Biznik Blog

Back in April I put up a post about collaboration. It went something like this, caused a brief flurry of comments (OK, four) from badass Bizniks as we discussed the “Hollywood model of work” and “event based companies.” And then . . and then it quietly died on the vine as we all moved on to work and worry on other things.

Or, well, maybe not. Because the collaboration principle has been a hot topic at Biznik Board meetings. Big plans there. And when I lay awake at night playing ping-pong in my brain, “how do I get all these amazing people working together toward greatness?” tends to take on the role of that insomnia-inducing bouncing ball of light.

And then this last week and a half I saw collaboration done right.

You see, a year or so ago Stephen McCandless had a big, frightening and absolutely crazy idea.

Now Stephen is a smart guy. His brain is so big it should have its own zip code. But this idea of his? Whacko.

You see, what Stephen wanted to do was create little TV shows for the web–say 5 to 10 minutes an episode–distribute them as video podcasts, get all his amazingly talented theatre friends working in a medium that people would actually see and, err, well, maybe make some money along the way.

Again, like I said, crazy.

So back in November a few of us got together in the shed behind the director’s house and made a show for the interweb. It’s a silly show. It’s full of silliness. It features me as a big dumb bald guy. Which, you know, not a huge stretch. And it’s called Cherub: The Vampire with Bunny Slippers

Go ahead, watch the trailer from Season one. I’ll wait.

Back?

Good.

And so we took this silly show and, week after week for 3 whole months, put it out for the world to see. And you know what? Overall, people liked the silliness. They liked it enough–and enough of them liked it–that we had this even crazier idea: let’s go back and do it again.

And so, well, here’s the point

For ten straight days a veritable bevy of Burners, Bizniks and even an occasional Beatnik got together in a soggy shed, threw all their myriad cooking and painting and acting and writing and taking-off-pants and puffing-up-hair and breaking-glass and turning-on-lights and pretending-to-be-british and massaging-sore-muscles and getting-free-stuff and worrying-too-much and sleeping-on-the-couch and asking-your-boss-to-use-the-conference-room and editing and sound-recording and camera-operating and light-hanging and script-supervising and generally-being awesome skills right there on the floor and danced in the mishmash to make something cool.

It was exhausting and invigorating and I somehow managed to get strep throat during the whole thing, but the point is this: with a little will and a lot less money, we can do some pretty damn cool and crazy stuff. So collaborate, yon Bizniks. That’s an order.

The new season of Cherub launches at the end of the month. In the meantime, check out the Cherub Flckr Gallery to see pretty pictures of tired people, not to mention shots of me as a pirate, with hair and wearing the tightest pants known to man.

Chris Haddad
Haddad Ink.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 9:37 am and is filed under News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.