Why John Hurt Is Isn't The 9th Doctor

So, SPOILER ALERT, John Hurt will be appearing in Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary after the ending of The Name of The Doctor aired last week. He will he be playing "The Doctor" apparently and the main question everyone is asking is; which Doctor? Is it a past or future one. The main theory running around is that he's a Doctor between Paul McGann's Eighth and Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctors. The problem a lot of people have with this is that it supposedly bumps Eccleston to Ten and, Tennant to Eleven and Smith to Twelve. Well, I'll tell you why that's not the case and why John Hurt is not even playing The Doctor in the first place.

Now obviously this is just speculation on my part but I think it's pretty sound and I'm actually a little surprised that people haven't spotted this yet because it's right there in plain sight in the dialogue of Hurt's introductory scene from The Name of The Doctor. He is the same man as The Doctor, the man whose name we don't know and probably never will, specifically because to The Doctor that's not his name, his name is the one he chose, as "A Promise" that he made to himself. He is The Doctor. But John Hurt's character is the one who broke that Promise. "I said he was me, I never said he was The Doctor". John Hurt's character may have been introduced as "The Doctor" but that was just to add suspense, intrigue and above all else, simplicity. When you break the promise you have set for yourself, like say for example committing the mass genocide of your own people and another equally as advanced but deadly race, destroying your home planet and locking the Time War so that it can never be reversed or prevented, a move that while breaking the promise of the man who helps people, was necessary  and done in the name of "peace and sanity" but "not in the name of The Doctor".

As you can see, this might be the same man from Gallifrey who flies around in a TARDIS with the camouflage being a Blue Police Box, he is the same being who has done all the amazing things we've seen, all the amazing things we haven't, and all the amazing things he's yet to do... but he is not The Doctor. He broke the promise and as such foresaked the name. Every time they have shown images of the previous Doctors, or shown images of them he is not there. He is not there because he is not The Doctor, the Eleven Doctors until now do not count him as such and likely, he does not count himself as one of The Doctors. He regenerated into The Doctor and from The Doctor but he was not The Doctor. As such when you say who The Doctor is, he is not counted among them. What he did, likely the events that ended the Time War and probably more things during the war to fight the Daleks, are not the actions of the man who would be The Doctor, they're the actions of a man who would break the promise to help people and would instead become a warrior, a soldier, even a villain. 

He is the part of same being we call The Doctor who would hate himself forever, always be the guilt that he carried from Eccleston's Ninth onwards, that might manifest itself as The Valeyard, The Dream Lord and other darker entities that will irrevocably change The Doctor forever. In fact, the show since it's 2005 relauch has had a darker and more sinister tone since the end of the Time War, since the events that Hurt's character likely created. The sinister actions that now weigh heavy on The Doctor, a man who twice chose not to annihilate entire races. "A Coward Every Time" he called himself in The Parting of Ways, because The Doctor would never commit an act. This is why John Hurt's character, is not The Doctor, he may be the same entity, but he is not a man who takes the name, he broke the promise.

What I Would Have Changed: New Super Mario Bros. U

It's no secret that right now the Wii U is struggling in sales, and while I don't believe that to be the case forever, I do think that it's certainly got a bit of an uphill battle compared to it's easy-to-understand predecessor. One of the main reasons for this is that the Wii U has yet to really demonstrate what it's potential is. Sure we've got Nintendoland, that while a fun game, serves little to show how a full-fleshed out game might be on this new console and more like a demo of neat tricks. There's ZombiU, an admittedly excellent game that brings the survival horror genre to new heights by being one of the most intense horror experiences since the original Resident Evil, but sadly that game hasn't really got mass appeal in the same way Mario does. Now let's look at Mario for a second, he has made his appearance on the Wii U in the form of New Super Mario Bros. U - A game that is the best 2D Platformer since Super Mario World for the SNES. However, could it have been even better, could it have surpassed World, or even my personal favourite Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES? It wasn't helped that a handheld New Super Mario Bros. game came out precisely three months earlier for the Nintendo 3DS, a game that really until the cool new DLC packs came out was very lackluster compared to both it's Wii and Wii U cousins. Now while I don't think any massive improvements to NSMB. U are going to skyrocket the sales of the Wii U, I do think that in my Hindsight of 20:20, there are certain things I would have changed to at best, make the game a system seller.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE CHANGED"NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. U"

