Dear Joss, can I monetise my ELE Applications Office videos?

 My first webseries even won an award

...Or is it "...may I"? I always get confused about that one. 

So then, what's this all about?

If you can cast your mind back over two years ago, I was busy writing about Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in several places (this blog, the Official Dr Horrible Fan Site and Whedonage), and re-watching it with abandon. I was also following Felicia Day and The Guild closely, amazed at what she had achieved. In August 2008 I was thinking about how Billy kept applying to the Evil League of Evil and not getting in, and my mind turned to just what the form was like and who processed it.



And so the Evil League of Evil Applications Processing Office was born.

From idea to video
I wrote the first three scripts then recorded the first one using my webcam and my dead laptop. It was harder than I thought it would be and a hundred times the fun. I told a few Guildies I had met on Twitter and Guild chat about it and waited to see if anyone would either watch or like it. And thank you now to all the people (you know who you are) who took the time to watch, comment and support me - I am still very grateful!



A six-part webseries, plus extras
I wanted all the action to be framed around the timeline of Dr Horrible because then I could incorporate plot points. It expanded from three to six episodes plus EvilWorldofHiglet's application to the ELE, and one for Felicia Day, too.


People are still watching them
The videos on the EvilWorldofHiglet channel on YouTube have over 116,000 views between them. Last year one of my interviews with Felicia Day became eligible for YouTube partnership and after getting permission from Felicia it now now has adverts on it. A couple of weeks ago YouTube contacted me again and said Acts 1 and 3 of ELE Application Processing Office are also eligible (they have over 25,000 view between them). So, do I need permission from Joss? And if so, how would one go about asking him? Maybe I could @motancharoen, @jedwhedon or @zdubdub on Twitter and ask them?

What's a gal to do?
Does anyone else have any ideas? Let me know and I'll keep you posted :)

The Guild Season 4 Episode 1, "Epic Guilt" is HERE!

EDIT: There's press coverage already from the Chicago Tribune, and also Paste Magazine.(tx to @KeithAllGamer for the suggestion).

IT'S HERE!
There was massive excitement (and massive numbers!) in Guild Chat last night as the anticipation for Season 4 flowed over into a flurry of frenetic finger-tapping. Ning held up, though, and even 70+ ppl online didn't crash it. Among the luminaries that joined in were Felicia Day, Kim Evey and Sandeep Parikh.

Waiting is hard to do
As 10:00, 10:30, 11:00 rolled on, Guildies in different time zones were bemoaning the sleep they weren't havin, but no one wanted to rest before seeing the episode. Guildie Tim was on the ball, though, and at about 11:20 he posted in chat that it was live! OMGWTFBBQ so AWESOME! And here it is:

<br/><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-episode-1-epic-guilt/y0ytgrbc?fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Season 4 - Episode 1 - Epic Guilt">Video: Season 4 - Episode 1 - Epic Guilt</a>

Twitter trends
We all know the power of Twitter - and, let's face it, many of us are only on Twitter because certain people kept going on about it so we tried it for ourselves....So, today, let's see if we can get #theguild4 to trend by using that tag on every tweet today:

News and Reviews
I'm not saying anything about the epsiode here (except to say -watch it!!!) but I'm writing my review of PinkRaygun.com which will be out tomorrow. And also out tomorrow is the Knights Of The Guild CompanionCast which will give all the Behind The Scenes juice for Epsiode 1 - I can't wait!

The Guild Marathon: Three Seasons in One Day

Serena with the custom Jayne hat she made for Higlet - shiny*!

Sunny Summer Saturday: Let's geek!

For someone with more than her fair share of freckles, the sun is not really my friend. So what better way to spend a record-breaking heatwave than driving into Vancouver and sitting in a friendly cafe watching my favourite gamers living, loving and learning? (Well - living, anyway.)
*The Jayne hat that Serena knitted is so cool and it fits perfectly - thank you, Serena! If you want your own Jayne hat - or tea cosy, loo roll holder or more - then you can order them from Serena here.

Relaxing, mid-marathon

You never forget your first time

It wasn't just die-hard Guildies, there, either. Several people who had never seen The Guild before came along and, judging by the laughs, gasps and LOLs, everyone had a great time. I spoke to a long time Browncoat who had heard of The Guild but had never seen any of it. He was very impressed by the end of Season 1, and stayed for all 3 Seasons. The quality of the writing and acting surprised him and he was very interested in the history of how The Guild came about. And his favourite character was Clara - who is so endearing despite being so morally bankrupt. Thanks to Serena and Alan for organising everything, we had a wonderful time!

 Did someone say Felicia? Or Roger?

A funny thing happen on the way...

