http://www.goblinsandgold.com/csp/gold/blog en david@lucidbyproxy.com Copyright 2010 2010-05-25T22:20:02-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/announcing_gold_season_1_dvd_and_gold_night_of_the_zombie_king/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/announcing_gold_season_1_dvd_and_gold_night_of_the_zombie_king/ Two amazing announcements today, May 25: the GOLD Season 1 DVD is available and NOTZK is in production! GOLD Season 1 Special Edition DVD: On Sale Now! Thanks to our generous GOLD DVD Club members and the tireless efforts of the GOLD team members, GOLD Season 1 is now available on a Special Edition DVD, which includes: - All seven episodes of GOLD Season 1 with re-mastered color and sound - One of 12 different DVD covers - Cast/crew and creator commentaries for every episode - Interview with the cast & crew by GirlGamer’s Cricket Lee - Special thank-you shout-out to the GOLD DVD Club - Independent TV preview featuring a host of great current and upcoming shows from around the webseries world - Randomly selected behind-the-scenes photo and a GOLD CCG Character card - Exclusive minisode not available anywhere else: “The Palace of the Silver Princess” All this for only $20 (+shipping). And the best part: all profits from the sale of every DVD go toward the production of GOLD Season 2. Visit www.goldtheseries.com/store to buy yours today. In conjunction with the DVD launch, we’ve also released a beautiful 11x17 poster of the Gallery DVD cover, featuring all 11 main characters from GOLD. You can get that at www.goldtheseries.com/store as well. GOLD: Night of the Zombie King is in Production! While we’re still searching for the right partners to help us make the complex, sprawling beast that is GOLD Season 2, the GOLD team is sick of not having any new episodes to put out on the interwebs. So, we’ve written and are in the process of shooting a 6-part miniseries: “Night of the Zombie King.” NOTZK takes place between seasons 1 and 2 of GOLD, and centers around a character a lot of fans have told us they want to see more of: Jaz, the big, tough leader of the Dangerous Gamers Jonathan visits in GOLD Episode 4. Set over the course of one night in the lives of five grown-up gamers, NOTZK is a story about RPGs, friendship, growing-up, and the difficulty of reconciling the people we thought we were as kids with the adults we’ve become. In short, it’s “The Big Chill” for nerds. More or less. NOTZK features James Ellis Lane, Jonathan Nail, Stephanie Thorpe, Maxwell Glick and Brian Majestic. It is in production right now, and we anticipate it will be released in late Summer 2010. For breaking news about GOLD: Night of the Zombie King, keep your eye on the website (www.goldtheseries.com), our facebook page (www.facebook.com/goldtheseries) and follow us on twitter (@GoldtheSeries). May all your crits be confirmed, David Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-05-25T22:20:02-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/announcing_gold_night_of_the_zombie_king/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/announcing_gold_night_of_the_zombie_king/ Pretty soon it's gonna be hard not to talk about our newest GOLD adventure. No, this isn’t the post letting you know the GOLD DVD is ready for sale. It’s at the manufacturer right now, and we’ll let you know as soon as it is ready. And it’s not about GOLD Season 2, sadly - we’re still looking for a partner to help us get that made. But, you see, not making more television set in the GOLD world has been killing us. So, Andrew (GOLD Co-Exec, Goldy). Rick (Richard Wright) and I got together and wrote a new GOLD adventure. GOLD Season 2’s sweeping story, multiple locations and dozens of characters makes it expensive and time-consuming to shoot (which is why we need a partner or two), so we wanted to write a parallel series that would compliment the main GOLD storyline, but be smaller and more self-contained - something we could produce while worked on scaring-up the resources for GS2.  The result: “GOLD: Night of the Zombie King.” It takes place shortly after the events in GOLD Season 1, and centers around a character a lot of fans have told us they want to see more of: Jaz, the big, tough leader of the Dangerous Gamers Jonathan visits in GOLD Episode 4. It takes place over the course of one night, and I’ve been explaining the story to folks as, “The Big Chill” for rpg nerds. We begin shooting Night of the Zombie King (NOTZK) at the end of May, and I couldn’t be more excited to be back working with the GOLD team. I just wanted to let you all know about it now, so we could excitedly tweet about it during production, post pictures from the set, etc. As we go along, we’ll be posting more info about the plot, characters, etc. And, yes, the DVD of Season 1 will be available soon. Very soon. I promise. -David Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-05-07T22:47:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/got_some_free_time_this_weekend/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/got_some_free_time_this_weekend/ Our buddies at CJP Digital (The Temp Life) are looking for background talent for a shoot in downtown LA this Thursday & Friday. They’re looking for men and women of all types (over the age of 18) to portray attendees of a theater event. You should arrive dressed in semi-formal attire (dresses for women, jackets for men) as would be fitting for a red carpet/premiere event. Thursday, April 8th: Half day shoot (approximately 4 hours). 