Latest / The BSB Podcast / Exclusive Interview: Felicia Day Talks 'The Guild' Film!

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Exclusive Interview: Felicia Day Talks 'The Guild' Film! · The BSB Podcast

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  Today's guest has charmed the world for two decades,
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  reminding us that being nerdy is totally cool.
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  You may know her from her roles in Supernatural,
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  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Horrible Sing Along Vlog,
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  and honestly, the list can go on and on.
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  But she's also founded Geek and Sundry and created the web series The Guild,
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  which is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
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  And to commemorate the legacy of this series,
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  the incredibly talented Felicia Day is here to talk about the upcoming
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  The Guild film and how she's bringing it to the fans through Kickstarter.
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  Thank you so much for being here today,
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  Felicia.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  I'm so excited to talk talk about my movie.
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  It's gonna be great.
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  I just want to begin by saying,
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  congratulations on 20 years of the guild.
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  It is so incredible to create something that has such a lasting impact,
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  such as this. How does that kind of feel?
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  I mean, it is 19 years, so we're trying to make the movie to release
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  for our 20th anniversary. So just not to age me too much,
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  but you know, whatever. Let's it is almost 20 years.
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  Sorry.
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  ~ it feels amazing. You know, the last couple of years when I go to conventions,
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  I have met people who have shown me pictures of them when they were like a teenager,
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  and now they're an adult with a kid with them.
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  And the fact that I can have sustained a career doing what I love in
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  the areas that I love.
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  And the the areas that I love have grown so much and I can still hang on.
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  It is just a joy. And I'm I'm just excited to make this movie as sort
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  of a last stamp. Hopefully not a last thing,
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  but just like the last biggest stamp.
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  Because boy, this is Kickstarter a lot of work,
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  but it's gonna be really cool.
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  I have to say that I started watching this when I was about 15,
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  like very early on. I'm 34 now.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  So I I was and so to hear when it was coming back,
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  and I was just like, it was incredible.
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  The nostalgia factor kicked in.
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  I was like, this is so cool to see something that you love so much return.
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  And obviously, I mean people are responding to it so well.
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  ~ but but going back to that first,
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  like the original the guild, what kind of sparked the idea of decide
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  to bring the guild to to screens?
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  Well, I mean, I was just rejected a lot in Hollywood and I was addicted
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  to World of Warcraft. And I had a group of women that I met with
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  to talk about career, you know,
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  wins and losses every week. And I finally got guilted into writing something
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  for myself as an actor. And I ended up writing about online gamers.
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  When I showed it to Hollywood people,
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  they were like, I don't understand.
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  How do you game with people online?
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  I mean, this was so early. This was before the iPhone.
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  YouTube had just started and one of my friends in the group was
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  You know, she was my sketchwriting teacher and she was like,
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  Hey, I filmed a couple sketches and put them on this new thing called YouTube.
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  Let's just film and put it up.
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  But I was like, us film? What?
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  And it was really scary. I will be honest with you.
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  It was not I would never have done it without the support of Kim and Jane,
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  the director. But when we started doing it and I got my first comments,
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  I was like, my gosh, after so many years of being rejected,
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  I have people who like what I do.
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  I just want to keep doing this.
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  And so that's how my career took a big,
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  big turn. Every acting opportunity I've had that people know me from now,
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  except for Buffy, has been op a door opened because of what I did on the web.
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  And so yeah, I'm just so glad to be able to get the gang back together
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  and and just put a little exclamation mark on our legacy.
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  I do have to say that like that this was the project I met you on and
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  I was just like I still to this day haven't watched Buffy.
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  It's one of the things that my friends are like but but it's one
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  It's okay.
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  of those things where like this was the one I was like,
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  and then I saw you supernatural and like all of a sudden you were
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  you were everywhere. You were doing all these incredible things.
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  But it's kinda cool to have the guild to be that first project that felt
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  so like personal, I would assume,
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  Yeah.
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  as well.
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  yeah, for sure. I mean, I'd just been rejected so much and I
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  was like floundering around. If I cut my hair,
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  will they like me? If I put glasses on,
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  will they like me? And when I said that I was a math major,
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  I love video games, like there was no part for me in Hollywood.
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  There still wouldn't be. Like,
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  there's nothing out there for women like Codex twenty years ago or
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  me twenty years later. Like, it's just a weird blind spot,
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  especially with women. You know,
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  they'll they'll they'll put gamers on there,
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  but they're always those cliche gamers.
