The Streamy Awards announced their nominations today and I received one nom for Best Editing on Continuum. Very excited about this and the show's 7 IAWTV Award nominations too.

What a great way to start off 2013... The IAWTV Awards are on January 8th in Las Vegas and the Streamy Awards are in Hollywood on February 17th.

One really cool trend at the Streamy Award was there are LOTS of sci-fi shows being recognized.... Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, Drone, H+, Cybergeddon and of course Continuum. :) Great company to be in, especially because we're an ultra low budget show. These other series are multi-million dollar productions. The rumor is Halo was $10 million to produce!!

Be sure to check out the complete list of nominees here.

-Blake

Season 1 of my sci-fi series Continuum has been available to rent for several months now via our VOD partner Distrify, and now it's available as a download-to-own in HD. 

The HD download-to-own is only $9.99 and the streaming rental is $3.99.

This is a great way to support our efforts in creating this 100% independent show. All proceeds go to financing Season 2 and paying down our debt from Season 1. :) 



And speaking of Season 2.... we'll announce a premiere date soon!  (Hint: It will be in early 2013)

Thanks!
Blake

Vimeo now allows people to "tip" (ie. give money) to video creators via their new Tip Jar... kind of like a mini Kickstarter way of raising money and/or supporting independent work.

I've enabled the feature on a few a my Vimeo videos as a test and might try using it in the future as another fundraising tool. Vimeo is also going to do full on PPV (pay-per-view) in the future too. Lots of interesting things happening now in online distribution...



Continuum Season 1 Trailer from Blake Calhoun on Vimeo.

Btw, it appears the only way to use the Tip Jar feature is actually ON Vimeo's site. Would be nice if it carried over into the embeds. I have to believe for this to be successful that will happen on a future update, similar to what you can currently do with Distrify (although there you either rent or buy the show).

Check it out and let me know what you think of this new option. Oh, and if you want to leave a tip as a test that would be fine by me. :)

-Blake

Continuum is an entirely indie effort. We have no publicist. No agency repping this project. And so getting press is not very easy in this crowded media landscape we find ourselves in today. 

But... recently we've had some good fortune, primarily on just the strength of the show (I'm told) garnering good word-of-mouth "press" (which is great of course) that has lead to some more traditional (digital) press from blogs and such.

The first new piece is from PlacevineStudios and writer Lance Trachtenberg. From the article... 

Contiuum’s effectiveness stems from its thoughtful usage of the emotional pitfalls of distrust, suspicion, and paranoia all blending together to create a palpable atmosphere of psychological intrigue in every episode. 

Read the entire write-up here.

And the second recent coverage is from a blog interview from a company called Jump Ship Productions. They were kind enough to contact us through our Facebook page and interview me about the production and release of the series.  From the interview...

Continuum is a fast paced, suspenseful science fiction series about a young woman who awakens on a space shuttle with no idea why she is there or even who she is. She relies on the ship’s computer to help her piece together her mission, but quickly becomes suspicious of the motives behind the mechanical voice. 

Read the entire interview here.

I really appreciate the coverage!  And if you missed my previous post, I also did a fun blog radio interview for Genre-tainment a few weeks back.

Who needs a publicist? :)

-Blake

As of today 2/28/12 I'm happy to announce that my new sci-fi series CONTINUUM is now playing on a new independent TV network called JTS - Just The Story, and the first season will play exclusively on their platform.




The show joins a dozen other great series such as BLUE MOVIES, ASYLUM and CLUTCH - just to name a few. And I hope you'll join me in supporting this new venture.


Our first episode is currently available as a free preview on the JTS site, and starting today new episodes will be released weekly for the next eight weeks (9 episodes in season one, then later 9 episodes in season two for a total of 18).


JTS is not only offering a free preview of episode one from CONTINUUM, but they are also offering a free preview of their entire site - granting access to all the ad-free shows for a test drive to see if you like it.


Here's the link if you'd like to do a free trial:
http://www.jts.tv/ContinuumTrial/


The cost is only $3.99/month or $39.99/year.


For that you get unlimited access to all the shows on the site, including the exclusives such as my show CONTINUUM, and also favorites like BLUE MOVIES and ASYLUM along with the only place to watch THE JEFF LEWIS 5 MINUTE COMEDY HOUR or COMPULSIONS or CELL completely ad-free.


Additionally you can watch these shows on pretty much all devices like your computer, phone, tablet and coming soon set top boxes like Roku.


JTS also has a very filmmaker-friendly revenue share model and so hopefully creators such as myself will be able to make money on our shows, and ideally continue to make new episodes in the future.


As indie content creators we need this subscription model to work for us to keep this nascent industry sustainable.


So in saying all that... I hope you will subscribe! :) Thanks for the support!


-Blake