We caught up with the minds behind Glint of Hope's Hero Envy. If you've not seen the web series, why the hell not? It's free, it's funny, it's free, it's expertly reviewed by your dedicated and amazingly attractive Spewgilist.com staff, and, well, it's free.
The Glint of Hope crew was kind enough to let us waste some of their valuable time. There may have been promises of alcohol involved but we will deny those vehemently. Not that we're above bribing folks, it's just that, well, we drank the good beer and Pugilist refused to let loose his sipping vodka. Bastard.
Hero Envy has consistently impressed us. It's shown consistent improvement in writing and production values and has had the courage to not play it safe. As with every
series, some episodes are stronger than other but the entertainment value has been consistent.
That said, Hero Envy will not appeal to everyone. The folks behind Glint of Hope explain all of this below so we'll shut up and let them speak.
Spewgilist.com: Talk to us about your inspiration to start Hero Envy.
Glint of Hope: The inspiration started back in 1997. Mike wrote a screenplay that Keith later collaborated on. The film was cast and even had rehearsals but never got off the ground financially. Fast forward to 2005, Mike pitched the idea for a live action webseries based off of the original screenplay. Keith, John and Kurt loved the idea, Adam joined the crew to help film, and GoH was finally born.
Spewgilist.com: Tell us about the last event or convention you attended and the highlights and low lights of it.
Glint of Hope: The biggest we hit last year was Wizard World Philly. We've hit a lot of smaller conventions in the area (MA, NY) since then. We met and networked with a lot of people including Pugilist, Tony Digerolamo, and The Smoke (pro-wrestler). Nothing negative to say really, we had a great time and expanded our fan base.
Spewgilist.com: Tell us a little about your target events and how you decide what events to attend.
Glint of Hope: We target anything fanboy be it comic conventions, gaming conventions, sci-fi conventions. If fanboys are going to be there, you'll probably see us there.
Spewgilist.com: Tell us about your company including size, principals, outlook, etc.
Glint of Hope: Right now Glint of Hope Productions is a group of 5 guys. We're trying to expand our fanbase so at some point it can become a full-time job for us.
Spewgilist.com: Talk to us about what goes into producing Hero Envy.
Glint of Hope: Every month we're on a schedule to write, re-write, shoot and edit the episodes. Each episode takes about two days to film. The editing process is where most of our time is spent.
Spewgilist.com: Tell us about your target audience and how you determined your site would fit their interests.
Glint of Hope: We're starting a movement, our message boards welcome anyone who wants to talk geek or whatever is on their mind. Slowly but surely we're gaining members who feel at home and love to talk about Hero Envy as well as anything on their minds. We're the new geek movement!
Spewgilist.com: Talk to us about secondary distribution for Hero Envy. Podcasting, DVDs. CDs, etc and the schedule of availability.
Glint of Hope: Currently we release the episodes on our website on the first Wednesday of the month (Comic Book Day!). We also have a podcast (called Hero Envy on Itunes) that gets updated the day after release. The first DVD (episodes 1 - 6) can be bought on our website or through diamond distributors. The second DVD (episodes 7-12) will be available by spring of 2007.
Spewgilist.com: Tell us about personal views, background, inspiration that drove you to start your company and produce Hero Envy.
Glint of Hope: Our series deals with guys sitting around talking about all that stuff you loved as a kid. We thought, if we're going to do that anyway why not express ourselves? On a personal level, both Mike and Keith (series creators) have always wanted to be in the film industry.
Spewgilist.com: Thanks folks for your time and for putting out a truly entertaining series. We continue to enjoy it, even if Pugilist has been lax in his reviews. We've got him straightened out on that though, we threatened to buy him a case of Coors "put it back in the horse" Light.