A

Christine is joined by Felicia Day, creator of the Guild, to talk about the series and how it has changed as it approaches the 20th anniversary and the upcoming Kickstarter for the Guild reunion movie. We're making a movie. We're going to celebrate the 20th anniversary. Right. I wrote the script. I went straight to a table read. It was funny. I was like, let's go.

B

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a very special episode today. I am so excited anytime that I get a chance to promote something that I'm really passionate about, and this is no different, especially with the guest that is joining me today. So I am here to talk about the Guild. And if you don't know what the Guild is, you should know what the Guild is. And with me today, I have Felicia Day, the amazing, wonderful, absolutely awesome, does everything person. So welcome to the show.

A

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Um, I am just so happy that so many people are excited about the Guild coming back. And honestly, you know, life is. Life is very, very fast paced, but very fun right now. So thanks for having me on, I'm sure.

B

And I mean, I think everybody's excited because, you know, it's. It's nostalgic and, you know, it's something that a lot of us that remembered watching it when it came out. We kind of reminisce about the feeling of watching something and seeing, like, your life and people that you can relate to in a web series. And I think that's one of the amazing things about it. Now, something that I really love about the fact of kind of the way that the Guild was is that a lot of these reunions, people are reconnecting. But I don't know that in your case that you necessarily had that, like, full reconnection because you've still maintained that relationship with your cast members throughout these years. You know, with that, though, at what point did you decide we're going to make a Guild movie? Like, this is something that we all want to do?

A

Well, there was a lot of. There are a lot of factors that came into play. You know, I burnt out on the show very badly, in part because Geek and Sundry, my company was full force, and I was doing the Guild at the same time. And before that, I had just done the guild once a year, and trying to do 40 shows at once is a little too much. And I am a very good workaholic, so I will drive myself into any ground whatsoever. Yeah, it's one of those things where we played together a lot over Covid. We started doing D and D We started streaming together, playing Fortnite, other kind of Stardew. And it wasn't necessarily the Guild. It was just my friends who were actors on the Guild, and we were hanging all the time. And those were some of my fondest memories through a very difficult time during COVID And so I kind of got the seed planted that I wanted to do something. And then, you know, I just started thinking about it and thinking about it, and really the clincher was a year and a half ago or something, somebody called me from a Hollywood producer, very cool producer, and wanted to do something with the show. And I was so excited because mostly Hollywood has ignored my show, but I was excited. I was like, maybe we'll do the show again. And they did want to do the show, but they wanted to reboot it with younger actors. And I just sat there on the phone thinking, oh, my God, you cannot take this thing away from me. You've done everything possible to make it difficult for me to be an artist, and now you want to take my baby. And I was like, no, we're making a movie. We're going to celebrate the 20th anniversary, right? And I didn't even bother taking the script to anyone in Hollywood. I wrote the script. I went straight to a table read. It was funny. I was like, let's go. And that's how the Kickstarter origin story happened.

B

Well, that's amazing. And that actually kind of led into what my next question was going to be is what's exciting about bringing back the original cast? Right? Because there's so many films and TV shows that they're like, we're going to remake this and we're going to completely recast it with new people. And yes, it's still the same characters, but the fact is, at least with the Guild, the characters are you, like, you are the characters. And I can't really picture anybody else in those roles. So what's exciting about that piece of it is having everybody back.

A

I mean, having everybody back is just. It was a delight. I was so excited that everybody was like, yeah, I'll come back. And, you know, exploring the characters now versus 10 plus years ago has been a really fun exercise. Also, where gaming has come, where the characters have come, where culture has come, I certainly wouldn't write all my lines that I wrote back then now, because life is different, more patterns of behavior are different. And, you know, I've learned a lot, and I think I'm a much better writer now. So I allowed myself to sort of write with my heart a Little bit more. And that's why I started so early, early last year. Just to be like, well, what do I. I'm just going to wander around and see what I feel. And it took a lot more time to put the script together, but I really feel like that joyous sort of just dancing through the tulips kind of thing really helped because there's a lot of. It's just a lot of fun, wacky stuff in the script and I'm really excited for people to see it.

B

Yeah, I think we're definitely all excited about that. I'm really curious. Talking about the original series, looking back on it, do you have a favorite moment or like a favorite episode from that?

A

Oh boy. Gosh, I love season five. Season five is my favorite. There are so many wacky characters. There's so much, you know, and the Guild is completely, almost completely away from the game. Codex is not. She's at the booth there. So there's a little exposure and cross pollination there. But really it's just friends who happen to meet online being friends and having dysfunctional relationships in person. Right. So I just love it. I know that we did it on such a shoestring. Everything was donated and that's why coming back to this movie, trying to start from scratch has been like, I have to wrap my head around how much budget we actually need. It's a lot different. It's a lot, a lot of years passed. Everything's very expensive nowadays. But at the same time, the response of the audience has been so big. We're like the number one followed movie on Kickstarter ever. And hopefully by the 20th of July we have even more people signed up to just back, you know, right from the get go and get our budget. By the end. I just, you know, we put our heart and soul into building this Kickstarter to be different than other movie Kickstarters. And I hope the fans see all those details when we unveil everything on the on July 20th.