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  Or there may be a dad gamer, but like,
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  God forbid a mom could game. It's just so
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  ~ irritating. But at the same time,
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  yeah, I I I showed the world who I was,
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  which is not standard. And so many people responded because again,
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  unless you put representation out there,
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  people don't feel seen. They don't feel accepted.
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  They don't feel acknowledged. And so by doing that,
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  especially the creator side of Hollywood,
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  we're like, ~ that girl's cool.
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  I want her type on my show. So that's really all the benefit of my career came from
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  just taking a leap and just showing people who I was.
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  And I encourage everybody to do that with their creativity.
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  And not just that, when think about the impact it's had,
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  like I granted I being fifteen,
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  I don't remember a lot from that time p per se,
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  Yeah.
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  but this was one of the first projects I remember.
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  And then it felt like all of a sudden there was all kinds of you know,
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  there was tabletop RPG games and like this felt like the first time that
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  Yeah.
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  you we really felt represented as like a population of like nerds.
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  It's okay to be nerdy and it's okay to be geeky and that's cool.
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  ~ and so I that's one of the things I love about this series is that it made
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  Absolutely.
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  me feel like I was seen ~ in a way that I had never been seen before.
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  ~
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  that means so much to me. And it's also a running theme in everything I do.
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  Yeah. When I did my company Geek and Sundry,
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  we were the first people to, you know,
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  do tabletop gaming on a on a more polished level.
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  And I was told by so many suit people that that's not gonna work.
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  Long term won't long, you know,
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  long form won't work on table,
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  you know, on YouTube. It won't work.
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  You shouldn't do that show. It'll be the bomb.
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  And then later when I wanted to do live streaming of D and D on Geek and Sundry,
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  which turned into critical role,
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  I was told, that's not gonna work.
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  Nobody wants to watch that. And like,
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  I don't know what to tell you.
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  Here we are.
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  ~ here we are. I kind of got used to being told that my ideas were
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  not cool by mainstream people because I know that and when I go to conventions
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  I see the people who will enjoy what I do.
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  So like, screw Screw the mainstream.
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  It's fine. ~ We can make a movie without them.
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  For sure. And speaking of the movie,
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  so you are reuniting for the guild film,
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  which is so exciting, but how does it feel to kind of return to this world after
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  so many years?
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  It was so fun to be able to get into these characters' heads again.
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  It was a long you know, I burned out very badly,
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  like a psychologically. It was pretty pretty a a difficult time when
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  I ended the show. It was kind of a a a budget thing,
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  you know. At that point, web series were not making money and people just were like,
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  Hey, I can advertise against a hamster looking around.
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  Why should I fund high budget content on the web?
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  Sure.
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  Yeah. So he was kind of like this weird dip.
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  And strangely enough, now with obsessions and backrooms and marketplace movie,
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  feels like now it's finally reaching the point where,
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  like, yeah, this independent con it,
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  that's the that's where the cool people are.
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  And, you know, it's a complete coincidence,
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  but it's really cool that we might be able to make a movie on a movie budget
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  ~ with these characters who have lasted so long in the zeitgeist.
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  So yeah, it's pretty cool. ~ I love the characters.
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  The script is just awesome. I'm so proud of it.
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  It makes me laugh. It made the
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  Rest of the cast laugh when we had a read through and ~ we have a lot
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  of fun in store when I announce especially where it's set and what's gonna happen
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  a little bit of it on July twentieth when we launch.
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  So close. ~
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  It's up close.
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  when you like what what decided to come back for this?
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  Like because you had set aside for a little bit and so something drew
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  you back into wanting to come back to the guild.
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  What was it that was like this is the time?
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  Mm
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  yeah, you know, it was the twentieth anniversary.
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  I had just had a baby for our tenth anniversary,
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  so I wasn't really able to do anything to celebrate the show properly.
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  ~ and I got a call about a year and a half ago from a Hollywood executive
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  who was very sweet and I was kind of excited because ~ basically the guild,
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  other than the first year, has been ignored by Hollywood,
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  you know, like nobody ever wanted to option it or give me a budget to do anything.
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  We shot it in our houses the whole time.
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  I never had a full time employee other than
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  You know, it's me and my producer,
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  you know. So we did it on such,
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  You're right.
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  you know, for six years on no money,
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  and we just kept going, thank God.
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  And so I was kind of excited. I was like,
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  they want to do the show again.
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  And they wanted to reboot it with younger actors.
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  And I got so angry, I was like,
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  I I literally had like a moment where I was so furious.
