Control is a pilot for a drama series set in the Mission Control of a manned space mission, written as a hybrid of Apollo 13 and The West Wing in style and tone.
An International coalition has come together to send the first humans to Mars–but a race is on with a Chinese mission to see who gets there first.
When a military stand-off between the US and China threatens to start a war, Flight Director Peter Lacey must fight to keep his astronauts from becoming pawns in the Earthly conflict. But a secret has been kept from him that threatens the lives of both crews, who hang in the balance 150 million miles from home…
We’re very proud to announce that the show has been nominated for a Webby Award! Among the oldest and most prestigious awards for online content, the Webby’s have been called “the Oscars of the Internet.” We’ve been nominated alongside fare from G4, Paramount Pictures, and a show starring Kiefer Sutherland and John Hurt.
This is pretty exciting: our first con appearance! Join us at I-CON 31 on the campus of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY.
Attended by over 6,000 people each year, I-CON is a three day festival, designed to encourage literacy, creativity and interest in science and technology through science fiction and its related genres. Programming at I-CON spans a wide range of topics and interests, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, comic books, Japanese animation (otherwise known as Anime), medieval reenactment, science and technology.
We’re proud to announce that the show has been nominated in the Best Drama category for the inaugural IAWTV Awards, alongside such amazing productions as Anyone But Me, AIDAN 5, CELL, and RCVR. The awards show takes place on January 12, 2012 in Las Vegas in conjunction with CES. Congratulations to all the nominees!
It’s been quite a journey but we’ve made it: the first season of Pioneer One is complete. Thank you to everyone who donated and supported us along the way. This was all possible because of you! But now, the obvious question:
What’s happening with season 2?
We’re working on securing more substantial funding for the next season so we can continue the show properly.
What was that teaser at the end of episode 6?
We wanted to make a little something to whet the audience’s appetite for more, and to show that we are most definitely going somewhere with this story. But we have not yet begun production on season 2.
What is “Back in the USSR”?
It’s the title of the next installment of the Pioneer One story, whatever form it takes.
Why can’t you just make it the same way you made the first season?
Good question. There are several reasons:
We were able to do the first six with our resources because people worked for free and we called in all the favors we had. Now that we’ve exhausted all that, our expenses are going to increase exponentially. (People can only give so much before the bills start to pile up.)
The first season had a scope that was within our means. Here on out, the scale of the show expands with every season and it will cost more to do it properly. We’re scrappy, but we’re not that scrappy.
We can’t have months in between episodes if we expect to build an audience. Stopping to fund-raise when we run out of money just isn’t going to cut it. If we’re going to do this, we have to know what we’re working with ahead of time and where the money is coming from.
So you’re abandoning the crowd-funded/crowd-distributed model?
Not necessarily. Whatever opportunity presents itself to allow us to continue the show is what we’re going to pursue. If we can build enough momentum with season one finished and released, maybe we’ll be able to scale the number of donors as well.
How can I help?
We have a lot of debt from season one to pay off (not sexy, we know) and the process of pitching ourselves and the show is going to cost money. So donations through VODO are still incredibly helpful. (If you are interested in a more substantial investment, please email us at contact@pioneerone.tv.) As long as we can stay alive, the show has a shot. But the absolute most important thing people can do right now is to
Spread the Word.
Tell people about Pioneer One. Get them to watch it. Write about it on Facebook and Twitter and your blog. Write an article for a website or newspaper or magazine, no matter how small. If you know anybody with connections who might be interested, send them a link.
We are determined to keep on doing Pioneer One in whatever form it takes because, simply, we care about this story. We’re going to do whatever we can to finish telling it.
We’ve just made all of the episodic commentaries available for download through Pay With a Tweet. All of them feature writer Josh Bernhard and director Bracey Smith.
We are one of the case studies in a new book from The Film Collaborative titled Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul, currently available to pre-order in paperback, a free PDF, and about a zillion e-book formats. Here’s the trailer, featuring P1 producers Josh and Bracey:
We see the show as an experiment too. But more an experiment in storytelling and a test of our own abilities. Most of the attention we’ve gotten thus far has been due to our distribution method via VODO and BitTorrent, which is fine, especially given that we only have 4-episodes worth of content available so far. I’m certain once the remaining two episodes are released and the season can be watched in its entirety, more attention will be paid to the actual content of the show rather than its delivery method.
That said, we’ve noticed something interesting happening. It seems like motives are being ascribed and assumptions made about why we are doing the show the way we are. It’s not because we’re trying to bring down Big Media, or because we believe all content should be free. We’re making the show like this because it was an opportunity to get it made at all when traditional means didn’t seem a realistic option for us. VODO presented an opportunity to get the show seen by millions–an irresistible proposition for any content creator. We never planned to make the show through viewer donations until viewer donations started coming in great numbers. So we kept moving forward.
And we will continue moving forward. Episode 5 is in the final phases of post production and episode 6, our season finale, is being edited as I type this. We’re going to get them out there and then keep doing what we’ve always done: see what resources and opportunities are available to us to get the show made. Because it’s all about the show. The show is our message.
