Would you believe that I had never been to Comic Con before this year? It’s true. The reason? It’s a mad house. I mean, it’s fun, wacky, nerdy beyond your wildest dreams. But it’s a LOT to take in, man, its a lot. And I’m the type of guy who gets a little uneasy in large crowds…

… or around dudes in pink dinosaur jumpsuits.

So I decided to wait until the day when I’d have my own project to take there. Perhaps that’s also the superstitious side of me.

Well this year, my opportunity came. Warner arranged a panel discussion for my new series H+. Actually, its official title is *clearing throat* H+: The Digital Series *tight-lipped smile*. No comment.

We showed the trailer twice during the weekend. Once at our own panel and again in Hall H during a discussion on upcoming indie fare (all together about 3000 people saw it!). And even though H+ is a Warner series, this has very much been treated like an indie project from the get go. In studio terms, ours was a micro budget for something of this scope… and so we had to practically pull rabbits out of hats in order to get it made. Very skilled rabbits, actually, that worked art department, operated the cameras, catering etc. This was a lot of magic, aligned stars, and intense, around the clock work from an incredibly talented team of young filmmakers (and rabbits) who just believed so strongly they could pull it off… that they did. So don’t let the Warner name fool you. Warner was certainly generous in the amount of freedom and support they gave our process compared to what you typically hear about in the studio system… but this was and still is a grass roots project that will likely live or die by its word of mouth.

That said, here’s our trailer, if you haven’t already had a chance to see it:

I know. It looks big. It is.

The story of H+ takes place over the span of a decade… sometime in the near future. And I actually wanted to clarify a few things here in this post, the first being the time setting of the series. There are some blogs and news outlets that put the date of the story in 2019. This partly correct… but mostly incorrect. First, there is no one date for the series. It’s not like Lost where everything is either a flashback or flashforward or flashupwards from the present. There is a major event that happens at the beginning of the story that serves as a sort of reference point. But as the story progresses, episodes are more like fragmented puzzle pieces, challenging the audience to actually piece the story together themselves.

2019 was an arbitrary (far, but not too far off) date that Cosimo and I used back in 2007 when we pitched the project to Warner Brothers. And a couple of the press releases that have been circulating or plucked from old sources, unfortunately, have information in them that hasn’t been updated in a while. In some cases, not since we even started writing the script. Is it likely that our timeline passes through 2019? As I said, the story is near future and spans a decade. So it’s safe to say that 2019 is on our timeline somewhere, even though we’ve tried to keep dates out of this chapter of the story.

We like to say that a major character in the story is the world itself. In fact, for large portions, it’s the main unifier between many of the character and storylines. H+ takes place in over 11 different countries and 6 continents, some with multiple scenes in vastly different regions. Which is a huge testament to the skills of our director Stewart Hendler who was able to do all that using various locations in only ONE country (well two if you count the day of pick-ups he did in his living room in LA… the dude is an arch-mage). It also speaks volumes for the country we used, its people, its diverse landscapes, its insanely talented film crews and producers.

We shot in Chile (around Santiago) for 30 days. The series is over 3 hours long.

Second thing I want to clarify are the story’s themes… and this is only because a few loud blogs and commenters I’ve read since the trailers premiere seem worried that the series is some sort of anti-technology propaganda. First of all, that trailer was commissioned by the studio to do exactly what trailers are supposed to: get your blood pumping. To make you want to check it out. Trailers use a spattering of lines and images designed to introduce you to the general themes (technology, sure), obstacles, and characters. But they often do this by cutting together ideas and images out of context.

A YouTube user named Rincewindshat66 has this to say about the trailer:

“SCIENCE IS EVIL! FEAR CHANGE! TECHNOLOGY WILL DOOM US ALL! Man, I’m really getting tired of all this sci-fi doom-saying. Doesn’t anyone remember Star Trek and the idea of a hopeful future based on technological advancement? If everyone thinks we should go back to eating raw meat and living in mud houses, they can do that. I’ll take the future of robots, nanomachines, genetics-based cures for all diseases, and intergalactic travel, thank you very much.”

This comment started a small debate on the video which was eclipsed by an even larger one on Machinima’s version of the trailer… which we all found pretty exciting, actually. I’m glad people are talking about it at all. That discussion put the trailer into the top discussed entertainment videos on YouTube that day.