Rules:

As per usual with these blogs, here are the rules:

• I can only change things about New Super Mario Bros. U, I can't say "Don't release New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS, as that's unrelated to changing NSMB.U itself.
• The Game has to be recognizable as a NSMB game. I can't simply say "Make it 3D" which would change it completely

THE CHANGES

First and foremost in any game is the gameplay. 2D Mario gameplay is also great, so why mess with the formula...? Well, I'm not going to. The Gameplay in the game is pretty solid, but the problem with it is just that... It's the same. It's the same as NSMB. NSMB.Wii and NSMB.2 - it offers absolutely nothing new. If you were to show me the front covers and Standard Def stills of NSMB. Wii and NSMB. U; without any of the power-ups of specifically defining characteristics of either game. I wouldn't be able to tell you which was which. Except for Wii is a red game case, and U is a blue one. So how am I changing the gameplay without changing the gameplay? Well, I'm not changing the core of the gameplay, I'm adding to it. How to do this? New Characters!

Characters

Perhaps it's just me and my friends but if you get stuck as Toad or worse, Toad-Clone, you're the butt-monkey of the group. Really? Does anyone actually like Toad... well some people do I guess... but in the entirety of nearly thirty years of Mario games are there not a few more characters you can play as. And to make matters worse, all the characters play exactly the same. Now Nintendo's rationale behind this is so that everyone gets the same experience... Well what you call "same experience" I call "dull and lazy". Why shouldn't Luigi get to jump higher like in Super Mario Bros. 2, for that matter, why isn't Princess Peach a character, make her able to glide. The ability to choose your character will get people to stop being Mario and play around a little, make the game a varied experience, as there were no power-ups in Mario 2, maybe now is the time to experiment with them a little, what if Luigi can jump EVEN higher with the Flying Squirrel power-up, or Peach's descent is longer than the rest now. What if Toad can fire up to three fireball/iceballs at once? Why stop at the Mario 2 characters, why not bring Wario into the mix with his unique dash ability only he has from the Wario Land games. What kind of unique power-up enhancements might he receive?

Power Ups

On the matter of Power-Ups, is it just me or are Nintendo running out of new ideas... Ice Mario, that's nice in a 2D game but isn't that great and we've seen it a few times now, a Flying Squirrell? Really? Well, if there are no new ideas, what about old ones. We've got the item menu right? Let's put it to good use like Mario 3. Where's my P-Wing, the Hammer Bros Suit, Frog Suit, all those rare interesting power-ups that made the game so much fun. I mean let's face it, wouldn't you want to see a badass Princess Peach hurling hammers at Goombas?

World Map

Onto the world map. It was a nice change to return to the continuous world map of Mario World's style... however I think it can be made better. There's a few times you can go different routes, but what if there were multiple routes through many levels that took you to different routes on the world map like in Mario World itself, routes that allowed you to access special levels and maybe find warp zones. It played with this idea a little but I'd really like to see it some more. Why stop at eight worlds, defy the norm create, ten, or twelve. In the handheld Mario Games it seems like many of the worlds are skippable easily and you only do half, the same in this game, you seem to choose the path of the worlds you want to do, so why not add more worlds to choose from, give us secret worlds like Star Road, the more content that ships with the game the more it'll feel like this is a brand new game and not yet another NSMB game.

Technology - Level Editor

Last but by no means least, we've just been given this brand new piece of tech in the Wii U GamePad and all you can think of is Off-TV play and creating blocks for people to jump on? Surely there should be more uses of the GamePad than that. What about a level-creator, how many times have you wanted to create your own Super Mario Bros. level but the technology of a normal controller was just all kinds of awkward for designing stuff, but with the GamePad, it becomes nice and smooth, like doing it on a PC or a Tablet. For that matter, this is the first Nintendo Console with solid online gameplay. While it's awesome to play this game in the same room as people, they needed to get consoles out the door, and no way is there better than "Hey, play this round mine... did you know we don't have to socially interact to play this awesome game!? Fuck yeah! Online Play!" Combine this with level-creation and Miiverse and you've got a vibrant community that would shit all over Little Big Planet and make NSMB.U, THE hot product to buy and play for the next generation. It would actually become a system seller. There's still time for a Level Editor, make a DLC to download and watch the money roll in... or dare it say it... watch it... Print in?

