A Continuation of Awesome

I wrote a blog about a month ago about the Liveathon that I watched & really enjoyed, well yesterday was the last day of the Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for The Commissionaires Must Die (or CMD which is how I will refer to it from here on) which is the project the liveathon was done in support of, so April & America decided to hold another liveathon during the final 6 hours of the campaign only this one was called a livethankathon as they also wanted to thank all those who had contributed to the campaign but they were also going to introduce a lot of the cast of the movie & even read part of the script :D  But before I talk about that I wanted to say something that I was thinking about after the livestream ended last night.

I was just thinking back on the whole process of the liveathon & it's effect and I have to say that April & America have accomplished something pretty spectacular as when I started watching the first liveathon I had never heard of April, I only really knew of America from her work (which I really enjoyed & and is amazing but it is definitely not the same as knowing the person at all) and to be honest at that point I really didn't care about the movie at all, I was there as it sounded interesting & to support America.  As I mentioned in my previous blog entry as I watched the first liveathon that started to change pretty quickly from 'something I'll check out' to 'wow I'm actually really enjoying this'.  I think one of the other major reasons that I got so invested into the project and these people is the incredible job that April did in hosting it as she has such a warm and friendly nature about her that it is almost impossible not to like her and want to cheer her on, this medium is definitely ideal for someone like her! As I mentioned previously April did an outstanding job at integrating the chat room, interacting with everyone and basically keeping everything going & I don't think that these liveathons would have gone anywhere near as well as they did if it wasn't for her amazing efforts.  So by the end of the first liveathon I was now a big fan of both April & America and less so of all the other people in the room (no offence to them we in the chat room just had much more of a chance to interact with them) and beyond that actually felt I had the start of a real connection to April & America as people not just as actors, I was also completely on board to help support them in their project which to be honest at that point was still more their project in abstract then really to help them with CMD as during the first liveathon I was pretty much just supporting April & America themselves & trusting that whatever they were doing would be awesome but I still didn't really care about the movie itself.  However, learning more about the movie during the livethankathon last night & getting to meet the cast & hear them read part of the script was actually really cool & got me actually excited about the movie itself & not just the people behind it.  All this and 1) I am not a big movie person, I can't remember the last movie I watched I tend to watch TV shows instead of movies & 2) I am much more a visual person, I like to see and examine things and shows, I am not really the best with just hearing things (probably why in general I prefer books to audiobooks) so if I enjoyed just hearing the script I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that when I get to actually see it, it is going to be beyond amazing :D So here we have someone who went from not really knowing anyone or anything involved with CMD to someone who is now passionately interested and excited to see CMD & who has forged connections with some of the people involved, and all that was in around 66 hours of livestreaming.  That my friends is some very special kind of awesome!

Going back to the livethankathon it was actually rather touching even at the start as I was in sense like coming back to somewhere warm, friendly & comfortable.  I don't think I quite realized how much I had missed it till it had started back up again :D  They also introduced a lot of the cast for CMD which was really awesome as there are some people in it that I am a huge fan of :D   First of all I am very much looking forward to seeing April in her actor mode in the film after becoming a huge fan of her as a person during the liveathons :D so it'll be cool to see her in the movie.  I have to say though that I am most excited about David Blue being cast in the movie :D Anyone that has read some of the earlier posts in this blog know that I am big fan of Stargate especially Stargate Universe as it is still one of my all time favourite TV shows and Eli, the character David played on the show, was one of my favourite characters as he did such an absolutely outstanding job with it.  So I am very excited to know that I'll get a chance again to see him in this movie.  I am also looking forward to seeing John Keating in the movie as well (Yes he is in the movie even though in my earlier blog I just said he was a friend of April & America) as I have been talking to him on Twitter a bit so it'll be nice to see him in the film! A lot of the other actors in the movie I don't really know but I am looking forward to getting to know them & see them in the film during the production (which is also going to be livestreamed in case you weren't aware) They started reading part of the script for CMD and then would stop at tenser points & offer to continue for more donations in what was termed a scriptease (between this and April's Pandies from the first liveathon, they do seem to like words that rely on correct pronunciation :P) which was quite a success so we got to hear a generous amount of the script (which as I mentioned earlier was really good!).  After this they took a break for some pie as it was nearly American Thanksgiving down there and then as the time on the campaign started to approach the end April & America started to go through the Donors list to thank those that donated & while they had time say something about the people donating which I though was really nice of them & that caused a number of people in the chatroom at least to get at the very least misty :D