10 extras needed, meals and credit provided (no pay). Friday, April 9th: Half day shoot (approximately 4 hours). 20 extras needed, meals and credit provided (no pay). Details of the production are currently confidential, however exact call times (daytime shoot) and location (downtown theater district, convenient to 10/110 and 101) will be provided upon confirmation.  To submit for the project, please contact Jeff Koenig at jkoenig@cjpdigital.com. Previous experience as an actor or background extra helpful but not necessary. If you are available for both days, please note that in your submission. Thanks! Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-04-06T21:58:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/contest_if_gold_wins_a_streamy_you_could_win_these/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/contest_if_gold_wins_a_streamy_you_could_win_these/ These are the shoes I will be wearing to the 2010 Streamy Awards Ceremony on April 11.* “What has that to do with me?” you might ask. Well, let me explain: These are Extremely Limited Edition GOLD the Series Jonathan Drake Specials. You see, that’s Jon Drake’s signature right there on the side of a black and grey canvas high-top sneaker (black is Jon’s color after all - it’s all he ever wears). And on the inside of each shoe? A sweet, sweet jumble of multi-colored d20s. These are beautiful shoes. And only 6 pairs will ever be made. Ever. One of them could be yours. Here’s the deal: as you may know, GOLD is nominated for a 2010 Streamy Award for Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series. If we win, we’ll give a pair of these sweet, extremely limited edition shoes to a fan selected randomly from our mailing list. All you need to do is sign-up for the GOLD mailing list. You can do so on pretty much every page of the GOLD website. If you are not already on that list, get on it before 11:59PM on April 11th. Seriously. Do it now! And then cross your fingers that GOLD wins. I’ll admit, we’re pretty much the underdog, up against some very steep competition from such wildly popular and amazing shows as The Guild, Easy to Assemble, Back on Topps and Dorm Life. But we’re scrappy. And - I’ll just come right out and say it - we’ve got Richard Wright’s chest hair on our side. No single web show can overcome that! Watch the Streamy Awards, streaming live over the interwebs on April 11 (details here). And look for the GOLD cast on the red carpet and in the audience. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can catch a glimpse of the shoes. Maybe. “But, wait,” you say, “that’s one pair for you, and one pair to a fan if you win a Streamy. What about the other four pairs?” Very good question, you. You were totally paying attention. The fate of the other four pairs will hinge upon some other upcoming announcements. Just stay tuned! - David Nett Creator, GOLD Owner of 1 Pair of Extremely Limited Edition GOLD the Series Jonathan Drake Specials, size 10 PS: This giveaway is not officially connected to the Streamy Awards or the IAWTV or sanctioned by them in any way. It’s purely from the folks here at GOLD. *shoes may be slightly different than they appear here. They have not yet arrived from the manufacturer. Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-03-29T23:39:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_season_1_dvd_detailed_features/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_season_1_dvd_detailed_features/ This is it. The GOLD DVD is very nearly done. As of the end of this week, all of the pieces of the GOLD DVD will be in place. We’ll be putting the discs through several rounds of hard-core quality assurance testing the next two weeks or so, and will probably have to tweak a few things here and there, but as of right now all the bits of the disc are mostly locked, so we can finally talk about what made it in. Here’s the final breakdown of the GOLD Season 1 Special Edition DVD: 1 professionally replicated DVD (not duplicated - professionally replicated from a glass master) with: All seven original Season 1 Episodes, with completely (painstakingly) re-mastered color and sound (approx. 