Hi! We're on the floor today to talk
about Hexer - surprise, obviously, what else
do I talk about ever? Basically I wanted
to make a video talking about Hexer and
the process of making this thing that
we've made because it has been a journey
a very positive one for most part but
still we've been working on this for a
very long time and I thought maybe you'd
like to hear a little bit about what
I've been doing for the last year or if
you want to make a show or a short film
or web series or whatever then maybe
some tips and tricks might be helpful to
you so first off just going to recap the
last year of my life and what's been
happening. For anyone that doesn't know
my name is Alice and I'm a screenwriter
on Hexer the webseries - I kind of feel
fraudulent saying that because it's not
really a real thing in the world yet but
it's coming out next week so I guess I
am that thing. I make Hexer with Matt and
Olivia and Erin and a lot of other
people that have been helping. But for a
long time it was just me Matt and Liv
before that even it was just Matt and
Olivia. They did a lot of work on the story,
the universe, the characters before I sort
of put my oar in. I wanted to come in when
everything was kind of nailed down and
good to start developing properly so
that was February last year, 2016. That was
when we began the drafting process so
that involved writing the first draft of
the whole first series of episodes and
that took from February last year to
August so six months to write, I think
with 13 episodes then. From there we were all
ready to start rewrites but then our
friend told us about a fundraising
competition that was about like
diversity in film, and you can try and crowd
fund to make the first episode of your
series or whatever from September to
October last year we entered that
competition and started raising money
for our pilot so that took us up to the
end of October when we got funded which
was great news but suddenly there was a
lot more pressure to actually make the
thing because Matt and Liv had been
talking about it for so long and then
we'd written first drafts but nothing
was like super polished and now we had
to make the pilot by April and we were
like oh gosh we have to make this now
and we've never done anything to this
degree before we've never done anything
this long we never done anything
that requires this much like consistent
attention for months on end it's very
daunting but very exciting also because
we had the money to make the thing that
we were so excited about which was such
a privilege because like so many ideas
don't get off the ground and I'm very oh.
hOH. Once we were funded we started
putting out casting calls we had two audition
days, one here in Cardiff, one in
London. Casting process technically
lasted from November through to December
but we made a lot of late decisions
re: casting so a few people were actually
cast early in 2017. Then we were on to
pre production which hoo boy. Hoo boy. I
mean it might also be because we did all
of our pre-production in December and
January which is A) Christmas and B) we work
in retail at Christmas. It's very hard to
get anything sorted out with any person
around the festive period because
everyone's so busy. Would not recommend
doing your pre-production around
christmas/new year time - just just don't
do it. Obviously though the amount of
pre-production work you have to do is
dependent on your project so like we
have to find locations and stuff whereas
if you're doing something like Lizzie
Bennet Diaries or Carmilla or something
like that then you pretty much just have
to find one location, one angle to shoot
at and you're good. We did not do that we
shot in a multitude of locations that
all needed finding and hiring although
you will notice in the pilot that the
majority of scenes take place inside
because there were some scenes that took
place outside in the first like draft of
the script but we did not want to risk
filming in January/February outside
because... no. So now we're up to February
2017 when we did our filming. We had I
think eight days of filming over a
couple of weeks and honestly the filming
section with what I was most like
worried about because we hadn't done
something in that area at all but
because we had so much planning in the
pre-production section filming went
quite well so that's, that's a tip! Plan
everything and hopefully your filming
will be fine even if you haven't done it
before and you don't know what's going
on. Because you planned it! It's fine. Our editor
Adam did
a lot of work during filming so that we
had a lot of the episode already
structured and put together but the
technical month for editing was March
and it's just finished so now we're up
and done by April. So by the time the
pilot episode is out I will have been
working on this project for 13 months
which is not as long as Matt and Liv have been
working on it but it's still long. Just
going to give you some positives and
negatives about making a series online.
The main positive about doing a series
like this and I don't know when or if
we'll be able to make the rest of the
series, but for drafting the whole first
series and for making the pilot
literally my favorite thing about the
whole process it's just that we've been
able to choose what we do we can write
it our way, we can include references
that we want to include, we can explore
the themes we want to explore, we can
cast who you want to cast. Basically no
limitations to the thing you're creating
which is great. The negative here, of
course, is that you have to do everything
yourself. Everything. [whispers] Everything.
Like we had the three of us on
the main team and then we had Erin that
came in to help us a bit later on when
she was finished with doing here uni
directoral stuff, we had a lot of
help from people we know and people we
hired and obviously all the people
that supported us in the crowdfunding
campaign but when it came to
pre-production, admin, making like a
presence, building a community on the
internet we did all of it. WE DID ALL OF IT.
It's a slog, but you can make what you
want, so.
Now I have some tips and tricks
for you if you are interested in what
I've been doing for the last year or if
you are interested in making a show or a
short film or whatever you're making. It is
worth bearing in mind that what I have
done here is make a pilot for a web
series. The whole first series is drafted
but it's not made so I haven't got the
experience of making a whole series or
show but I have made this, so that something.
