A while ago, I started a blog called Kiandacorp. I called it a “Let’s Write”, and the intention was to talk about the process of developing and writing a sitcom.

I put four posts together, uploaded the first one, and then the world never heard of it again.

Unlike many projects that I start and never return to, Kiandacorp has never left my mind. I’ve been thinking about the show for years, and the blog for month, and I’m reasonably confident that I will return to (and finish it) before the year is up.

I was slowed down by ambition (like many of the projects I start and never return to). The second post was a brief recap of the other TV pilots I’ve written and filmed over the years, and I wrote about my regret that they weren’t online for easy linking.

I’m a big believer in not having regrets, and it occurred to me that this was something wholly in my power to fix. And so I’ve been slowly (incredibly slowly) putting together my old TV pilots and getting them ready to upload. One week I’d find some footage, another week I’d get an old computer or hard-drive up and running, and so on…

…right up until yesterday, when I dedicated the whole day to editing. I now have a copy of The Map Shop, the second TV pilot I ever shot (the first is Robbie and Peter, which has been online for a few years now) and it’s actually quite watchable.

It’s not great, but I’ve cut out all of the bits that didn’t work (including a plethora of needlessly offensive jokes, a romantic subplot that made no sense, and more than half an hour of scenes inexplicably featuring a wizard) – I’m not going to upload it until I’ve let it it sit for a while, maybe shown a few friends to see if there’s anything obvious I can change to improve it.

As well as the obvious “having it out there”, I’m really glad that all the people who put so much effort into it (not least of which the actors, who took a week off work to get involved in my silly little sitcom, and my cousin Gav who didn’t take the week off, but worked and studied full-time while helping me out with it.)

I’ve filmed 5 TV pilots so far – Robbie and Peter and Help! are both online already, The Map Shop will be joining them in the next week or so, NAP-Time (my first kids’ puppet show) shouldn’t be far behind  – I was watching some of the footage with Sarah Jane last night, and it’s beautifully shot – I’m particularly looking forward to this one going up.

The big one, however, is Frank. Shot with a proper crew, from a script I’m still happy with, this show had all of my friends on-board helping (and lost me a few of them) and it’s gone through two rounds of editing and had an premiere.

Once NAP-Time is up, I’ll have run out of excuses not to put a final cut of Frank together, and once that’s done I’ll no longer have any  reasons not to start pitching it, and truly try to get my start in television. I find it truly daunting.

For someone as ambitious as I am, I sure can be afraid of success sometimes.

But once all the pilots are up, two things are going to happen: I’m going to start pitching, meeting industry contacts and making a heap of two-sheets…and the Kiandacorp blog will start again.

There’s something a little bit fucked up about my brain that the second of those two is what kicked all this into gear. I guess creativity inspires me, whereas terrifying new processes…terrify me.

Wish me luck!