NEW THINKING.

Sorry about the week absence, but Todd and I have been rethinking a lot of what's going on with the series recently. Thanks to the internet, it's a new world out there for entertainment media. I think that on some level we've always realized that that meant there was a lot of opportunity. In many ways, the interconnectedness of the internet has spawned a globalizing push outward, where you and I can have a conversation from several states or countries away. And that's kind of how we tend to see the internet, as a communication tool for expanding the world. On the other side, the internet also allows us to create contacts with more specialized groups, and focus inward. We can redefine the term 'local' based not on a geographic location, but on shared values. In a sense, this TV project is an awesome expression of that new 'local'. We're here - I'm writing these entries and you're commenting - And we're a local community of people simultaneously interested in the Mormon faith and quality entertainment.

Now, about a week ago, Todd and I started to feel like as we got closer and closer to getting this series together, we'd deviated radically from the goals that we'd had when we started writing the first script. As things started to pick up, we kind of lost the big picture. We've been talking about the four episodes, and about how to adapt the story so that it would be more attractive to our investors. I'd always wanted to tell a story that was an emotional ode to my upbringing in a Mormon community, and found that changes to the pilot were beginning to be dictated by 'marketability' and 'return on investment' and 'DVD distribution'... All that stuff that as a writer, I'm supposed to cringe as my characters are slaughtered in the name of securing financing. It seemed like a game that we had to play as filmmakers in order to get to show you anything, a compromise between the audience and the money. And honestly, I hated it, because I didn't take on this story to make a buck off my faith.

What came out of our discontent, was the overwhelming desire from Todd and I to get back to where we started... Namely, back to that first script that we put together seven months ago, that was an idealistic expression of our love for where we came from. And more important than that, get back to the community that gave us the insight to craft that first story. You.

The thing is, I don't need to sit around with the money and speculate about what kinds of stories you want to watch. I can just ask, right? Through the internet, I can get in touch and ask you all the questions I need to ask. We're in touch, you and I, and this series should be an expression of the demand of the audience, not my narcissistic drive to crank out a story that I want to tell. In a way, Todd and I were starting to think too big... What about cable network appeal? What about international DVD sales? What about blah blah blah? When actually, we have the mechanism for reaching anybody that's interested in the show at our fingertips. The technology's all so new that sometimes I think we doubt it's reach, right? And I think that even with our intense desire to communicate with the audience, we'd failed to harness the actual power that we now have to hold a local conversation on a global platform.

At the same time, Todd and I were thinking too small. The series had become a finite 'product' that we were going to market to you. (Wow. I feel awful having typed that last sentence... It's so disconnected from where I was when I started the script.) While we knew that the quality of the script was going to give a new take on Mormon storytelling, the series had become the jumping off point for an inevitable suicidal leap to the same untimely end that LDS Film took. A market glut of quickly produced, poor quality junk that would offend us all right back out of the genre. If it were successful, the series wasn't going to solve any of the underlying problems that plagued Mormon film in the years after we all got excited about 'God's Army'. I knew that we had something special with 'This is the Place', but that too many talentless hacks would immediately move in and drown it out... All those that don't mind making a buck off their faith. You've seen their films, and you've fallen for their empty promises of 'good LDS entertainment'. I did, too. The thing is, our stories are too important to hand over to the hacks.

At this point, I hope that you are asking yourself where I'm going with this. Well, we're working out the details, but Todd and I are in the process of putting together something unique to harness the awesome power of the audience's democratic voice... We've come up with some pretty radical ideas to get y'all onboard, not only for this TV project, but to actually involve you in the future of Mormon storytelling. So keep watch in the coming weeks, as we begin to roll out some exciting new things. I'll tell you, it's not going to be tomorrow, we've been working on this for about four days now. But, the wait is going to be worth it.

Thanks for checking in with me over the months. In the meantime, I'm going to keep introducing the characters from the series, coupled with this radical new thinking that Todd and I are working on with regard to how Mormon stories are told. Cheers.