75 minutes) English subtitles 2 separate commentary tracks for each episode (1 courtesy of the creators, 1 courtesy of the cast & crew and a liberal amount of beer & wine) An interview with the GOLD cast & crew, hosted by GirlGamer’s Cricket Lee A special DVD club “thank you” video from the GOLD cast A selection of trailers and sneak peeks from the world of independent web television and A DVD Exclusive GOLD Mini-Episode: “Palace of the Silver Princess” - available only on the GOLD Season 1 Special Edition DVD! So, assuming you watch all of the episodes with and without commentary (and I know you will), and assuming my math is right (a dicier prospect, for sure) that’s almost four and a half hours of content! In addition, the Special Edition DVD will come with: A special note from creator David Nett A behind-the-scenes photo from the set of GOLD A GOLD CCG character card One of 12 different DVD covers (choose which cover you want at purchase) The good news: this is a packed disc. We are filling every available bit of space with content. The bad news: we weren’t able to fit everything we wanted to; a handful of potential disc features didn’t make the cut. Honestly, we just plain ran out of space. Once the DVD is released, we’ll be working hard to figure out what to do with those extra bits and bobs. We’ve some ideas. Oh, yes we have. What’s that? You want to know when the GOLD Season 1 Special Edition DVD will be available? Well, since we’ve still got to QA the master disc and then manufacture it, we can’t say for certain. We’re hoping to make it available before the end of April, but it may leak into early May. As soon as we have a concrete release date, we will let everyone know. This whole process has taken a lot longer than I anticipated, but I’m so proud of what we’ve done. Of course, DVDs and posters will be in the mail to eligible GOLD DVD Club members as soon as they are ready - you’ll get yours first! Thanks again for supporting GOLD, and independent television. The future is ours. -David Nett Creator, GOLD Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-03-29T22:50:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/new_desktop_wallpapers_for_2010/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/new_desktop_wallpapers_for_2010/ Five new desktop/iPhone wallpapers available in the "Extras" section. Just messing around with some of the GOLD imagery this weekend, and thought we’d make a few new desktop images. You can find them in the Extras section.Hope you enjoy them! Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-02-24T05:37:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_8/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_8/ Session 8, in which the party finds some proof, splits up, gets back together, and must decided on their future. The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-02-05T00:06:01-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/dvd_special_features_help/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/dvd_special_features_help/ Wanna be in a GOLD DVD Special Feature? Of course you do! Throughout the process of working on GOLD, we’ve been getting a lot of great fan emails, questions and suggestions. Among the most common were variations on “I’m enjoying the show, but can you tell me more about tabletop RPGs?” or, “This is awesome - you guys should make some tabletop RPG how-to videos.” Well, we don’t have the resources to do a how-to series on top of the series proper (and there are actually a couple of really good how-to videos out there). But I would like to address these common questions in the special features. To that end, we’re making two new videos. Each will be a short collection of video testimonials from the cast, crew, GOLD fans and people in the RPG industry, responding to the following: Explain tabletop RPG gaming in 25 words or less. What has RPG gaming meant to you (in 25 words or less)? Obviously, to do this I need help. I’d love to get (from as many of you as possible) a short video, answering 1 or both of these (each question answered separately). The responses to each should be as short as possible - 20-30 words long. Basically, a video “tweet.” Each video should be a few seconds long at most - I won’t be able to use longer videos. One sentence. Seriously. The videos don’t need to be stellar quality - the camera and microphone built into your laptop or even your iPhone (or what have you) are fine. Just sit down, make certain you can see yourself in-frame, and record. Higher production values are also welcome, of course ;-) If you can also include a minute or so of your gaming crew actually at play (for b-roll during the montage), that’d be awesome, too. Just get their permission first! When you’ve got your video, email me at goldtheseries@gmail.com and let me know, and I’ll send back simple instructions for uploading it to our server. Deadline is Sunday, February 14 (a little more than 2 weeks). I’ll also send a little release form to everyone who shoots me a video, just to cover all my bases. These videos will be used as part of the DVD special features explained above. The completed montages may also be released online (if they turn out to be really cool). Lemme know if you have any questions. I can’t wait to see what y’all have to say! -David Creator, GOLD Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-01-29T00:16:01-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/sneak_peek_at_the_dvd_cover/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/sneak_peek_at_the_dvd_cover/ Wanna take a look at the early drafts of the GOLD Season 1 DVD covers? Yeah, we do, too. We’re trucking along here at GOLD HQ, working hard on the episodes and the extras (we filmed the extra-special new scene this week). In addition, I’ve been playing a lot with the GOLD graphics - the DVD menus as well as the DVD cover(s) and the poster(s) we’ll be releasing along with the DVD. While the DVD cover/poster is not finished, I feel like I’m getting