Uncover the Mysterious Power of the Ladybug Effect with Greg Porper – SYS Podcast Episode 535 Exclusive!
Ashley
So, take us through just sort of that journey when you originally had this idea, you put it into a web series, was the idea to do a web series and then turn it into a feature, turn it into a TV show. But just bring us along with that journey. It started as a web series. How did you get that made? And then what was the next step after that?
Greg Porper
Of course, it started as a web series because I wanted to just make stuff and this is at the time I was still working full time at a reality TV company. This was this is actually before worst birthday ever had come out with the CW. But it was after I made the web series that I pitched to my boss at the time and I just wanted to keep making short form stuff. And so the intention originally was just to make something fun. Without really I didn’t have any intention what was going to happen with it. I didn’t realize it’s going to be something that I became so incredibly passionate about. I mean, this has been a project that’s been a part of my life for nearly 10 years. And the web series itself, we shot six short episodes over the course of two days, shot at a former boss’s office off hours. I think, you know, one night was an overnight because it was during the week. And first of all, just had so much fun making it. It was the most bare bones crew you could think of our production budget probably went to mostly to crafty so we could all eat like that. And then you know, paying crew members a little bit and cast and but that was made for under $1,000. From there, when we were, you know, we had the cut, we were showing it to people, we realized like, oh, people are like really laughing like big time. Like, it’s not just something like – Oh, haha, my friends made something that’s funny. That’s people were like, this is so good. So then we said, Oh, you know what, maybe there’s festivals for this sort of thing. And we came across the New York Television Festival, which rest in peace, I don’t think is around anymore. But that was a perfect festival dedicated to proofs of concepts web series, getting, you know, TV shows off the ground, like thinking like the model of broad city brain fart. So broad city, right? So like broad city takes that that model. And that was something that was exciting, because you’re creating a proof of concept. And from there, you know, hopefully, maybe a network or someone would pick it up. So when we made the web series, and we got into New York Television Festival, and we got to meet with a bunch of executives that now defunct networks, like see so and I don’t know if I see is like making original content anymore. But that being said, we were meeting with these people who all said, Oh, have you considered developing this further into a show and the web series was a series of escalating secrets that two characters were telling. So when you’re dedicated to like constantly escalating to have like, one idea, you know, snowball to something further and further and further, there’s only so much room you can take that when it’s a long form television show, especially it’s like a half hour show. And so we wrote a pilot version of this. And we realized that like, even in the pilot, there was so much that happened, how do you sustain this as a show, it just felt like there needed to be an end. And it took like a year of developing beyond the TV show to realize that oh, actually, a 90-minute movie is kind of the perfect vehicle, because you do have like a clear beginning, middle and an end. And so that’s when, you know, John and I realized, you know, we should go from half hour show to a 90-minute movie.
