We are getting very close to launching Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library and things seem to be getting done bit by bit.

It is a massive project in terms of the number of elements I dreamed up to include and I have been panicky for months, certain I will never get all the pieces made. Head down, working from morning till night, with a ton of other wonderful people helping out.

We shot an hour’s worth of original story which we’ll roll in nine episodes. We also have a ton of extra-content video, which will allow us to release at least a video a week between now and April.

We have four web sites. RubySkyePI.com is all redesigned and we’ve had a tremendous team of transmedia volunteers preparing content to roll out in the coming weeks. ODearyLibrary.com is the website of the fictional library. We’ve filled it with a combination of original, user generated and repurposed content. It looks pretty amazing if I do say so myself. ODearyPuzzles.com is Ava O’Deary’s puzzle site. Solve a puzzle on it and it will reward you with a link to a video. We’re still tinkering with the coding of the puzzles, but the site looks beautiful and there are lots of puzzles to entertain you.

And there’s another web site, but that one isn’t ready for you yet.

Then there are our four Tumblrs. Hailey’s, Diana’s and one that is the home of our fictional band, The Mint Chip Girls.  Each of these Tumblrs gives you a little insight in the personalities of our characters.  The last tumblr is for the series; Ruby Skye P.I..
We also have a fundraising campaign for Because I Am A Girl. In the story, Hailey is raising money for them and when Diana finds out she can win tickets to The Mint Chip Girls concert, she starts raising money too. We love the work Plan Canada is doing for with the Because I Am A Girl initiative and so we decided to raise some money for them in real life. We’ve set up Hailey’s fundraising page, so you can make a donation. We’ve also produced a couple of fundraising videos and will have a weekly column about Because I Am A Girl on the Ruby Skye P.I. web site.

There’s more to the project, but I’ll get to it another day.

A couple of years ago at SXSW I met a woman named Haley Moore. I knew her virtually from Twitter and the Transmedia Talk podcast, but we talked to each other for the first time at SXSW and significantly, exchanged business cards.

Mine was a card. Her’s was several cards in a little sleeve. Each of the little colorful cards inside — some round, some rectangular — was a thinf of intriguing beauty. One include the words, in large letter, “I MAKE THINGS” and in slightly smaller lettering below, “you can tell a story”.

I love telling stories. And I immediately wanted Haley to make me stuff that I could use to tell stories.

Haley calls the things she makes “story artifacts.” I love that pair of words together.

Haley’s cards sat on a shelf in my office for more than a year, inspiring me. So it’s sort of strange that when we first started working on The Haunted Library Haley’s name didn’t immediately pop into mind as the person to build the clues we needed.

But when we found ourselves needing to remake the clues for reshoots, I finally thought of her.

I can’t show you her finished product. For that you’ll have to wait until October. But I will show you the design and an early rendering.

Beauteous, n’est ce pas?

What a pleasure it is to be able to work with someone whose work you have admired.

More and more pieces of the extended story world for The Haunted Library are coming together. I’m getting very excited!

I’m a well known optimist… or is it self-delusion? I thought that things would calm down a little during production and that during our long nights shooting I would be at my computer blogging and tweeting and updating the world on the amazing progress of Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library.

And because I’m the type who never lets reality get in the way of belief, I lugged my computer to set every day, set up a desk in the production office and never once turned it on during the 10 day shoot.  At least, not during the shoot hours.

We shot at the amazing Emmanuel Library which is on the Victoria College campus of the University of Toronto — an incredibly beautiful location.  The library is open during the days, so we took it over every evening at 5:30 and wrapped out of the building at 6:30 the next morning.  I’d sleep for a few hours and as soon as I opened my eyes, I would be on the computer… answering email, fiddling with the script and doing God knows what that wasn’t blogging.

Luckily, Kelly Harms was not wasting time while I was filling up my hours with what, I don’t know.  He was making an unbelievable film.  I beg of you, do not tell him that Ruby Skye P.I. is a web series.  He seems to be functioning under the belief that it is a high budget feature.  OMG, talk about gorgeous.  You will not believe it when you see it.

We shot on the Red, which has its pros and cons.  Pro: absolutely exquisite and a quality that will look amazing on any screen anywhere.  Cons: there are costs associated in terms of lighting gear, time and post production workflow.  Any time I feel the slightest doubt about whether the Red was worth it, I just glance at the footage and all doubts fade.

We wrapped the 10 day shoot at dawn on Saturday June 1.  Post-production proceeds apace.  Unfortunately, I’m not there.  The second we wrapped principal photography, I got on a plane to PEI to teach at the PEI Screenwriting Bootcamp.  I was back in Toronto for 36 hours before I headed here to Banff for the World Media Festival.