This is certainly something we're not likely to see any time soon...

So there you have it, the Mario series in general has always been pretty simplistic and I would never want to deviate from that, just to bring something new and interesting to it. This is not to say that the current game isn't great, it's a whole lot of fun and has a decent difficulty level, especially in the challenges that'll really put you to the test. But for now, this these are the changes I would have made to New Super Mario Bros. U

Five Reasons Why Online Video is Better than Regular TV

The title is pretty self-explanatory; online video is taking over, live regular TV is diminishing in ratings. With that in mind, here are five reasons why online video is better than regular television and why it's taking over.

1. Available to Watch; Anytime, Anywhere.

Regular television had this problem, it can only be watched at a specific time and then it's gone until it came out on video. There have been efforts to counteract this over the years, replays, VHS recording, TiVo, Sky+, DVRs, etc. But it still forced the viewer into restrictions set by the TV Network. With the advent of online video things were up and available to watch whenever you felt like it, and for the most part weren't going anywhere, thanks to the ad revenue system, people could be earning money any time and views can watch content any time.

2. No Wasted Hours of Programming

With so many people working all day, everyday, only "Primetime" shows were watched, three or so hours after 7pm for TV Networks to air their stuff when people could watch it. That left roughly seven eighths of the day almost completely wasted airtime, leading to some people being forced to miss their second favourite show when it clashed with their favourite. Now, they're online all the time, so they can be aired any time they want, as well as the fact that if something goes up in the middle if the day, it's always going to be viewable later when people get home from work to relax.

3. Content in the Hands of Creators

YouTube, Blip.tv, Vimeo e.t.c. all have the ability to upload videos with no oversight committee of assholes, who wouldn't know their head from their bell-end, saying "I want you to change this". Now people can put their content online with only their view count to determine if someone likes their content. It means talented people who have great, unconventional ideas that TV Network execs, who are completely out of touch with the viewing audience, would shoot down before they even reach the pitching phase. Combined with crowd funding sites like Kickstarter, bigger, better projects can be made with the help of a community. In the case of a web-series, their fate for another season lays in the hands of their fans and their fans alone.

4. User Interaction

Despite the fact that in YouTube comment boxes you can find the lowest forms of human scum and obnoxious drivel. Comment boxes provide a way for fans and creators to interact with each other on a level that simply wasn't available with regular television. Audiences can now talk about their favourite shows with each other and the creators can read and what they're talking about. Regular television simply can't do this without something like a forum or dedicated manner. It's the power of social media at its finest, people interacting online with each other.

5. Competition Becomes Collaboration

Maybe I'm being a bit of an optimist on this one but when there's no need for competition between shows as there is no longer a time slot system, what was once competition for ratings between shows now becomes collaboration between them. They help each other out, collaborate on various things and work together for their mutual benefit. Just look at this video here: REWIND YOUTUBE STYLE VIDEO. It's nothing but collaboration based on an Internet meme song by Korean Pop Star. Everyone benefits from it, just like when crossovers happen online, they only serve to bolster each others view count and rating. A system that was once about crushing the opposition and stealing their views, now has become system of mutual help and benefit to each other, a "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" system.

So those are my five reasons why online media is eclipsing traditional television. Take it or leave it, I hope one day I can look back on this and be proven right, but only time will tell.

Fargo: A Screenplay Analysis

Fargo

Screenplay Analysis by: Petros L. Ioannou  

Fargo is a 1995 film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen; colloquially known as “The Coen Brothers”. Right off the bat I’m going to say something many might consider controversial, even blasphemous; I am not a fan of the Coen Brothers. I think they’re really, really overrated but that Fargo and The Big Lebowski are excellent films. In this case I’m going to be saying what I really love about Fargo and why I think it’s such an excellent screenplay by two writer-directors who generally speaking I really dislike. I was not fan of Burn After Reading, I think No Country for Old Men and True Grit are highly overrated and The Ladykillers is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen to the point that in the cinema I actually walked out, which I didn’t even do during The Last Airbender, a film I consider to be an insult to writers, directors, actors, cinema as an art form, the viewing public, God and the universe. So despite my dislike of the Coen Brothers as writer-directors, I love two of their films, my favourite of which, is Fargo. 

