Irish duo seek help to turn their love of 80’s TV into an ass kickin’ web sensation.
We get a lot of requests to help promote Irish film here on Movies.ie and we do our best with our limited resources. (Check out our behind the scenes look at another Irish project ‘One Hundred Mornings’ here). Project Switchblade was the first time we’ve been asked to help an Irish production in its development stage, yesterday we received an email from Declan Lynch explaining his love of 80’s TV and how he wants to make an Irish version using crowd funding on Fundit.ie – When asked to describe the show Lynch said “If Tango And Cash took a Knight Ride with TJ Hooker down 21 Jump Street, they’d have their asses handed to them by Team Switchblade.” We fell in love with the cheesy but fun trailer and thought we’d lend a hand with some publicity for their cause.
Check out the trailer below.
Switch Blade is a web show about two cops fighting crime and cleaning up the streets of Dublin. Their 42 day campaign started last week on fundit.ie and they hope to raise 6000 euro over the next month. You can contribute to the project here.
Interview with writer & producer Declan Lynch
Tell us the background of the Switch Blade project?
Dec Dowling and I worked together on a few projects before. I had produced an experimental feature called Hotel Darklight which was a sort of paranormal themed film set in a Hotel in Dublin, it was a collaborative work that involved many talented film makers. Dec busy living a sort of digital zombie existence doing loads of cool work on Zombie Bashers and (soon to be released) Portrait of a Zombie. We hit common ground when it came to our love of American 80’s TV Cop shows. Dec came up with the idea of Switchblade and asked if I’d produce.
Tell us about the premise of Switch Blade itself?
Switchblade is a kick-ass thrill-ride influenced by the best (and more especially the worst!) of classic Eighties TV cop shows. It’s an off-beat, rapid-fire, FX-busy retro-tastic action-comedy with crazy action sequences, whip-smart one-liners and killer cliffhangers aplenty. If Tango And Cash took a Knight Ride with TJ Hooker down 21 Jump Street, they’d have their asses handed to them by Team Switchblade.
Is this your first web series you made other short films/shows?
We’ve both done a lot of TV and online work, I’m editing “The Last Security Man” (http://www.rte.ie/storyland/episodes-the-last-security-man.html) for RTE’s online competition Storyland. It’s one of the finalists. I’m really proud of that. Declan has worked on “ROY” a childrens show for the BBC as well as funky fables for cbbc.
What shows/movies influence you?
We both have a wide sphere of influence but from this genre, there’s loads of stuff, I’ve got to admit I watched a lot of this stuff the first time around as I’ve a few years on Dowling in that respect. But he knows his bullets from his mullets. We both love Hardcastle & McCormick and talked a lot about what we liked about characters in that show. When I was growing up I loved the Equalizer, TJ Hooker and Gemini Man but there were loads of short lived 80’s series like Automan, Manimal and Streethawk. I always wanted to see Airwolf take on Blue Thunder.
Switch Blade looks like it has some very impressive SFX shots with a Dublin background – how long do these take to work on?
Dec (Dowling) spent three to four weeks designing, compositing, adjusting and rendering the shots we’ve got in the online promo. He really disappears into that world. We are really going to raise the bar for the first show, it’s going to be a monster. Can’t wait.
How much of Switch Blade is made at the moment – how much more is needed? How long will it take?
We shot the promo to raise interest in the series. The plan is to shoot this summer and start post immediately. As for how long it takes…we’re aiming for the end of the year, which is very ambitious.
Whats the toughest part of making the show?
Funding! We’re excited about this crowd funding model, it’s been used with great success in the States and Britain and we’re really happy fundit.ie came along when it did. They’ve been a great help. Outside of funding. Planning & Pre-production is the mountain, we know what we where we want to go with this but the key thing is getting the details right early on.
Tell us more about the Crowd Funding Idea – how will that work?
The system works on pledges from the public for rewards and pre-sales. For pre-sales, we give a discount to anyone who backs us now on tickets for the Switchblade premiere and launch party. On the rewards side we’re trying a few novel ways to involve our fans, we offering a few roles as extras on the shoot, our funders will get to see the shoot and be in it. We’re giving funders a chance to name some characters in the show and for anyone who can really back us we’re offering to kill them off on screen as a character in the show. We’ve had to get inventive with how we fund it, in the case of this show we feel we can walk that line as it’s entertainment. Having fundit on board means there’s target based model online. We’ve given ourselves 42 days to raise the €6,000 for Switchblade, if we don’t make it no one loses anything, if we do the pledges are drawn down and we have our budget to shoot. We’re not taking salaries in an effort but put as resources on screen as possible, Dec (Dowling) is experienced in special effects and I’m experienced in editing and post-production sound.
What is your main ambition for Switch Blade? Would you like one of the Irish TV channels to show it?
We want to make it rock! We want people to get involved to feel part of it. We’ve got a pile of great ideas for how this can be special as web series and beyond. Of course we would love to get a TV series from it but right now we’re focused on an great show and an epic opening night! They are going to be some big surprises ahead.
To contribute to Switch Blade or find out more about crowd funding visit www.fundit.ie