B

I feel confident about that now. Obviously the Guild was, you know, to me, a real pioneer in making a web series and having fan supported content. I feel like it's kind of poetic to do this through Kickstarter because I feel like it's a really great way to continue that legacy of having that fan support. Is that how you see it?

A

I mean, I put a PayPal button up on the website that I built by hand in 2008 to finish season one. So we were crowdfunding before crowdfunding started on Kickstarter. It wasn't even founded until the year after. So to come and try to make something with all of the tools the creators have now to use the platform to get Word out, to have all these things to be a little less frictionful to get to fans is just amazing. You know, on the flip side, trying to reach fans in this day and age, with the barrier between fan and creator that social media causes like, I have millions of followers, and I can tell you now that I haven't reached nearly as many as I would like, because the algorithms don't want you to reach fans. They only want you to reach fans in the way they want to use you. And it's almost like the same thing that enrages me about Hollywood and is what enrages me now about social media. You know, when you used to tweet, your fans used to see your tweets. That doesn't happen now. You have to pay to play. Even if you pay, you don't get to reach your fans. It's just wild how broken social media is and how I don't think we're being served. But the wonderful thing is that the most important dynamic throughout the Guild was my relationship with the community and the fans. I still have friends who were in that first chat room that I jankily put up on the first website. And so that connection between that kind of transferred to Twitch when I started streaming about 10 years ago. Transferred to Discord when I started my Discord about 10 years ago. That core audience is who I really care about and who I think, you know, as a creator I'm so lucky to have along with me on this journey.

B

Yeah, for sure. Now, I know, obviously, with this project that you want to kind of keep that spirit of the original series of the Guild, but what are the challenges in making any changes to make it more relevant for today's audience? I mean, I think that it's plenty relevant as far as gaming with a group of your friends, but there's certainly other differences that have changed over the years and things like that.

A

Yeah, I mean, certainly it's not this. It's going to be very familiar to people who love the guild, but it will be set in a way that I think the minute you guys learn about it on July 20, you're going to be like, oh, oh, perfect. It's very relevant. It's very. It touches nerd culture in a modern way, in my opinion. Even though we're all older, you know, we're all older together, but we're still geeky. We will Steward nerdy. And the setting is going to be very fun, I promise you. So I don't want to give anything more away, only that it's been a joy to think up funny things that kind of hit my funny bone today versus like you know, 15 years ago which, yeah, like I said, I would have, would not write some of those lines again. But it's okay.

B

Absolutely. Now, something you touched on earlier and I think this is important and I like to ask this as a mom myself because I have a very similar work ethic and just throw myself into everything that I do. How are you working on like managing that, wanting to put yourself into the project but trying to maintain a better balance now that you're a mom?

A

Oh boy, that's a really good question. I do not feel like I'm being a very good mom. This summer I had to cancel our two week trip to Japan that I'd saved for and booked like a year ago on points. And I just had to tell her that I couldn't leave and I had to face the fact that I can't do everything. The one thing I will say that I hopefully have been good about is that I make sure that our evenings are ours. I make sure that I'm there to drop her off at camp or pick her up at camp, whatever turn is mine. And I try not to be working too much in front of her. It has been very the last two weeks and next week leading up to the 20th is going to be bad. And then I have to, I'm traveling three straight weeks, you know, to Comic Con and Gen Con and doing Comic Con in Wales. So it's going to be a hard summer and I do regret kind of losing my kids 9th year summer to this project. But again, she is a really creative person and she sees me focusing in healthy and creative ways on things that I'm passionate about and that's what I want her to learn and which I think has rubbed off on her. So the one thing I have done as well is, you know, I'm self financing everything that's going on and I have been really good about delegating and bringing on help in areas where I would, you know, stayed up until midnight reacquainting myself with Photoshop to make a graphic. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I just have to find someone to make these graphics for me and send them to me. So it is really hard because I have a full time unpaid job as a mother, but it's the most important job for me. Right. And so I just had to be really super conscious and know that it's a limited number of time. And I can't let this be a pattern in my life where I'm working too hard. I wake up at six before she even gets up to be able to do writing before. And then I get her up and take her to camp. So, yeah, it's hard, man, I'm tired. But I know that every day is important in her life and mine and our relationship together and my work. So again, I think there was a great analogy where it's like, how many burners can you have lit on the stove? Family work, you know, self care. The self care is the lowest right now, but I'll get back to that, I promise.

B

I understand. That's usually my lowest priority too. Yeah. Now, I know that, you know, obviously you don't want to give too much away about the Kickstarter at this point, but just as much as you can talk about it are there without going into detail, perks or experiences that you're really excited about to offer to Kickstarter backers that maybe they wouldn't get to have outside of pledging at the Kickstarter.

