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David
Hewlett – on Wagging the Long Tail
by Venessa Paech
Revenge of the nerd -- David Hewlett confronts murder and mayhem in his
directorial debut, A Dog's Breakfast.
As a child in England, David Hewlett was a big fan of Doctor Who. A
young man, he became a self-taught computer whiz, happy to nut away at his
PC in Perl and play with dancing one's and zero's. These days he attends
sci-fi conventions around the globe, attracting legions of fans who clamour
for his autograph. In his rare down-time, he writes screenplays, less Perl.
You see, Hewlett has joined the pantheon of his childhood heroes, taking on
the role of brilliant ‘and he knows it’ astrophysicist Rodney McKay, a cult
favourite on Stargate: Atlantis. The show, a spin-off of America's
longest running sci-fi series Stargate: SG-1, is winding up a third
season, with Hewlett a major drawcard for its surging popularity.
But the actor’s otherworldly success was borne of a hard slog familiar to
most practitioners.
After leaving school to pursue his love of acting, Hewlett logged over a
decade worth of impressive miles on the North American independent film
scene, teaming with highly-regarded Canadian directors like Vincenzo Natali
and William Phillips along the way. Some of his best-known work includes
playing 'code-monkey' Grant Janksy on the Canadian series Traders,
and ‘architect’ anti-hero David Worth in Natali’s mind-bendingly original
Cube.
Now, a new role beckons. On hiatus from shooting Stargate in
Vancouver, Hewlett wrote and directed his first feature film with the aid of
producer and real-life fiancée, Jane Loughman. A Dog’s Breakfast was
shot on HD for under a million dollars and stars Hewlett, his actress sister
Kate, Stargate: Atlantis alumni Rachel Luttrell and Paul McGillion,
and Stargate: SG-1 veteran Christopher Judge. It also stars his dog
Mars, who gives the film its title, and provided -- in a roundabout sort of
way -- the inspiration for the project.
“Ahh yes, from mutt to screen,” Hewlett chuckles, recalling his first
encounter with the infamous pooch. "Jane and I had arrived in Vancouver and
were starting to feel settled. We had some free time so we thought maybe we
should go and do something for someone, somewhere. And we heard that a lot
of the pounds needed dog walkers, foolhardy people to take their dogs around
in the elements just to give them a chance to get out of their cages once in
a while."
"So we show up at the pound, and we arrive in time for Mars to come
barrelling out of this horrendous rain storm, dragging this poor volunteer
behind him. She's covered in mud and he's just going crazy. He actually ran
straight up to us, then sat on my feet and ignored me. I was completely
smitten."
Mars was about to be euthanized because of a problem with his hips, so
Hewlett and Loughman intervened and adopted the precocious pup.
Meanwhile, the actor was toying with script ideas for an independent film.
"I think I ended up writing about three scripts before we got there; totally
different tones,” he says. “There was a horror, a psychological drama... and
Jane, ever the pragmatist, would take a look at each and say, 'that's great
-- if we had a million dollars.' So we thought, let’s make a list of things
we don’t have to pay for. Give me the elements and we'll build a story
around that. And there's nothing cheaper than Hewlett's."
The end result was a "good old-fashioned, family murder", in which Mars
figures prominently. Hewlett plays Patrick - hapless, but happy with a life
that revolves around his dog and the gentle torment of his little sister
Marilyn. Then sis' brings home her new fiancé Ryan -- the "sky-jockey"
heartthrob of sci-fi soap opera Starcrossed (in one of several
affectionate winks to Stargate fans) -- and Patrick snaps. Ridding his life
of Ryan becomes an obsession, and if Mars can be unwitting accomplice, so
much the better. Only trouble is, Patrick was never very good at life, so
how will he fare with death?
For his part, the marked mutt rose to the challenge. "Mars was the
quintessential star," writes Loughman online. "He loved being on set, made
friends with all the crew, did just what we needed, when we needed it... and
all for cookies and a tickle behind the ears!" "He's such a primadonna,"
chides Hewlett.
Although the award-winning actor adores a good horror flick, he wanted to
keep the audience for his directorial debut in their seats because of great
story telling and performance, not white-knuckled terror. "I love those kind
of movies, but I didn't want to make a film that was, uncomfortable. One
that alienated its audience."
"I wanted to make a Pink Panther movie, you know? One that's naughty, but
never dirty. Dark, but not nasty. And comedy comes from a release of
tension, so there has to be some kind of threat of something going wrong."
Helping things along were Stargate producer John G. Lenic, cinematographer
Jim Menard and other crew members from both Atlantis and SG-1.
"The Stargate people were so great," enthuses Hewlett. "These guys
could be getting paying jobs, but there they are standing around in the
freezing cold, on this property we were shooting on, with a nearby river
rapidly encroaching."
He also cites Natali and Phillips, who he's worked with on several
occasions, as inspiring influences. "Those guys are real filmmakers, you
know?"
Though he's always harboured an interest in writing, Hewlett says he never
really thought about directing, per se. “It’s the old cliché right? What I
really want to do is direct. I never wanted that."
It's more about creative restlessness. All the more so, he insists, when
you're gainfully employed as a performer.
“As an actor it’s very easy to settle. I actually think it’s really
important to keep moving. Especially as an actor, the further you move along
in your working life -- anything you can do to stand out in this industry is
valuable."
"I learned that in L.A. You go to L.A. and you sit in a room and you know
that 1000 to 1500 people have not got into this room that you’re sitting in,
and there are still 50 to 100 people that will be in there going for the
same part as you. The odds are so stacked against you ... you go in for an
audition for someone who’s a redheaded, vampire loving, hearse driving
Mormon, and there will be somebody who is that. And they’re going to get the
part over you, who are pretending to be. That was very eye-opening to me."
So he took the risk, and "completely fell in love with the process".
"I went into it with the end in mind, I didn’t think about what happens
between ‘I want to make a movie’, and ‘the movie’s finished and I’m showing
it to people’. Every aspect of it was so much more interesting that I
expected it to be.”
Despite the creative satisfaction, Hewlett says he and Loughman were warned
they might be barking up a fruitless tree, that no one would give them even
a DVD release for A Dog's Breakfast. So they hit on a master plan --
one that's led to a worldwide distribution deal with one of the industry's
major players.
“Jane and I are huge nerds," he explains. "We try to apply everything to the
Internet and technology. Back in the days of Cube, me being the geek,
my little sister and I jumped in and started an Internet company for
promoting films and television on the web. What’s funny is how hard it was
to convince people to go for it back then!”
Hewlett says it wasn’t so much that the siblings were ahead of their time –
more that the cultural economics hadn’t quite caught up.
“There’s not a lot of money in the Canadian film scene, and that’s what we
were dealing with at the time,” he explains. ‘Effectively, it was ‘get the
film shot’, and then you’re out of money.” Though filmmakers and other
artists tend to put something aside for marketing these days, the point
remains valid, especially when you’re dealing with content that’s heavily
subsidised by government (which rarely allows for a laundry list of itemised
promo costs post-production), or low-budget fare that’s doing it’s best just
to get off the ground.
The actor also founded fusefilm.com, an Internet based networking forum for
filmmakers.
Hewlett’s early work generating chatter about films online taught him a
lesson that many content producers are only now processing.
“The big discovery that I had, which I was fascinated by, was that the flash
and the glam means virtually nothing. After the first visit, it’s all about
the information and the community.”
And community is something he has unique access to.
Superficially, it appears he and Loughman have tapped the much-buzzed ‘long
tail’ of marketing, anointing existing fans of Hewlett and his work
‘squirrel minions’ and empowering them to market the film like crazy. Give
them downloadable posters and they’ll put them up in their neighborhood. If
you build it... and so on.
But the ‘long tail’ effect Hewlett and Loughman have generated is a more
complex beast than that. Visitors don’t merely log on to a website ‘selling’
A Dog’s Breakfast to print out flyers; they read and respond to
Hewlett’s gregarious blog entries about the ongoing life of the project;
hang out on his YouTube channel watching clips from the film; contribute
poster design and marketing ideas of their own; create and shop merchandise;
lobby for local screenings of the movie (where they can connect with other
fans, even Hewlett and Loughman in person), and more.
They’re invited to become flag-bearers online and off – part of a club who’s
nerd-in-chief genuinely loves and appreciates their contribution, at least
in part because he’s been there.
“Making films and marketing films use to be about taking a product and
selling it to people,” he says. But now, “largely because of the Internet,
it’s become more community based. People don’t want to be sold things on the
Internet. They want to learn things, they want to explore. And if there’s
things they’re interested in, they’re dying to talk about it. I don’t need
to be sold on YouTube. I go on YouTube, I enjoy YouTube. Of course I’m going
to put my clips on YouTube.”
“It’s like when I was a kid in
high school and it was always about trying to find the newest band that no
one had ever heard of. And then once you found it, it was your job to get
out there and tell everyone about it. I love the idea that we can do stuff
and I can say, ‘I’m excited about this. If you guys like things I’ve done
before, you’ll be excited about this too.’ And of course, it’s much more fun
when you’re working with people than when people are working for you.”
One group of people you don’t need to explain this to is science fiction
fans. Often marginalised by those who don’t share their passion, lovers of
sci-fi are not unlike indie filmmakers – unafraid to follow their dream in
the face of opposition. They also love to congregate.
“There are some people out there who are just totally unaware of the
Stargate phenomenon and its massive community,” says Hewlett,
unabashedly proud of his own membership. “These guys are online more than I
am.”
So do fans appreciate the tight feedback loop he and Loughman have enabled?
“I hope so,” he says. “I feel guilty sometimes, because some of the postings
I make are ‘guys, I really need your help on this’. I hope it is a two-way
street, because I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m using them.”
One look at the Dog’s Breakfast Internet forum and you can see they
don’t. Members swap success stories about spreading the Dog’s gospel, plan
social gatherings around screenings of the film (some happily trekking for
miles), and brainstorm new ways to support their hero. One fan who worked
for NBC wrangled a camera crew and reporter to both a screening of the film
and a Stargate convention where Hewlett, Loughman and team were
conducting a Q & A about the project. The ‘squirrel minions’ were
interviewed, as was Hewlett, and the resulting story made the nightly news
(then promptly found its way onto You Tube). Another has created a mock
fan-site for Starcrossed.
Eventually, MGM came calling and an international distribution deal was
struck for the film. Hewlett was online in a flash to thank everyone for
their help in making it happen: “Thanks to great numbers on YouTube.com and
a highly successful Internet marketing campaign, our first feature film A
Dog's Breakfast has just scored a world wide distribution deal with one
of the big Hollywood studios!”
In a gestalt of artistic and commercial intuition, promoting his creation is
a natural extension of Hewlett's creative process – an experiential ‘add-on’
for the filmmaker himself, as well as the audience that enjoys his work. And
technology, long a part of his life, seems a logical way to do it.
He wishes more artists would embrace this symbiosis.
“It’s so overlooked by people. Filmmakers are so desperate to get their
films made, and then they go ‘phew, ok great, what’s next’. But there’s a
whole other side to the story, and that’s just as fascinating as the
pre-production, production and post-production of a project. I love seeing
it all the way through, because it’s a business, and I love running it like
a small business. I know business is still a dirty word for a lot of
filmmakers, and yet, that’s the way it works. What’s the point in making
something unless people are going to see it?”
Not every actor, filmmaker or artist can be an Internet entrepreneur, but
the proliferation of low-cost soft and hardware means content making and
distribution outside traditional industry engines is a real option for many.
What arguably sets Hewlett apart from your average band who parlays their
MySpace clips into a record contract is the sense that he’s the one wagging
Dog's long tail. Duly deferential to the work his “squirrel minions” and MGM
is doing for the film, it’s never in doubt that he and his producer remain
custodians of their product. For some creators, the end goal is access to
the industry gates. The suits who’ll do the selling for you once you’re in
the coveted door. For this thinking performer turned auteur, it’s both more
interesting and more useful to fuel separate components in aid of a big
picture that stays his own. Hewlett understands and respects what these
networks can accomplish, and he doesn’t need the marketeers to tell him how
the ‘bits’ fit. It’s more innate than a ‘long tail’ – it’s a bunch of like
minds spruiking something they think is cool, because it feels like the
right, fun thing to do.
“You find your audience, you find out what they’re interested in, then you
create product for that audience. Not to make it sound too mercenary, but
that’s the reality. You need to know who’s interested in your stuff before
you make it so you know how much to spend on it. If you’ve got four people
who are going to watch it, you’re not going to spend a million dollars. If
you’ve got a million people wanting to watch, you can spend something more.”
Hewlett draws comparisons with his beloved world of science fiction,
recalling an early reading of William Gibson’s pioneering ‘cyberpunk’ novel
Neuromancer in which citizens plug into a collective consciousness
tuned to the desires of the masses. It’s Gibson’s “matrix” v.1 that Hewlett
gravitates toward, in life, and art. “There’s something strangely magical
about the idea of there being access to this giant brain made up of
everyone’s input,” he says. “Take something like Wikipedia. Sure people come
in and vandalise it every few seconds, but then someone else arrives to fix
it.”
It’s also in step with theatre and filmmaking at its most egalitarian. “It’s
like Fringe Festivals in a way,” suggests Hewlett. “The idea of a theatre
festival where everyone gets a chance to put on their show, money is
relatively no object, and it’s all promoted en’masse. You get some amazing
stuff coming out of that. Of course, with the good comes the bad, and I
think the real future of the Internet will be in systems that filter.”
While the analysts debate the significance of this paradigm shift in the way
we make stuff and talk about it, Hewlett's mind is on how it can serve the
stories he wants to tell, and those who might enjoy them.
“There’s a real opportunity in that shared space, to ‘brand’ yourself (for
want of a better word), and what you do," he reflects. "I mean, it’s always
worked that way to some extent. You go and see a film with Sean Penn in it
because you like his work. Or Sam Raimi, or some other director you want to
see because you feel you know their stuff and there’s the expectation that
you’ll enjoy this too. Is there a massive revolution? Yes, I think so in the
long term, but this has been going on for years, it’s just a matter of using
it appropriately.”
Hewlett says he’s been particularly thrilled with the response of MGM to his
squirrel marketing. In an age where the old-guard of content-producers are
fighting to stay relevant it seems one of the oldest is willing to give
Hewlett’s giant brain a test drive.
“We sent the film out to a few different places, but from the start we
thought, if we have to sell them on the Stargate angle they’re probably not
the right distributors for us.”
“When we went into MGM we were totally straight with them. We said, this is
a small film, this is the way we think it should be promoted, and they were
totally behind it.”
“They’re so interesting to work with, because they’re such an historic
studio. They were there at the beginning of this; you walk down their
corridors and you see Oscars dating back to the first Oscars. They’re use to
dealing with their James Bond's and their Rocky's, which are these giant
engines that I can’t even begin to comprehend. And while all that’s going on
they were meeting with us about our little movie and were happy to talk
about YouTube, fascinated by it even. I’ve been incredibly impressed. If the
big studios start acting like little Internet companies then I think
everyone’s going to benefit from the stuff we’ll see coming out of it.”
Hewlett has hardly seen the last. Since we spoke, A Dog's Breakfast
invented melodrama Star-Crossed has been picked up as 'real live'
television series by NBC Universal, set to air on the Sci-Fi channel. The
art-imitates-art-imitates-life show will follow the antics behind the camera
at a long-running sci-fi space soap and will be written by Hewlett, drawing
on his experiences in cult TV and regular dialogue with fan culture.
He and Loughman sent off the finished pilot this week, and both will be in
London tomorrow as guests at two sold-out screenings of
A Dog's Breakfast for lucky
"squirrels" who nabbed a ticket online with their "web-crashing support".
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