Skepticblog

I ran across a comment on the blog that I wrote last week. It caught my interest.  

Ejdalise wrote:

Not to say you guys won’t get there, but . . . I don’t know; perhaps it’s where I live, but I don’t often meet people who would be considered your target audience. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I thought about it for a bit, and wondered, why would he make that type of comment?  It didn’t take that long to realize that what is happening at least in terms of Ejdalise, is that many people don’t really understand our goals and intentions for this program, and thus think that we are aiming to create a show that is aimed at our smallish, yet active skeptical community. This is just not so.  

In order for a TV series to be successful in a “real” way that’s judged in the scale that will even make a blip in the Nielsen ratings, one must create a program that is consumable on the national, dare I say, international, scale. Too bad really, because that means that we have to create a show that must be, hmm how to say this correctly well… just easily understood by the general TV viewing audience. 

If we went out and created a TV show “For the Skeptics by The Skeptics” We wouldn’t last a season, probably only two episodes.  Forget the major networks, it wouldn’t get off the ground. As big as the community is, we’re not nearly big enough…yet. (continue reading…)

What will it take to get a TV series with the tenets of reason, science and intelligence onto the airwaves of a major TV network?

Well, a lot.  As our production team quietly works towards doing just that, the rest of the world is unfortunately left in the dark, at least as it pertains to “The Skeptologists.” I, and  a handful of others are blessed (or cursed) with the knowledge of the what could be in store for our dutiful production.  That knowledge comes with a price. (And I’m not talking about exorbitant production costs)  We know because we are the ones that are actively doing the work to make this happen. We keep the details of the production quiet for many reasons, among those are the fact that the show is evolving, and we’ve got the right amount of cooks at this point.  The other biggie is that we want to protect the hard work that our entire cast and crew has given to this project by making sure that some other company doesn’t come along and grab our format. (Though even if they did, good luck! We’ve got the Skeptical Dream Team so neener neener neener!) (continue reading…)

Hello friends.

My apologies for a technical problem that prevented my blog to appear last week.

As a continuation to the “Road to The Skeptologist TV series” this week, I’m opening up a page of my internal notes to our cast about one of our great locations used in the show.

When we were putting the show together, we needed to come up with some great locations.  You read three weeks ago about the Queen Mary and all of it’s wonderful scenic charm.  We still needed a place that, by it’s very nature, would say “Intelligence” and “Science”  A location that would serve as a backdrop for the introduction and conclusion of the pilot episode.  I’ve always loved planetariums, and we first worked on getting into a planetarium, and there are many in the LA area.  However, those proved to be surprisingly difficult to work into our schedule because most are used during the day for instruction by colleges and in the evening to make money with shows for the public.

Dr. Michael Shermer recommended Mt. Wilson.  For those of you who don’t know Dr. Shermer is an avid cyclist and many times a week he takes his bike on, what seems to me, very grueling treks.  One of his routes takes him up Mt. Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles.

The route to the peak of Mt. Wilson, is treacherous in a car!  I can’t imagine riding that in a bike!  I’ll leave that to Dr. Shermer!  

What follows are some of the notes that I wrote right after doing the location scout of Mt. Wilson Observatory, before any shooting took place there.  These were provided only to the cast and crew as background information prior to production.  I thought that you’d be interested to read a bit about it now. (continue reading…)

I just finished reading Dr. Novella’s inspiring entry, and as a departure to my reporting on the progress on The Skeptologists, and the process that it took to create the TV pilot for the show, I decided to ramble a bit on Skepticism.

Admittedly, this is a forum in which most, if not all, of the readers here are proud to call themselves “Skeptics”. I’m sure there’s even a few “Sceptics” as well.

I don’t carry the weight and vast knowledge that my esteemed blog colleagues do, I’m just a humble video production guy who’s trying to make his mark on the world in a positive way. As a matter of fact, it’s all I can do to write an entry every week that deserves to be on the same page as these folks. Working with them, reading their work and listening to the various podcasts is inspiring, and I’m lucky to be a part of this. I have a profound respect for each and every one of these Skeptologists! One of the common threads, that is very apparent, but worthy of note, is that they all share a similar intense desire to better the world through educating people about how to think critically, and skeptically.

It seems so easy on the face of it all doesn’t it? Educate people. I’ve written in the past about how I believe that TV is one avenue in which we can start to affect change in the world for the better. That’s my particular talent, and one that I wish to use to get the word out. But there are so many ways to go about it, and that’s what I’d love to start a discussion about: What different, entertaining and clever ways can we come up with to help gently educate people about the power of skepticism?

(continue reading…)

So to start off this week, I’d like to address a few questions received from our readers before I jump into the continuation of our story.

Many have asked where can I see this show? Well, at the moment, we don’t have the show in active production. We have finished a pilot episode and demo, and that is being used right now to pitch to agents and TV networks. We are working with some very esteemed individuals and companies that are representing the show for us. We are all making great progress.

As we begin to get solid deals put together, we’ll be sure to let you all know. Don’t worry, when the show is picked up, the entire Skeptical Community and hopefully many other people will know that it’s coming! For our international viewers, we’re not certain who will carry it, but rest assured, we’re working hard to give the show the largest audience possible. If we don’t air it outside of US, you can bet we’ll be working on online and home video options as well.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to share our exploits into producing the pilot with the Dream Team of skeptics: The Skeptologists!

  (continue reading…)

Ah, Pre-Production.  Think of it as cramming for the big test, or making weight for the fight, or preparing for cadacism.. Oh wait, strike last last bit.

Pre-Production is where all the wheels are set in motion for a production project. By the name of it, I’m guessing you figured out that much, so far on your own.  The team and I had been discussing the finer points of the show, and finding our talent and coming up with great ideas. It was time to set a date, and like a wedding, once you set that date, it’s kinda like chasing a burning fuse. Things start to move very quickly.

We chose to shoot the first week of April, and true to skeptic form, we decided to have everyone assemble in L.A. for the first time on April first.  Boy, I could have played a really rotten April Fool’s joke that night, But I thought better of it. 

We had Skeptologists arriving from all over in a symphony of plane and car schedules. But before all of that could happen, a lot of work by a lot of fine folks had to take place.  We had to figure out just what we were going to shoot, where it would happen and how to get it all done in the precious four days that we had with the cast. Four days.

(continue reading…)

All the elements of TV production are difficult and require much attention, time and money.

Landing a network TV production deal to have the opportunity to show all that hard work to a nation, and even the world, is much like hitting the lottery.

Too bad I don’t play the lottery.

Convincing entrenched, and complacent programming TV executives that you have a program that will change the way people consider their TV entertainment seems to be next to impossible.

I set out on a journey to do just that, and with the help of an amazing production team and an all-star skeptical cast, we’re going to make it a reality!

In my last blog, I shared some of the process to get this idea off the ground.  In this second installment, I want to give you an idea about how we came to decide who should be on our esteemed panel of brilliant minds for the show. (continue reading…)

My life as a skeptic was always there I guess. It wasn’t until I was listening to podcasts while traveling back and forth between my hometown of Santa Maria and Hollywood during the second season of the TV series, American Dragster, that I direct, I realized what being skeptical really was. (continue reading…)