Step one is get organised. Just make
so many to-do lists. This is my to-do
list
notepad I rather ceremoniously finished
the notepad this very week as I prepped
the to-do list for releasing the show we
have like a core team facebook message
chat, but stuff just gets lost in there
so fast because we're talking everyday
and it just disappears. We also have a
private like facebook group where we can
post links to stuff, so like
spreadsheets of like stuff that we
haven't done yet, all of those links go
on the group so that you can get at them
and they don't get lost in the chat, but for
like tasks for the week I like making a
physical list because then I can sort of
check things off as I go. Which leads
me on to designating tasks to different
members of your team which I'm so bad at
I'm so bad at it! I really struggle with
giving stuff to other people to do not
because I don't trust they will do it
well, but because I know if I do it then
it will be done sooner? Or something?? I
don't know, I just? It won't be done any
sooner because I give myself too much to
do and I get stressed that I haven't done
everything. So something I'm still
learning to do but something that is
definitely essential is designating
tasks within your little group. I do a
lot of the social media stuff for Hexer
and I edit all the videos that go up on
the YouTube channel not including the
episode itself because that was too much
for me. Olivia did a lot of the admin so
a lot of like emailing cast and sorting
out contracts and stuff and emailing
locations and being like can we do this here,
do we do that here, can we hold auditions
at your place? Matt did a lot of the
stuff that me and Liv are not so good at,
which is like social interaction stuff
like making a lot of phone calls and
keeping track of everyone that needed to
be kept track of. Still getting the hang
of it but definitely do not put too much
on yourself when you have other people
that can help you. Something else I would
definitely recommend is working making
the thing into your schedule. So for the
first six months when I became involved
in the whole project and we drafted the
first series, that happened a lot slower
than any of the later stuff that we did
because it was just our thing. Not a
hobby but like we were working on it and
nobody else knew anything about it and
it was like
it's a secret but also there's no
pressure to get it done super soon. Which
I think it's dangerous because progress
can seem so slow that you'll just end up
being like oh this is never going to get
done it's not worth my time i'm bored of
it, bla bla. And then you end up giving up
on it. So, work it into your schedule, set
aside a couple of hours a day to be like
I'm going to work on it then and then
I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this,
then you get into like a rhythm and it's
easier to keep working on it for a long
term period. Which takes me on to
crowdfunding! Which isn't for everyone,
and we were very lucky to hit our goal
and get some money from it but
regardless of whether we got the money
or not doing the crowdfunding campaign
was so helpful to us because it forced
us to put out into the world that we
were making this thing and we want to
make it good for people and then people
start asking questions about it and
being like oh how's that thing? What are
you doing, what stage are you at? On one hand
it's like oh this is so great we get to
talk about this with people outside of
us, this is so cool. On the other hand
it's like oh gosh this is terrifying
have to make the thing now. But it's great
because then you're held accountable for
this thing that you said you were going
to make and then you receive money for
it and then you just got to get on with
it. I do have to mention money because
doing this kind of project doesn't get
you any of that for a long long long
time. I don't know whether this will make
any money at all in the future but
definitely for this period there's been
no money only spending money so do be
aware unless you're very privileged or
if you're student and you're getting
student loans money (fab, good job you!)
Unless you have some magical source of
income you're going to have to be
holding down a job on top of working on
this several hours a day so just get
that in your mind that it's not
magically going to be like oh this is a
huge success that I've made thousands of
pounds! For Hexer so we started a Patreon
account which was really nice for a
couple of months we had - it was such a
small enough money it was like we got
like five dollars each
or something, for two months I think, from
the patreon it was like oh my god I'm
being paid for being creative! This is
the dream! Then we started to run out of
money for the project so we changed the
system for Patreon and now all of that
money goes, at the moment, straight back
into the project because we need it. But
for that shining moment I got paid for
writing. That's crazy and it's so great.
Leading on again though I do want to say
it's a dangerous system, isn't it, because
it's so easy to take for granted that
like people will care about this thing
because I care so much about it so I
don't understand why you wouldn't but
there's no guarantee that anyone will
want to watch it, will care about it. Not
to be a negative nancy here but I just
wanted to be like don't take for granted
that you deserve anyone's attention.
I guess the important thing is just to
make something that you're proud of and
then hope for the best. That's what we're doing.
One last thing - I was able to tell you
all the amounts of time that I spent
doing each section of the project
because I looked back at our Instagram and
was looking at like pictures that we
posted 13 months ago when it was like
'first writer's meeting!' - by the way, my hair is so
different in all of those pictures, it's
very strange. Yeah I just wanted to say
social media in that respect is really
satisfying to look back at and to be
able to look back of a year's worth of
work and be like oh yeah that's when I
did that, and that's when I did that, and each
stage you're able to look at and be like
oh when we were doing that bit it seemed
like so overwhelming and that was like
the most difficult step in the world
and we were never going to get past it, but then
you do. And then you do again then you do
again and eventually you finish it. Which
is mad and we haven't even finished
because this is just the pilot but it's
been such a long time working on the
pilot and now we have a pilot to
potentially put out to people and be
like hello, do you like this? That's about
it really, I hope this wasn't too long.
I hope it was vaguely interesting to any
of you, and do look out for Hexer,
the pilot is out on April first and I am
very excited about it. Please go and
watch it. It's cool. I think. Also, you know how
much I was talking about crowdfunding
and also how I said we kind of ran out
of money? We've got a little kickstarter
on the go right now! Basically we've got
a few things still to pay off and we're
now paying them out of our own money
because we run out of budget money which
is fine but if we can make that back
that would be fabulous. But! And I've been
saying this everywhere - if you already
donated last time don't you do it again
don't you, you've done enough. You've done
enough for me, thank you very much. You
get away. I hope this is helpful to you
and I will see you another day ok bye
bye, bye, bye, bye!
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