The story is a zany and bizarre one. It’s about a man named Jerry.  Jerry is a desperate but greedy bastard who wants money and will do anything to get his hands on it, even something this despicable. He hires two criminals to kidnap his own wife so that they can con reward money for her rescue but then things go wrong and the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan and splatters all over Jerry’s not so proverbial plans and the humour for the audience kicks in. For all the rage-hate I have for the Coen’s this is their trademark, taking something to almost slapstick extremes with such a dark overtone you’re sometimes laughing out of sheer horror. The same kind of humour that would go on to influence films like The Hangover. I think this and Lebowski are the only two films they execute it successfully in and Fargo does it brilliantly.  

Looking at the language in the film it’s very interesting. Most films will write in Standard English or Received Pronunciation to make it clear and then the director and/or actors will make the role their own. There will occasionally be a slang term thrown in here and there to show off the characters personalities but this film has dialect running all the way through the film’s characters. Clearly the Coens thought about this meticulously when they wrote and it shows in the impressive language of the screenplay as nearly every character seems to have not just a unique dialect but a unique speech pattern and voice of their own that leaps off the page. I find this very impressive as it’s something that’s very hard to do. 

The characters aren’t the only great thing about the script; the plot is excruciatingly detailed, painstakingly plotted and very, very, twisted, both in the literal sense and the moral sense of the word. Fargo simply put is an excellent screenplay and by far the best of the Coen brothers rather average resume in my personal opinion, which is also another reason it stands out. It’s a masterpiece of a script that captures atmosphere, character in plot in the script without getting confusing, something that for most writers is bordering on the edge of impossibility. 

A Clockwork Orange: A Screenplay Analysis

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Screenplay Analysis by: 

Petros L. Ioannou

A Clockwork Orange is a film written and directed by one of the greatest geniuses in cinema history, Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the novel by Anthony Burgess. It is simply put a story about an insane man, forced to be sane. It is the sort of film that really makes you question, life, existence, freewill, choice and pretty much everything about the human condition, like every episode of Star Trek thrown into one incredible masterpiece of a movie pulled right out of the nightmarish mind of Kubrick, yet not his own original creation but certainly with his added flair in the screenplay. You can almost feel his intensity coming off the page as you read it. That’s part of what makes this such a great screenplay, despite having seen the film myself and been very disturbed by it at age sixteen, I can honestly say that even if I hadn’t seen it I’d almost be able to hear the musical beats and see Malcolm MacDowell’s performance leaping off the page at me. It’s one of those screenplay’s that so well written, the film could have made itself. That’s not to knock Kubrick as a director though, we’ve all seen what happens when his ideas are done by another director, even a great one like Spielberg, it just never quite lives up to the Kubrickian style and creates this awkward middle ground. Thus it’s probably a very good job that Kubrick himself directed the film.

First of all the language in this film is almost Shakespearean, it’s strange and exceptionally fun. I’ve actually noticed upon reading it that many of the lines are written in Shakespeare’s trademark rhythmic style of iambic pentameter, not all the lines but a good few of them are. It adds to the bizarre eclectic majesty of the script’s atmosphere and setting. The dystopian world that exists is anti-Orwellian in nature, yet embodies too, much of that style. Look at our protagonist, Alex DeLarge, the style of language and setting we can see how strangely matching this all seems to him. He is the most depraved man on the planet. He is insane, he is a rapist, a murderer, a drug abuser and yet a man who listens to Beethoven, calling him “Ludwig Van” like he were a 20th century rapper and speaks in his voice over in this Shakespearean language; “O Bliss, bliss and heaven, oh it was gorgeousness and georgeosity made flesh.” You wouldn’t find this sort of language in anything else and it makes his character so very fascinating as though the world that he creates through his acts of “ultra-violence” is pulsing out of him. In this context no-one seems to speak like a normal person in this whole script. And I don’t just mean that half the people here speak in cockney or in an exaggerated received dialect, but in some bizarre crossbreed of both. Just a footnote is that the word ‘georgeosity’ is not an actually a word in the English language but an invented word that makes sense to those who speak English, much like Shakespeare often did.

