Ok, so this is a long post. Like, a really long post. Sorry about that. But it turns out, when you’re talking about your passion, it’s kinda hard to keep it short. Feel free to jump to the links and/or skip to the end (that’s where the really important stuff is, anyway.) -Jess

As many of you know I have been a television fanatic my entire life. In fact, my life is defined by the shows I watch now, was watching then, will be watching tomorrow.

There are the shows of my childhood that I watched religiously with my sisters – Quincy, Eight is Enough, 240-Robert, Simon & Simon, St. Elsewhere, Remington Steele, Riptide – the list goes on and on and on.

Then there are the shows I watched on my own as I got older. In junior high it was Miami Vice – I still remember the conversations Colleen and I had at our lockers about Crockett and Tubbs.

There are the days in high school and early college where I was obsessed with Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure. (And yes, I’m well aware of the Northen Exposure episode that did an homage to Twin Peaks.)

The night during freshman year college spring break, when I had come home from a bad date in an awful mood and my dad had known the only thing that would pick me up – a Star Trek The Next Generation marathon where we watched a full videotape of 6 episodes, long into the night.

The ER fanaticism (particularly in those early seasons) when my aunt called with a family crisis during the ER season finale and I not only didn’t pick up the phone until the commercial break but when I did pick up, the first words out of my mouth were, “Aunt Irene, you know it’s the season finale, why are you calling NOW?” (yup, that story is legend in my family – most of the time I’m a very good niece, I swear.)

After college I had moved on to The X-Files and there was the taping mishap when, during Jen and Kelley’s rehearsal dinner, thinking I was safely recording the season finale, I left the television unattended, went to the dinner under the tent in the backyard and discovered (days later) that halfway through the episode someone, (who shall remain nameless), had changed the channel to a Red Sox game! Not even the Yankees! Not even the post-season! As you can imagine, in the days before dvrs that was a rough one!

There was Highlander and Gilmore Girls and Due South and Farscape; Thirtysomething, and I’ll Fly Away, and Party of Five, and Chicago Hope. In recent years it’s been The Wire, and West Wing, and Friday Night Lights, and Doctor Who, and Breaking Bad, and Mad Men, and Orphan Black, and Justified, and ANYTHING from Joss Whedon. There have been shows that barely lasted a season and there’s been that old stalwart, Law & Order that lasted for 20 and of which I never missed an episode. There are dramas and scifi, and action adventure, but there’s comedy too: Newhart and Cheers, and Friends, and Sports Night and Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family, and Happy Endings. There’s even an animated show here and there - Aqua Team Hunger Force and Family Guy, I’m looking at you (though admittedly, I’m not nearly as obsessive over animation.) The shows  go on and on too numerous to name them all, but the one uniting factor for all of them has been my obsession and family, and friends are all used to me starting out conversations with “That reminds me of this one scene in…”

When I get hooked on a show – I watch it all, in order – I do not miss an episode. Yes, there are the shows I have a casual relationship with – I’ll drop in, enjoy an episode every once in awhile, but those are rare. There are even the shows I hatewatch (again dropping in and out of them), BUT if I’m committed, I’m committed and I can’t let them go. My love for my shows defines moments of my life and Holy Good Lord, the things I’ve seen on TV! It is true that I place my defining career moment – that moment when I knew I wanted to be a director – as my first viewing of a film (Star Wars, to be exact – yes, when I was like 6). But if that was the moment I new I wanted to be a director, the moments that honed that realization, and cemented that decision; the moments where I began to really understand what a director is, and what kind of storyteller I wanted to become, those moments are too numerous to keep track of and stretch through decades of capital M Moments of television where a TV show blew me away, made me excited, made me think, made me laugh out loud, made me cry, made me who I am (warning, spoilers abound in the bullet points below):

• when the camera goes slo-mo in that one episode from Highlander when Richie realizes what he is now;
• when Carter comes into his own and takes charge of the ER in a crisis;
• when Bob Newhart wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette at the end of Newhart;
• when Buffy whispers her guidance to Dawn before she takes that leap;
• when Picard joins the poker game;
• when Lorelai realizes her feelings for Luke;
• when CJ gets the goldfish from Danny;
• when Niles’ ironing his pants turns into a 10 minute, absolutely brilliant bit of farce;
• the kaddish for Uncle Manny in Northern Exposure;
• the Galactica falling through the atmosphere of New Caprica; 
• the lawnmower in Mad Men;
• the goat fight in How I Met Your Mother;
• Jayne’s hat in Firefly;
• the locket in Farscape;
• the chair flip in Alias;
• the bullet in Fringe;
• Doctor Donna