A

So many. I'm just. There's so many things that you're going to be surprised by for this Kickstarter and it's just going to be such a splash, I mean, for at least in my head, that people are like, oh, I've never seen that before on a movie Kickstarter. Like, that's what I aim to do. I just always like to delight and surprise and creatively engage people with what we're offering. And so everything we're doing is artist driven. Everything we're doing is something we built from scratch. Everything is done with the intention of what would our audience like? You know, and I really, you know, I have to roll the dice. We don't know. We don't know if we're gonna be able to make a movie. We don't know if we're gonna be able to do a stretch goal. Who knows? We have to plan for the best scenario and worst scenario. And that is something that's very new to me. And it's like, it's kind of good because it makes me just approach it in a Zen way. I know I did the best I possibly could. And so, yeah, that's it then. I just have to release into the world and see what happens.

B

Exactly. I feel pretty good about it. So we'll see. Are you planning on having any aspect of this where the community itself has ways of shaping the movie's direction or content as we see sometimes in Kickstarters.

A

You know, not content wise. Like, I have my script and I have the script that I want to write and I've already written and I would like to shoot, so not so much. I think that, you know, me being a part of the community for 20 years almost now has informed me to what I think that my audience will like. Right. So I'm not creating in a vacuum, like, well, this is how I want it. Like, it's. It's a communal thing. The good thing is that early on in the process, I decided to eliminate Hollywood as somebody I needed to please with this. I was like, I'm just going to crowdfund it because I can't take the script to someone in Hollywood and have them tear it apart for their own priorities because they're not the same priorities as me and they're not the same priorities as my audience will be. So I was able to lift that burden for myself. So really I'm just always thinking about my audience when I'm creating and wanting to delight them. So in that respect, the audience is always with us in every scene, every piece of dialogue that I will have a character say. But, you know, the audience will inform us, you know, how big a movie we get. Do we have any stretch goals? What, you know, what can we offer that will make us make this really big project happen? So, again, rolling the dice. But it's kind of cool.

B

Absolutely. I have a fun question. Which Guild character do you think would do the best job of promoting the Kickstarter starter?

A

Wow, that's really good. Clara. I feel like she was a cheerleader in college or high school as well. And I feel like she's got a very good salesman kind of attitude. I mean, Zabu's a good. Has a really good, upbeat, positive person. Blades is a terrible person. No Codex. No. It had to be Clara or Zabu. They're the most upbeat, positive people. And even though Zabu sometimes goes too far, sometimes. But I think I would buy something from Clara more likely than any of the rest of the guys.

B

I think that makes sense. That makes sense. And for anybody that doesn't already know where to find information about the Kickstarter, where do they go? Obviously, July 20th, kickoff day. But what, what are, where do people go for right now?

A

Yeah. Please go to watch the guild dot com. You sign up with your email there and you'll get a free piece of loot if you later back at A physical level. So if we're sending you something, you'll get something extra in the mail from us for signing up early. We are looking for people to follow the Kickstarter itself directly because we are the number one movie in Kickstarter history. Followed movie. And I'd love to, you know, I'd love to just up it and like, just decisively be like, hey, we are the top. We were the top of the top of the heap for a while because I'm just competitive like that. So follow the show on go to watchtheguild.com, you'll get an email to follow the Kickstarter and hopefully that just creates a cycle of awesome so that we don't have to worry too much until the last day of fundraising to see if we're going to make a movie or not. Hopefully we make it before then.

B

Yeah, for sure. And then, last question, pie in the sky, like, the Kickstarter gets blown out of the water, you know, funded so well and everything, which, I mean, that's what I think is going to happen. But say that that happens. Have you had any thoughts on doing any future Guild content past the movie?

A

For sure, for sure. I mean, we have stretch goals in mind. They'd have to, you know, we have to raise a lot of money for the movie itself. So I'm not betting on any of these stretch goals happening. But yeah, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have a another movie in my brain already, but I have to just be like, you have to focus on one thing at a time, girl. And that is just this Kickstarter. So, yeah, it's gonna be good.

B

I think so.

A

I hope so.

B

Fingers crossed for you. You know, so obviously my audience, if you're watching this, go support the guild movie in whatever capacity you can because I think it's gonna be awesome and I want to see it get knock out of the park. So, yeah, make sure you so much.

A

I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.

B

For sure. And obviously, if you're watching this show, please make sure that you, like, subscribe, share everything, all that good stuff, support creators. Thank you. And for my, for my STEM audience, like, Felicia also supports women and girls

A

in stem, so I do, I do. I'm on the board of Girls Make Games. I always am a proponent and I have a daughter who's obsessed with D and D encoding now. So I'm like, even more, you know, such an advocate for just, I don't know, lowering the barrier, making girls feel safe, keep it. Giving them allies so they can go into any situation and feel like they're powerful. Because that's, you know, it's really important.

B

Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you, everyone, for watching, and we'll see everybody next time on the show.

A

Okay, Bye,

B

Sam.