Ruby Skye P.I.

Liz Hover of the NSI interviewed Ruby Skye P.I. creator Jill Golick last week mostly about Ruby Skye P.I. The podcast of that interview is online and you can listen to it right here.

There are lots more great interviews to listen to on the site. I’m going to check out the one with Christy Dena, of the new site You Suck at Transmedia and someone who’s been talking transmedia for a while now. I also want to hear the interview with Kieran Masterton of OpenIndie, the independent film distribution site.

Hot hot news from the transmedia world: Christy Dena has launched a new transmedia focused website called You Suck At Transmedia.  What are you still hanging around here for?  Go take a look!

There is so much to do. No time for sleeping. I’m at my desk till late and back at it early, swilling coffee. It’s 10:30 and I just brewed a second pot… all right, not brewed, french pressed with organic beans from The Green Grind. Mmmm. I’ve been thinking of putting a logo on my site that says powered by The Green Grind. I digress.

Yesterday, as you may have noticed, we posted a casting breakdown.  Submissions are pouring in.  I have to stop myself from looking at photos and resumes.  I have other things to do and a time set aside for that in the company of Kerry and Kelly.  We’ve distributed the casting call in a variety of ways.  Because we’re looking for some teens, we’ve posted the call at some acting camps and schools and passed it on to the acting teachers we know.  We’ve also posted on sites dedicated to casting and good old Craig’s list.  And we’ve pumped the link out to our own social media networks.  Between us, we have some serious reach in that department, verifiable by the bit.ly stats and the incoming traffic on the site.

I’m psyched to see how we can build a community for Ruby Skye PI using social media tools, given that individual members of the team are starting out with know how and cred.  I’m not just talking about Karen Walton here, who is clearly a genius in the social media space.  One member of our team I haven’t mentioned yet is Dorice Tepley.  Dorice has awesome social media skills to contribute to the project.

Building out our social media strategy is part of tomorrow’s agenda but we know that creating assets for the web and providing a deep experience for our fans is an essential element.  We plan to offer a deep “backstage” experience, meaning that we’ll pull back the curtain and give you access to lots of the action behind the scenes.  To that end, we’ll be inviting different people to help document our production especially when we’re shooting.  Mark Montefiore, who all of us adore, has agreed to come do some documentary shooting during production and we’ll share his footage with you as we go along.  I’m so excited by this idea!

All right, gotta refill the coffee and start in on the to do list which involves getting the REAL website jump started.  Can’t wait!

OPEN CASTING CALL

a STORY 2.OH production

July 14, 2010
RUBY SKYE PI
an exciting new web series for tweens and teens by Jill Golick

Producer: Jill Golick, Karen Walton, Kerry Young
Director: Kelly Harms
Writer: Julie Strassman Cohn & Jill Golick
Union: NON-UNION (daily fee paid)
Shoot: 15 day shoot: August 16th & September 3, 2010
*with rehearsals during the week of August 9th
Location: Toronto
*PLEASE SUBMIT HEADSHOT AND RESUME (and video if you’d like) TO rubyskyepi (at) gmail (dot) com

STORY LINE: RUBY SKYE PI follows the investigation of an internet scam by our heroine, Ruby Skye. While Ruby considers herself a crack detective, she soon finds out that sometimes all the clues to not point to right suspect!

RUBY SKYE (14-16) – Female Any Ethnicity LEAD
Quick witted, hyper-curious and a self-taught super-sleuth, Ruby Skye has all the tools to be a great detective. Ruby has great instincts, but she may be a little quick to jump to conclusions. She is well known around her neighborhood and among classmates. When your role models consist of Veronica Mars, Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, it doesn’t make you exactly popular. Ruby’s only friends are a video game genius (Griffin), the dotty next door neighbor who plays with imaginary animals (Ms. Gooje) and her sister Hailey (her obnoxious and super-popular younger sister). When Ruby stumbles across an internet crime involving Ms. Gooje, there’s no telling what she’ll unearth.

GRIFFIN (14-16) – Male Any Ethnicity LEAD
Ruby’s best friend and partner in crime, Griffin would rather be playing video games than going to school. Or, worst case scenario, playing video games at school. He’s funny, handsome (in that dedicated video game type of way), sensitive, and fiercely loyal to Ruby. When video games and new TVs start showing up at his house, Griffin does everything he can to throw Ruby off the scent.

DIANA (14-16) – Female Any Ethnicity LEAD
Ruby’s classmate and enemy. During any Ruby Skye PI investigation, Diana can always find a way to trip Ruby up, or slow her down, or get in her way. Diana’s favourite things are brushing her hair, sucking up to adults, being popular and tormenting Ruby Skye.

TONY (30s) – Male Any Ethnicity LEAD
Tony is not fond of children, small animals or the outdoors which has Ruby questioning his motives for dating her teacher, Ms Springer. Tony is long on looks and short on brains. He has a competitive streak a mile wide… unless yours is a mile wide, in which case his is two miles wide…

VINNIE (30s) – Male Any Ethnicity LEAD
Vinnie is the school’s good natured janitor. Vinnie considers himself a master of strategy, because without a strategy, a janitor might end up being the one who has to clean up the puke outside the art room. But Vinnie’s true genius shows up when he challenges you to a game of Rock Paper Scissors… unless you open with paper because every self-respecting RPS player knows better than to open with paper.

MS. SPRINGER (30s) – Female Any Ethnicity LEAD
The theories about Ms Springer abound. Some say she’s the deposed dictator of a small military regime, others think she might be a vampire (and not the shiny kind). Suffice it to say that there is no nonsense in her computer classes. But Ms Springer has a softer side that her students don’t get to see. She has a hobby; watching birds… not any birds, Ms Springer’s affection is saved for birds of prey. She particularly enjoys watching birds of prey eat smaller cuter baby birds And she has dreams of romance. When a handsome man shows interest in her birds, Ms. Springer begins making big plans for the big day.

MS. GOOJE (any age) – Female Any Ethnicity PRINCIPAL
Isn’t it enough that Ms. Gooje has bought a computer and learned the basic art of internet surfing? Apparently not. Ms. Gooje, an animal lover who’s house is full of rescue dogs (imaginary), stray cats (imaginary), abandoned birds (imaginary) and … well, suffice it to say, Ms. Gooje loves the idea of animals and animal causes. Ms. Gooje also has a heart of gold (not actual gold, but the metaphoric type). Unfortunately, Ms. Gooje is easily persuaded to send money, via the internet, to a Prince who’s building a ranch for abandoned animals in a far-away country. Only problem is there is no ranch. Or Prince. She’s been scammed and it’s left her without the means to pay for her own animals (imaginary). Some deem her ‘reality challenged’.

We’re rolling and… is it a ball or is it a rock? Whatever it is, it is picking up speed!

The fabulous Kelly Harms is on board to direct. He has got a positive energy that I love, a spark in his eye and a quick smile. We are very sympatico on the story and our approach to it. The collaboration couldn’t feel more natural.

We had a tremendous story meeting yesterday and the notes from Kerry, Karen and Kelly (the K Collective) were fantastic. I can’t wait to dive back into the script.

From here on, the project will be called Ruby Skye P.I. We changed it from Eye to Eye With Ruby Skye right around the time I started setting up social media accounts. When I realized what an endless handle that would be on Twitter, I consulted the team and bought a new a URL. In fact, if you type in any of these URLs:

rubyskyepi.com

rubyskypi.com

eyetoeyewithrubyskye.com

you should get to our temp website right here.  I’m starting to fill this new site in slowly between other activities and late at night. Our Twitter account is live and lightly active. Accounts on other social sites are set up and awaiting attention.

We’ve been passing a casting breakdown back and forth this morning. I hope it’ll go out later today or tomorrow. I’ll post it here too. There are also lots of volunteer positions available on our crew, production staff and social media team. Let us know if you’d like to help.

Here we go.  A new blog for a new project.

Ruby Skye PI a brand new digital detective series coming to a world wide web near you in the fall of 2010.  Ruby Skye PI is a product of Story2.OH and is being produced with the support of the Independent Production Fund.

It is a transmedia featuring a 15 year old detective, Ruby Skye.  The web series, currently in pre-production, will be online this fall.  Ruby’s sister, Hailey, has her own web series, Hailey Hacks, online now.  Coming soon, many more media to build the franchise out onto many platforms.

Ruby Skye P.I.

written by Jill Golick and Julie Strassman-Cohn

executive producers: Jill Golick & Karen Walton

producer: Kerry Young

director: Kelly Harms