heard about this and you know, it's very uncommon. You like people helping each other I would ask a question about you patreon soup to not to be shown with you guys right a sick I'm live over the course of a series of podcasts and the goal of that is to oh what is that is a dead? What happened?
No, no, it's just like you've noticed that we've kind of stopped right now Well, I was gonna ask you were talking about recording it as a show and I've just recorded a show So I was only if I was still on the agenda or if that's if that's enough it doesn't see we're talking about that I started to think about I wonder if this is something we can do with our show We're a long way though. You were already you already had an award-winning script We've basically got not not yet award-winning outline Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so that's I mean you can blame anything on cobbid these days So we're gonna blame on that but I think we will get back to it right script and record something And then we can put that out and see if anybody wants to invest in that and you've given us some really good pointers You know how to do that anyway, we've been we've said we've already said goodbye.
We're gonna say goodbye again Thanks for listening. I'm your last speech. All right