The plot is strange to say the least, but it all stems from Alex, his disturbed psyche and his ultra-violent nature.  Alex DeLarge is the leader of gang teenage delinquent thugs called “droogs”. They spend their free time breaking into people’s houses and raping women or as the first scene in the movie shows, beating a homeless man to death in the street. Despite being a charming young man from a well-off family and very much able to get laid as is shown when he meets two girls in a record store and proceeds to take them home and have a consensual three-way with them, he is at his core a violent, aggressive, obnoxious person, who only commits the crimes for the sheer thrill of it all. He’s not sexually repressed, he’s not in need of money, he just loves the thrill of tormenting others. He is the most mentally depraved man imaginable. One day his antics get him caught and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Worthy of note is that he only gets fourteen years showing the decline of society to the point where murder only gets fourteen years, that’s not taking into account the knowledge of all the other crimes he’s committed in the past.

In prison Alex is beaten and likely raped by the other inmates and as such two years into his sentence he is taken as a volunteer for a therapy that could make him “normal”. The smile on his face as he agrees to transferred to the Ludvico Medical Facility doesn't indicate happiness at escaping prison and being normal, it indicates happiness being able to escape and cause havoc again. However after two weeks he is “cured” and shown to be mentally unable to fight back against someone who would insult him and physically attack him and worse still he becomes disgusted at the very sight of female nudity. This begins the real story; a man who is so depraved yet has his choice to be depraved removed only to find out that the real world hates him so much that they use him as an outlet for their own rage and psychosis. His free will has been removed and thus society is free to destroy him. To quote the prison minister;  “Choice?! The boy has no real choice, has he? Self interest, fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to also be a creature capable of moral choice....” There’s a grand irony in the technique used to “cure” Alex. He’s cured by exacting physical violence upon him, it’s not turning the other cheek, it’s using fire to fight fire, which if history has taught us anything only leads to the house getting burnt down.

Throughout the story, Alex is beaten by people as they exact their own rage and punishment upon him and he is unable to fight back. Even the journalist, who wanted to help him and saw what society in its attempt to “cure” people by controlling them as disgusting turns against him when he finds out it was Alex who raped his wife and crippled him. Eventually Alex is ironically “cured” of his “cure” when he is actually finally accepted by society.

A Clockwork Orange is an excellent film, brilliantly written and later to be even more brilliantly executed.

Why VGHS Season 2 is very important to the future of Television

Video Game High School, a webseries produced by the Rocket Jump team, Freddie Wong, Brandon Laastch, Will Campos, Brian Firenzi and Matt Arnold for the freddiew YouTube channel, is perhaps one of the most significant undertakings in television history since Jerry Seinfeld sat down and said, "I'm gonna write a show about myself... and nothing... but something..."And I'm not just talk about how it's influenced myself or others, which I'll be the first to admit it has; I'm talking about how it's important to the landscape of film and television in general. 

See around about twenty years ago the internet was created and amongst all the hamsterdances, nyan cats and generous helping of free porn, arose the online television series, also known as the webseries. The webseries was a game changer, before then in order to have your work seen by more than ten people at a film festival, you had to get a whole slew of people to agree to all kinds of crap to get your work published by a major studio or television network. They would control your fate until the day you died and you wouldn't even take the majority of the profits, they would... by far. Hollywood was a place where a lot of people came together to try and create good things and got beat down by a system that sent people home in metaphorical body bags (not literal, Hollywood has never been involved in any murderous activity or scandalous activity what-so-ever and no-one has a gun to my head at the moment.) With the advent of the internet you could put your films and serials online for people to watch, made mainstream by the advent of YouTube in 2005.

Things like The Guild and LonelyGirl15 were independent shows, published by the creators, often with the help and funding of the fans. There was the Angry Video Game Nerd by James Rolfe, Annoying Orange, Legend of Neil, Fallout: Nuka Break, Mortal Kombat: Legacy, The Nostalgia Critic and now Video Game High School. But what makes VGHS special? Why is Season 2 specifically such a game-changer?

