Join Us For Our Second GUIDESTONES Get-Together

February 12th, 2013 by Jay

Guidestones Get-Together

Join us on Thursday, February 21st for our second GUIDESTONES Get-Together!

Cast and crew, including IAWTV Award nominee Supinder Wraich, Dan Fox, Christina Jol, and Jay Ferguson will be in attendance.

As before, there will be plenty of food, drink and conversation to go around, and our special guest will be Jonathan Robbins, the creator of CLUTCH!

Please RSVP here and invite your friends! If you are unable to attend, you can tune into the Livestream here.

The First Guidestones Get-Together

November 27th, 2012 by Jay

ON NOVEMBER 22nd, cast, crew, friends, family and fans gathered at Smiley Guy Studios for the first-ever Guidestones Get-Together to celebrate the success of Guidestones, and to thank those who have supported the series.

For the complete set of photos from the event, head over to Facebook and make sure to tag, like, and share!

Thanks again to everyone who came out, and to those that tuned into the Livestream! Also, a very special thank-you to Pizza Pizza!

Guidestones is Everywhere

July 10th, 2012 by Jay

Now that pre-production is underway for season 2 of Guidestones, we want to make sure as many people as possible have a chance to see season 1. That’s why, in addition to the interactive ‘push‘ format, we released the series on-demand here at guidestones.org and at Hulu. We’re also active on Twitter and Facebook, and we love to interact with our fans.

We’re currently working on some ideas for increasing fan involvement, whether you’re in Toronto, Los Angeles, Glasgow, Berlin, Tokyo, or anywhere in between. We’ll make sure to keep you all updated as these plans take shape.

In the meantime, keep watching and sharing Guidestones!

Guidestones: Now Available on Hulu!

June 22nd, 2012 by Jay

We are continuing to introduce new ways for audiences to interact with Guidestones. As such, we’re proud to say that viewers in the U.S. can now watch Guidestones on Hulu! Please share and enjoy Guidestones in this new and exciting format!

To start watching, click here.

Looking Back..

April 3rd, 2012 by Jay

 

The journey to creating Guidestones goes back 6 years for me.

I was drinking coffee with my friend Patricio Davilla complaining about the difficulties of trying to get any film project distributed in this country (a favourite activity of all independent filmmakers in Canada: caffeine and complaining) and he said to me “Why don’t you produce content for the internet? You can bypass the broadcasters and go directly to your audience”.

Now you need to remember this was six years ago. YouTube was roughly one year old, online video was not particularly sophisticated, and computers were… well, let’s just say they were slow-ish, smartphones were not that smart, and neither was most of the content… football in the groin.

As an independent filmmaker I was much more sophisticated than Dayillia’s suggestion; so naturally I strongly rejected the idea.

A bit of time passed and still nobody was picking up my features, or anything else for that matter, and a thought kept lingering as rejection persisted; the idea of creating content and being my own distributor.

I wanted to take control of my own destiny.

So, without admitting it to anyone, I let the concept occupy a large portion of my brain and thought it over and over… and over… If the content was serialized with cliffhangers, maybe there could be something there.

My father used to tell me about going to the movie theater and watching the old serials; he loved them and he kept coming back. Everybody did.

But seriously, that was all handle bar mustaches and archetypes. Is that really what I wanted to do? Spend my time figuring out unique ways to tie maidens in distress to railway tracks?

This is not what makes an honorable career in the film industry. (Yes I know… oxymoron)

I started to dabble. I wrote a proposal, I raised a little capital, and I tried my hand at a couple of short form content experiments called TRUE FICTION and TEN TO GO. Suddenly three years later, my dabbling had turned into a full-fledged obsession to become an on-line content producer.

Of course I want this job because it pays no money and exacts no respect from anybody…

This is a volunteer proposition that nobody wants or needs, with long hours and a lot of people politely pretending to listen to you, who are impatient to get back to making some real money in the real world.

Well, for some reason I slogged on, going to various interactive conferences across the country, pushing my concept of serialized content, supported by TRUE FICTION and TEN TO GO (both great ideas, and I believe, very well executed and entertaining).

However, in the end these properties were really just short versions of television shows. I tried to raise money to make more… I tried for a couple of years with little success.

By now it’s summer 2008 and two things are happening:

First, people keep asking me what my plan is to monetize the content…to which my answers are; through “sponsorship”, and “t-shirt sales” and the content is going to be “so good people will pay for it!”, yadda yadda yadda.

Second, we are quickly heading into the fall of 2008…when a certain World Economic Collapse occurs… Here I am knocking on doors looking for money for a high risk venture. Well timing is everything, because as I was getting (politely) laughed out of board rooms across the country and then suddenly I happened across a single meeting that would end up changing the course of my career…and I do believe now, my life.

JDF – April 3, 2012


Guidestones Prologue

March 22nd, 2012 by Jay

 

Jay Ferguson Hat

I’ve decided to start a Blog.

I have to be honest. I really can’t imagine that anybody would have any interest in hearing what I have to say. BS. right? False modesty.. Then why put this down on the page?

