I’m sad to report that we’ve failed our Kickstarter campaign for Colorful Escapes. With funding being all or nothing, we got nothing and so we won’t be filming any more episodes this summer. I’m turning this failure into a positive. We’re going to back to the drawing board as we may try again in the fall or next year. Heide and I talked a few days ago about how unlikely it was looking that we would get funding for this first season. We discussed some ideas why we weren’t doing so well and what could we do to improve things.
For staters, Heide and I are going to work together more on Uncovering Oklahoma as practice and to build our brands and identities.
I also feel like perhaps the pilot wasn’t exciting and/or good enough. I think this is something that with practice working together, we’ll get better. On the subject of excitement, next time we’ll have more excitement behind the project because people will know us better. I recently learned some great crowdfunding tips in general.
I want to thank those that did back the project: Amy Young, Rick, Downtown OKC, Yenni Vance, and Kris Adair. Thank you for your support! It means a great deal to me.
As for my plans now, I’m going to focus more of my energy on the studio project. Also, do some freelance work to get a few more pieces of equipment to make better videos.
TL;DR; Failed Kickstarter, plan to try again later with a better everything.
Colorful Escapes is a travel series where art is the destination I’m producing with host, Heide Brandes. The series highlights art galleries, art museums, public art, and artist studios, as well as restaurants and hotels with an emphasis on art. Basically, if it’s creative and artistic, we’ll visit it. The show will be filmed with a road trip styling, documenting colorful sights along the way.
Art has become a huge factor for economic development with small towns being relativized because of their creativity. In a study led by Americans for the Arts, nationally, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generated $166.3 billion of economic activity during 2015. Despite the power of the arts, there aren’t many travel shows dedicated to the subject and we want to change that.
With your support, we’re going to show you that art isn’t just for some museum in New York City or Paris, but sometimes, you can find art in an alley or in nature. Become a backer on Kickstarter and help us make this show a reality.
-The Test Pilot-
While Heide and I have experience with travel shows and writing, we filmed a test pilot of the show to give you an idea what Colorful Escapes will be like and for us to test some things out. Above is the 4K version of the Norman, Oklahoma episode, minus our Kickstarter pitch. We’ve definitely taken notes and plan to amp up our game when we hit the road.
However, as we mentioned in our Kickstarter video, this isn’t the first project Heide and Dennis have worked on together. Below are our videos on Davis, Oklahoma done for Uncovering Oklahoma.
-Goals & Rewards-
For our first season, we’re keeping our plans realistic and simple. We want to film between 6 and 15 episodes for the first season, with each episode running under 30-minutes. The initial goal of $5,000 will allow us to film three cities in Texas – Dallas, Austin, and Marfa. If this is the only goal we hit, we’ll include Oklahoma City and Tulsa on our own time/dime and with our Norman episode, we’ll at least have six episodes.
Additional stretch goals will allow us to include more states, typically covering two large cities and a small town in each state.
Stretch Goal #1 $9,000 – New Mexico
Coming from Marfa, Texas we’ll visit Rosewell, head up to Santa Fe, then Taos.
Stretch Goal #2 $14,000 – Oklahoma and Arkansas
If we reach our ultimate stretch goal, we’ll visit Denver, Colorado and then we’ll visit Arkansas for Bentonville and Eureka Springs.
Executive Producer Reward Locations
We have four Executive Producer rewards where this person gets to pick a city for us to highlight in the continental U.S. There is also a chance for bonus episodes depending on connections with Convention & Visitors Bureaus.
The best way you can help us make Colorful Escapes a reality is by becoming a backer on Kickstarter and encouring your friends to do the same. The next best thing you can do is to follow us on all of our social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. We’ll be sharing our adventures as we have them.
-FAQ-
When/where will the series premiere?
Our goal is to give our supporters download access by September 2018. As for when and where it will air for the public, we don’t know. Ideally, after the season is complete, we would love to sell it as an exclusive original series to the likes of Amazon, Hulu, or Netflix. We’re funding this season via Kickstarter to have complete control of the production.
When do you plan to start filming?
Filming will begin in late May, after our campaign ends on Sunday, May 6 at 9:30 am! We’ll be working on our travel plans in conjunction with how well the campaign goes.
What will happen to Uncovering Oklahoma?
Dennis will still continue to update Uncovering Oklahoma while on the road. While there won’t be any videos from him during the filming of this project, he’ll feature guest videos. When he returns home, he’ll resume filming local stories.