In the end, thanks to some sizeable last minute donations they were able to make the goal of their Indiegogo campaign ending with a total of $10,070 raised for the film :D It was then time to say not really goodbye but until next time as they will be streaming the process of making the movie which I (and I am sure many others in the chatroom) will try to catch as much of as we can :D It was great to once again be able to hang out with these awesome people & see them achieve their goal! I can't wait to see how CMD comes together over the next few months or so :D

The Awesomeness of a Liveathon

Well it has certainly been quite awhile since I have added anything here but but between an awesome experience I had recently, more about that to come, and a conversation I had with a friend who is a superb blogger himself has convinced me to take another shot at it.  I think I should here warn that I am not always the best at expressing what I feel and generally when I try grammar is the first casualty so please forgive that as I often have trouble writing these so tend to write them in quasi-stream of consciousness. 

It all started this past Sunday as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my day and saw a message from America Young who is an actor/stuntperson whose work I quite enjoy (check out Geek Therapy on You Tube and you'll see why!) mentioning a 60 hour livestream she was going to be doing in order to try to Geekify one of her friends, April Wade, in support of a movie they were going to be making together called The Concessionaires Must Die.  As I am myself a geek I thought it sounded interested and so figured I would check it out.  This rather quickly went from something I was going to watch for a bit to something I watched all day to something I was glued to for every second I could possibly watch it till it was over.  I am not really going to go over exactly all of what happened during the Liveathon, as it was dubbed during the stream, as I would much rather talk about the experience of it as in many ways I think that is what is the most amazing about it.  If you are curious to see what the schedule was for it it is still posted on their site here The Making of CMD Liveathon they managed to stay mostly on schedule but as with anything done live some changes needed to be made.

What made this livestream so compelling wasn't just that America and April were great & entertaining hosts (Which is far tougher then it sounds as not only were they trying to introduce April to things she has been resistant to but also entertain the people watching via the internet, especially when they were watching movies/tv shows where they couldn't show them for copyright reasons, but they also were trying to raise money to support the movie they are making which adds its own demands as it requires frequent explanations as to what they were doing, what is the movie about, why should you donate.  So while it sounds easy 'Watching movies and tv shows while being filmed how is that hard' there is so much more involved) nor the fact that they had alot of great, entertaining and energetic guests & friends but it was that through their interactions with the chatroom and the interactions with other people in the chat room it came to feel much more like meeting a group of people at a convention and having a sense of connection that only grew stronger as the livestream continued to the point where I now follow a bunch of these people on twitter so that I can continue to communicate with them despite the fact that the livestream is no over.  We had some trolls, pervs and other internet undesirables show up but I love that we as a group in the chat room would either flag them or ignore them or do whatever we could so that they wouldn't disrupt the livestream.  In many case we became the ones that took over the explanations and calls for donations when the people actually on the livestream were busy with what they were doing as we had become fully committed to what they were doing at that point.

On a more personal note I am usually not a very social person, I tend to be rather shy and I have massive problems with self worth and self esteem and as such I usually have alot of difficulty making new friends but by the end of the livestream I felt I had actually made some friends on the livestream such as April who I had never heard of before but now I think is absolutely awesome, America who I only really knew of through her work on webshows but now I feel like I actually know the real America a little and John Keating who was one of the guests who was in most of the livestream as a friend of America and April.  However that wasn't it I also felt like I made friends with some of the people in the chatroom such as Angie who is a published author of a number of books, who has alot of the same tastes as me in TV and video games and who incredibly stayed awake for 69 hours straight in support of the liveathon and others that I look forward to getting to know better.  In fact I felt so supported and encouraged by the liveathon that I actually went and sent friend requests to some of them on Facebook which I know sounds trivial and dumb but for me it is actually quite a big deal as I have been avoiding anything that might possibly involve rejection like the plague out of a fear that seems to have claimed my life but even though I was still quite scared and nervous about even that I was actually able to do it thanks to the confidence that the liveathon had given me.

So I would just like to say a deep and heartfelt thank you to both America Young and April Wade, and to all the amazing guests they had come join them for the Liveathon and to Angie and everyone else in the chatroom that made this such an awesome and encouraging experience!

If you would like to learn more about the movie they are making you can find that here The Making of CMD and even though they raised and amazing $6,550 towards their goal during the Liveathon there is still time for you contribute to this amazing project! They have more information and some amazing perks here Support CMD