by John Jackson - Co-Creator/Director

This is the first official production blog of the series, and having just finished the first 3 episodes of our 15 episode first season, we will be running additional updates in the coming weeks to keep you informed of the production in advance of our August 14^th premiere, as well as our screening and exhibition at Indy Gen Con 2009.

From here on out it will be deadline after deadline but I am excited to finally see this project come to life! I am so lucky to have such a great team of wonderful and creative people to work with, as it would not be possible to do any of this without their dedication and support.

As an independent project, this is certainly more ambitious than anything I have attempted before, and I am still amazed at the response the original 48-hour short has received.  From Columbus to Miami to Cannes, what a long strange trip it has been!

To fill you in on how this whole thing got started, Aidan 5 began in August of 08′ as part of the 48-hour film project in Columbus, Ohio. Simple enough… pull together some friends, have some laughs and make a film in 48hours, start to finish.

I teamed up with Tim Baldwin, who was a co-worker and editor, and began thinking of ways to assemble a project capable of being produced in 48 hours. I still recall Tim’s warnings and emails about not getting “too crazy” with this thing. Little did we know…

After a conversation about possible location concerns, I had the idea to shoot everything on green screen and simply draw the locations in post. I had worked with this style of live-action/animation 10 years ago but nothing on this scale.  (Oddly enough, I was kicked out of art school on a first year scholarship but have always had a thing for doodles and illustrations ever since.)

Ben Brown, a visual effects artist and graphic illustrator who works with me at a local production company agreed to illustrate and animate the short. The night of the contest I pulled “Sci-fi” from a hat and the 48-hour clock immediately started ticking. 48 sleepless hours later we were finished, and you can view the final result here:  Aidan 5 short film.

To our surprise, the short ended up winning Columbus, and was slated to compete in the International 48-hour competition at the Miami International Film Festival. Almost immediately, friend and Director/Producer Ben Bays started to push my buttons about developing Aidan 5 into a web series. (We had both originally wanted to do a series of some kind but I think I wanted a teen drama set in rural America and Ben wanted something to do with vampire hunters, so it is a good thing Aidan 5 provided us with clones, or we’d be seeing a web series about teen vampires with issues. Who would watch that?  …apparently everyone.)

Ben and I made the trip down to Miami to see how the short faired against the winners of 69 other cities from 15 different countries across four continents. Needless to say, we were both shocked and excited to see it take home the 2^nd runner-up prize.

Shortly thereafter, Aidan 5 was selected to appear at the Cannes Film Festival short corner. Once again, I packed my bags, headed to the south of France, and enjoyed three days of film festival bustle where my only brush with celebrity was almost getting run over by Academy Award winning Director, Ang Lee’s limo. Overall, Cannes was a truly amazing experience, and one that was shared remotely by everyone who was involved. I wish they all could have been there.

Almost a year after it began, here we are once again, standing on a green screen stage with longtime friend and actor Bryan Michael Block reclaiming his role as Aidan, the obsessed detective bent on discovering the mystery behind the murders of his own clones. Built on the 48-hour model of no budgets and extreme deadlines, this web series will be an exercise in creativity and resourcefulness. I hope you’ll enjoy what talented, dedicated people can do with nothing but their imaginations when the series premieres August 14^th, only at www.aidan5.com.

And since Aidan 5 depends on viewers like you, in the spirit of grassroots indie film making, tell a friend, share a teaser, put us on your Facebook page, and celebrate independent art.

Thank you for your support!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 7:04 PM and is filed under Aidan 5 - News & Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.