Memory is ready to roll out- episode 1 will premiere on June 29th- and I'm contemplating new projects. What I want to do is a romantic comedy of self contained episodes, something a bit less involved than Memory.
We Need Girlfriends, by
Ragtag Productions, is a good model for what I want to do next. Every month there's another seven minute episode featuring the romantic misadventures of geeky, insecure Henry, dumb, arrogant Rod and well meaning, average Tom. Newly single, the three must try to handle the complexities of New York's dating scene. They're hindered by live in exes, bad Myspace profiles and Rod's constant reinventing of the English language. Subplots and story arcs are carried over from episode to episode, and more than one story has generated merchandise.
Myspace supplies a lot of WNG's music and extras as well as a plot device. I imagine their friends list gets plundered regularly for help. They've mastered the art of asking for locations as well, filming in local restaurants and laundrettes. I'm only jealous because they're doing so much of the stuff I want to try.
I don't know what the cash flow is like for we Need Girlfriends, but I imagine it's heading toward being self sustaining as the mass of
"Don't scam my squirrel" and Team Henry T-shirts start shifting. No doubt there'll be a DVD collection in the future. The ultimate success, up until recently, would have been spinning a tv series out of the concept. Now, however, that would be a retrograde step. Network television would water down the geeky purity of the show then cancel it because a lot of its natural audience lives elsewhere.
The cash flow for
Four Eyed Monsters is more transparent. The front page of the film's site asks us to help Arin and Susan out of their $100,000 credit card debt by signing up to
Spout or buying their DVDs.
The full film was put up on YouTube briefly and I managed to catch it. Mixing confession and fiction the result is something satisfyingly different. Reality and artifice blur in the film's ending and the acting/ directing team's video blogs about the experience so that it's hard to tell just how biographical the whole project is. But you simply don't care.
I'm not going to steal any of the stories or catchphrases from these projects. (Which is a shame, because there are some bits in We Need Girlfriends that are similar to stuff I'd thought of doing, and I'll have to fight not to claim Squirrel next time I spot a girl I fancy.) But I do want to foster some of their attitude. The internet has allowed them to find an audience and collaborators, as well as making it easier to distribute the finished product. It takes a lot of faith in yourself and your audience, and it won't always pay off big, but its a lot less risky than hoping to find one person in a studio who'll green light your pet project.
Spinneyhead will be working on an unnamed romantic comedy project soon. I'm plotting individual stories and whole arcs at the moment. If you'd like to be a part of it, no matter what you can contribute, please get in touch.
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