It's Been Quite a Ride

Hi everyone,

This is a post I didn’t expect to write anytime in the near future, especially not on the week of the company’s 5-year anniversary. Nevertheless, here we are.

It is with great sadness that I announce a complete restructuring of Clicker Productions. While our available content, this website and other certain functionality will remain operational, we will be winding down most other corners of the company. This means cancelling future shows, minimising our presence on social media and reducing overall costs across content production. The following changes will be evident over the next few weeks (unless otherwise specified):

• Projects previously announced such as ‘EVASION’, ‘Estranged’, ‘Ex-Rental: Part II’ and ‘#Soaring Saturdays: Season 2’ will be cancelled effective immediately.

• Future episodic shows we had planned to release in July such as ‘Have a Reel with Jake’ and ‘The Top Ten Show w/ Jake & Steven’ will also cease production.

• Three behind-the-scenes documentaries on the making of local short films (such as ‘Making The Raven’ & ‘Working on Work from Home’) will continue to be completed and released.

• The future of the Twitch account ‘Have a Stream with Jake’ remains uncertain.

• Our collaboration with local entities will remain quietly active. This includes work with HALO films, Visor Immersive and ZKJ Productions on ‘The Cinema Sideshow Podcast’ which will continue to have weekly episodes on Monday.

• ‘dis connected’ has been removed from Vimeo On-Demand and is now available for free on Vimeo’s main site (you can find the link in the ‘dis connected’ website page). The DVD is still available in the store, however it is now only $4.99 and has an order limit. At the time of writing, only 12 copies are available left to purchase. We will reevaluate if further DVDs are available after that limit is reached.

• All videos available on YouTube will remain live including the films ‘Faces in the Crowd’, ‘CRADLE’, ‘Dispelling Dyslexia’, ‘Vehophobia’ and more.

• ‘Gamers Drink Too Podcast’ will remain live on Spotify for the foreseeable future. Episodes will remain live on Soundcloud until January, 2022. You can also download the MP3 files from our website’s store.

• There will be no future newsletters effective from July, 2021.

• Our social media pages (i.e. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, ect.) and all attached posts will remain live. The same goes for this very website. However, with rare exception, we will not be posting anything new to these pages. Exceptions, for example, include weekly posts promoting the ‘The Cinema Sideshow Podcast’.

• Operationally, our ABN will remain active for employment and tax purposes. We have no plans as of yet to disable our services across Squarespace, PodBean or Vimeo.

On a personal note, if I were to make more films in the future, they very likely would be added to Clicker Production’s portfolio and on our website/socials. This will likely be a rare occurrence.

I understand this may be shocking and feel sudden to our fans, it was a personal decision I made quite recently. As priorities in my life shift and I aspire to different goals, I realised that Clicker Productions as a company wouldn’t get the love it deserved. I still love filmmaking and very much intend to continue passionately making films but this isn’t the way for me to do it. I hope you understand my decision and have come to respect the legacy we’ve all built together. Clicker Productions has been a dream come true.

- Jake De Agrela

CP: Reflection and a Look into 2021

Hi everyone,

It’s that time of the year again, this is our 5th time reflecting on our previous year of work for Clicker Productions, as well as providing a sneak peek into what’s to come in the new year. I’m sure everyone is just as thrilled and equally relieved as we are that 2020 is past us. It’s been a tough year for the entire world, and our company had to face hardships following the COVID lock-down too. We are very fortunate to be resided in Western Australia and were able to get back on track by June. Despite the tough times, I’m personally very proud of both the quantity and the quality of what we’ve delivered this past year, so with that, let’s recap..

This year, we introduced a new weekly show: #SoaringSaturdays. The idea is simple, each Saturday, we release a set of photographs or a video onto our social feeds that utilizes an otherwise overlooked aspect of filmmaking. We’re talking time-lapses, GoPro footage, photography and mostly drone shots. We have a lot of different types of camera gear in our office so this series was a good excuse to experiment with it more. We did 20 weeks, or 20 episodes, and called it a wrap on Season 1 of #SoaringSaturdays, and we’re pleased with the results. We’re looking to have a stronger lineup of episodes for Season 2 in the new year.

