Become a fan of Venn

If you're on Facebook there is now a new way for you to track Venn. Sign up as a fan of the series at this page. Updates and news will be posted there as well as at venn.tv and here.

Technorati tag: Venn, Spinneyhead

Venn.tv

Venn now has a home- www.venn.tv.

Now that that is sorted out I can do some more work on finding funding and rewriting the first two episodes. The first draft of the new versions is a bit naughtier than the previous versions.

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Venn - more designs

I'm about to put together a promo booklet for Venn, to send to possible investors, and today I've done a couple of rough designs for the cover.





It also seemes appropriate to redo the relationships diagram as a Venn diagram.



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Venn - Episode 0

This is the teaser episode for the upcoming series from Spinneyhead Presents. I'm working on a business plan to film at least one episode a month and back them up with workshop and "how to" pieces.

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead

Venn title logo ideas

Venn, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

A few ideas for the Venn title logo that I sketched over Christmas. Episode 0 is going to have a simpler logo.

Filming Venn episode 0

Filming Venn episode 0, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

I've just uploaded a few pictures taken when we were shooting Episode 0 on December 8th.

We're not quite going to get the video out before Christmas. Alan and I are putting the final touches to it at the moment. He's doing the sound and I'm going to clean up the titles and do some colour matching. It should be ready early in the New Year.

Teas are good

We shot footage for Venn episode zero (a teaser/promo for the series proper) on Saturday and I started editing it together yesterday. It's very English, but right now I'm trying to get the "Tea and Sympathy" sequence down to a minute.

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead, Venn

Venn test titles 1

The first of a few rough versions for the title sequence to Venn. It has to be fairly simple because it's going to change every episode so the Venn diagram shows who interacts with who during the episode that follows. Obviously the actor's name will be in the circle as well as the character's.



Arguing with Flash, because I hadn't used it in so long, meant that I only got the one title idea done today. I'll try to get at least one more, and some work on the title, done tomorrow.

Technorati tag: Titles, Venn

Titles

I'm looking for ideas, rules, etc. for title sequences. I've got a strong idea of what I want to do, but no clues on the soundtrack etc. yet. Anyway, some notes and inspirations.

Inventory: 22 TV Opening-Credit Sequences That Fit Their Shows Perfectly

The worst title sequence on TV. Ever.

Fifteen seconds to set a TV show's perfect tone.

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Relationships

Yetsreday I drew up a spider diagram of the relationships of all the characters as they are at the beginning of the first episode. They rapidly change, of course. All future characters should somehow link in to this structure, which shouldn't be too hard. The web will grow outwards as the series goes on and actors come along with ideas for situations and people they'd like to play.

Names in blue are characters I don't have any current plans to use. Julie is most likely to be written into an episode eventually- dropping in, causing chaos and then leaving again. However, if an actor comes along with a compelling reason why they should play That Bastard or Whatsisface then I'll write something for them.

Click on the picture for a larger version.

We have a title!

And the title is Venn!

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead

The independent future?

Over at Kung-Fu Monkey John Rogers has some comments on the coming micro film making revolution. He's confident it'll arrive, just not as fast as others are claiming. The technology to make the films and series cheaply is here, and getting cheaper, but he's not so sure about distribution and the necessary culture shift to go over to getting your television from the Internet.

I'd like to think that countries with a greater penetration of broadband will get the jump on the US in this area. The UK passed the States in percentage of broadband users a few years ago and is likely still ahead. Perhaps there'll be a British invasion of web content in the next few years that will help push the American industry.

I want Short Tales About Love and Sex (whatever it ends up being called) to be part of that invasion.

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Short Tales - some thoughts on tone

I've written one and a bit episodes of Short Tales, and have a few scenarios for future stories. So I've worked out the tone I want to set with the series.

The working title is Short Tales About Love and Sex. The Sex part should give a lot away. There's going to be some adult subject matter, our Tales will be quite dirty.

When I think of an adult/dirty sitcom three titles come to mind. Two of them were brilliant, one was rubbish. This isn't going to be Gimme Gimme Gimme, for example, where screamed swear words passed for humour and the main characters were one dimensional at best. Nor is it going to be Men Behaving Badly, great as that series was. For the first few episodes at least, I think it's going to feel most like Coupling (in fact, the blurb on the Amazon page for Coupling sounds a lot like the way I'd describe Short Tales).

Some of the stories I've got planned drift into, and occasionally beyond, Coupling territory. Without going into complete plot breakdowns there'll be tales about earth shattering orgasm (or the lack of), shopping for sex toys and sexual fantasies. Mostly details are going to be conveyed in conversation, but people are going to end up in bed. I'd like to avoid the L shaped blanket (and as many as possible of the other cliches in the list), but still keep all nudity implied rather than seen. There'll be lots of head and (bare) shoulders shots and the occasional bare back but nothing more (well, male characters can have bare chests exposed I guess). I know it's a visual medium and you're supposed to go for show, not tell, but you can always show that a character has no clothes on without having any nipples on display.

