Hey folks, has anyone checked the Heroineburgh ongoing update thread?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28834
I update it every time we do a photo shoot, filming day, Comicon appearance, or have other interesting information.
And we have been at five Comic Cons so far in our area: four times at Steel City and once at Three Rivers. Check our Con photos on the thread!
It would be too expensive to travel to other cities and everyone is just too busy to do it anyway (I work on weekends myself).
And yes like DaJinx (whom I respect a lot for his hard work and dedication..plus that photo is super cute!) says....it's pretty expensive to get a booth at a Con, and all told it can indeed run you into around $800-1000 (especially when you consider showing your movies there by renting the hall for a couple hours) even if you're in Artists' Alley. There's also not much that you can sell other than your downloads. We made T-shirts with all the heroines, and we sponsored 8-bit fridge magnets of the characters but hardly anyone buys them. We gave out over 800 stickers at each Con, but as Mr X has noted, there was almost no uptick at all in online video sales, nor did the Con attendees flock to our movie theater premieres. I'm hoping that at least they didn't throw them away and there are hundreds of Heroineburgh stickers in various houses where comic book culture lives.
I openly state that Heroineburgh caters to both female empowerment *and* the male gaze at the same time, but then again, we are also clearly PG-13 and our series is probably more "mainstream" targeted than any of the series on this forum, so we don't have the problem with adult content or anyone saying we're exploitative, because we're not. And that's great. One of our actresses did mention that she felt she was occasionally being eyed up, but she was the only one. Everyone else just had a ton of fun portraying their characters at the Cons (I think it helps when there are several actresses appearing together, as they can help support each other's efforts) and the photo takers were respectful. Our actresses also took a fair amount of photos with kids - both boys and girls - so there was a certain projection of positivity with the heroines acting as great role models.
And that's the reason why we're at the Cons - because we want to have a connection to, and a representation for, the regional audience who lives in the city that the series represents: Pittsburgh. We want to have a presence in our own city and we do. It's also helpful to be at the Con to make connections with artists, new potential actors, and other opportunities for networking and promotion (for example, one of our actresses connected with a talent agency as a result of being at the Con with us).
We have something in common with the MCU and Lucasfilm: neither of those huge companies had a presence at SDCC this year because they had nothing new to promote. Neither do we (until our next episodes come out in November) so we won't be at the summer Con in August. Instead, we'll re-sign up for a vending booth at the December Con instead.
Maybe I'll finally run into batgirl1969
Oh, and batgirl, you might like to know that Becky - who plays Lunessa in EP 7 - is bowing out of the production after her next filming for EP 13 in August...but we'll have a new actress named Ariana who is going to take her place in the Lunessa costume!
Spectrina (Erika), Fianna (Emily), Lunessa (Becky), and Etherea (Maura) from Episodes 5-7 pose together for the crowd.
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X-Machina (Stephanie T) and Dysphoria (Stephanie W) are arch-enemies onscreen in Episode 8 but have fun portraying their characters together at the Con.
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The evil nemesis Olivia Queen the Quingpin (Mandy) with her heroine counterparts Darbouka (Tiffany) and Jinniyya (Kristin) right after we screened Episode 10.
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