We continued in our collaboration with ZKJ Productions to produce new weekly episodes of the Cinema Sideshow podcast, which just hit a new milestone of 100 episodes. It’s crazy to think how much audio of Zeke and I’s voice currently exist on the internet. We celebrated the milestone by having several of our guests return for brief audio cameos and we also held a competition where the winner could win up to 2 Blu-rays movies of their choice, based on the list of films we’ve covered. The winner turned our to be our own Nakeesha Moody. Congratulations Keesh! We are continuing into 2021 with our third year of episodes and with no signs of stopping. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, PodBean or Apple podcasts.

Speaking of podcasts, we started a new one all on our own. Earlier in the year, we produced two episodes of the ‘Ability Advocacy’ podcast hosted by our friend Camilla. The show sees Camilla interviewing experts, advocates on, and individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities. Like I said, we’ve only produced 2 episodes but we plan to get back to work on the show sometime in the new year. It’s available exclusively on PodBean.

We also introduced a new project, a natural progression from the original ‘MegaGamer’ YouTube channel, ‘Have a Stream with Jake’ which is the combined Twitch and YouTube channels that see me, Jake, playing and live-streaming video games. I’ve played smaller games like ‘Twin Breaker’ and ‘LIMBO’ as well as bigger games on the new PlayStation 5 like ‘Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ and ‘Demon’s Souls’.

Keen eyed viewers may have noticed we announced a certain documentary sequel earlier in the year. ‘Ex-Rental: Part II’ was officially announced back in July and we’ve been purposely quiet ever since. This is an on-going documentary, mostly shot (in safe and pre-cautioned conditions) during COVID lock-down, and we’ve been dead silent on what the film entails until we’re absolutely ready to reveal more. In the meantime, we’ve put out a deleted scene from the original short film that further explores Blockbuster Morley.

There was also a lot to celebrate in the past year. ‘Ex-Rental’, our short documentary film about local video stores in Perth, WA became a part of the official selection at the Static Film Festival in 2020. It played to a worldwide audience online and exposed our story to more people. Another film we helped produce, ‘CRADLE’, also screened at this festival and won the award for the Best Student Film. We’re really proud of that one.

Our biggest film to date, ‘dis connected’, also became available for rental and purchase on Vimeo-On-Demand this past year, from as low as $2.49aud. The DVD, which features over two hours of bonus features, had a price reduction down to just $9.99 as well. You can purchase that DVD on this very website at our store.

Some other notable highlights include working on videos for the Indigenous Emerging Business Forum 2020k with Telstra and John O’Driscoll, Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse at the Backlot Perth, the opening of the Banjup Fire Station for the City of Cockburn, Bone Moe’s 2020 Fringe Show (which we live-streamed) and the Murdoch University Student Leadership Awards. I, personally, also had the pleasure of being a guest on ‘Amplify’ radio station, ‘The Pool Room’ podcast with Jesse Newell and the ‘Let’s See How We Go’ podcast with Brock and Joash.

There’s a lot here upon reflection, and we’ve found a way to make it easier for the audience to track everything we do at Clicker Productions. Starting from early November, we’ve been sending exclusive newsletters to subscribers that detail all of our work and weekly content from month-to-month. For more info, see the blog post below this one.

Well, that’s 2020 in a nutshell over here. But what can we look forward to in the new year? Well, we still plan to continue our series’ such as the Cinema Sideshow podcast, #SoaringSaturdays and ‘Have a Stream with Jake’. We also want to continue looking into publishing DVDs and home releases of local films that otherwise don’t have a distribution plan (much like we did with ‘dis connected’). Furthermore, we have a bunch of documentary ideas in the works. The most exciting of the bunch include behind-the-scenes documentaries for local films such as ‘The Raven’ and ‘Work from Home’ which are both in post-production. We were fortunate enough to be invited to make these videos on the set of these wonderful short films. ‘The Raven’ already has a 1min reel posted by Propel Youth Arts WA.