But Rince, I’m right there with you, bro. And there are plenty of characters in the story who are with you too. The thing is, all of the pro technology knights out there seem to be basing their entire arguement not just on a trailer, but on one line in the trailer spoken by this guy here:

“Science has failed this world.”

If this guy doesn’t totally scream antagonist to you on first watch of the trailer, then man we did something wrong. I mean look at him. Doesn’t he just make you angry? Sick to your stomach? Ugh! I can’t even look at him anymore. Sorry.

Bottom line, this series is anything but a rail against technology. Or a doomsday prophesy. Or an ode to Intelligent Design. It’s sci-fi. And sure, there are big scary events that take place? That’s storytelling. But to any of you out there worried that this is a one sided discussion about the dangers of technology, I promise, the series is much more than that.

Here’s a post panel interview I did at Comic Con where I talk a bit about what I think the series really deals with. Which, if we did our job right may not necessarily be what you think the series deals with.

Anyway, now that the series has been officially announced, I can share more details. I wish we had had an opportunity to take questions from the Comic Con audience, but our panel was tight on time. So if any of you were there (or even if you weren’t) and wanted to ask a question, you can do so here in the comments. I’ll try my best to answer what I can.

Coming up soon: Some insights and tales from our process.

Hey everyone! I’ve returned for a touch of bloggishness. Some of you may already know that I just premiered my first ever series this Thursday. It’s called The Homes and it’s on Lockerz.com. I’ve mentioned it once or twice here… or on other areas of the Cabreraverse.

But not in a while.

The Cabreraverse has been pretty quiet as of late. The past month has been pretty much me and my editor Chris Garcia toiling away in a tiny dark cave of an office, editing, animating, color correcting and getting this sucker in shape for the world. In fact, this past week the number of hours I actually slept was less than the number of hours I spent in the shower… which, as you can imagine, was also pretty low.

But we did it… and I even managed to squeeze in a hair cut, new glasses, and a Premiere dinner hours before the show went live. Here’s my favorite shot from the night.

The only bummer is that Justin wasn’t in the shot. His plane got snowed in coming from NY and he arrived a little later to the event.

And here’s the show itself! If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet, please please PLEASE take 9 minutes out of your day to watch this first episode. Put that sucker in full screen mode, sit on your couch, and enjoy it like an episode of Lost.

So there you have it. Longer than a webisode… not quite TV length. Can’t say for sure if those are good or bad things… but I do know that I’m super proud of this project. Not just because of how much of myself I’ve poured into it… but because of how many people came on in support of it… and are the real reason we got it to where it is.

Episodes will air every Thursday morning (9am) at http://Lockerz.com/thehomes. And they all have a song at the end of them like this one did. That song, also like this one, will be available on iTunes the same day. And everyone in the world will be able to see it and hear it… perhaps with the exception of Egypt… (that was too soon wasn’t it?)

So what next?

Well for one, we’ll be continuing to deliver episodes of the series as the weeks progress. Our model is similar to TV in that we’re still technically building the show as the season is airing. It’s actually a very helpful way to create serialized content, I’ve found. Not only does it allow us to premiere earlier, but we can tweak future episodes based on the response to the show. You don’t like the names of the characters? No problem. I’ll just weave in a sub plot revealing they’re all actually Russian spies with completely different names. See? Forums are very convenient for us writers.

Other than that, I’m about to do some major Chillin.

I wish that meant relaxing… but no… in this case it means traveling to the country of Chile and beginning production on my next series. A little project I’ve been working on at Warner Brothers for 4 years.

It’s called “H+”.

And we’re finally….

going into…

production!

I leave on Wednesday, and will be there for a while. The good news (aside from the fact that…. IT’S GETTING FRIGGIN MADE!!!) is that I’ll have my blogging hat on while I’m there. The nature of my work is going to be very different than it was for The Homes, so I should be able to take you all along for some of the ride. How does that sound?

Oh, also, going back to The Homes for a sec… I’ve decided to play a little game in honor of the series. This week, just before the airing of Episode 2, I’m going to publish a post on my tumblr (jeeze, a lot of links in this post). It’s going to be one of those well known “reblog this post” posts (just preparing you). And it’s going to come with a gift to one lucky reblogger/follower. And since this isn’t a retail giveaway by a company, but rather me just giving an awesome gift to one of my online peeps, everyone from anywhere that can get mail from me can play. Well… that is anyone who has a tumblr account.