The answer is simple. More and more people are watching things online; Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, it's all changing and VGHS is changing with it. Unlike the first season which revolved around 9 episodes each with a short 10-ish minute runtime as webseries tend to have, first to cater to the short attention span of the internet crowd and second because that's just the way YouTube was set up back in the old days. My own webseries MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME is set to have 10 episodes of that length divided up into 3 episode blocks that'd make up a half hour episode of television in total. Freddie Wong and Co. are going further than I am, further than anyone has ever really gone before. They're going to create a series that is essentially a television show, on the web. Six Full TV length episodes of around a half hour in length, not designed to cater to the YouTube crowd anymore, not for people with a short attention span in the same way previous series have been.

Why is this important you ask? What is the difference between my style, and what VGHS is doing? Freddie and VGHS is doing something incredibly important by forcing the viewer to sit by his laptop, or use the YouTube app on his TV, Console, Roku or AppleTV box, and watch a true television series on the web. They could quite easily break up these six episodes into three each totaling at around 18 episodes to make more money from ad revenue and see it run for longer. But no, the VGHS team sees the future and sees the potential of the web-based series. This is huge people, make no mistake about it. The great thing about the web was that it wasn't run by people out to make money and this team are proving that once again by sacrificing monetary gain to have a quality series that proves to the world that a television series can exist on the web and the web alone.

I don't doubt they'll reach their target on Kickstarter but people, get in on this action while you can and help make history. VGHS Season 2 is important to the landscape of television, it will prove that a television series can be sustainable on the web. Six episodes might not seem like a lot but remember outside the US, many shows run for much shorter times. The Inbetweeners, a classic British comedy show only ran for six half hour episodes a year. I can't wait to see what's in store for Season 2 and I can't wait to see how this all pans out. Freddie, Brandon and the rest, if you're reading this, I salute the ever-loving fuck out of you all; make the web proud!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high-school-season-two - Check it out MOFOS!

My Life as a Video Game - A Kickstarter for a New Webseries

My Life as a Video Game

A Brand New Action-Comedy Webseries

KICKSTARTER LINK HERE

Creator PETROS L. IOANNOU (Final Fantasy: Zero, Union Square: A Love Story) and co-star BRENT "BRENTALFLOSS" BLACK (What If Video Games... Had Lyrics?, Nostalgia Critic: Moulin Rogue Review) present to you a brand new and exciting series for the web that celebrates gamer culture, pokes fun at the tropes and explores our love for the interactive arts and why we play them.

     SYNOPSIS

Don DeWitt (Petros L. Ioannou) is man with extraordinary potential but zero determination. If you looked up slacker on Wikipedia; there'd be a picture of him. He's always been fine getting by, just by the skin of his teeth. Don's only real love ever has been playing video games.

One day he is pulled into amazing circumstance, he is now in an alternate reality where the rules of Video Games are the rules of the world. He is in a fight for his very survival as he must manipulate the rules of the games he understands better than anyone to survive in this new crazy world

Here he meets Kera Althorn (Jennifer Polansky), fallen Princess of a Space Empire who you might say got fed up of "being in another castle" and took it upon herself to take back her father's Empire. Along with her trusted A.I. sidekick the "MENU System" (Brent Black) a cocky floating head on a computer screen, Don joins Kera in the fight hoping that she might help him get back to Earth.

Together, as they leap from Beat 'Em Ups to First Person Shooters, RPGs and Survival Horror, they begin to raise an army of the heroes of the various video game worlds against the usurper of Kera's Empire, General Atticus Dynas who seeks to unite the villains on his side. It's now that Don must use that potential he's always had and become the hero he was always meant to be, if he ever wants to find a way home.

     WHERE DOES YOUR MONEY GO? 

The various perks can be seen on the right but the reason we need this...

It ain't cheap to make a show. We've gone indie because we want creative control, we don't want interference from a studio and we love the web. We want to create something that is free for people to watch, whenever, wherever they feel like it. More than that, we want a community, an audience who is invested in it as much as we are.

The money contributed will go to paying for professional actors, the equipment, the crew, the effects, and the location rental costs, all of which, amounts to quite a bit. However it's all necessary in order to raise the funds to create this monumental show that we think can really blow web-created content wide open and make this one of the most fun and entertaining shows on the web to watch.

     WHO ARE WE?