With each passing year, Clicker Productions slowly expands more and more. As we reach the 5-year anniversary of the company’s launch, this July, I can confidently say that I’m so proud of the progress we’ve made. I’m proud of the media we put out, I’m proud of the consistency in which we talk to our audience through our socials with hundreds and hundreds of posts a year and I’m proud of the ever-growing quantity and quality of our films. This is Jake, signing out, on another exciting year of producing films for you. Take care and happy new year!

- Jake De Agrela

Starting Today: Our Monthly Newsletter

Hey everybody!

I’m pleased to announce that we’ve officially begun sending our monthly newsletter to contact’s emails earlier today.

Our Clicker Productions newsletter is a new form of expansion in our brand recognition and is a way to connect directly with our audience with the latest news, events and projects.

Our ‘November, 2020’ edition was just sent out which details our recent activity in the community, such as shooting for Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse at the Backlot Perth, working with John O'Driscoll and his Indigenous Emerging Business Forum and of course assisting with local short film productions. It also details our weekly shows, which consists of ‘The Cinema Sideshow Podcast’ (w/ ZKJ Productions) and Soaring Saturdays, so you can more easily navigate through the content that speaks to you.

If you have missed out and want to be a part of receiving newsletters, simply head over to “contact” at the top right of this page and send us a message with the subject line marked “newsletter”. If you do this within the next couple of days, we’ll re-send this most recent newsletter to you as well.

So what are you waiting for? Be a part of the fun, as this newsletter is exclusive to whose who actively subscribe to it. You never know, there could be a special discount or “free copy” of one of our products hiding in the newsletter.

Thanks for reading!
- Jake De Agrela

Ex-Rental: Part II is coming

Hey everybody,

We’ve been sitting on this secret for a few months now, but that’s right, ‘Ex-Rental: Part II’ is officially happening and we have an announcement trailer to boot.

Both Nakeesha Moody and myself are returning in our respective roles to make a follow-up short documentary film to the beloved original ‘Ex-Rental’. The question that might be on everyone’s mind is “what is this about?” Oddly enough, this is something we can’t fully answer just yet. We ‘can’ say this documentary follows Mat Rolfe (who represented Video Ezy Spearwood in ‘Ex-Rental’) and his follow-up venture at FanBase Collectables. However, this is a continuing and developing story that we can’t quite put a full stop on yet.

The two of us began development and filming back in April of this year, with safety precautions taken under the umbrella of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Thankfully, Western Australia has seen incredible progress in this regard and the previous social restrictions have been lifted. It is fair to say, however, that the pandemic had a strong effect on FanBase Collectables and will become a discussion topic in this documentary.

That’s all I can say for now, but we wanted to be upfront and transparent with our audience. ‘Ex-Rental: Part II’ is happening and will be releasing with free access to everybody (much like the first film), even if we’re still vague on the date. Thank you all so much for your support for the film and for our company as a whole. It is days like these to celebrate.

- Jake De Agrela

An Update regarding COVID-19

Hey everyone,

As I’m sure you are all aware, the novel corona virus (or COVID-19) has affected many, many small and local businesses here in Western Australia. We, at Clicker Productions, have thankfully not been too affected during these trying times. This update is to briefly reassure our fans of our safety and of our continued productivity, while also acknowledging and paying our respect to the businesses that have struggled in the last couple of months.

We wanted to give our well wishes to our local theatre chains and in particular Hoyts, Luna, Palace, Events and of course the Backlot Perth (of whom we have a strong relationship with). Thankfully, these cinemas are looking to reopen their doors on the tail-end of the state lock-down and we can’t wait to spend our money on their services again very soon. We also wanted to acknowledge FanBase Collectables who have fought to keep their doors open up until their very last breath. We are saddened to see they have closed their doors in late April of this year with an uncertain future ahead. We wish them the very best of luck in their future.