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  I'm like, well, what can I do about this?
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  I can make a movie and I could do it around this this I could just do
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  Right.
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  it around this this institution.
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  So
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  It's a little anger and spite.
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  It's also love of the characters and having a great idea that I
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  had fun with writing. And it really is such a combination of all that.
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  Da I mean, that has to be very aggravating to be like,
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  why not us? You know, we were the ones that made this project.
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  Ha ha.
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  We did it special. You put your blood,
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  sweat, and tears into it, and now you wanna just reboot it with somebody else?
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  Well, you know, I think in my twenty years of Hollywood and kind of banging
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  my head against it, you know, all the things that I achieved were great.
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  It never opened doors there, except with creators writing me roles.
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  And I think I got to the point where I'm just like,
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  you know, I have stories to tell and there's so many other ways to tell them.
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  I've done an audible series called Third Eye.
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  I've done an audible mov you know,
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  I did a movie that I just recorded myself and released,
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  'cause I wanted to do the movie and I just was like,
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  I'm not gonna wait for money. So
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  And I'm writing, you know, I wrote a graphic novel.
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  I have a novel I'm working on.
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  There's so many ways to tell stories.
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  And I think I got to the point where I'm like,
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  you know what? My stories are great for me.
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  They might not be good for you,
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  Hollywood, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be told.
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  And that's what's so amazing. Coming,
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  you know, ~ coming at anything as a creator now.
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  There's just ways to reach audience.
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  You don't need it. You know, it would be nice to have millions of dollars
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  to make a movie. I mean, we're gonna have to have a lot of money to make a movie,
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  but.
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  ~ it'd be nice to have the support to not have to do the work on myself,
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  but you know what? I'm willing to do the work.
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  And I love that you're you know that you're creating a space where people
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  are being represented that like you said,
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  like why isn't there more mom gamers and stuff like that?
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  And you know, there are people who are we're we're all getting older,
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  Yeah.
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  unfortunately, you know, and it's like these are the things that like
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  we still love to do this. I still love to play DD.
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  Ma I just played Magic the other day,
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  you know. We like to get together and we like to do this.
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  love it. Yeah.
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  And so it's cool that you're creating this space for that.
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  Yeah, it's all about, I mean, just obstinence really,
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  you know, and also determination that you know,
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  you have to have faith in yourself,
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  first of all. You have to have faith in yourself that what you have
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  to say is important to you first and foremost and might have an impact on the world.
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  And then you just have to have the resolve and the meaning in what you're doing
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  to get to the end. Cause creating is freaking hard.
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  It's really, really tough. Nobody's like,
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  I love everything I do write it.
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  You know, no, it's torture. But you gotta,
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  you gotta.
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  You gotta find that motivation inside yourself to get you to the end.
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  And then there are just so many ways to impact people with what you have to say.
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  So I don't know. I would never wanna wanna work in any other venue.
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  this is the place for me.
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  So when you're kind of working on the story,
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  and granted I we're not gonna spoil anything,
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  obviously, but do you feel like your understanding and relationship changed with
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  these characters now that you've had like more life experience,
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  things have changed as well?
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  Yeah.
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  Well, you know, I certainly ~ had to think about how to make the
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  sh the movie relevant. I had to ~ think about what gaming is now,
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  where these characters might be many years later.
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  Yeah, it was a lot to think about and also still retain the fun of the show
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  and the spirit. ~ you know, that's why I didn't even bother taking this movie
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  to Hollywood. Like I'm not gonna I don't I don't need other producers
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  who don't know anything about gamers or the or the show.
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  To run their numbers and run, you know,
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  look at the stats and be like,
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  well, I can give you this much,
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  but you have to change these 17 things.
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  I'm like, no, I'd rather not. So that's why Kickstarter Exactly.
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  You wanna make it while you are.
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  And in 2008, I put a PayPal button up on the website that we had,
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  and we finished season one with viewer donations.
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  We were one of the, I believe that we're the first crowdfunded on
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  the internet thing before Kickstarter even started.
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  So to be on Kickstarter now, doing my own project for the first time.
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  It's just a real gift. So ~ yeah,
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  I think people will like it and I hope they support it and I hope we get
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  to make it and actually have somebody else do craft service.
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  That would be really great.
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  Well you think about there's already twenty four thousand people that
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  are interested in it, that have liked it and followed the project.
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  So it there is such a fan base that are ready to see this come to fruition after
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  all this time.