We have a very talented cast and crew, professionals from all walks of life, those who have worked with the best and frankly, are the best.

     Cast 

PETROS L. IOANNOU - Petros is a writer/actor from London who graduated from the New York Film Academy with a Masters in Screenwriting. He is perhaps most famous for the creation of "Final Fantasy: Zero" a fan made RPG production and the short film "Union Square: A Love Story". Petros wanted to create his own show specifically for the web and as such created this show.

BRENT BLACK - Brent is a comedic entertainer best known on YouTube as "brentalfloss" for his "What if Video Games had Lyrics" series that has generated over 150,000 subscribers. He also appeared in the Nostalgia Critic's "Moulin Rouge" review and has possibly one of the best comedic timings known to man.

JENNIFER POLANSKY - Jennifer is an actress from Canada, Jennifer has been in numerous film, TV and web productions. Including 2012: The Web Series, and I Hate Toronto: A Love Story.

     Crew 

NICK M. HOMLES - SERIES DIRECTOR - Son of double Tony Award winner, Rupert Holmes, Nick is a very talented director with a wealth of knowledge and experience under his belt beyond his young age. He's recently finished work on the short film "A Manhattan of My Own" and a teaser for feature film "Reject Road". His short film Marco Polo is set for release in Q1 2013. 

KEVIN PENKIN - MUSIC COMPOSER - Kevin is one of the biggest rising stars in video-game music composition having just recently collaborated with famed 'Final Fantasy' series composer Nobuo Uematsu, writing music for the Japanese PSP title "Jyuzaengi Engetsu Sangoku Den", which saw release on the 24th May 2012. He soon set to work on the music for upcoming game "Norn9" once again with Uematsu.

     STRETCH GOALS 

• $30,000 - The Standard, if we raise this money we make the first ten episodes of the show which will comprise season one. This is the standard goal we're aiming for.

• $50,000 - Extended Cut, if we manage to get this together we can make the episodes longer and add an additional five making a fifteen episode season. We'll also be able to hire more cast and crew to make the shoots easier, quicker and get the final product to you sooner. In addition we'll be throwing a huge launch party in Los Angeles for all who contributed to attend and meet the cast and crew. In addition, every person who donated will receive a digital copy of brentalfloss' first album "What if this CD... had Lyrics?"

• $70,000 - Super Season, if we get this this goal, we will produce a huge amount of TWENTY-TWO EPISODES for this season and still have some money extra to pay even more cast and crew to get this production done to the absolute best quality possible. This includes a HUGE season finale set in a Fantasy RPG world where the heroes must battle against an ancient dark dragon that threatens to destroy the world.

• $100,000 - THE ULTIMATE SEASON, if we reach this incredible goal we will produce perhaps the most astounding web series ever made. TWENTY-SIX EPISODE SEASON, extended cuts on all episodes with some damn fine special effects and maybe even a few very high profile names too and bonus "Space Battle" episode. In addition to that we'll be throwing launch parties in Los Angeles, New York and London for anyone who has contributed to attend for free! 

    WHY MAKE THE SHOW?

I’ve always been fascinated with video games. Not just for their entertainment value, but as an art form. It’s often been questioned if they even are one. Do they offer something to us that is more than just pure entertainment? After all, something may be entertaining but for it to be art, it has to give something more to the audience, something to add to their lives, to discuss and perhaps change their outlook on certain things. To many of us ‘gamers’, video games, or ‘the interactive arts’, have done just that, much in the same way the theatre, novels, television and film had done for previous generations. In many ways with this series, I hope we can explore this question and celebrate it. Celebrate gamer culture from Platformers to RPGs, Beat 'Em Ups to First Person Shooters and the whole spectrum of gaming. This comedic take of a man who plays way too many video games and one day finds himself trapped in a universe where the games he played are now reality, will be created for the web, a culture almost synonymous with gamers and geekdom. It is the perfect home for an exploration and celebration of the art form we call video games and one I hope you will all share with me and enjoy. 

- Petros L. Ioannou (Creator)  

       OTHER WAYS YOU CAN HELP 

Even if you can't contribute to the effort, though anything will do, please just spread the word about this project. We want to get this thing off the ground and really get it rolling and we need your help to do it. We need a community.