Wanna see Mike Tanley’s early career??
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Many know our beloved Mike Tanley -- called "Big Gunshot Mouth Violator" by the locals of Pariah Island -- as the long standing host of TOSSED OFF! But few know what Mike was doing prior to his gig with The Network, other than that thing with the napalm and those nuns in the late '70s.

Well here's a blast from the past, and it's one that YOU CAN OWN YOURSELF! If you really are a Mike Tanley fan, you can go to a local Publix supermarket right now, and pick up a box of Publix brand Low-Fat Blueberry Fruit and Grain Bars, flip it over, and find a young Mike staring into space while holding architectural plans and wearing a hardhat.

Rumor has it that Publix totally stole this photo of Mike from that time he orchestrated the destruction of bridges during his stint as a soldier for hire in Lebanon, but Publix claims that they actually shot this during a formal photo shoot. Yeah, right. Like Our Man Tanley would even show up for a photo shoot. Sober, anyway.

10:13 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

May 10th Cast Thing + ROBODOC Premier
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Some of us will be heading over from the Islands of Adventure park to the CityWalk portion of Universal to see our very own Asif Khan in the worldwide premiere of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ROBODOC.  So if you're up for it, let me know, or just go nab some premier tickets at:

www.robodocthemovie.com

Asif is prominently displayed on the site, so go check it out.

Congrats, Asif, let's hope playing "Danny the Muslim" on TOSSED OFF! doesn't cripple that career momentum you've built up!

7:58 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Wanna hang with the Pari --- er, TOSSED OFF cast at Universal?
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Some of the cast from the newly renamed TOSSED OFF! show are gathering at Universal Orlando for a day of raping and pillaging -- or whatever it is they do at Universal. This is the second such cast outing, and this time we want to see more of our fans and cast show up. Those limited edition T-shirts "Pariah Island" MAY be available for those who come (gotta check supply).

When? Saturday, May 10th. 

If you're game, get back to either me (Chris) right here on MySpace, or Jeff Wells (who plays erudite nudist chef "Leonard" on the show) - Jeff is on MySpace, too, right here.

Or you can email me at chris@redbandfilmco.com, of course.

(Jeff will be there with his pals on three days, May 9 - 11, if you can't make it on the 10th. But we will try to focus the cast party thing for the 10th.)

Let's show Universal what they are missing by not airing our program! (Even though we haven't made it yet.)

6:04 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

New Series Title Leaked???
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

As you know, this production has been plagued with leaks ever since I started this MySpace page. It's weird because I am the only guy with access to the account, yet somehow stuff keeps getting put on the MySpace page before the official announcement. Weird, huh? 

It's also weird how I never seem to mind. Isn't that weird?

Really weird.

Anyway, something strange is happening over at the www.PariahIsland.com main page, which (weirdly) only a few people have access to.

3:40 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Industry Catching Up to Pariah Island
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Over at the official Red Band site, there’s an article on how the entertainment and advertising industries are starting to adopt approaches which look an awful lot like our planned Hypsersponsoring model.

Click here to see.

We’d be leading the pack right now if we had a demo to show around, but alas, that was not meant to be.

Good thing I have patience. I just hope the rest of you do.

7:33 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Quickie Update
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Lots of slow-moving, dull, conference-room-bound tasks underway, but not much to talk about with any level of excitement. It's tough to jazz up long talks about intellectual property.

But here, at least, is a little bit on where we currently stand:

• Name change for the series is still underway. I've spent most of my time on researching possible titles and approaches before submitting to an attorney for his preliminary search. After that, we will conduct a full attorney-led search on a few final candidate titles. It's slow and agonizing and annoying, but necessary given the breadth that the "Pariah Island" franchise will eventually take (TV, internet, games, clothing, etc.) I've brought in two experts on the subject, and we are on our second IP attorney. Once this is done, the trademark will be locked down nicely.
• Expert advice. I've brought a Tampa-based business adviser on board, albeit informally, to help us navigate these waters better. I say "informally" because his real role will materialize later, as we are further along, but he has given me some priceless advice on the trademark issue. He will be a great resource later, though, in day-to-day operations management.
  
• Location negotiations. Still some work being done on this front. Since one of the new planned spots is private property, have to work things out with the owners. Fairly simple, but slow moving, task.
• Mininova shirts. As you may know, we are partnering with torrent file sharing provider Mininova.org to help distribute the series, once it's running. In a cool bit of kismet, we were trying to come up some cool-but-geeky shirt for our character "Randall" to wear, and I just bumped into Mininova's online t-shirt store! So Randall will be wearing a Mininova shirt while on the island, making a great platform for our hypervideo technology -- whenever Randall is on screen, you will be able to click on him and jump to Mininova.org. In the mean time, if you just must have a Mininova shirt like Randall will be wearing, go visit their store.
  
• Topo page for the website. We are working with Michael Shane Baker -- the young actor playing "Topo" the mysterious aboriginal boy who seems to run everything on Pariah Island -- on some makeup tests, primarily for the website. Under the new site design, Topo got dropped because there was no good place to fit him. We've decided to add a page on Topo, similar to the Mike Tanley page. Should be fun.

6:31 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

"Ahole Atoll"
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

While we figure out what the heck to do about our name change problem, we came up with a working title -- Ahole Atoll.

It's funny, but doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, and I'll spend the better part of the rest of my life explaining what an "atoll" is, so for now it's just a working title.