Oh you don’t have a tumblr account? Well what are you waiting for? Get a tumblr account . It’s free. And it’s awesome.

*deep breath*

*sigh*

I’m feeling good. Happy with the response so far. And more relaxed than I’ve been in a long time. But I’ve missed you guys. I really have.

I hope you’re all doing well. Are you?

Okay, so it’s only been a week since my last post. Not bad, huh?

I realized, while answering comments on that post, that I had something huge happen recently that I didn’t even mention here. Crazy, cause I would have never let it slip in the past. I suppose it’s more proof that my blogging joints are a little rusty.

So about a week and a half ago, we released this:

The Homes (Trailer) from John Cabrera on Vimeo.

It’s the trailer for the series I’ve been working on. The project that’s changed my life routine in so many ways… and no doubt has contributed to my absence from social media.

I know the trailer is a little cryptic, and to be honest, it’s more of a teaser than a trailer. It was actually originally created for in house showings of the project… to Lockerz (the company that will distribute it), agents, the cast, the crew.

But we’re closing in on a premiere in early 2011, so our team decided that the time was right to show you guys what we have in store.

So here are a few new facts about the project that I can reveal:

1. The series is 12 episodes long… each episode hovers around the 8 minute mark… so I think they’re going to feel like a bit more than a “webisode”, while not quite as much as a full television primetime sit down. I do think it’s couch-fare so I hope at least a few of you have living room web setups… or laptop bed setups.
2. Every episode is accompanied by one of 12 songs we produced one month before the shoot. A full album. And that album should be available in conjunction with the series.
3. The series is about a road trip… I’m sure you figured that much out from the trailer. It’s about a girl who’s just… trying to get “Home”… hence the title.
4. And although in general the music has a very Americana feel, I like to think that the album we created is a similar sort of “road trip” across the current state of indie rock/pop/folk… we even put a touch of electro in there for good measure.
5. All of the music was performed and played by the actors. There is not a single instrument that wasn’t played by them. In fact, in a few instances we had the opportunity to use session players for some stuff, and I said no. I knew these guys could do it, and they did.
6. On the other hand, the songs were written by several established musicians and bands. In some cases we were given obscure old songs that we felt fit our themes, in other cases we used brand new stuff they’d just written, and in some cases, songs were written expressly for us. Regardless, I can assure you, this will be the first time these song are heard by a large general public. I’ve listed the songwriters here in the past, but I intend on doing full profiles of each as we get closer to the premiere.
7. Where will you view the series? Well, I can say for certain you’ll be able to view it at Lockerz.com. But my hope is that at least the beginning of the series will be open to anyone for viewing and not just Lockerz members. Currently if you go to their site, you can watch the trailer on their start page without having to sign up. That may be the case with early episodes… but I know at least a portion of the series will be behind that log in. They also just unveiled their social media component which is going to be growing big over the next few months and incorporating fun aspects of the series. If you do register for an account, please add me there… you can find me through my email john@johncabrera.com.
8. If you don’t live in the US, but are hoping to watch this series… well I’m happy to say, you have nothing to worry about. There won’t be any region restrictions. Lockerz is a global community, so we’ll all be watching this series together!
9. What else? I don’t know, ask me something.

Yesterday was a strange day. It was my first day of rest in… man… I really… really don’t know how long.

My sister was in town for a day, she’s heading cross country with her car. Leaving it in Miami before heading back to Greece. She came by at 9am for coffee and chilling for a couple hours. I showed her an early cut of the first episode of my upcoming webseries. It was nice to see her. I miss her a lot.

Oh… hello, by the way. Sorry about that. I know it’s been a while. Excluding that short birthday thank you I posted last week, I haven’t really been around much, have I? My last real blog post was in July, and before that in May. Does that mean I’m not a blogger anymore? Sort of how I can’t really call myself a rock climber anymore? Damn… I worked hard for that title. Blogger, I mean.

If you’ve read my last post, you may remember that I was (and still am) cranking on a pretty time consuming project. An indie rock musical webseries. I wrote my last post here smack dab in the middle of our shoot actually (although it mostly dealt with the process leading up to the shoot.)

