Deadside 2012 720p x264 VODO

Director/Producer: David Di Muro
Year: 2012
Language: English
Subtitles: English; Spanish

Set in Sydney, Australia, Deadside follows the story of a young British girl named Sara whose life is thrown into turmoil when a mysterious man named Boli Shah starts pursuing her. She is eventually drawn into a mysterious world of Voodoo, ancient mysticism, martial arts and the Yakuza gangster underworld. Sara is the reincarnation of an ancient warrior known as Ogunte, who must stop Baron Samedi, Guardian of the Dead, from crossing his armies over from Deadside into the world of the living.

The Deadside pilot episode was produced with just $5000 in crowdfunding and involved a team of 100 cast and crew providing $150,000 of work and resources for 17 days shooting over 14 locations and 3 months of post-production. More than just a production proposition, Deadside presents a model for using the influence of entertainment for the benefit of charity. The creators are using their support and influence to assist vital charitable work and aim to follow this model in raising funds to properly finance the team in completing the show, either as a 13-part series or as a feature film.

After trialling on VODO in advance of this feature release, the Deadside pilot was given a theatrical premiere at Fox Studios in Sydney and all $1,443.80 in profits raised were donated to Youth Off the Streets - a charity helping young people facing deep emotional strife and homelessness. The next Deadside Charitable event has been arranged for August 29 in support of Lions Club International and is expected to raise $4,800.

The Deadside production team aims to raise an initial P2P fund of $50,000 to support further fundraising from multiple sources. They aim to realise Deadside as either a 13 part season of half-hour episodes, or a feature film, depending on the scale of support generated.

"We aim to create a fully funded series using P2P audience support to underpin extensive fundraising through sponsorship and philanthropic investment. We hope to raise at least $300k per episode - twice the value of work in-kind associated with the pilot. This will allow us to produce each episode with much more elaborate stunts, special effects, martial arts choreography, production design, art-direction and overall polish to rival major studio and network productions. Our driving commitments are to release the final product via the Creative Commons and to use the popularity and influence of the show to raise funds for charity."

"By the end of October of this year we will assess our progress and determine what can be made. If we have enough to secure funding for 13 episodes of the show, we will proceed with shooting the rest of the series back-to-back for release beginning next year. If we find that we don't have a big enough budget for an entire season, we'll shoot as many episodes as we can, or may opt to shoot a feature film based on the story and characters.".

"We want to prove a successful business model that takes responsibility for community and the greater good. Support us in creating Deadside - an awesome action packed supernatural adventure show. Help us build an audience and fans by spreading the word of what we are trying to do. We promise to work as hard as possible to make the season or feature film as awesome as we can. We will use our influence to support charitable organisations through promotions and fundraisers. We are already doing it - we just need more help. By proving this model works, and making this show successful, we can hopefully spur bigger studios and other business into doing the same."