Development for TV
For the last few years our fans have been asking if we plan on developing Kill Shakespeare for film or tv. Well, today it became official!You can read the official notice here on Deadline.com.We are developing Kill Shakespeare with Universal Cable Productions, the studio responsible for the current hit MR. ROBOT (a favorite of mine) for television. While we're still in the very, very early stages we hope to be able to announce some other cool developments for the television project. So stay tuned!
IFC says "Adapt Kill Shakespeare!"
As Conor and I are deeply immersed in the screenwriting of the film version of Kill Shakespeare, it's always great when independent sources (fans, readers, media) talk to us about adapting our project for the screen. It's great to talk about casting possibilities, changes to the story, the hard process of adapting your own work, etc.
One media source that also is looking forward to an adaptation is Rick Marshall from IFC.com. He runs a weekly column looking at comics that would make great screen adaptations and this week he turns his eye to us (two weeks ago it was KS cover artist Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu). And this week? It's Kill Shakespeare!An interesting quote from the analysis:"Given the size of the world in Kill Shakespeare and the epic nature of the characters' quest, television seems like the right medium to tell McCreery and Del Col's story - especially since there's little need for complicated special effects. The popularity of current shows like "Grimm" and "Once Upon A Time" make it easy to see the possibilities of a "Kill Shakespeare" television series, and if the project receives the sort of nurturing that one of the cable networks like SyFy can provide, the sky's the limit."What do you think?
We are Sundance Kids forever
Conor and I returned to Toronto just over a week ago after taking part in the first ever Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab. In the past week I've been able to reflect upon my time at the lab, go through the notes I've taken, look through the photos, and I still can't believe how great an experience it was for both of us.
The New Frontier Story Lab is one designed by Sundance to help creators of transmedia projects. By transmedia, we are referring to telling stories and creating worlds that can be told through multiple media, whether they are digital, film, television, stage, game, real-life experience, etc. In a follow-up interview with the Sundance website I answered some questions about my thoughts and experiences with transmedia projects - you can read that interview here.
Conor and I were honoured to be invited to the lab for many reasons. One, it served as a certain validation for us and our efforts to take Kill Shakespeare beyond the comic book page. Secondly, we knew that we would meet a number of professional advisors that would give us notes and thoughts and spur us on to further ideas and ways of telling Kill Shakespeare stories. Thirdly, we were interested to find out what other creators were doing in the transmedia space.
On all three fronts were not disappointed at all. The advisors that sat down with us were top-notch. We met with Marti Noxon, the talented film and television writer (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men, Fright Night), who gave us great notes on our script - and shared with us the ins-and-outs of television writers' rooms and studios. Sue Bonds of 42 Entertainment showed us what can be accomplished with Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and let us know what the studios and filmmakers today are looking for. Michael Goldenberg (Contact, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Green Lantern) broke down our script for us. Richard
LaGravenese (Oscar-nommed for The Fisher King, Bridges of Madison County, Water for Elephants) served as early inspiration for us in the lab with his honesty and his love of mythology. Wesley Strick (Cape Fear, Wolf, Doom) put everything into perspective for us and challenged us to think big. Transmedia expert Lance Weiler made us really examine Kill Shakespeare as a transmedia franchise and more importantly one that could involve participatory storytelling at its finest. And Nick Fortugno of Playmatics showed us the possibility of games and allowed us to conceive the whole narrative structure within the medium.Just as good as the advisors were the other fellows that attended the lab with us. For the purposes of confidentiality we can't get into describing the projects that each team has been developing but as we move forward we'll aim to do individual spotlights on each
to help out the project. Look out for great projects from Yasmin Elayat and Jigar Mehta (18 Days in Egypt), Brigitte Dale and Robbie Wilkins (Follow Back), Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting (The Last Hijack), Chris Johnson, Hank Willis-Thomas and Kamal Sinclair (Question Bridge) and Chris Milk (Rome). Thanks to all of you fantastic storytellers for the inspiration and your thoughts on Kill Shakespeare!
And the staff of Sundance was fantastic to us. They really believe in the project and we're so appreciative of their feedback and direction over the course of the week. The staff included Michelle Satter, Keri Putnam, Cara Mertes, Carrie Beck, Cullen Conly and Kristin Feeley. Special thanks to Carrie Beck who served as our liaison with the lab - making us aware of it and prepping us for it once we were selected.And finally, how could I not mention the surroundings? The Sundance Resort, about 45 minutes outside of Salt Lake City, is absolutely gorgeous. Mountains surrounded us each day (which made my morning runs quite the challenge...) and the weather was pretty good throughout. How could you not be inspired by taking a quick hike and seeing the views?I'll be writing more on transmedia moving forward and I look forward to keeping in touch with everyone from the Lab. It was a great experience and I am charged to climb up further mountains with the knowledge gained last week.
Kill Shakespeare Profiled on CBC's The National
We just got back yesterday from a fantastic convention in Calgary where we made a ton of new fans and friends and sold out our books by mid-day Saturday! One of the reasons for our sell-out was the profile on us that ran on CBC's The National with Peter Mansbridge. It was a great almost-four-minute segment that featured interviews with us, Bayside Secondary School teacher Kent Allin, Bayside student Catherine Chokly and Soulpepper Theatre's artistic director Albert Schultz.To watch the clip, click on any of the images below (all taken from the segment) 0r here.
Images from Conor's Sun TV Interview
Conor had a ten-minute segment on Sun TV's Charles Adler Show this evening and it went amazingly well. Charles was quite interested in not only Kill Shakespeare but our successful attempts to introduce the Bard to a new audience as well as the relevance of comics today.The actual interview is not available online at this point but you can check out some of the following images:
Behind the Scenes of our CTV News Interview (with link!)
Our first live television spot! Conor and I today made an appearance on CTV News Channel in Canada, interviewed by Jacqueline Milczarek about our experiences at the Telefilm Canada Pitch This! event and the success of our comic book series. It was the first time we've done an interview in a separate room (I wasn't sure where to look half the time - at the camera? At Conor? Somewhere else?). UPDATE!!! You can check out the video clip here!!!We're trying to find a direct link to the interview or to get the video to put on the site - we'll do so as soon as we can.In the meantime, check out these two behind-the-scenes photos taken from today...
Clips from The Lang & O'Leary Exchange
Thanks to everyone who reached out to us since our appearance last night on The Lang & O'Leary Exchange. Not only did my family and friends check out the program but I also heard from long-lost acquaintances - it's great that so many people took the time to reach out to us!
I'm trying to see if I can get a copy of the video directly but in the meantime you should (I haven't verified this yet...) be able to check out the video here (our segment starts at around the 47:00 marker). Hopefully we'll be able to find the code to imbed it directly onto our site as well.
Visiting a Dragon...
Conor and I have been schedule to appear on CBC News Network's "The Lang and O'Leary Exchange" this upcoming Tuesday, September 7th. We will be discussing Kill Shakespeare in their "back to school" programming for the week. The airtime is 7pm EST.
For those that don't know, Kevin O'Leary is famous for his role on the CBC series Dragon's Den and ABC's version The Shark Tank, in which business people pitch their ideas and look for start-up capital. O'Leary is always the most difficult and blunt one but always entertaining - it's always about the bottom line for him, which I can appreciate. Amanda Lang is a veteran of Business News Network here in Canada and one of the smartest business commentators in the country. It'll be very interesting to see what we talk about on the show.Check us out!