The benefit that Short Tales will have is that it's about a rotating cast of characters, so we don't have to leave the same four or six people in limbo with occasional disturbances. We can go away and concentrate on someone else for a while once it's established that, yes, A and B do end up together and they are happy. There are many reasons for this, the most pragmatic of which is that this is a low/no budget production and I want my actors to go on to better things when they get the chance (and then come back when they're famous to give Short Tales a bit of extra cool). This turn over will allow a greater number of subjects without falling into soap opera-ness.

This isn't the final word on tone and themes by any means, but I hope it serves as an introduction. I shall expand upon it as episodes are written and shot.

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Short Tales character sketch- Kate

This character has yet to be cast.

Kate is Mark's fiancee. She seems sweet and innocent, and a little dizzy, but has a keen mind and develops very dirty imagination. Sarah and Kate become friends after meeting at Kate and Mark's engagement party. The friendship is one of the catalysts for Kate's exploration of her naughtier side.

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead

More thoughts on titles

I've been thinking about titles since reading Alan's suggestions, and I really like his first two suggestions- Connections and Intertwine.

These two words come close to summing up the style of story arcs I want to have in the series, with the focus drifting away from the initial four main characters onto those who start out in the background and then back again. Connections, or Connected, also calls to mind Six Degrees of Separation. And either one would be able to use one of two great early nineties indie hits for a theme if we were rich enough to do that sort of thing (Brownie points if you can name the ones I'm thinking of).

Intertwined is a little more insular than Connections, but would better describe the way storylines wrap around each other. I'm imagining a title sequence of vines wrapping around each other, or the pipes screensaver gone a bit mad.

For myself, I came up with the deliberately obscure Venn as a title suggestion. It's from a similar idea to Connections, calling up the way the characters' lives overlap with each other. It would be a good excuse for a gimmicky title sequence where the interactions of the episode are described graphically. So the title graphic for the first episode would look like this-

That may be a little too geeky, I don't know.

Does anyone have any comments or refined suggestions based upon these three ideas?

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What's in a name?

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Let's get this started with some ideas for names for the Short Tales project:

Connections
Intertwine
Reflections
Falling Apart
Drifted
Finger
The Ian Seat (by the way Mojo now has an Ian Seat, well, actually it's called Ian's Chair)
Cheats
Infidelity
Just Three Words
Confused
Three Second Rule

Short Tales - an update

I haven't had much to report on the project for a few weeks, but it's been moving forward. Whilst in America I got some footage of myself on Times Square and under Niagara for what might become a running joke involving Robert. I've extended the script for part one, but I'd like to add more to take it nearer to fifteen minutes (at the moment it's just over ten). I've also authored the dvd for Memory. When I've had it tested on a few different systems and I've designed packaging I'll look into selling it through Lulu, Spinneyworld and local shops such as Magma.

The next step is to match actors to characters. There are four speaking parts in part one- Sarah, Paul, Gareth and Mark. I'd also like to have Mark's fiancee and possibly Vicky appear in a scene, even if they don't say anything. If there are more than six actors interested in the project then we'll put them in the background in the pub and party scenes of part one and bring their characters in later.

Other stuff worth thinking about-

Funding

To do this properly I think we need a sponsor. However, the best way to get a sponsor is to present them with an example of what they'll be paying for. So we should produce the first episode and then start shopping it around, online and off, to see who'll give us money.

Locations

The first episode has scenes in Paul's house, a pub, somewhere where an engagement party is held and Gareth's bedroom. I think I have somewhere for Paul's house, but need to find locations for all the others. It would be nice, with domestic locations in particular, if we can find places we can use again.

Title

We still need a better title than "Short Tales About Love and Sex".

Meeting

I'll arrange a meeting in the next couple of weeks. If you'd like to be kept informed of the plans send me an email or leave a message in the comments.

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Short tales character sketch- Vicky

This character has been cast. These notes are rough and will be tidied up as the character develops within the script and further as an actor fleshes them out.

Early to mid 30s. Vicky works with Paul and has recently moved to Manchester. He's one of the few people in town she knows and she's a potential romantic interest for him.

Vicky was married for a while, leaving her husband after he cheated on her. She's obviously a bit touchy about infidelity. There's a story in there about her going on a date with someone from work only to find out he is married.

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Short Tales- first draft

I'm working on the second draft, but in the mean time, here's the first draft of episode one.

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Short tales character sketch- Robert

This character has been cast.

I'm going to be visiting America soon, so I thought it would be neat to get some footage to incorporate into the story. From that idea came the character of Robert.

Mid to late 30s. Robert is Gareth's step brother. He keeps getting phone calls from his little brother, but is rarely in the same city and sometimes not even the same country. I'll try to play him as non-geeky, even though that would be completely against type.

Technorati tag: Video, Spinneyhead