It is time for fans of the digital series, EastSiders, to celebrate! Executive Producers, Kit Williamson and John Halbach, announced that season 3 has already completed filming! Despite his busy, post-production schedule, John Halbach graciously agreed to do an interview with Carolyn Topol Talk to share with all the EastSiders fans as they seek final funding, with a Kickstarter campaign, to complete season 3.
Please enjoy the interview and then click on the link to show your enthusiasm for this terrific series!
Carolyn Topol Talk: Congratulations on coming close to completing the third season of EastSiders. To finish the post-production process, I understand you’re well underway with a Kickstarter campaign. Can you please share why you chose Kickstarter, as this is an ‘all or nothing’ funding site?
John Halbach: We’re still a totally independent production, and we were able to raise enough money to get through most of shooting, but we weren’t able to raise enough money to get through editing, and color correction, and sound mixing — all those final steps that have to be done to get it out there into the world. The reason we did Kickstarter instead of any of those other sites, where you don’t have to make your goal, is that there’s something about having to make our goal that really helped get people to rally behind us. Those stakes are important! It’s important to people to feel like there’s a possibility we’re not going to make our goal because hopefully they will come together and help make sure we get to our minimum. The truth is $60,000 is the minimum amount we need to finish the season. If we aren’t able to get to that point, we won’t have enough to do what we need to do. We have to set up that minimum bar and hope we can reach it. So far it’s looking good. People have been really amazing and rallying around us–making sure it’s going to be a successful campaign.
CTT: I certainly hope so, for both your sake and ours, so fans get to see it!
For those new to the saga of Cal & Thom, can you let the audience know where they can watch the first two seasons?
JH: The first two seasons are available right now on Netflix and Vimeo. It’s been really incredible coming to Netflix. We are worldwide with them. They translated us into a dozen different languages. That’s definitely the place that most people find us these days.
CTT: EastSiders is an Emmy nominated series. It’s received significant recognition.
JH: Last year we were nominated for two daytime Emmy awards. It was really exciting for us — Best Digital Drama and Best Actor for Van Hansis, who plays Thom. This was his fifth Emmy nomination and we were so excited for him. We love him so much, and feel so, so lucky to have him as part of the family of the show!
CTT: For readers familiar with EastSiders, can you share a couple of teasers we can look forward to in season 3?
JH: I would just say that Cal and Thom are growing up, but they are still making a lot of the same mistakes and still having a lot of the same issues, but they’re still having a lot of the same fun, and romance, and love in their lives. We’re so excited to have so many familiar faces back, including Van Hansis, Kit Williamson, Constance Wu, Brianna Brown, Traci Lords, Jonathan Lisecki, Matthew McKelligon, and me. We’re doing our best to get as much of the gang together as we possibly can and hope everyone is excited to see everyone together again.
CTT: While visiting the Kickstarter page, I noticed a number of incentives you’re offering. Are there a couple you’d like to highlight?
JH: You can get a ‘Producer’ credit on the EastSiders IMDb page. We’re also going to be having a cast and crew party this summer you would be able to get access to. There’s also the possibility of coming on set with us for some of our final shoot days. There’s the possibility of having a role or naming a character. We’ll also be giving our backers early access to everything. They’ll get to see the trailer first, the new episodes first, and there are digital downloads — a lot of stuff there.
CTT: That sounds very enticing!
We also always like to tell people to please spread the word. It means so much to us. Even sharing the link, and getting the word out, is as important as getting actual money. It all gets us to the finish line.
CTT: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
JH: Thank you so much to everyone who supports EastSiders! It’s been several years since we’ve done a Kickstarter, and since we released the last season. We really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. We didn’t know if people would be excited to see more of the show or if people had been missing the show. During the last few days, getting so far in the campaign, and feeling the support from the fans, has been really really amazing. We’re so glad everyone’s excited we’re coming back, and we’re so excited to make more episodes of the show!