<em>The Abandon</em>: Ready for Prime Time

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Scribe Keith Josef Adkins, inspired by his ambition to create a sci-fi/thriller series with African-American characters, wrote and directed his own digital web series, The Abandon. Keith has a successful career as a playwright and television writer with credits including Off-Broadway, regional theater and the CW series, Girlfriends.

Stepping out of his comfort zone of corporate television and professional theater productions to write, direct and produce his own project was a risk worth taking. The Abandon is the story of five men who leave the city on a weekend camping retreat, only to find out via Twitter that aliens have landed back home, and they're not friendly. The friends have limited time and information to reassess their priorities, and their friendship. For his indie web pilot, The Abandon, he mounted an aggressive IndieGogo campaign to fund the skeleton crew for his upstate New York production. Ever attentive to details Keith surmises, "The most successful part of my IndieGoGo campaign was the planning. I realized there certain days, certain types of weather that inspired people to give. I set out to see if my notions were true and they were. Overcast mornings were a good time to catch people sitting in front of their laptops, taking it easy. Saturday mornings were also a good time. The stress of the week was over and people were much more open to read campaigns and watch trailers... and to contribute." Once he achieved his $8,000 funding goal, he cast his production with seasoned actors, Sterling K. Brown, Jordan Mahome, Morocco Omari, Jamie Lincoln Smith and Billy Eugene Jones. Since its December 2012 launch on YouTube, The Abandon has a loyal following keen on future episodes.