As for us at Clicker Productions, we have continued to toil away at various unannounced projects in the safety of our homes (with rare, safe exception). There are some exciting things that are literally just around the corner we will get to share with you soon. One of the things we can publicly tease is the green-lighting of a new feature film, helmed by a completed script draft (written by yours truly) that is roughly four times the size of ‘dis connected’. We’ll have more on that particular film later this year. I can also tease some new exploration in the podcasting realm, but until more clear details can be shared I’m proud to say the Cinema Sideshow podcast has continued through this pandemic without any interruption. This show continues to produce new episodes every Monday with both myself and Zeke Morgan-Hind hosting. On the rare projects that required any of our Clicker family to leave their home, we made sure to fully enforce social distancing practices and to restrict unnecessary hours on the go.

That’s about it for now, but rest assured new content is coming later this month and throughout the year. I wanted to give this brief update, again, to reassure fans that operations haven’t slowed down despite the real-world complications. Be sure to stay safe and remain vigilant as WA continues its amazing fight against corona.

Thank you
- Jake De Agrela

CP: Reflection and a Look into 2020

Hey guys, it’s that time of the year again – Jake from Clicker Productions here, and we’re back after another trip ‘round the sun and it’s time to reflect back on a crazed 2019 calendar year for the company.

That’s right, we’re jumping right in – ‘dis connected’ finished and premiered this past year! It was a strange feeling to go back to the previous “look back” videos from 2016, 2017, and so on… and see ‘dis connected’ repeatably mentioned as something to look forward to in the future. The time has come and gone, and ‘dis connected’ is now imprinted into film history (if IMDB or Letterboxd have anything to say about it that is). The film premiered at the Backlot Perth on the big screen to a near full house – The film looked absolutely gorgeous, fully rendered at 2K and was showcased alongside the short film ‘CRADLE’ and a Q&A with myself and the cast of the film. It was definitely a night to remember! Since then, ‘dis connected’ has had a home release on DVD and is available to purchase right now on our website.

Keeping in line with our slate of Clicker originals, I like to call them, we also dropped a 21min documentary called ‘Ex-Rental’. For the uninitiated, it’s a doco shot by my good friend Nakeesha Moody, and edited/directed by yours truly that focuses on three local video-stores, all of whom are in different stages of operation – including the late, great Blockbuster Morley. It was a side project we’re been slowly shooting and editing throughout the year and was finally dropped in mid-November to an amazing reception. Tears were shed to say the least.

Despite the originals, you may call them, we’ve also kept super busy collaborating with other outlets this year. Our biggest collaborator, of not just this year but others too, is ZKJ Productions. While we assisted them on productions such as Home Again, The Pretender and Hitched earlier this year, our main presence resided on a weekly joint-podcast: The Cinema Sideshow podcast. Each and every Monday, having started January 21st, myself and Zeke Morgan-Hind have co-hosted the show, reviewing our own film careers and hundreds of wider released films spanning a century. We just dropped our 50th episode the other day, leading us into a new decade of podcasting-goodness. The Cinema Sideshow podcast is available on Spotify, PodBean and Apple podcasts.

Our collaborations have extended further with promotional/factual video content for FanBase Collectables, The Backlot Perth, Bone Moe, the City of Cockburn, Eco Shark Barrier and Murdoch University – As well as the externally produced OTTO and Waiting Room. As you can see, this is a lot of work, and unfortunately these projects are at various stages of completion – Whichever ones are complete, should be available for viewing on our social media pages or website. And last but not least, we’ve also invested in some new gear, most notably a DJI Mavic Air drone, which we’ve tested out on a sole video you can find on our social media pages as well.

And of course, we’ve kept up on our social media presence as usual, most notably surpassing our number of posts on Instagram by 30% and Facebook by 35%.

That’s right, 2019 was a huge year for us.. but that’s to be expected at this point I’d gather. We haven’t slowed down a single bit since we launched in July 2016 – despite, and on a personal note, facing many challenges and hurdles along the way. I’ve completed my university studies as a film student and in a lot of ways I still very much feel like a student of film and, life really.. This is why I do what I do, film is a time capsule and how dare we try to eliminate or hide our earlier, perhaps embarrassing works. Am I tremendously proud of everything I’ve put out into the world? No, but that’s the point. We’re growing and changing, and so should the things we pass out into the filmscape.