Wow, it really does seems like forever ago. Which should probably give you a hint of how the second half of the shoot went.

Rough

Tough

Ruffa dan ruff

Tuffa dan tuff

To say these last couple months have been stressful would be a gross understatement. Directly following that last post, my crew, my cast, my idyllic little project set out on a expedition, the likes of which this dude has never experienced: quite literally a journey to the surface of the sun.

I guess I should have known. Mojave desert. Middle of July. Probably gonna be hot. And if we’re unlucky enough to be hit by a heat wave… probably gonna be hot as hell. As in the actual fires of hell. Yeah. It was ruffa dan ruff.

We blew more tires on production vehicles than I can even count. Engines dying left and right. Air conditioning systems that just refused to work. And a schedule that was frankly. just. mammoth.

For those who don’t know this about me, I’m a pretty superstitious guy… I also believe in cycles. I very much believe in cycles, and well… I can’t help but think about the first half of this project, how smooth, lucky, exploratory, creative it was… and then look back at the second half and think, “of course it had to go that way… the tires on this puppy just had to burst at some point… what did I expect?”

Our location shoot was 7 days between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but it felt like a month. And when we returned on July 21st, all of us crispy around the edges, I looked at the schedule… and we hadn’t gotten it all. With every bump we hit along the way, a scene had been dropped. And I estimated about 30 hours were still left of that stuff.

*sigh* 30 hours. Maybe more.

And thus began Part 2 of…Part 2 of this project… which I suppose is Part 4? Or why don’t we call it Chapter 4 to make it clearer.

Chapter 4: the coldest of all chapters.

This one was as icy as Chapter 3 was scorching- okay okay a little dramatic and maybe a bit of an overuse of symbolism… cut me some slack, I’ve been away from the blog for a while.

Oh! I have an office now! It’s at Sound City Center in Van Nuys. It’s small… oddly shaped (it’s not really square, it’s like a parallelogram) But I love it! Oh man, I just love it! And I’ve been driving to work every day for the past month. Putting in an average of about 14 hours a day.

August was largely about our pick up shoot. Getting all that missing stuff. A few of you probably read some of my nervous tweets early in the month. I spent day after day of preparation. Obsessing over those 30 hours and the near dried up funds that needed to get us there. Planning out solutions to every conceivable disaster that might strike. Storyboarding, prop listing, going through all the footage we did get for possible continuity concerns… praying that my actors didn’t book another gig or shave their heads or something.

Just friggin stressing. Maybe cause I could sense the cycle wasn’t complete yet. Things hadn’t quite balanced out with that flawless first half. And perhaps I thought that somehow if I was prepared enough, strong enough, fast enough, I could beat it!

But there were just too many thing that happened in August to come out completely unscathed: miscommunications, rumors, failed agreements, finger pointing, salmonella (believe it or not), the occasional boogie monster peeping out from under my bed.

In the end… we got it all. I’m not quite sure how, but we did. We muscled through… and I’m so happy with it. And proud as hell of my team. Proud proud proud. But this shoot was hard. And I definitely walked away pretty broken…

But the project isn’t over. Far from it. Months left of editing, animating, compositing, color correcting. And there’s no way I’d ever be able to get through that without some amount of personal repair work.

My birthday was only a few days after we wrapped on our pick ups… and I guess I was imagining a pretty sullen celebration here in town… or maybe no celebration… hell I wasn’t even sure people would remember my birthday!

So on a last minute whim, I bought a ticket to Germany so that I could ensure myself some happiness on that day…

Because… *short diversion… and I guess small drumroll*

… yes, for those who have wondered, I am dating a girl who lives in Germany. She and I have been doing the long distance thing for some time… and as I’m sure you can probably imagine, it comes with its own set of obstacles… and it’s not easy.

So I guess I just don’t feel comfortable sharing details about it online. I hope that’s okay. And I hope this short diversion can serve as an answer to some of the questions I’ve gotten on my formspring and twitter about this lately. I don’t want anyone to think I’m ignoring them.

Okay, back to the story. So I went to Germany. And I had a little birthday party with a bunch of my friends in Nuremberg. And it was awesome. And I guess I got some perspective on things… or started to, at least; identified some mistakes I’d made. Traps I’d fallen into… and a week later when I stepped foot back in the states, I was ready to rock this project like a hurricane again.

