With an eight dollar a month website, a few YouTube clips and "a few hundred bleary eyed nights" in front of his PowerBook, writer/director/actor David Hewlett has taken a core group of Stargate fans and forged them into a publicity force to be reckoned with. "People used to joke that on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog", says Hewlett, "thanks to "A Dog’s Breakfast”, on the Internet, everyone knows our dog!" Hewlett is laughing all the way into season four of Stargate Atlantis, where he plays geek-cult favorite Doctor Rodney Mckay.

Hewlett and his producing team, made up of real life fiancée Jane Loughman and Stargate SG1 producer John Lenic, spent last hiatus shooting a little independent comedy that is making big waves in Hollywood. Their micro-budgeted "A Dog’s Breakfast" has not only sold to MGM Studios worldwide, but spun off a pilot development deal with NBC/Universal.

Hewlett and Loughman showed a clip of the movie to a packed room of Stargate fans at San Diego's Comicon in July 2006. Blown away by the response -- and having just read Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail" -- Hewlett decided to test the waters with YouTube.com. The clip had over 20,000 viewings in a matter of hours.

However, the "hyper-drive" engine for "A Dog's Breakfast"’s real world success is a $8 a month Joomla web hosting account. After receiving quotes from designers that were "tens of thousands of dollars more than we had" Hewlett dedicated his hiatus from Stargate to creating www.adogsbreakfastmovie.com. Using free and donation based open source software, the website has lead to thousands of members, fan posters, promotional and merchandising campaigns and over 2,000 screening requests. MGM and NBC/Universal couldn't help but hear that kind of buzz. The deals lead to international recognition in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen International and television spots on KNBC and Entertainment Tonight, not to mention the thousands of online, news, video and blog entries.

Hewlett's advice to filmmakers? "Find your niche, get to know your market and then make sure that you include them in the process. If people connect with you and your film, you don’t need to sell them anything. Just welcome them along for the ride!

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