"[T]he press and the church are traditionally seen as being at loggerheads with each other. But ... they're really the same. They're both looking for the truth." -- Whispers in the Loggia blogger Rocco Palmo, WNYC's On the Media, Feb. 22, 2013
Contact: Greg Piper, 240-423-3220, gregpiper@gmail.com
SEATTLE, March 1, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- A TV pilot about a Christian college newsroom is making waves among Christians, atheists and journalists, in a Kickstarter fundraising campaign that launched Monday (www.kickstarter.com/projects/jelewis8/copy-tv-pilot).
The hourlong comedy-drama, COPY, has drawn online posts from evangelical magazine WORLD, The Young Atheist's Survival Guide author Hemant Mehta, and the influential libertarian blog Instapundit.
As of Friday morning, the campaign was at $5,410 in pledges. Under Kickstarter's rules, the campaign must reach its $50,000 goal by March 27 for pledges to be enforced.
COPY placed in the semifinals of the Scriptapalooza competition in 2012 for the pilot script "Idol Talk." The pilot sets up the conflict -- as well as collusion -- among The Crusader student newspaper and Smith University's administration and student government, as the paper seeks to uncover scandal on campus and retain its independence.
The show explores hot-button issues within Christian higher education, including the rise of neo-Calvinism among students, university spending and fundraising in a recession, secularization of curricula, and attitudes toward racial and sexual minorities.
Journalist Greg Piper of Seattle and Jeremiah Lewis of Los Angeles created the show, partly based on Piper's experience reporting for The Falcon student newspaper at Free Methodist-associated Seattle Pacific University. Lewis, a Virginia Tech alum, is a filmmaker and novelist. The pair has written five full episodes, mapped out COPY's first season and compiled a comprehensive show bible.
The Kickstarter funds will be used to shoot a professional pilot episode, though Piper and Lewis estimated total costs for the shoot and post-production will be nearly $200,000. They plan to seek another round of funding, or funds from individual investors. "Warren Buffett, we're looking at you, big guy!" they said on the Kickstarter page. Buffett has gone on a buying spree of small community papers in the past year.
Piper and Lewis said they plan to pitch COPY as a 13-episode package to Netflix and Hulu as well as traditional broadcast and cable networks.
The creators expect the fundraising campaign to "encourage fan interaction and widen interest" in COPY, as well as provide "much-needed demographics" to potential networks on audience interest.
