Vivek Tiwary –Talks about The Fifth Beatle
At Wondercon 2014, held in Anaheim, CA we had a chance to stop by the Dark Horse Comics booth to talk to multi-platform entertainment creator Vivek Tiwary. Vivek is the author of a new graphic novel that Dark Horse is publishing titled “The Fifth Beatle – The Brian Epstein Story”. This novel chronicles the events and behind the scenes life issues of Brian Epstein, the functional father of transmedia promotion. Vivek is also working on a feature film about Brian that is based on the concept of the graphic novel. The film will have access to an unprecedented collection of Beatles songs.
M&E Tech and Vivek Tiwary
Coming from an MBA background at Wharton, it was hard to imagine that Vivek would be at ease and fit in so well with the idiosyncratic crowd at Wondercon, but he was very comfortable and well received. “I am basically a geek at heart, and like waving that flag at events like this, but I came from a very academic background” he said , owing that this part of his life was the one driving force behind the creation and presentation of popular culture and entertainment.
Why the Brian Epstein story?
In following the path of creating entertainment, I wanted to study the people who made modern entertainment what are – both the entertainers and the people behind them. Brian’s story was interesting because of what he did at the time – creating a worldwide sensation with the Beatles, who were a group from nowhere, with new music, and a producer who was outside the social and political convention at the time. It was a fascinating study, and I wanted people to know the challenges, triumphs, and failures he encountered to make the “greatest band in history”.
Dark Horse – The Fifth Beatle Graphic Novel
Brian as the “Fifth Beatle” showed true love and unrelenting belief in the band – not just as musicians, but as artists in general. That is why he pushed John to write, and allowed them the time off to study Eastern Music. He allowed them to move into film, live performance and records, as well as the time to be openly creative without bounds and progress to Sergeant Pepper from their prior albums. He firmly believed that the music they were making was going to be remembered and as iconic as the classical music he listened to like Mozart and Beethoven.
The story I am trying to tell is taking all forms – this interview, the graphic novel, the upcoming film– to get people to understand the tremendous effort Brian put in to make the world aware of the many talents of the band. At a time before it existed formally, Brian created the idea of transmedia as the best method to let people know about the Beatles. People have to understand – there was no net, no global TV, no global radio, no sharing of news stories across countries, yet he built the Beatles to be a star group around the world. Despite the communication, language and cultural barriers, he found the commonality to get it done. This was only possible through hard work, belief in the band, and love for the result. This can’t be done with just money as an end goal – there has to be a strong internal passion to bring it about.
The story is shifting from print to a movie – will they be the same?
No, the graphic novel was a set of key stories that were able to be told in print and drawings. Some of the experiences, such as Brian being gay, had to be part of the book because it was so important to how they got to the end. In the film, we are going to overlap a number of the events, drop some, and add new ones that are told better through live action and music. Rather than being just an adaptation, the film will be an expansion of the story. The print is silent, so the sound track is in the reader’s head. The film allows us to tell the story with the sound track we want.
For the movie, I am the producer, wrote the screenplay, and am planning very hands on touch for the project. I have brought in a wonderful director who understands the story that I want to have the movie tell, and I expect to work closely on the production to get the full story on screen. We are lucky for this project that we were able to secure unprecedented access to original Beatles music over their full time with Brian for the soundtrack.
The director for the film is Payton Reed, who was selected because he came eye-to-eye on the story with me. He is also very artistic and will have the latitude to bring his art to the film, but it will have my fingers all over it as screenwriter and producer. The plan right now is for the film to be done with all new footage, including the animated sequences.
With the popularity of the Beatles and its worldwide following – is there going to be a social media and interaction aspect to the film?
Right now, the film is in casting and has been following a traditional funding path, similar to when we put together Green Day’s American Idiot for the stage. We are talking to some studios as well. However, the success of the graphic novel and the reason it is up for several Eisner Awards, as well as recognition and awards from the LGBT community is the social media and individual following the story has created. As the program moves forward, we are definitely looking at ways to get the fan base involved with the project, we have not decided on, nor ruled out crowd funding scenarios. We are just not at that stage as yet. We will find some way to get the fans involved as the project moves forward.