pretty close, so I wanted to share them with you. This the the treatment for the “Special Edition” - the DVD version which will be sold through the GOLD website (a “regular” version will also be sold through other sites - initially at least, the Special Edition will be available only directly from us). There will be 12 different covers for the SE edition - people will select the cover they’d like upon purchase. Anyway, no more writey - more lookey. Click on a thumbnail to open the images in another window: Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-01-18T01:51:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/thank_you_plus_some_dvd_extras_revealed/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/thank_you_plus_some_dvd_extras_revealed/ Thank you for supporting the GOLD Season 1 DVD. Happy New year, everyone. And Happy GOLD DVD Club inaugural year! As you know by now, we did it: we met (exceeded) our goal, the DVD is being made, the DVD Club is closed, and its exclusive membership are the coolest people on earth.* We’re busy getting our schedule together and, while we probably won’t announce a hard release date for a few weeks at least (many years working day jobs in software development has taught me not to do that until you are 100% certain), we’re confident that everyone who pledged at least $25 will have amazing, exclusive DVD Club Edition DVDs in your grubby, grasping hands sometime in the 1st quarter of 2010. For anyone who missed the deadline but still wants a DVD when they are released, you’ll be able to buy it through Goldtheseries.com, and maybe other places, shortly thereafter. I can hardly wait. Now, some discussion of DVD Extras: DVD SPECIAL FEATURES! We’re gonna cram as many special features into the DVD as we can manage and, while we will have at least English subtitles, I do not count that as a Special Feature (I hate when DVDs list “subtitles” as a special feature - that’s not a special feature, it’s just common decency). Some of them will be pretty typical - a gallery of behind-the-scenes photos (some never seen before!), a hilarious commentary track or two, etc., but some will be special indeed. I wanna talk about two of them here: Never-before-seen Scene with the American Gamers A lot of DVDs feature deleted scenes. The fact is, for GOLD, our schedules and budgets were so tight that we really didn’t shoot anything we didn’t use. Sure, a line or two was trimmed here or there, but we really worked so lean there’s nothing notable in the way of footage which was left on the cutting room floor. However, a lot of cutting happened in the writing phase of GOLD. After I originally outlined the plot of the first GOLD story, I broke it down into episode arcs and realized I’d need 20-25 ten-minute episodes to tell the whole story. I knew I couldn’t afford to do more than six or seven episodes in Season 1, and I didn’t want to stretch the story over three seasons (I knew it’d be hard to fund a second season, and I didn’t even want to speculate on a season 3). So I collapsed what would have been the first two seasons of story into one season, and a lot of plotlines (and characters) were removed or greatly shrunk. (A side note: the Dangerous Gamers from Episode 4 were originally much more important in the world of professional Goblins and Gold, and were the American team’s main rivals in the semi-finals.) However, I’d already written a lot of stuff that would become seasons 1 and 2 of GOLD. Some of the stuff I was cutting was even good (no one is ever more surprised than me when my stuff is good). So, I found a little self-contained scene that I think is funny, and we’re gonna produce it as a DVD exclusive mini-episode. The scene features Tim, Sam & Charles, and takes place between the Prologue and Episode 1, about a month before the Semi-Final tournament where Jonathan is injured. You’ll get to see Charles again while he’s just the Equipment Manager, Sam back in his original chainmail gauntlet, and get a glimpse of the inside of Tim’s house. Exciting stuff indeed. An Interview with the GOLD Cast & Crew Another cool feature, we think, will be a sort of series-regular cast (and some crew if we can convince them) reunion-style interview, conducted by geek culture reporter Cricket Lee (FanGirl’s Guide, GirlGamer.com, GeekWeek.com). We’re gonna sit around and chat with Cricket and do our level best to be fascinating. There’s a solid chance that one or more of us will break down in tears, and a near-certainty that Rick (Richard Wright) will pick a fight with someone and end up being punched in the face. Now you really want that DVD, doncha? -- We’ve a few more cool extras planned, but I’ll hold onto those details for another time. Thanks again for supporting the GOLD Season 1 DVD Club. I’ll write again soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, you can post them here, or shoot me an email at goldtheseries@gmail.com. Make certain to mention you’re a DVD club member so I can give you priority treatment. Later, David Creator, GOLD *apart from Lenny Kravitz. That dude is just too cool to be challenged. Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-01-18T00:59:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_7/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_7/ Session 7, in which the party heads back into the dungeon, pursued by evil. The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-01-08T00:05:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_6/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_6/ Session 6, in which the party bargains with a Gnoll, and finds serious trouble. The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Web Video, Role Playing Games 2010-01-08T00:02:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/nominate_gold_for_the_2009_streamy_awards/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/nominate_gold_for_the_2009_streamy_awards/ GOLD is eligible for this year's Streamy Awards. You should totally nominate us! Wow. Okay. With all the hubub surrounding the GOLD SEASON 1 DVD, we haven’t yet posted about this year’s Streamy Awards. For those who don’t know the Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-12-29T03:20:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/the_gold_dvd_is_a_go/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/the_gold_dvd_is_a_go/ Thanks to our amazing supporters, the GOLD Season 1 DVD Club is 100% funded. Hey there, everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update. We’ve been super-busy here at Casa del GOLD (I don’t speak spanish, sadly) working on fundraising (always, always fundraising ;-( ), scripts and planning for GOLD Season 2, scripts for our GOLD spin-off, “Night of the Zombie King,” and pre-production for our upcoming (in 4 days!) shoot for the pilot of our new series, “Alice & the Monster.” Whew! But don’t think we didn’t notice that the GOLD Season 1 DVD Club is 100% funded! Over 100%, actually. Which means that A) there will definitely be a GOLD Season 1 DVD in early 2010 and B) you guys are awesome. Which you already knew. There’re still 20+ days in this Kickstarter, so we’re hoping to build up a little cushion to help us with some extra-extras we’ve been discussing. If you’ve got friends who’d enjoy a GOLD DVD, encourage them to stop by and join the DVD club, pre-order a DVD, and generally go nuts. After December 31, the pre-orders for the cast & crew signed DVD stop. Don’t miss out! Since we are now fully funded (once the Kickstarter ends on January 1), we’ve already begun work. The first things that need to be done are the most important: re-mastering the GOLD episodes for DVD. I thought I’d tell you a little bit about that here, and in the next week or so we’ll talk more about DVD extras. Cool? Cool. A word of warning: if you’re not interested in the process of producing a DVD from content originally aimed at the web, you will fall asleep within 2 paragraphs. I guarantee it ;-) Re-Mastering GOLD Thanks to your generous donations, I’ve hired a cracker-jack professional editor to assist in the creation of the GOLD DVD. Re-Mastering GOLD essentially means returning to the raw episode edits and cleaning-up much of my ham-fisted post-production work. As of last week, this process has begun. It’s a time consuming, laborious process, but I’m super-excited to see the end results. Video: When we originally made GOLD, we shot in glorious 1080i HD on my trusty little Sony HVR-A1u. While it’s only a single-CMOS camera, the footage looks pretty darn stunning, I think. The thing is, we were aiming for the web, our budgets were tiny, and I was, let us say, inexperienced at color correction (I had never done it before ever). My inexperience bled over into the final product. What that meant was: I colored it for the web. The range of colors available for display on computer monitors is much wider than the gamut of the NTSC standard used by television and DVDs in the U.S. I colored corrected the episodes to computer monitor standards (such as they are), not NTSC. Therefore, when you convert the current GOLD videos to DVD, you get some bizarre coloring where the current colors sit outside the NTSC standard. Since I was such a novice, I had a hard time color correcting across different lighting conditions, etc. I took a shortcut which washed all the episodes with a yellowish, old-film look. By applying this wash, I was able to mask many of the cut-to-cut inconsistencies that I was unable to properly correct. It worked out, but sacrificed a lot of the richness of the original color for consistency. Probably the most significant amount of work that will go into the making of the GOLD DVD is to undo all of my novice color correction (a fairly easy, if time-consuming task) and re-color correct using professional standards. Episode 6 will be the easiest - we were fortunate to have the help of a pro color correcting EP6. Unfortunately, she was forced to match the yellow-washed look of the rest of the series, but working with her stuff will be least laborious. In the end, I think the GOLD that you can watch online looks pretty damn good, especially relative to the overall world of web video. But I know there’s an even higher level of quality that can be achieved with our source video - it just needs a professional editor tasked with unlocking that quality. Thanks to you folks, we’ve now got one. Audio: Good sound is the hardest thing to achieve in any indie video