Erik Soulliard
Annubis Productions is excited to announce that we’re creating a streaming series right here in our hometown of Lebanon, Pa.! A streaming series is hosted on a variety of channels such as YouTube, Roku, Tubi and many other online distribution platforms.
Over the next few months, I’ll be writing a sequence of articles sharing the making of my episodic series titled Diakonia.
Who am I?
I am Erik Soulliard and own Annubis Productions. My first film, The Creek, was available on all major outlets such as Netflix, Blockbuster and Walmart. The Creek was shot in Lickdale and Cleona and used actors from New York City, Philadelphia and Lancaster. Despite being a low-budget film, The Creek won Best Feature Horror at the Illinois International Film festival. Since The Creek, I created a trailer and then a series of prequels for a project called 12 Bells (12bellsmovie.com). This project was set to shoot with a 2-million dollar budget but, just months before shooting, financing fell through. Through Annubis Productions, I concept, shoot and edit projects from mini-documentaries for Walmart to promotional videos for local businesses. My studio, on the third floor of the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts building, is where I shoot pro bono videos for local artists, businesses and non-profits as part of my We Are Lebanon, Pa positivity campaign on Facebook (www.facebook.com/wearelebanonpa). Currently, we are doing a series titled I Am Kortne raising awareness of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the tragic disappearance of Kortne Stouffer.
Diakonia: What it’s about
Diakonia is a super-hero story mixed with a spaghetti western with a dash of the Netflix hit Manifest. The series revolves around the character Ulima and her calling to do the Lord’s bidding. She is supernaturally guided by her gifts of Wisdom and of Knowledge. In each new town, she is led to people who have other gifts such as Prophecy, Miracles and Healing. Together, they help her to discover and then thwart a cataclysmic act of evil. At the end of each season, Ulima is then called to a new place where she again will search out and bring together her team.
Where are we now?
To date, we have shot two of the four days needed to create a sales trailer for Diakonia. Since I am not planning to create this project independently like I did The Creek, the sales trailer will be used to sell the project to investors and distributors. With The Creek, I learned that, for a project’s success in the marketplace, at least one or two known, recognizable actors are needed. Known talent guarantees distributors interest and potential profit hinges on those names. This project is doable independently, but requires investors. I’ve been running a strong social media campaign for Diakonia focusing on local exposure and offering businesses the opportunity to support the project in exchange for being tagged in all of our locally-focused frequently released posts. To finance the four shoot days for the trailer, I’m working to raise funding locally. If you are interested in supporting Diakonia, check out donorbox.org/diakonia-film to learn more about our funding levels and support us simply by liking and sharing our posts on social media!
Check back next month when I’ll dive deeper into the project itself, locations we’ve shot already and our next steps.
Author: Amaury Abreu
