The Red Band Film Company LLC

The first internet TV series to be produced by The Red Band Film Co. has been titled Tossed Off, after the first proposed title could not clear trademark hurdles.

“We are really happy with the new name,” Red Band executive producer Christopher Paris said. “It has a lot of edginess to it, depending on where you live in the world, and yet still clearly identifies the show as a parody of reality TV programs.”

Red Band announced in February that the original series name “Pariah Island” had to be pulled after the US Patent and Trademark Office indicated it may have conflicted with the name of a Hollywood production company called “Pariah”. Red Band attempted to work a deal with Pariah’s management, without success. Rather than fight for the title in court, Red Band elected to change the name entirely. “We were early enough along to have that luxury,” Mr. Paris said.

“We are confident that ‘Tossed Off’ will clear the process this time, and have some contingencies in place should we have any problems.”

The show’s primary website, temporarily remaining at PariahIsland.com, is being retooled with draft versions of the new logo. Red Band has secured the domain name TossedOff.tv, which will become the new main site after hosting is finalized.

The name of the island on which the show is set remains “Pariah Island”, although this is rarely mentioned in scripted dialog.

“With the renaming of the show, we can push forward on preproduction and shooting of the demonstrator episode,” Mr. Paris reports. “With trademark issues behind us, and red tide long gone, we think we are slowly getting back on track.”

A first shooting of the demonstrator episode in December of 2007 was scuttled due to unprecedented red tide bloom on location, which affected cast, crew and equipment, and resulted in the entire footage being scrapped.

No investor dollars have been impacted as a result of the problems so far, as Mr. Paris has elected to fund preproduction entirely with his own money. Red Band intends to engage investors and advertisers only after a demo product is made available, as proof of concept.

The entertainment industry is taking its first steps towards a marketing program that resembles portions of Red Band’s “Hypervideo” advertising model. Various online video sites, such as Hulu.com, have begun releasing web episodes of current television programs which are supported by some of the advertising elements proposed by Red Band’s “Hypervideo” model.

According to an article in Advertising Age:

At present, Hulu is running traditional 30-second ads in long-form video — albeit with only 25% of the ads one might have to sit through while watching TV. When it comes to short-form video, Hulu allows a 10- to 15-second video overlay, which viewers could click if they want to interact further with the advertiser. During a beta test, which began in October, the clickable “advertising bugs” began sprouting on screen.

The Hulu model includes the use of an invisible, clickable layer which resides “above” the image, allowing viewers to click on corporate logos which appear in the corner of the image. This concept is only one part of Red Band’s Hypervideo ad model, which includes a persistent watermark, such as the one adopted by Hulu, but also animated 5-10 second branding at the bottom of the screen, and limited commercials between acts.

(Image © 2008 AdAge.com.)

To date, Red Band continues to lead the industry in its model for Hypervideo, however, with a feature that is likely to prove massively popular with viewers: the entire episode of any Red Band program will be clickable, allowing viewers to click on characters, background objects and sets which resolve to DVD-like “extra content.” Red Band plans that every 30 minute program will have at least 45 minutes of such Hypervideo-embedded extra content, including outtakes, deleted scenes, flubs, shooting scripts, additional music, or any type of media that can be embedded in a traditional web page. Because the invisible link layer is the only element embedded in the video, and the links resolve outside of the video, there is no noticeable increase in video file size when using the Hypervideo technology.

Red Band plans to include advertising content within its clickable content, as well, allowing viewers to purchase clothing, food or other items that are seen within the video itself.

For more information on Red Band’s “Hypervideo” ad model, click here, or contact the company directly.

The Red Band Film Company is unable to secure the name “Pariah Island” as a trademark through the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The word is currently trademarked by Hollywood producer Gavin Polone as the name of his production company, “Pariah”.

An attempt to resolve the conflict was made by Red Band management and Mr. Polone, without success.

The PTO took over six months to rule on the application of “Pariah Island”, and an early trademark search did not reveal any problems.

Red Band is now working on renaming the series, although the phrase “Pariah Island” may be retained as the name of the fictional setting of the show, referenced only occasionally in dialog between the characters.

The official series site, www.pariahisland.com, will be retooled once the new name is finalized. In the interim, a message explaining the issue will be put on that site, and site functionality will be limited.

“We are not in the business of intellectual property theft,” Red Band executive Chris Paris said. “We respect Mr. Polone’s trademark and will not infringe on it. We are early enough into the production that a name change is easily accomplished.”

A dramatic bloom of “red tide” along the Space Coast of Florida hindered the shooting of Red Band’s demonstrator episode of Pariah Island on December 12, forcing the company to plan a reshoot of the majority of scenes. A sound engineer was removed from the set due to intense complications from the irritating fumes to prevent injury.

(Photo left: Laura Ramos plays law student Cara during a “talking head” shot, filmed on Dec. 12.) 

“Red tide” is the name given to the phenomenon caused by a bloom of the  seaborne algae karenia brevis, which poisons water along the coast and expels an aerosol toxin into the air.  The latest bloom killed a number of dolphins and poisoned local shellfish.

The red tide caused the air surrounding the shooting location to be filled with the aerosol, affecting cast and crew, as well as equipment. All persons not actually speaking lines were forced to wear breathing masks throughout the day; even with the masks, cast and crew were coughing continually throughout the 12-hour shoot day.

One sound engineer, who already suffered from a smoker’s cough, could not regain control of his coughing and had to be removed from the location for examination by a physician after he was seen coughing blood. A cast member jumped in to assist with operation of the mike boom, but the resulting audio quality suffered.

