Shorty after running our series of articles on XFilesNews, I was contacted by one of the two project managers behind the website Back To Frank Black. The site is devoted to seeing the central character of Millennium, Frank Black, resurrected in one form or another. To see if this was possible I spoke with contacts at 20th Century Fox and FX, who stated that a Millennium project was not on their "radars" at the present time. Shortly after that, I wrote a fairly in depth article on the campaign and its history. Just this past week I had the chance to interview James McLean, one of the campaign’s two project managers, about their origins, their upcoming book and more.
So, James, you are one of the two project managers for Back To Frank Black. Can you tell us what that involves? What do you tend to be doing on a day-to-day basis?
A lot of it is planning. There is a lot of planning, some stuff doesn’t work. But there’s a lot of reacting to issues and trying to build on them. We don’t have a big staff, so it’s not really about co-ordinating people; it’s about co-ordinating the direction of the campaign.
Back To Frank Black started back in 2008, how and why did that come about?
It came about because Lance Henriksen was making a lot of subtle comments that there could be a return of Frank Black in the near future and that got a few fans excited. How it came about was just simply a few people on a Millennium forum just chatting and perhaps a little drive from myself. I guess I stuck my oar in and was suggesting how this should be done and it really went from there. It sort of mutated from that sort of fairly simple light-hearted conversation into actually putting my money where my mouth was and co-ordinating this.
A truly unique thing about the campaign is the support you have received from Lance Henriksen, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz. Was it difficult to get them all onside and what does it mean to both you and the campaign that you were able to?
It wasn’t difficult to get them onside. It was a long process in some cases. Especially to get Chris Carter, because he has got quite a few people involved. That was Troy who managed to that and he worked long and hard chatting to Chris’ PA. We’d spoken to Frank beforehand; we already had Frank on board. So I think he helped get Chris involved. Lance was pretty easy. I think with all of them it was just a matter of proving that we were something a little more than just a couple of people wanting to chat about why their favourite show wasn’t on the air anymore.
And personalities, I think all of us are fairly easy to get on with. I think that helped bring people in and feel comfortable about helping us and supporting us. In the end personality is a lot of what you do on these things. You can have a credible campaign but if you’re not able to communicate and work effectively and professionally with people they don’t have time for you. I’d like to think that the success and the amount of talent and support for the campaign through the cast and crew of Millennium has come from the way that we operate as a campaign; with as little ego as possible.
The campaign has been active for three years now, would you say that the support of the people behind the series has helped carry you this far?
I think so. That’s an interesting question. They sort of create like a race. Having these sorts of people you think ‘I want to get Lance involved’, that’s your first hurdle. ‘I want to get Frank involved’, that’s your second. You get Chris involved, that’s your third. Get them in a room together, that’s your fourth. Get them to agree on a movie, that’s your fifth. It does give you things to aim for. So, definitely, getting the people involved and on your side does keep it going. Without those hurdles, you could probably fragment quite quickly.
The main tactic of your campaign has been sending letters to 20th Century Fox to convince them to bring back the character of Frank Black. Do you feel that has been successful?
I think it’s been successful as far as our campaign can be. We’ve never been under any illusions that this campaign is like The X-Files or like many shows that have just been cancelled and have a swell of very active support because it’s very fresh. We have a show which is fifteen years old, which hasn’t had the coverage in the meantime. So our fan base, while it’s quite interested and is pretty active, it’s not the sort that’s going to be able to turn heads straight away at Fox. I think the fact that they know who we are, the fact that they have responded to the letters that have come through, is actually a lot more than I would have originally expected. Because I didn’t think we’d have that much interest initially. I think it’s a part of a strategy, it’s not the whole of the strategy. For us it is about keeping the whole idea alive, to give a support base for Chris, Frank and Lance and to keep Fox aware that there are people out there who want it. I think we can probably be more successful. I think there is ways that we can improve.
The Millennium Group Sessions have been a big part of your campaign or at least the website. Do you think having the people involved with the series come on the podcast has helped keep your supporters motivated?
In my eyes it keeps the people interested. Whether it actually motivates them into actually believing in the campaign? I think some of them do. I think if you got someone like Chris Carter or Lance Henriksen or you get someone who is very energised about the future of the campaign, I think that might obviously have a wash on effect. But by and large, in my eyes, we do them because I think they are interesting to people. Part of keeping a campaign going is not so much the dry hard slog, its keeping the glitter there to keep people interested. Any campaign can get very dull, very tiring and very wearisome for some people if it’s too dry and too much about the practical nature of it. I think it helps keep peoples moral up, but I think its primary service is to entertain and inform.
The campaign has a book coming out next year, what can you tell me about that?
I can tell you that it’s a book that sits like a middle of the road between the past and the future. It is a book that deals a lot with the show Millennium and the themes and the concepts within the show. But at the same time it does it from a retrospective standpoint from today; it’s not an episode guide. It also deals with how the show might be relevant to the future. It’s going to have bits that we’ve garnered from the amount of people that we have interviewed over the last three years. But it won’t be just transcriptions, it will be essays and articles that will have those bits woven into it.
It will have exclusive material from people who were involved in the show, people who love the show and journalists as well. There will also be a bit of continuity about the campaign, but it’s not really about the campaign. Again, it’s a bit like the Millennium Group Sessions, its there in the name of the campaign to entertain. We hope that it will make people aware of the campaign and make people feel that there is something substantial there to look forward to the future with us.
With regards to the book, by putting it out there, do you think that you may be able to attract casual Millennium fans who may then become interested in the campaign?
I think, yes, it will perhaps not attach to casual Millennium fans; it will perhaps appeal to wider genre fans who see it on amazon and think that was a show I quite liked and would like to read more about it. There are no books out there on Millennium so, at the moment, it is a sort of one and only child so it’s got that going for it. Hopefully people will buy it on that sort of front, that they will be interested in Millennium and then through that, as you say, that will inform them of what we’re doing. I think that is quite likely.