production. Proper equipment is expensive, and the environment constantly interferes. On the GOLD shoot we used a pretty high-quality boom mic and a great boom operator. But we had no lavs to work with (tiny mics which live on each actor for clear, crisp sound), the surroundings often interfered and, as with color, I was the most novice of novices when it came to post production sound. My processing and mixing skills were, um, raw. The good news was, web video, especially at the time we were first releasing GOLD a year ago, was a lot more forgiving about sound than your living room entertainment system. Most people watching television on the web are listening using earphones or tiny computer speakers. A lot of the imperfections in sound can be easily masked when aiming at such devices. Not so with DVD. DVDs get played in your kick-butt, amplified, huge-speakered entertainment systems. The sound quality bar is much higher. Fortunately, like the video, the raw sound we have is pretty darn good. Our pro post guy, Frederick, is confident he’ll be able to make it very clean and pleasant. He’s doing that right now. --- It’s so exciting to think about bringing GOLD to that next level. The DVD is going to look and sound amazing, and it is all thanks to the folks who backed the GOLD DVD Club. I hope you’re as excited about seeing the end result as we are. - David Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-12-08T23:30:01-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/pre_order_the_gold_season_1_dvd/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/pre_order_the_gold_season_1_dvd/ If about 40 more people pre-order the GOLD DVD before December 31, we'll be able to send GOLD to DVD! So, the GOLD Season 1 DVD Club has been live for several weeks, and we’re over halfway there. But a lot of people have been confused by the project so, with the help of Shannon, Frederick and Andrew, I’ve realized there’s a really simple way to explain it: Pre-order the DVD for $25. If enough people do this before December 31 (as of November 19 at 3:30PM we need 42 more people to pre-order), we’ll be able to make the DVDs. If we don’t raise enough money, you don’t pay anything. It couldn’t be more simple than that, really. If you want to pledge more than just $25, there are additional rewards - posters, shout-outs on the DVD itself, etc. And even if you can’t afford $25, you can help us out by pledging any amount. Pre-order your DVD, or find out more about the GOLD Season 1 DVD Club, here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davidnett/gold-the-series-season-1-dvd-club You can find out more about the DVD Club at http://www.goblinsandgold.com/csp/gold/blog_entry/announcing_the_gold_dvd_club, and at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davidnett/gold-the-series-season-1-dvd-club. I hope you can join us and help make this DVD a reality. Thanks. Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-11-19T23:30:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/announcing_the_gold_dvd_club/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/announcing_the_gold_dvd_club/ GOLD Season 1 is coming to DVD! Or at least we hope it is. Soon. There’s some work that needs to be done. Since GOLD was created specifically for online distribution, we need to do some tweaking/cleaning to both color and sound to meet standards which are much less forgiving on DVD than on the web. Additionally, we wanna create some DVD extras to add to value. Right now we’re planning photo galleries, cast & crew interviews, commentary tracks, and a couple of other fun things. In order to do all of this, we need to raise a little money to pay for experienced editors, dvd duplication, etc. It’s not much - we’re pretty sure we can do it all for only $2,500. To raise that money, we’ve created the GOLD Season 1 DVD Club. The DVD Club uses the fantastic new crowdsource fundraising service, Kickstarter. Kickstarter allows us to gather pledges from fans of the series for a fixed period of time. If our total pledges meet our goal ($2500) in that time, donors are charged what they pledged, and our project gets funded. If we don’t meet that goal before the deadline, no one is charged anything. This way donors are ensured that, if you actually give us money, we’re guaranteed to create that DVD. In addition, depending upon how much you donate, there are great donor rewards (including, of course, copies of the resulting DVDs). The DVD Club Kickstarter campaign ends December 31, 2009. If we are successful, the DVD will be available sometime in early 2010. If you’re interestd in seeing GOLD on DVD, please check out the DVD Club. We’re very excited about this, but we need you to help us make it happen. Thanks. Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-11-05T22:04:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/the_gold_character_card_game_is_live/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/the_gold_character_card_game_is_live/ I'm so incredibly excited to announce GOLD, the Character Card Game (CCG). We’ve been working on this for a while. When we were first tossing around the idea of GOLD, we also talked a lot about possible merchandising opportunities (we thought that merch might cover the costs of the series - we were desperately wrong. So desperately wrong ;-). Along with the t-shirts, posters, etc. (which are currently available at the GOLD Online Store), we wanted to contribute something to the gaming world. Initially there was some talk about a standalone “Goblins & Gold” RPG, but since there are already so many tremendous old and new-school RPG systems out there that we love to play, and since we’re novices at game design, we quickly discarded that idea. (We further realized that, even if we came up with a unique contribution, the work needed to make a good RPG would mean we’d never have time to make actual episodes of GOLD.) We talked about writing an adventure or two for some existing systems, based upon the adventures glimpsed in the series. We’re still considering that. And we talked about a collectible card game. The card game resonated a lot with us, because it allowed us to leverage the characters we’ve worked so hard to develop these past two years, as well as the great visuals we’ve got from the series. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of game it should be. Ultimately, a simple team battle game, in the spirit of the now-defunct Overpower and Rage games, seemed the best route, so this is what we built: GOLD, the CCG is a team battle style card game for two to four players, and features character cards and gameplay based upon the popular webseries. Players build teams from the included character cards and do battle with other teams using damage cards and dice (also included). The game is an easy to learn, fun and fast-paced tie-in to the webseries. At release, it features twenty of the most popular characters from the series, including Richard Wright, Sam St. Croix, Oliver Crane and Martha Thistlethwait. All profits from the sale of the game will go directly into the production of future episodes of GOLD, the Series. GOLD, the CCG is available today through the GOLD Online Store (www.goldtheseries.com/store) and The Game Crafter (www.thegamecrafter.com). The GOLD Starter set contains everything you need to play the game, and is priced at $19.99. The GOLD Character Pack, at $7.99, is for collectors who may not want to play the game, but who desire to collect the character cards themselves. The first expansion set, which will include additional character cards, special damage cards and new equipment cards, is scheduled for (hopeful) release later this year. You can download the game rules from the online store and check them out. Right now the rules are in a BETA phase, so we welcome your feedback as you play. The rules will likely evolve as we go along, but we will do everything we can to avoid changing the cards themselves so that everything you buy should work with any future rules changes. This has been a big effort for us, and we hope you like what we’ve designed. And we hope you see this for what it is: an offering to the community to show we’re still thinking about you, and still working on GOLD, even though we’re between seasons. Check it out here. Thanks, -David Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-11-05T21:36:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_featured_in_fear_the_boots_gencon_coverage/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_featured_in_fear_the_boots_gencon_coverage/ James and David were interviewed by premiere RPG Podcast "Fear the Boot" at GenCon. Okay, this is a big deal for us. ”Fear the Boot” is an amazing RPG podcast, an absolute must for gamers and gaming fans. I’m a huge, huge fan. Chris and the crew were super nice, but I was crazily nervous throughout. I’m certain you’ll be able to tell, though Chris was nice enough to say he couldn’t. I keep looking at the microphone. Why the hell would I do that? Another bit of trivia: I (David) am gigantic. You can’t really tell in GOLD because of the way it is shot, but I’m way bigger than most of the rest of the cast. James, who plays Sam, is not a tiny little pocket sized man. I’m just a monster. Fortunately, Chris is a tall guy, too (a little taller than me, I think) so he could reach me with the microphone and it was all cool. Behind us, for those who’ve never been, is the GenCon vendor floor. This was taped early Thursday morning, which is a relatively slow time for the ‘con. Shit got really crazy later on. Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-10-21T18:18:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_at_a_fangirls_guide/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_at_a_fangirls_guide/ Check out David, Shannon, Alan and Nathan on "A Fangirl's Guide." Way back before we went to GenCon this year, we were invited to Cricket Lee and Jared Hoy’s live streaming podcast, “A Fangirl’s Guide.” We had a great time - Crix & Jared are awesome, Shannon, Alan and Nathan are mesmerizing, Penny Lane, Alan’s puppy, is super cute, and I (David) don’t screw things up too bad. The archives from the livecast are up. It’s segmented into seven 15 minute chunks (holy cow!). The first one is mostly just us bullshitting while Jared fiddles with the tech, but they’re all fun to watch: Part 1: www.justin.tv/clip/d56da6d184cd85f0 Part 2: www.justin.tv/clip/71c146e3728dbbca