Apparently, on the way home from the Marathon, Gayle was talking about Felicia and the person in the next seat leaned over and asked if they were talking about Felicia Day. Such is the power of Red....

All the pictures I took are on my Flickr account, and here's a slideshow of it:

Season 4: nearly here!
Don't forget the auto-tuned Season 3 recap:

And don't forget the Season 4 teaser, either:

<br/><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-trailer/y08waqri?fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Season 4 - Trailer">Video: Season 4 - Trailer</a>

Of course, re-watching your DVDs is really the best way to prepare:

The Guild Marathon in Vancouver TODAY, plus SDCC schedule and S4 trailer!

http://www.meetup.com/BC-Browncoats/calendar/13939618/#initializedBC Browncoats, La Fontana, The Guild: Saturday perfection.

Join us this afternoon at La Fontana Caffe, 3701 Hastings St, Burnaby at 3:00 for The Guild Marathon - Seasons 1 to 3 in a feast of bite-sized comedy gems, all served up by Felicia Day and crew. Good company, good food and wickedly funny entertainment - can't think of a better way to spend a hot Saturday afternoon! Hope to see you there.

The Guild at the 2010 San Deigo Comic Con (SDCC)

The schedule for SDCC has been released with all the details about The Guild panel and booth over on watchtheguild.com. They are listed under “Signal Fire Studios/The Guild” in the exhibitor guide and are at booth 4201. The whole cast will be there and there will be signings every day - keep checking watchtheguild.com for updates. And also make sure you are following @theguild on twitter, because any last minute changes and opportunities will be announced there.

Season 4 - only three days away!
To get you in the mood for Season 4 here is the teaser trailer - wow! It looks like Season 4 is going to be every bit as exciting and hard to call as Season 3 (and 2, and 1). I will be reviewing the episodes on PinkRaygun.com again this season - you can check out my Season 3 reviews here:


Episode 1: Expansion Time
Epsiode 2: Anarchy!
Episode 3: Player Down
Episode 4: Get it Back!
Episode 5: Application'd

Epsiode 6: Newbtastic

Episode 7: Coping and Stuff

Episode 8: +10 to Bravery

Episode 9: Wit's End

Epsiode 10: The Return

Episode 11: LAN Off

Epsiode 12: Hero

<br/><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-trailer/y08waqri?fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Season 4 - Trailer">Video: Season 4 - Trailer</a>

I can't resist a man in a kilt and I'm not spoiling anything by posting this picture:

....just listen for the naughty monkey reference...! o_O

The Guild Marathon: The BC Browncoats get ready for Season 4!

The Guild Seasons 1-3 on DVD

LATE BREAKING NEWS!
AlanD passes on this news: Felicia Day joins the BC Browncoats so she can reply to her invitation:

Season 4 of The Guild is less than one week away!
Remember how hard Guild Deficiency Syndrome bit during the winter? How long the months stretched as we waited for news of Season 4 (except for those readers in the Southern Hemisphere, of course. For you it was a long summer :))? Well now the wait is almost over! Season 4 premieres on July 13th, so how should one prepare for this momentous event? Here's one suggestion:

BC Browncoats present: The Guild Marathon
I don't have to worry about making sure I'm up to date with everything because Serena from The BC Browncoats, along with Alan D "Masked Roger" Penguin-guy, have arranged for Seasons 1-3 to be shown at La Fontana in Vancouver this Saturday. Three Seasons in One Day will be a treat for Guildies and those who are Guild-curious, and hopefully it will be a Crowded House. Apparently there are *still* some people in the world who haven't seen Felicia Day in all her glory, so this will be a great primer for them, too.


On a scale of 1 to 10....
...it rocks! But are people really excited about the prospect of Season 4? How can you even measure that? I'm not sure but I think that this gives you an indication:

In 14 hours there were 2,471 likes and 233 comments to The Guild announcement on Facebook. That's not bad going! And, in case you were wondering, it also confirms that Season 4 will debut on both Xbox Live AND the web simultaneously.

Be there and be square!
I'll be at La Fontana on Saturday so if you are there say hello. I'm very friendly but, being English and all, I can be a bit shy. I can't promise any of the stars will be there but lots of cool people will be, so come along for some fun.

DVDs on offer...
Amazon.com has the Seasons 1 and 2 DVD and
the Season 3 DVD on offer at the moment, too:


(Sorry about these not lining up ok - I'm trying out the new Blogger/Amazon Associates integration and haven't quite sorted out how the images work o_O)

And don't forget the Season 3 Auto-tune Recap:



How are YOU going to prepare for Season 4?

CSTS Vancouver 2010 report. Summary: shiny!