BECAUSE I AM A GENIUS AND I WANT BOTH OF YOU TO KNOW THAT!

The fact is I am writing this to myself. It’s a kind of journal for four reasons.

  1. It helps me to organize my thoughts when I externalize them, which then helps me organize my life.
  2. My life seems to move so fast these days; this provides a nice quiet moment for me to reflect.
  3. When I wonder what the hell I did for all those years making that crazy project, I can look back and rediscover.
  4. I now have a three and a half year old daughter whom I love dearly. Later on in life if she ever wonders what Daddy was doing every day when he went off to that weird place called work, she can come back to this lonely record of accounts and discover on her own terms.

So why not keep it private?

BECAUSE I AM AN EGOMANIAC AND I AM IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF MY OWN FINGERS TAPPING.

Actually the real reason is that if it’s public my mom can read it and she will think that her son has some sort of legitimate job. It will certainly make up for the lack of salary I’ve been taking home for twenty years.

The reason I want to start a blog particularly about Guidestones, at this particular time, is two fold.

  1. To look back.
  2. To look forward.

We are in a transitional place with Guidestones. We have just finished production (after 3 years) and are now going into marketing and distribution…which I’m sure will take up another number of years. (Please do not tell this to my wife RE: the aforementioned lack of salary.)

We are calling Guidestones an interactive thriller which I believe is accurate. I do have to say however, that once you get past the easy to read, simplified, tag line, it goes much deeper than that. I can attest to this as it took 50 of us, over a 3-year period to make the thing functional… Guidestones is an online dramatic series that runs 50 episodes over the course of 6 cities, 3 countries, 2 continents, 45 websites, and 120 minutes of supplemental media.

Anybody can sign up for free and experience it by entering their email address on this site (www.Guidestones.org)

Some day my daughter will be able to go on the journey as well and what I am going to attempt to describe to her (in this very public forum) is not only how I did it…but why.

JDF – March 22, 2012

Guidestones Jay Ferguson

 

INTERVIEW: Supinder Wraich Talks to Suhaag About Guidestones

January 26th, 2012 by Jay

Supinder Wraich in India | Guidestones Web Series

The lead actress of the Guidestones web series, Supinder Wraich, gave an insightful and charming interview to Suhaag. The website for the magazine, which covers South Asian related news and culture, asked some interesting questions and Supinder gave illuminating answers.

Of particular note is the method acting Supinder employs.

“Sandy Rai, is a role that is very close to my heart.” Reason being, Supinder wanted to be an interpreter, “something to fall back upon,” she adds, and took a course in it.

[…]

The Chandigarh born Supinder says she is a method actor. “I lived in a hostel, away from the comforts of my home, in Etobicoke for one and a half months to get into the mind of the character.” Sandy’s character spends time away from her home and Supinder wanted to experience that first hand.

“I wanted to look at Toronto through the eyes of a newcomer.” She tried being a vegetarian too because she imagined Sandy to be one.

Supinder also let’s us in on her dream project:

And what is her dream project? Supinder  says, “I love Deepa Mehta and she is top on my priority list of directors I want to work with.” She would also like to work with all the top Canadian directors including Richie Mehta of Amal fame. “And I would like to do an action film.”

You can read the entire interview over at Suhaag.

PHOTOS: Production Stills, Shooting Guidestones Web Series in Toronto

December 8th, 2011 by Jay

Here are some more interesting peeks into the Guidestones web series from our shoots in Toronto. These include actress Amber Goldfarb, who has been accepted into the Canadian Film Centre’s Actors Conservatory 2011-12, and scenes filmed in the beautiful Exchange Tower!

Guidestones Web Series

Amber Goldfarb, Jay Ferguson | Guidestones Web Series

Amber Goldfarb | Guidestones Web Series

Dan Fox, Supinder Wraich | Guidestones Web Series

Dan Fox, Supinder Wraich | Guidestones Web Series

Guidestones Web Series

Jay Ferguson | Guidestones Web Series

Supinder Wraich, Jay Ferguson | Guidestones Web Series

Supinder Wraich | Guidestones Web Series

VIDEO: Guidestones Web Series Teaser, Decoding Sandy

November 25th, 2011 by Jay

We’re very excited for the fourth teaser trailer for the Guidestones web series, because it introduces one of the two main characters: Sandy (played by Supinder Wraich). Like Gloria, Sandy has clearly been impacted by what may be an international conspiracy, though she seems to know less than Gloria. How does she relate to Gloria or even Harold in this tangled web and to what degree do the Georgia Guidestones play a role? Sign up to our mailing list at the top of this page to help Sandy on her quest when the series launches!

PHOTOS: Savannah Georgia, Production Stills

November 14th, 2011 by Jay

Here’s another batch of production stills from the Guidestones web series shoot in Savannah, GA. Check out candid and in-action photos of lead actors Dan Fox and Supinder Wraich, as well as director Jay Ferguson shooting with the Canon 7D camera. All photos taken by Thom Smalley.