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  You know, that's the I the real irony.
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  Like when I was doing tabletop back in the day,
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  200,000 viewers, you know, we get the first couple days.
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  And that wasn't good enough for Hollywood to like do more,
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  you know? And yet, look what we could do.
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  If we get 50,000 backers, we have a movie with a great budget and we could bring
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  the movie to life in the way that I envision.
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  That's that that's the num that number is nothing to Hollywood,
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  but the power is so strong with the fans to make things happen.
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  And so, you know, I think it's really inspirational.
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  You don't have to have millions of people to be able to make something successful.
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  And that's what I've always believed in.
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  My community has gotten me here over the years,
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  through depression, through physical problems.
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  Like that's why I'm I'm still here.
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  And, you know, I think that's a good lesson as a creator.
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  Less but more engagement is just the key to everything that's good and long term
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  and as a as a creator in life.
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  And what I love about this too is it also kind of brings parallels to what
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  the guild is about community and people and you're all coming together
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  Yeah.
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  to bring to life this project.
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  That's kind of in line with the message of the guild.
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  Yeah, it's it is. It absolutely is.
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  And it it's really important to me.
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  I don't consider my ~ creativity something I want to hoard.
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  I certainly could have been much more business savvy and ~ it it
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  at certain points in my life, but I kept the IP for the for the the show.
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  So this is possible now only because when I got fancy people approaching
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  me to buy the rights to it, I was like,
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  Well, are do you know what the fans want?
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  Do you know the heart of the show?
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  Do you know why we're here and why this is successful?
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  Because, you know, just to work with somebody fancy,
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  maybe maybe make a little bit of money,
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  like that's not good enough for me.
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  This means something more to me.
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  And I hope the movie is kind of a celebration of that.
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  Cause you're right. We could do things together against all odds,
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  against the the suits, we could do it.
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  So you mentioned that kind of the idea of fifty thousand followers
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  or backers would be fantastic.
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  But as we hopefully get more and more,
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  do you feel like there's push goals that would happen for the film with more
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  and more backers?
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  Yeah, so we do have 24,000 people following the page before we launch.
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  That is the number one followed movie,
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  I think, in Kickstarter history,
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  they told us. So it's very exciting.
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  That's incredible.
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  ~ we will see how we grow and build up into the 20th and then beyond.
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  ~ we definitely have stretch goals.
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  I will say that movies are very expensive,
• 14:34
  right? And so we you know we'll start with an initial goal that'll be
• 14:35
  Yeah, for sure.
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  a version of the movie we want to do,
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  and if we'll
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  hopefully get more money so that we can build the vision and have more production
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  value and costumes and all of that.
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  ~ it'll be step by step. But I yes,
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  I this is so weird to plan for Kickstarters because we are planning
• 14:55
  for disaster scenario. What happens if nobody donates and what happens
• 14:58
  if so many people donate? We have extra money and what are we going do with it?
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  We have those both covered. And of course my dream scenario is to do more than just
• 15:06
  the movie, but you know what? I have to temper my expectations and be like,
• 15:06
  Sure.
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  Just do what you've done the best you can.
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  Let's see what the fans want.
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  Well, I hope that they all turn out for this because again,
• 15:16
  this is so incredible. This is a project that everybody should be looking for.
• 15:20
  And I think that this is the way to move forward with creative projects as well.
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  ~ but for those who maybe are looking for more information about
• 15:23
  Yeah, thank you.
• 15:27
  the project or where they can back it,
• 15:29
  where's the best way to kind of get information about that?
• 15:31
  Yeah, if you sign up at watchthild.com before the 20th when we launch at 8 a.m.
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  Pacific, you will get a free pin that will be sent to you if you later back
• 15:40
  at a physical level. So if you pledge and get something physical sent to you,
• 15:43
  you get the free pin only if you sign up before the 20th.
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  So get over there, put your email in,
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  it's free. ~ cover your bases.
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  And then after that, we'll be on Kickstarter,
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  but always watchtheguild.com will be a place that will direct you to
• 15:55
  the best place for to ~ interact with us.
• 15:58
  Well, thank you so much, Felicia,
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  for being here and chatting with us today.
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  It's been an absolute pleasure and we are so excited for the guild film to arrive.
• 16:05
  So thank you so much for being here.
• 16:05
  Thank you, Brian. Thanks.
• 16:06
  And as Felicia said, you can get more information about the guild movie
• 16:10
  at watchthegild.com. So sign up now and don't miss out on the fun.