Last week we got the first two episodes of the series to a really nice place in the edit. We’re close to locking it. That means the real color, animation, fx, and sound work comes next.

And then… I think… this sucker’s gonna premiere.

*smile*

My webseries is going to premiere. My first fully completed webseries.

I like that.

Which brings me back to my day yesterday. My strange day of rest… labor day… repair day… OKAY! A LITTLE BIT OF WORK DAY!

Are any of you wondering where this series is actually going to premiere?

Well, I can finally reveal that.

The name of the site is Lockerz.com. I’ve always joked that the “z” makes it cooler. Like Zorro, you know?

It’s a start up, with a really interesting spin. They give incentive to the experience of social networking. That’s to say, Lockerz turns the experience of connecting, playing, and shopping… into a game… kind of like Foursquare, except with tangible prizes and big discounts on gadgets and clothes.

And I’m gonna be completely honest here, which may even take the Lockerz folks a bit by surprise… I’ve been a little unclear exactly how it all worked. I mean, I understood the general concepts, but I wasn’t sure exactly how all the elements fit together… particularly how my series would be integrated into it.

Is it a social network? Is it a video content network? Is it a shopping mall? A digital carnival? And I have to say, I’ve been a little worried lately that this series, the one we’ve broken our backs trying to make, might get lost inside all of that.

So one of the things I decided on my plane trip back to the U.S. was that I was going to spend time understanding this company a little better. I was gonna really get to know Lockerz and their brand.

So yesterday, I logged into their site with the account they sent me almost a year ago when I first pitched them the series. Back then, I remember their site was pretty sparse. They still have a lot planned… but it looks way different than a year ago, that’s for sure.

I picked Labor Day because I knew I wouldn’t be leaving my couch or my pajamas that day, and because I saw they were running a promotion that would triple the number of points you could get consuming content on their site. And I knew I’d be consuming A LOT.

I started watching videos, reading old blog posts, answering questions. I specifically went for the daily Vlogs created by the staff… there are 325 of them dating back a year, and they were like 1 minute a piece, and so I was like, “I can totally chomp through these in a day.”

It was actually cool sort of going back in time as I watched them… remembering where I was during my own series process at that time.

And with each one I watch, I started getting points. And at a certain point, I was like, “holy crap, I want more points! More points! MORE POINTS DAMNIT!!”

I think I started the day at like 62 points or something. But I watched about 350 videos yesterday. So I racked up quite a few more.

Now one big critique I have about video on the internet is that companies really need more variety in their preroll ads. Seriously, I don’t mind watching commercials. I’m a child of the 80s, and I actually like good ones. But I hate the fact that when you watch shows on HULU, ABC.com, etc, you see the same commercial over and over. Lockerz is no exception to this rule. There’s this one ad with a kid saying he likes spicy chips on his pizza that I must have seen like 200 times. No joke. I hate that kid.

But I do know the names of almost everyone in their office now… versus just the four honchos I sit down with at meetings.

Would you believe I racked up over 10,000 points (which they call PTZ)?! LOL! I was a little obsessed.

And now I get it. I really do. And I like it. It has a sort of Foursquarey (badges and status and points) Huluy, Boutiquey, Trendy, Geeky sort of feel. It’s fun… and perhaps a little addictive.

Okay okay, if I sound like I’m trying to sell you on the site, it’s because I sort of am… you see, I’m pretty sure my series will only be playing at Lockerz… at least in the beginning, and I really want you guys to see it. So sign up if you’re curious about the series or some of the above (which is all totally true).

And yeah…

What else? Oh, H+ is full speed ahead. We just turned in a new draft. And we’re getting ready to do some previs with a company called The Third Floor. The coolest part about that is we’re gonna motion capture actors for it… like they did for Lord of the Rings (if you remember from the bonus features on the DVD).

The animatic storyboards will have little 3D characters, but they’ll move exactly like the actors. It’s an interesting process that I’ve never seen up close, so I’m really excited.

I have a beard now. I’m a bearded guy now. My mom thinks it makes me look like Steven Spielberg. I think I look more Cuban. Or more ethnic at least.

And that’s been my past few months. Crazy ride. Not quite sure the cycle has completed… but I guess we’ll see. I’ll try to keep you updated.

Thanks for coming back to read this. I’ve missed this part of my life. Really.