My vocabulary keeps getting me in trouble. So far all the names I've come up with includes words like "abattoir", "charnel" or "idyll" -- my wife keeps telling me that those are MORE obscure than "pariah". Sigh.

So far the leading candidate is AMERICA'S NEXT LOST TOP SURVIVOR IDOL.

Believe it or not, that one would probably sail through the Patent and Trademark Office. The rules are THAT odd.

7:11 AM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

"Pariah" Island - RIP
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Don't freak. The show isn't dead. The name of the show, is.

Thanks to the sluglike speed of the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), we are only now finding out that the name "Pariah Island" faces some significant obstacles in clearing as a trademark. It seems producer Gavin Polone (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Conan O'Brien) has the name "Pariah" trademarked for his production company, and since the filing codes for a production company and a production are the same, the PTO thinks there will be confusion. Ergo, the PTO has declined our application, which was sent one billion months ago. Literally. I had filed it using a flint knife on a bit of stone.

I called Mr. Polone personally, to see if we could get a "Notification of Consent" from him, which would give us permission to use it, and thereby bypass the PTO's objections. Alas, after discussing it, it was clear that there could be reasonable confusion between his company's work and our show, so we agreed that a deal could not be struck. To his credit, Gavin was far more courteous about the matter than his peers may have been. From his perspective, I was basically asking permission to piss on his leg while he watched. You know, ... metaphorically.

So while we can keep the word "pariah" in the script -- as the name of the island, perhaps -- we cannot use it in any capacity of trademarking television programming.

This means we have to rename the show.

As much as I like the name "Pariah Island" -- it really does sound lyrical, once you know how to pronounce it -- it's brought a lot of problems. No one knows what the hell a "pariah" is, nevermind how to say it. Everyone was insisting I misspelled "piranha" the fish. And every time I mentioned the name of the show or the website, I had to spell it out for people. That's not a good thing when it comes to marketing.

Now, before you start hitting reply with a host of suggestions, save yourself the trouble. I cannot take anything you might suggest. In fact, anything you suggest has to automatically go into the "discard" file. This is because if you were to suggest something I like, legally Red Band would have to purchase it from you, and that could cost as much as the lawyers. So please -- do not make suggestions on show titles. I put that last sentence in red, so you know I am serious. I put everything serious in red. You should see my Organ Donor Card. It's got more rouge than a Las Vegas showgirl.

Anyway, you may notice a lot of scrambling around the website and MySpace page -- all of that will have to change to fit the new title, and it may have to come down in the interim.  The folks at Pariah may be courteous now, but if we were to continue to use the name indefinitely, no doubt their patience would wear thin. And we really aren't in the business of intellectual property theft.

So that means Mac and I are scratching our brainpans trying to come up with a suitable new name,  one that won't get us sued. Some we were considering:

• Servyver
• The Amazing Racist
• Gilligan's Island of Doom
• Are You Smarter than a Network Executive?
• On Top of America's Next Model
• Project Runaway Train
• Cloverfield
  

5:56 AM - 4 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Wanna Read the pOke Magazine Article?
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

The article for pOke Magazine is up on their site. The print version is already distributed in coffee houses, libraries and disreputable brothels all over Central Florida. If you see a copy, grab it -- it's free. Someone told the editors at pOke that "if Paris is in it, you won't be able to give these things away."  Alas, they are not heeding that advice, and trying to hand them out anyway.

The online version can be read here:

http://www.pokemag.com/stories/2008/FEB/pariah.shtml

If you missed my earlier post on the subject, pOke writer Andrea Calcano Cruz interviewed myself, Will Greene (who plays "Gator") and Wayne Johnson (who plays "Mike Tanley") -- all of us from Polk County FL.

If you would like to arrange autograph signings by me at your local disreputable brothel, just email me. Or, better yet, just shout my name really loud ... I'm probably already in the brothel, in one of the back rooms.

5:47 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Writing -- er HATCHING -- some script revisions
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

I went back into the lab and told my geneticists to make some modifications to the script -- er, "gene sequence" for Episode 0 (demo shoot), since it's likely we are heading into a two day shoot, instead of a single day. This gives us some breathing room, but also allows us to add a scene or two, especially on the talking head day.

Now, since the scripts are organically grown, not written, we are not in violation of the WGA strike. Which we support. Sort of. Or not. Definitely. Without question. What?

So far, two new scenes have been added: a talking head for Gator, who finds out his team mates are backstabbing sunzabitches, and a "troupe" piece between Charley, Todd Michael and Gator, who have just learned the next challenge has something to do with balls.

Again, we are trying to keep the costs low for the demo shoot, especially since this will be attempt 2, so keeping the cast members we use to a minimum. I really want to add talking head scenes for some other folks, but we have to see how the final shoot schedule comes out with the current script, and see where we are at with (natch) money.

I have to say, though, that with our plan to now shoot the demo in HD, there is more likelihood that some of the scenes may appear on the web site, or as "extras" in the pilot episode. So maybe it won't be "unseen" by the public after all.

In some other "wow, it's a slow news week" news, the Red Band offices expanded yet again, to absorb a third office in our growing complex at in downtown Winter Haven. OK, so technically the new office is for my wife's hypnotherapy practice, but she promised me that if we need the room for press gaggles, meeting spillovers or prison rehabilitation, we could use it.

Oh, and I am moving all the company computers from Windows to Linux.

So, yeah... it's a slow news week.

7:10 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment