inside LG15

We just made a few tweaks to LG15.com to fix some CSS that broke when we updated all EQAL sites, and also made some other fixes.  Finally had some time now that the Real Women of Philadelphia is launched.-Updated LGpedia and KateModern with new background and header-Fixed link to “Inside” in LG15 header-Fixed link color in LGPedia-Darkened KateModern blockquote text to fix usability-Updated LG15.com/chat and inside.lg15.com with new background and header-Changed link colors in footers to fix usability-Other small CSS fixes to fix usabilityThanks and enjoy the LG15: Outbreak 12 in 12 tomorrow!

Hey everyone,

We are really excited to be doing TSIY2 and can’t wait to see the amazing pilots people come up with. We put out our rules a few weeks ago over at LG15 there have been some requests for clarification about the rules. I went through and answered the first couple waves of questions and a couple users have added a series of new more detailed questions they would like me to answer. I want to thank these users for asking a lot of good questions and I’d like to take this chance to do my best to answer the remaining questions. Below are the answers. I want to note that a good amount of the questions are very specific legal questions asking a bunch of “what if” questions pertaining to the contractual relationship between EQAL and the winning producer. I cannot go into those detailed questions here because the answers are unique to the specific winning producer. If my failure to provide specific answers to those questions makes any producer unwilling to submit his/her pilot, I understand. However, we hope that you trust that we will honor our end of the bargain, be good partners with the producer, and do our best to make a very successful TSIY2.

Site Features: Regarding the website, as previously discussed the new version of LG15.com will launch in time for producers to submit their pilots on October 1st. The website will receive new features, upgrades, and technical support that is consistent with all other EQAL websites.

Legal Issues:
Question: On a previous question about retaining rights, you said “We will be acquiring the rights so the producer cannot submit the show places without our consent.”; is that limited to the particular pieces of content created for TSIY2, or does that extend to the characters and additional mythology created in support of it, i.e. would EQAL fully and exclusively own the rights to the characters of the winning show? (Thus blocking continuation of the series independently.)

Answer: EQAL will be the owner of all IP in TSIY2. We are NOT doing this for personal benefit. We are doing this because all characters in TSIY2 will become canon to the LG15 Universe and those characters need to be built on by the community in TSIY3, 4 and so on. We will be using a Creative Commons non-commercial share-like license for all of the LG15 content, including the content we acquire with TSIY2. Therefore, we need to have ownership so that those characters will be part of the canon and new producers can build off of them under our license to the LG15 Universe.

Question: Once the winning show is over, will there be any remaining/future liabilities for the winning team, or does the contract just end?

Answer: They will have to send us all the video files - we will send them a hard drive and paid postage. After that, no further obligations or liabilities.

Question: Given that TSIY shows are officially canon, how would credit be handled in potential future plots which use characters or plot elements created by the winning team? e.g. would there be “Based on characters created by…” credit? Or is all of that swallowed when EQAL obtains the rights? (This is of importance even if EQAL does not plan to continue LG15 or to touch upon TSIY storylines, because future TSIY teams might do this.)

Answer: We will give credit to the Producers of all TSIY shows based on our contract with those producers. Those contracts are private and confidential.

Question: You have had 16 days to look into the IRS issue. What tax-status will the $5000 have?

Answer: The winning team will not have to pay taxes on the $5,000. All further details will be discussed with the winning team.

All further questions in the Legal, Organization, and PR issues are too specific to cover in this general setting and those issues will be dealt with between EQAL and the Producer and are covered by the private and confidential contract between us.

OpAphid & Nikki Bower:

Question: Which exact “version” of OpAphid and other related characters can/should be used? Should any post-LG15 character developments (e.g. RE88) be disregarded, or should the characters as they stood after their full storylines (e.g. after RE88) be integrated?

Answer: You should use the version of OpAphid that ends with Nikki Bower saying they are missing and haven’t been heard from in weeks. Nikki Bower’s statement can be regarded as canon and you should not use any OpAphid character developments that happened as a result of RE88.

Question: In the past, we were explicitly told not to regard Nikki Bower Reports as canon. Nevertheless, Nikki Bower had important roles in several high-profile LG15 episodes, making the character itself canon. In that light, how should writers treat the information from “Following the Drugs - NBR Investigates”, in which Nikki B. states “OpAphid is missing and hasn’t been heard from in weeks. And Tachyon and Brother… they’re missing too.” as well as “Tachyon, Brother, and OpAphid, they were the only people watching Bree’s videos”. Should this be regarded canon LG15 information and thus form the starting point for any TSIY storyline not based on RE88 events, or should this be disregarded like other NBRs, and the teams are free to make up their own explanation of the characters’ absence (with Glenn’s help)?

Answer: See above.
Question: While we’re on the topic, is Nikki B. eligible for TSIY storylines?

Answer: Yes, Nikki B. the character is eligible but I have no idea if Nikki B. the actress is available. That is up to her as it is up to any other actor to participate in TSIY2.

Question: What is the process for incorporating “OpAphid assets” in TSIY? For example, will EQAL or Glenn provide, say, the voice of OpAphid, or is the cooperation limited to “only” Glenn himself (as in, no Mari, no Op/Tachyon actresses)? How does a producer go about determining what is possible and what is not?

Answer: This is going to be up to Glenn and the Producer. I would tailor your pilot to make sure it can exist only with “Glenn himself” but have ideas for how to incorporate OpAphid’s voice if that is what the Producer wants to do in case Glenn can arrange that. This is all between Glenn and the Producer.

Thanks again to LG15 Today for all the good questions. At this point, I won’t be answering any more general questions in this public setting. If specific producers that are going to be 100% percent making pilots would like to ask me follow-up questions, they can do so by sending me a private message at any of our sites - Level26.com, GetCookin.PaulaDeen.com, HarpersGlobe.com.

Greg

Submit Your Pilot!

After the incredible creativity and hard work from the producers of LG15: The Last, we are excited to announce LG15: TSIY2.  This is your chance to make the next LG15 series! Submit your ORIGINAL LG15 PILOT and get the chance to see your show be the featured content on LG15.com.

We have listened to the feedback from the community and looked back at the first TSIY and made some changes that we think will make TSIY2 even more successful and rewarding for both the producer of the chosen series and the community.

Sorry about the formal nature of the below, but we want to be very clear and precise about TSIY2. So here you go:

Submitting Your Pilot

Anyone may submit a pilot for TSIY2.  The pilots must be submitted between October 1, 2009 and October 15, 2009. Entries will be closed at 11:59 pm PST on October 15, 2009.

If the submission comes from more than one person, the team must appoint one person that will be the point person for the pilot (”Point Person” “You” “Your”). The Point Person must be over the age of 18 and legally able to enter into contracts.

The pilot must be derivative of the LG15 Universe by building upon the mythology of lonelygirl15, KateModern, LG15: The Resistance, LG15: The Last, and OpAphid.  For more information on LG15, please read the LGPedia, the #1 resource on all things LG15.

The pilot can either be Episode One of your proposed show or a Pilot Presentation, which gives a general idea of the look and feel of the proposed show.  It must be no more than 5 minutes in length.

Upload Your video to YouTube and send the link with Your social show treatment to pilot@lg15.com.  All pilots will be showcased on LG15.com and Inside LG15. UPDATE: Please Log In to the new LG15.com with your EQAL account which is the same email/password you used on the old LG15.com.  Create a profile page, connect your YouTube account, and import your pilot video to your profile page.  Flag it as “Cool” and we’ll feature your pilots on the new LG15 universe blog.

As part of Your pilot treatment, You must list the names of all people entitled to “Created By” and “Executive Producer” credit of Your pilot.

All video submissions must also include an 8-week social show treatment that outlines Your story, characters, and interactivity.  Your treatment must incorporate all aspects of a social show.  A social show is an experience on a website where a community participates in a specific entertainment property by viewing and discussing videos and other multimedia content, and by interacting with the characters through profile pages, commenting, and chat.

All submitted pilots will be covered by our Terms of Service.

The selected pilot will be announced on October 30, 2009.

If Your Pilot is Chosen:

If Your pilot is chosen to become TSIY2, it will become part of the LG15 canon.  You will be required to create one piece of content each day, Monday through Friday.  You will be required to produce at least 2 videos per week, plus additional content such as pictures, text blogs, and interactivity.

Prior to announcing the selected pilot, EQAL will reach out to the Point Person and inform them that they have been selected.

The Point Person will then enter into a contract with EQAL whereby EQAL will acquire the rights to Your show. The contract will be a standard contract with the following terms:

• You will be paid $5,000 for the rights to your show and to deliver the required materials.
• Once receiving the $5,000 you are responsible for producing the 8 week social show and for all costs of production associated with the production of Your show.
• All people listed as “Creators” and “Executive Producers” on the pilot submission will receive “Created by” and “Executive Producer” credit in the LGPedia.
• You will receive 50% of the net profits from all proceeds from the Your show.
• You must have name/likeness releases for all people appearing in your show and the rights to use all music in your show.
• You will deliver the first week of content to EQAL on January 4, 2010 and your show will start airing on January 11, 2010.
• You will be required to deliver each week’s content every Monday thereafter (e.g. Week 2 is due on January 11, 2010).
• Your show will be distributed on the LG15 YouTube account and on a custom show page subdomain of LG15.com (e.g. LG15.com/yourshow)

Marketing Your Show and Other Info.:

EQAL will market Your show by posting it to the LG15 YouTube account, showcasing each new video on the lonelygirl15 YouTube channel video player and the LG15: The Resistance YouTube channel, and sending out tweets when each new video is posted from the LG15 twitter account.

An EQAL producer may consult with you and your production team and review scripts and videos to ensure that your story is consistent with the LG15 Universe and uploaded in a timely manner for the benefit of the community.

Glenn Rubenstein, creator of OpAphid, will provide a vocal cameo as “Brother,” and/or assistance with effects and/or editing for 2-3 minutes of Tachyon-style footage if You should choose to include these characters in Your series.  Glenn may provide other help and/or assets to the winner at his sole discretion.

Good Luck!  We look forward to watching everyone’s pilots and seeing what the LG15 Community will do with the Breeniverse.

Hey Everyone,

As I mentioned in my last post, we have exciting news regarding the LG15 Universe.  As you know, back in the early days of lonelygirl15 a fan just like you created an incredible LG15 spin-off called OpAphid.  The OpAphid ARG added a dark and mysterious depth to the LG15 franchise and we were incredibly excited to see what someone could do with very few resources and a lot of talent and hard work.  It truly inspired us and showed the potential of “social entertainment.”  It’s what led us to found EQAL.  We reached out and incorporated OpAphid in the LG15 narrative and hired its creator, Glenn Rubenstein, as a writer on lonelygirl15.  For months, the OpAphid ARG was interwoven with lonelygirl15 and the two series elevated the franchise to its heights in terms of both audience and engagement.  Unfortunately, in 2007 we parted ways with Glenn and the status of OpAphid has remained uncertain ever since.

Well, all of that is now behind us.  I’m excited to announce that the rift in the LG15 Universe has been mended.  OpAphid, Tachyon, Brother, and the entire OpAphid ARG is now officially part of the LG15 Universe canon.  Yup, you heard me right.  We’ll be featuring all of the OpAphid videos in their own section of the the new LG15.com just like lonelygirl15, KateModern, LG15: The Resistance, and LG15: The Last.  We hope this will be the beginning of a newly invigorated and ever evolving LG15 Universe.

But that’s not all.  To commemorate this momentous event we’re launching LG15: TSIY2.  In this second iteration of TSIY, you can tap into the entire OpAphid back-story and characters along with the LG15 mythology you all know and love.  In fact, Glenn Rubenstein will join the producers at EQAL as a judge determining the winner of LG15: TSIY2 and will provide some audiovisual assets to the winner if they choose to incorporate OpAphid characters in their show (details in the official rules).

We’ll post official rules and more information about TSIY2 in the very near future.

Hey Everyone,

I received several emails from members of the LG15 community asking that we “turn on posting” in the old phpBB lonelygirl15 forum.  Thanks for emailing, I didn’t know that this was something you wanted and I appreciate your feedback.  It’s actually good timing because we have some exciting announcements about LG15 coming very soon.  It’s been a long and bumpy road for all of us, but I hope that you can open up your hearts and give LG15 a chance to win you back.  I miss the old days just like you and I hope this community can flourish again.

Cutting to the chase, we are happy to turn on the phpBB forum for you guys. We just changed the settings so you should be able to login and post right now.  Unfortunately, we’re getting  SQL errors from new user registration, so we can’t turn that feature on.  The old forum is on our old servers and we don’t have the resources to support those servers or code.  This was why we turned the forum off in the first place, but I understand your desire to continue using it and we’re happy to provide the functionality that is currently available.

I also want you to know that I appreciate your concerns and I have no problem admitting my mistakes.  Inside the company we encourage each other to talk openly about our mistakes so that we can analyze them, learn from them, and do a better job the second time around.  So, I’m happy to admit to my mistakes publicly.  Here you go:

1. We shouldn’t have launched such an immature software product on LG15.com unless we had the resources to add features and upgrade it.  Unfortunately we immediately had to work on Harper’s and that work didn’t transfer back to LG15 “automatically” like I wanted it to.  I’m sorry.
2. We shouldn’t have shut down the phpBB forum considering that the new software wasn’t up to par.  I’m sorry.
3. We should be better about communicating with you guys, our first and most loyal fans.  Again, I’m sorry.

Here is our plan for LG15 going forward.  It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we can do given our resources.  I hope these actions help move us towards mending this broken community.

1. We will be re-launching LG15.com on the newest version of our servers and software within the next couple months.  It will feature new forums, profile pages, and publishing just like you’ve experienced on Harper’s Globe and Level 26.  It will continue to be upgraded along with all of our other websites.  Unfortunately because of changes to the underlying database structure we will NOT be able to port user data from the current LG15 site.  This means that comments on “LG15: The Resistance” and “LG15: The Last,” discussion threads in the new Resistance/Last forums, and photos/board posts on profile pages WILL NOT be integrated seamlessly on the new site.  You WILL be able to login to the new site with your same email/password just like you can across all EQAL sites, and create new profile pages and connect your YouTube, Twitter, and FB accounts.  This was not an easy decision.  However, we felt that it was better to get a new site up rather than continue “indefinitely” on the old software.
2. When we launch the new site, we’ll preserve the current LG15 site in an “archived” state, and at some point in the future we will integrate it into the new site.  This includes the “lonelygirl15,” “KateModern,” “LG15: The Resistance,” and “LG15: The Last” comments/profiles/forums/etc.  For the sake of clarity, ALL LG15 CONTENT that is currently online will stay online and remain visible, this includes the newly reopened phpBB forum.
3. Greg and I are going to make a concerted effort to be better about communicating with you guys about what we’re doing with LG15.  We aren’t perfect and sometimes we get incredibly busy with everything that we are doing with EQAL, but we understand the need for better communication and will do a better job.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we have some exciting announcements about the LG15 Universe coming out really soon.  I know that the lonelygirl15 community is what got us our start and I intend on helping it to grow over time.  It will take some time, and I know it’s been a rocky path, but hopefully you can give us a chance.  Trust me, the past few years have not been easy for us either.  It’s difficult because we can’t always tell you what’s going on internally, but we have been working like maniacs over the past few years to help turn this hobby into an industry so that all independent content creators like ourselves will benefit.

Thanks.

M

Hey everyone,

It’s been a bit since we gave you any updates about LG15 and the website, and we apologize for that. It’s been a challenging but exciting year for us at EQAL. We’ve worked hard to build a technology product, sign deals, and launch shows, all in the worst economy since the Great Depression. The advertising industry has been particularly hard hit, and as you know we finance our shows by selling sponsorships to brands. Thanks to companies like Neutrogena, 20th Century Fox, P&G, Microsoft, Orange, Paramount, Disney, Toyota, Cadburys, and others we’ve been able to produce free entertainment for all of you to enjoy. Unfortunately when the ad market “vanished” last fall it became very, very, very difficult to get advertisers to finance new original series online. We need to build a profitable company so that we can continue to produce high-quality free entertainment for all of you, and so we made a strategic shift. Over the past six months we’ve focused on extending existing entertainment brands online, and thanks to that decision the company is doing well and we’re launching really cool shows with Paula Deen, Anthony E. Zuiker’s Level 26, and Alicia Silverstone. There are even more exciting projects like this in the works that we think you’ll love.

We know that you feel like we have “forgotten” about the LG15 community. Well, we haven’t. We’ve been really busy and sometimes things slip through the cracks. We loved producing “LG15: The Resistance,” but we went out of pocket to get it off the ground and because we launched it during the economic meltdown we weren’t able to get sponsors for a Season 2. Fortunately, LG15 is doing great via LG15: TSIY and through our international licensing efforts. We’re psyched to see how well the LG15 community has responded to LG15: The Last, and we’re just excited as you are about the finale. Amanda is working with them right now to finalize the schedule. N1ck0la, LG15’s Polish spin-off, is doing great and we’re excited with how strongly the community out there has responded to it. As you may have seen, we licensed LG15 to a Japanese company, so lonelygirl15 and KateModern will find a whole new life with a Japanese audience, and they might produce a local version of LG15 for Japan. We’re working on even more international licensing of the brand.

In terms of the website: Yes, we know the software is old and cranky. Unfortunately we made a variety of deep structural database changes when we created the new version of the software and launched Harper’s Globe, so it is not simply a matter of “pushing a button” to upgrade LG15 to the new software. Tyler and Patrick are looking into this today and by the end of next week we’ll know how much work it will take to upgrade the site. If we can’t do a seamless upgrade, we have some other options as well. Either way we will be re-launching LG15.com on the new software to coincide with a new season of TSIY sometime in August/September. Once LG15 is on the new software it will receive regular upgrades just like Harper’s, Paula, and all of our other sites.

Finally, regarding my comments in the NewTeeVee and MediaWeek articles. Although we aren’t producing original online series right now, we would very much like to return to that when the advertising markets recover. As it pertains to LG15, we want to see more of the ongoing adventures of Daniel, Jonas, Sarah, Lucy, and the gang as much as you do. We don’t want to do it half-ass, so we need to wait until the time is right so that we can bring back LG15 with a bang. In the meantime we’ll be launching more international versions of the show to bring a bigger and bigger audience to the brand, and we’ll continue to add features to the LG15 website so that it’s easier and easier for you guys to contribute to the LG15 mythology.

Thanks.

Greg