Moments on top of Moments on top of moments that have moved me and stuck with me but more than that made me stop and think “wow, I want to be a part of that! I want to be responsible for these moments for other people.” Honestly, it’s why I’m a director – for the moments.

So, why am I telling you this? Why now? Why wax rhapsodic about my TV obsession on a theater blog? Well here’s the thing you may not know: this company was never intended to only be about theater. If you watch the music video I made a few years ago, you’ll see I titled it a “Going to Tahiti Production”. You see, I LOVE theater (obviously), but from the beginning, I never intended for GTTP to only do theater. Always always always I have been finagling, to make a film or, better yet, a TV show. So finally we come to the point… finally, the television obsession and the directing thing are starting to collide. Finally I’m making a TV show. To say that it’s a dream come true doesn’t begin to cover it…and honestly, it’s also not accurate, you see, the dream can’t come true – I can’t make the show – until the money is in place, and, though we’re going strong we still have a looooooooooong way to go with that. BUT, I’m closer now than I’ve ever been.

“But it’s a web series, Jess. Didn’t you just film a webseries that’s in editing now and is supposed to be released in the fall?,” you say. Well, yes, I did and it is, and it will be. And yes, technically Farm Story is a web series in that it will first air on the web. And it being a web series allows us to afford to make it. BUT, Terri and I have big plans for this little series. You see we’re not making it like people normally do a web series, we’re making it like a regular ol’ tv show. What we’re doing is filming our very own tv pilot – an hour long drama for a six episode first season. Yes yes yes, it will be distributed online first. But after that, who knows? We have the first 3 episodes written. We know the arc for the remaining 3 episodes. If all goes according to plan, this won’t be a little project. This will be the first season of a multi-season story. If all goes according to plan, this is the next 3-7 years of our lives. Don’t get me wrong, GTTP is not abandoning theater, not even close. In fact, Molly will be doing a workshop production of a new “beyond words” theater piece this summer. And GTTP will have a full production slate through the 2014-15 season (in fact, stay tuned for announcements about that) BUT, GTTP is growing and branching and every day getting closer to the production company I envisioned when I first started out.

The reason I’m making such a big deal about Farm Story, (and you can read all about the development of the project and all the latest happenings on our Farm Story blog) is that this show is our biggest endeavor yet. Our biggest budget by far (50K). A completely new medium for us. Farm Story is a completely crowd-funded, donation-based show (that’s right every dime for this show is coming from donations from y’all). This is locally-grown TV. No big Hollywood studio yet. No big Hollywood money yet. Everyone on this project is either working for peanuts or volunteering, Terri and my folks are cooking some of the meals – are you beginning to see the picture here? We literally can not make this show without the support of all of you. So, I know I’ve asked before but now I’m going to ask for more. This is one of the most important (and terrifying) things I’ve ever done. So, whaddya say? Wanna help us make a television show?

So, with that in mind, if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation to Farm Story and be a part of this revolutionary, locally-grown TV thing we’ve got going on here, go to the donate page of goingtotahitiproductions.com for instructions; OR, if you want to donate through our crowd funding site, RocketHub, and get rewards for your donation, go here. Truly truly truly, EVERY little bit helps. And, if you can’t donate right now, please spread the word. I also highly recommend checking out the video on the Rockethub page, where you can learn even more about me (as if you need to after this blog post), Terri, and the project; not just because I made the video and I think it’s a damn fine l’il movie, but because I think it conveys the spirit of what we’re doing.

So, yeah, basically – Theater is cool. Going  to Tahiti Productions‘ new theatrical season will be announced in July/August. TV is cool. GTTP is making a show. We need money and support to do it. Jessica is a crazy television junkie. Thanks for reading.

Going to Tahiti Productions is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for charitable purposes of Going to Tahiti Productions must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.