I say this, in-place of a preview on the next year of plans because, frankly, we don’t have any solid ones. That’s right, 2020 is currently a blank slate. We, of course, intend to continue the Cinema Sideshow podcast, but beyond that we have a clean calendar. I personally am very excited by this. ‘dis connected’ was the bug that bit my creative loins for more work in a feature-sized capacity. I have feature film ideas, husks of what will become scripts very shortly and now, hopefully, the time to commit even further into those dreams. Clicker Productions offers an outlet for me to develop my filmmaking skills, and now seems like the perfect time in my lil’ old 22 years of life to push my limits to the absolute max – not for a lack of already trying these past several years.

We’ll continue to create, shoot and distribute short films, factual content and hopefully more future films – That won’t change, in fact I can’t promise any changes to Clicker Productions in the new decade, except for a level of determination I’m always striving for. So with that little motivational piece out of the way, I bid de’ a wrap on this past year’s reflective video. The future is misty, unclear and very, very invisible.. but it might be the most exciting one yet. As a good friend of my says.. onwards and upwards, my fellow filmmakers. C’ya at the next one..

An Update on 'Ex-Rental'

Hi all,

We wanted to give everyone a quick update on the state of “Ex-Rental”, our short documentary on three local video stores and their struggle to survive. This doco is very important to us and we can’t wait to get the final product out to the world very soon, free of charge. Originally, we announced a release date of October 25th. We believed this was an achievable time to deliver the film but are quickly realizing that we need just a little bit more for that final polish.

”Ex-Rental” has officially been delayed to November 15th, exactly three weeks later than previous. We wouldn’t have made this tough decision if it wasn’t in the best interest of the film’s quality, the wonderful subjects we interviewed during the shooting process and of course you wonderful fans who deserve a high-end product. The wait will soon be over.

In other news, we have some exciting announcements to be made before the year’s end so be sure to keep an open eye for that as well. Until next time…

Thank you,
- Jake De Agrela

Clicker Productions: Reflection and a Look into 2019

Hey everyone,

So it’s that time of year again where we reflect back on a busy previous year for the company as well as discuss some of our plans and goals for 2019. As per usual, this will be a quick summary of both these things while the attached video will give you a better insight into everything (we are in a very audio/visual business after all).

In 2018 (like the year before it) we continued to push our social media presence as well as our business partnerships. Our biggest partnership this past year was with ZKJ Productions, in which we together produced both “Faces in the Crowd” and “Cradle”: Two short films that have both received amazing feedback and reception. This was also accompanied by myself personally attending their Blue Velvet Podcast as a regular guest. This partnership will continue into 2019 with more new projects to come.

When it comes to films and project we produced solo, we also kept very busy. All available right now: The Wedding of Billy Jo and Stacey Barlow (Public version), x2 live music sessions with aleia mj, Dispelling Dyslexia (a 10min documentary) and a celebratory 2yr anniversary video for ourselves. We also continued to shoot more footage for EVASION, however, we still can’t give you any new information on the show (see update: The future of EVASION - An Open Letter).

Throughout the year, we have also progressed through and completed principal photography on “dis connected” and are finally approaching the end stages of editing with a 45+ minute cut in the works. We’ll have news on our big set of release plans for this project very soon, but you’ll just have to wait a little longer for that.

Headed into 2019 with plans to make Estranged (a 10min short film) and develop a whole new set of concepts/ideas, we also have set 4 specific goals in which we’re using as guidelines to help direct us through our decision making:

1) To have a stronger focus on the Clicker family

2) To embrace the local film community around us

3) To create more on-going, series-based, content

4) To explore other forms of art outside of just film

Clicker Productions has once again had a crazy, adventurous and most-of-all productive year with hopes and goals and plans that’ll hopefully only push us further. This is Jake signing out until next time…

Signed,
Jake De Agrela