On June 26th 2010 the 5th Annual Can’t Stop The Serenity was held in Vancouver, BC to raise money for Equality Now and the BC Women's Hospital. The BC Browncoats put on a great day’s entertainment and both Hubby and me had an awesome time. We made a short video:



Since we couldn't capture everything on the video, here's some highlights from the day:


Introduction and Joss videos
Gayle and Serena spoke about why we were all there for the 5th year of CSTS, the money that has been raised so far and the power of the Browncoats. We then watched some videos including Joss' Equality Now acceptance speech and his Serendipity Speech, which really got everyone in the mood for the day.

Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, sing-along
I missed the beginning because of costume competition duties, but as soon as slipped in I was singing along.  It was a heart-warming experience and I thoroughly enjoyed singing, laughing and gasping along with everyone else. ("..The hammer is my penis." and "...I meant Ghandi.." were among the favourite lines!).


Evil Laugh Contest
I was surprised at how many of my fellow Browncoats possess evil laughs! There must be a coach in the area…. The competition was fierce and it went to a laugh-off between the last three.

The Masked Roger - unmasked?

The Masked Roger Marathon
This was definitely a highlight. The Masked Roger webseries is funny, smart and full of cool effects. Alan has a great sense of humour and it’s worth watching them a few times to make sure you get all the jokes. It was great to see it on the big screen and it went down extremely well with the crowd. Alan also gave a very good speech about the inspiration behind The Masked Roger and how he came to make a webseries. I wish I had managed to record it. He talked about how Dr Horrible and the ELE competitions started it off, how Felicia Day and The Guild spurred him along and how the feedback and encouragement from the BC Browncoats helped to keep him going. Now, Alan, when can we expect the next episode…?

 The Costume Parade (and Hubby's bare knee :))

Costume Contest Parade and Prizes
Hubby had his knees on display, dressed as he was as Fawkes (from The Guild Season 3 and soon-to-be 4). There was an array of costumes from Firefly and the Whedonverse, with the Bad Horse Chorus also putting on a great display (and yes, they did the song, too!). It was very hard to do the judging but there were some very worthy winners.

Browncoats: Redemption Screening
Vancouver was one of the few CSTS events to see the full rough cut of Browncoats: Redemption. I’ve been following progress of the film for a long time now. I’m writing up some detailed feedback for the producers but I can tell you that even though the screening was of a rough cut, I can’t wait to see the finished film. Hubby and I were both impressed with it, and the solid base of the film looks really good. The full premiere at Dragon:Con will be a packed event, I’m sure! I will be writing more about Browncoats: Redemption soon, so look out for that.

I didn’t manage to get a ticket for the Whedon-Works Trivia Bingo but there were some happy winners and some tricky questions, so I took the opportunity to check out the bids on the Silent Auction. There were some amazing items, from signed photos of Jewel Staite, a signed copy of The Guild DVD, genre books, games, models, a knitted dalek….The bidding was pretty fierce for some of the items!

Serenity
What can you say about this film? It represents so many things but, at its heart, it is simply an excellent film full of laughter, tears, action, adventure and a passion that runs through everything. A passion for life, friends and doing what is right. If you’ve never seen the films in the company of fellow Browncoats then I heartily recommend that you do. It is a moving experience.

 Cowboy!

Door Prizes and Silent Auction winners
The winning didn’t stop, and there were some amazing door prizes given out after the screening. We didn’t win a door prize but we did win an item on the Silent Auction which has been a very welcome addition.

To Gayle, Serena and everyone else who worked so hard to make the event run smoothly – thank you for making it such an enjoyable day!

Shock news!!! Fans make Felicia Day cry on her Birthday!

(Felicia celebrating her brithday, from @georgeruiz)

Happy Birthday, Felicia - now weep!

In an effort to show their appreciation for Felicia Day, fans worked for months to prepare a birthday surprise she would never forget - but it seemed like it had backfired when Felicia turned up on Guild Chat:

You can see for yourself why:

Breaking News: Felicia LOVED the Video!
After checking sources it has been revealed that, in fact, Felicia was crying tears of JOY at the video, not despair!

(Taken from The Guild Chat this morning)

And to confirm this, Felicia also left this comment on the video:

"OMG thanks all of you for making my birthday a fantastic day, you are all amazing! :) I'm so happy to be a part of your community! :)" (From YouTube)

Congratulations to everyone involved - it was a wonderful way to celebrate someone special!

EDIT: Dani has created a new topic for Felicia's Birthday with more details about the video :)

More Birthday Greetings!

We couldn't let Felicia have a birthday without doing something ourselves, so we recruited a few helpers in the shape of the BC Browncoats at the Can't Stop The Serenity in Vancouver on Saturday:

Thank you to everyone involved :) (you can see a longer video from CSTS Vancouver here)

Have a BRILLIANT BIRTHDAY, FELICIA!!!