(Photo left: a sound engineer rests between takes, wearing a breathing mask to protect him from red tide “fumes”.)

In addition, the microscopic aerosol, itself an organic insulator, proved detrimental to the equipment, finding its way into camera and sound connectors, affecting audio and data collection from the equipment. Lenses had to be constantly wiped due to the almost invisible cloud, yet resulting footage still suffered from poor visual quality.

“We are disappointed in both the emergency officials of Brevard County, and the Space Coast Film Commission, for failing to alert us of the dangers and the unprecedented red tide levels,” Pariah Island’s Executive Producer, Christopher Paris, said. “Had we been alerted properly, we could have rescheduled, and avoided not only the loss of a considerable amount of money for the false shoot, but also prevented the injury to our sound engineer, and the risks to our other cast and crew.”

Despite knowledge of the red tide bloom for over a month prior, Brevard County  officials issued the first health warning on December 13th, two days after the filming. Local residents and businesses knew about the dangers, and pharmacies intentionally stocked large quantities of OSHA dust masks for sale, as a preventive measure. “The local community knew about this danger a month ago,” Paris said. “It’s a significant failing on the part of the Film Commission to have failed to mention it to us in advance.”

The Red Band Film Company operates out of Polk County, located in the center of the state, and therefore had no knowledge of the red tide bloom until arriving the night before the shoot.

Return to Flight

Using the aerospace industry as a metaphor, Paris plans a “return to flight” plan which will put the demo shoot back on schedule.

“Our production company, Oasis Media, and Red Band are putting together a comprehensive plan for getting Pariah Island back on track,” Paris said. “This involves looking at the footage, of course, to see what’s salvageable, but also determining what we should have predicted, and how we can improve next time. Obviously, exploring the potential of environmental factors has now been added to our list of things to consider in the future.”

Red Band is currently scouting locations for the reshoot, as it has decided not to return to the Space Coast in the immediate future. The red tide bloom is still underway, and the company is hesitant to work with the Space Coast Film Commission again.  Possible locations are being explored in the center of the state, as well as on the Gulf Coast.

Red Band tentatively plans to reshoot the demo episode in mid-January 2008.

“No other production company would work this hard on a demonstrator episode that will never really be seen by the public,” Paris said. “But we need to prove to ourselves, as well as potential partners, that we can make a network TV quality program, and do it reliably and consistently.”

Additional photos from the shoot can be viewed on the program’s official site, www.PariahIsland.com.

The Red Band Film Company is beginning shooting of Pariah Island in the coming weeks. The first shoot will be for a demo reel, considered to be “Episode 0″ of Pariah Island. The mini-episode was fully scripted, and is being shot as a means of proving the concepts of Pariah Island in general, as well as many of the productions technical and marketing plans. The demo episode will feature a limited cast, and is expected to be edited into a 10 – 12 minute final product.

The location for the filming is currently secret, but Red Band production crews recently completed light and sound checks on the location, and confirmed that there is at least one permanent site which will be used for all 21 episodes. Pariah Island’s creator, Christopher Paris, recently released some limited photos of the set and location on the show’s MySpace blog.

The demo episode may or may not be released to the public; the primary intent of the final episode is to generate interest amongst partners and sponsors, and to prove the concept.

Pariah Island stars Wayne Johnson as host “Mike Tanley,” along with Laura Ramos and Casey Wilson as two contestants who find themselves in love, while competing in an insane reality TV show set on a remote island. The shooting for the pilot episode is estimated to begin in early 2008.

Episodes will be released for free on PariahIsland.com, as well as various other outlets. Some hi-def versions will be available for low subscription fees, and a DVD set is planned once the first season concludes.

(Photo: © Red Band Film Co LLC.)

For information on the Marketer / Promoter position posted in Advertising Age’s TalentWorks section, click here.

Torrent site Mininova.org has agreed to join The Red Band Film Company in promoting Pariah Island. Here’s a primer:

Who is Mininova?

Mininova.org is a “torrent” site, a place which allows visitors to download — indirectly — things like movies, music, software, etc. It utilizes a type of peer-to-peer downloading technology called “bittorrent” which dramatically increases the speed of downloading, allowing a person to download entire films in high-def, in relatively short time. This technology has been, until now, the bane of copyright-fanatical organizations like the MPAA and RIAA, who routinely attempt to thwart downloading of materials, claiming copyright “piracy.”

The deal with Red Band will enable Mininova to be the first such downloading site to work directly with a content producer. We at Red Band recognize that downloading sites such as Mininova are a distribution medium, one which can be partnered with in a true participatory arrangement.

With this deal, Mininova gets overnight credibility as a partner of content producers, thereby disproving the notion that such sites are “pirates” seeking only to break copyrights. Mininova gets producer credit on Pariah Island, and their logo will eventually appear on Pariah Island.
In exchange, Pariah Island gets advertising space and other promotional activities on Mininova.org. Just to put this into perspective, Mininova has at any given time about 6 million people accessing files (leechers) and 5 million uploading (seeders). Mininova ranks 86th on the Alexa ranking.

Ponta Brasil, the boutique women’s swimwear designer from Brazil, has joined Red Band’s partner pool, agreeing to provide bikinis and swimwear for the cast of Pariah Island.

In exchange for wardrobe, Ponta Brasil will be eligible for sponsorship options under Red Band’s “Hypersponsoring” model.

The deal marks the first cooperative partnership with corporate organizations and Red Band’s Pariah Island entertainment property.