Mike here. I know. It’s been a while. Again I’ve kind of disappeared from social media - it has been a very busy couple months for me and a lot of the Face The Music team.
I’ve been working tirelessly on a research and development project called Optic with some amazing people. I’ll tell you about that in a moment.
Charlie Hamilton (Ronnie) has been directing some short projects and music videos, and that’s taken up his time.
Elise Bauman (Amanda) as I’m sure you know has been busting her ass on Almost Adults and I believe is starting production on Carmilla Season 2 very soon (like I need to tell you guys about that).
Scott Law (Paul) recently landed a gig as the voice of the Showcase TV network in their rebranding. I’m pretty proud of him because as an aspiring voice performer, that’s a pretty big fucking deal. Check out some of their more recent videos at this link to hear his sexy voice at the end of some of the spots.
Paige Locke (Jade) went on a trip to New York and recently did a play that I was unfortunately too busy to attend because I’m an asshole. Sorry Paige.
And Austin Duffy (Lewis)Â has been working on a music video and a short film he starred in screened at the Future of Film Showcase a couple days ago (also I was too busy and too big of an asshole to attend. Sorry bud).
And onto me and Alex. Last weekend I directed a short research and development project for a product called Invisivision. It’s a new type of cinema eyewear that allows you as a viewer to use glasses to do cool things like change camera angles in real time without touching a button or anything - purely through the lenses. It was a robot CGI experiential narrative project that has a bunch of dual angles, hidden content, etc for users to experience. Alex and I wrote it with the help of some great friends named Rob Brunette and Ryan Brooks (the latter of whom invented these glasses).
The Invisivision glasses have sparked some interest in Hollywood. I went to LA with these guys in December and met with some major studios about it, and they’ve been back and forth between LA and Toronto a few times now. I can’t say much else about it at this point... but it’s a big thing. Check out some stuff on Invisivision at the following links:
My very good friend Ryan (creator of Invisivision and Executive producer on Optic) on stage explaining it
Their official website
This project was called “Optic” and I’ve basically been slaving away on this since before Face The Music even shot back in January.
- Pronch Murphy (producer from Face The Music) produced it
- Ramit Arora and Ash Xavier (cam ops on Face The Music) were the directors of photography
- Sydney Cowper (key grip from FTM) is editing it
- David Turineck (DOP on FTM) was gaffer on it...
- Bea Macapagal (creator and director of Young Badlands starring Elise Bauman, for whom I was one of the editors) was our production designer.Â
And there are even more FTM crew members on this Optic project I’m forgetting about I’m sure.
Now speaking of Face the Music. I’ve got good news and bad news. Since this is in type I can’t really give you a choice as to what you get first, so I’m going with the bad news first.
We were not chosen to move on to the second phase of the funding application for the Independent Production Fund. Meaning we did not get the money to shoot our first season. This means we unfortunately cannot go into production for it anytime soon as I simply can’t afford to pay everyone what they deserve.
We were pretty bummed when we found out. That was at the beginning of April, but Optic kind of took my mind off of it. Now that we’re editing Optic, my schedule is a little more liberal.
Like usual, this persistent and stubborn bastard doesn’t give up. Myself and Alex have begun working on Face The Music as an ACTUAL TV Pilot. We hope to get a couple drafts done, and pitch it around to local and international TV networks to hopefully get picked up as a real TV show. Is it a big dream? Yep. But fuck it. The world is built on big dreams and unlikely scenarios.
So what this means is we ask for your continued support as we slowly move forward on this. We’re adapting our scripts into full episode scripts and need the fanbase to stick around. We’ll keep you updated and do occasional videos and other transmedia content. It’ll be slow, but it’ll happen. Things like the music we mentioned last time is slowly unfolding, among other related projects.
As we pitch around to networks, a vocal fanbase will always help us in convincing companies to support the project. So we want you to be LOUD AS FUCKÂ when we need you to be.
Ensure to follow me:
On TWITTERÂ @MikeChantajÂ
& INSTAGRAMÂ @MikeChantajÂ
to stay posted on Face The Music, Optic, Invisivision, and whatever other shit I get myself into.
You magnificent bastards are awesome and I thank you for your continued support.