Part 3: www.justin.tv/clip/f7aa12e6a16e3b15 Part 4: www.justin.tv/clip/77bee80acf250db8 Part 5: www.justin.tv/clip/e75cc1af222032b5 Part 6: www.justin.tv/clip/4c396d03f3594bbb Part 7: www.justin.tv/clip/ed1138671f7b88f8 You can find “A Fangirl’s Guide” on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/pages/A-Fangirls-Guide/100661548682 Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-10-21T18:07:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/two_los_angeles_enigma_screenings/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/two_los_angeles_enigma_screenings/ GOLD's Nathan Mobley (Tim Calloway) is fantastic in the super-cool sci-fi short, "Enigma." The film itself is damn cool as well. The effects are absolutely stunning - you’ll be completely blown away by this indie effort. It’s screening twice this weekend in the Los Angeles area and you should try to catch it if you can: Valley Film Festival 2009 http://www.valleyfilmfest.com Shriekfest Horror/Sci-fi Film Festival 2009 http://www.shriekfest.com ----- Valley Film Festival Thursday, Oct 1st 5:30pm The El Portal Theatre 5269 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601 ----- Shriekfest Film Festival 2009 Saturday, Oct 3rd 7:00pm Raleigh Studios 5300 Melrose Ave Hollywood, CA Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-09-29T05:50:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/see_gold_at_the_nytvf_9_23_9_24_9_25/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/see_gold_at_the_nytvf_9_23_9_24_9_25/ GOLD is proud to be an official selection of the 2009 New York Television Festival. The New York Television Festival is the TV industry’s original independent television festival. Each year the Festival unites artists, executives, industry figures, and fans to celebrate the medium and to help shape its future. This year, GOLD is crazy-excited to be one of the 30 or so official festival selections! We’ll be screening 3 times during the festival: first at the end of Digital Day, September 23 as part of the NYTVF Short Pilot Showcase at 9:30PM (check it out here). Then, we’ll be screening as part of the official NYTVF Independent Pilot Competition (in Comedy Block 1) on Thursday, Sptember 24 @8:45PM (click for tix) and Friday, September 25 @10:00PM (click here for tix). All of these screenings are at the New World Stages, the “Center of Off-Broadway,” and are FREE, so if you find yourself in NYC next week, you should really drop by. As a bonus, there’ll be a brief Q&A session after the Thursday and Friday night screenings. Since GOLD was designed for the web, it’ll be one of very few chances you’ll ever have to see our giant, nerdy heads on the Big Screen. This is a huge festival for us: the NYTVF is a prestigious industry event, and your support helps reinforce the notion that GOLD, webseries in general, and tabletop role playing games all deserve a share of the spolight. Events like this also mean a lot to the people who could help us make GOLD Season 2 a reality, so it’s doubly important for us right now. If you can come, we could really use your support. GOLD Screening Info Wednesday, September 23rd at 9:30PM - New World Stages 2 tix Thursday, September 24rd at 8:45PM - New World Stages 3 tix Friday, September 23rd at 10:00PM - New World Stages 2 tix For more information, visit the New York Television Festival Schedule. Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-09-17T04:52:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/free_shipping_at_the_gold_premium_store/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/free_shipping_at_the_gold_premium_store/ The GOLD premium store, hosted by Zazzle, has free shipping until Tuesday for orders over $35. If you haven’t already checked it out, the GOLD Premium Store on Zazzle is home to a bunch of pretty rad (yes, I said rad) shirt designs. And the cool thing about the Zazzle shirts, and why we moved the premium shirts there, is that on each design you can choose what color and what style you like, and there are dozens of styles to choose from for men and women, including long-sleeve styles, sweatshirts, etc. Anyway, if you were thinking about picking-up one of these sweet shirts, this weekend is the time. Get on it: http://www.zazzle.com/goldtheseries -David Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-09-05T06:20:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_5/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_5/ Session 5, in which things get really ugly for the party, and Ark barely escapes death. The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-09-01T18:48:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_4/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_4/ Session 4, in which Shecky is swallowed by a giant frog, but lives to tell the tale. The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-09-01T18:44:00-08:00 http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_3/ http://www.readcsp.com/csp/gold/blog/gold_gamer_recap_session_3/ In which the party size doubles, and the party are officially hired to track down the nefarious bandits. The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Web Video, Role Playing Games 2009-09-01T18:39:00-08:00