This is my final part of my blog series on Twisted Showcase. You can all breathe a sigh of relief.
This will be the only time I'll get to do a look back at a conventional series of Twisted Showcase I guess, don't worry there is more coming later in the year, but with a bit of a format change. Keep an eye on the site for news on that. Go here to do that check now Twisted Showcase
So, Part 3 focuses on the last two episodes of Series 1. Probably the two I had least to do with, even though I wrote one of them.
Bob Dracula came through our first ever script call out. An idea which we felt wouldn't get much coverage or lead to many submissions. we were wrong .It's where Twisted showcase started for us really, with that call out we realised that writers at least want to eb writing this kind of thing. We accepted the script Bob Dracula from the writer Leslie Cummins, who went away and expanded the idea a little bit, and Rhys who loves the black comedy side of the series jumped on making this film, and like that it was done.
The last film came from the other end of the spectrum when the deadline for films was approaching and one film we were trying to develop from writer Stephen Marsh fell through, again and again. It fell on me, well it didn't I guess but someone had to write something to film quick and simply. Hence the idea for The Devil Inside Her, which although has a stunning central performance is the most flawed thing I've ever written, in my opinion anyway, and I'm probably my biggest critic, so you may like it, but I wouldn't like to put together such a flat film again. With Twisted Showcase taking me more into directing and thinking more visually about the script, I'm quite keen to have something more visual than a static webcam shot as the entire film. Still, a lot of people said they find that episode really creepy, so must work in some way.
Let's not forget the Guardian Guide named Twisted Showcase in it's Top 25 web TV shows, so it's all looking good and getting exciting for our upcoming films. It won't be long now. Brace yourself!
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
25 web TV shows you need to see
WOW!
Still can't believe it. Twisted Showcase has made the guardian guide Top 25 list of Web TV shows you need to see.
Jaw - dropping.
The list includes Vic and Bob, David Lynch; how Twisted Showcase got on there I don't know. but I'm not complaining.
We began Twisted Showcase for one just to make films and have a base where they can be seen. We also knew we wanted it to be weird, different and open to be anything it could each episode, not restricted by genre, tone etc
We never expected this sort of recognition!
So happy we are getting it though. It's nice to be recognised, and get more people to come and watch the hard work that has been put in. Which will be covered in the next blog which will discuss the last two episodes of Twisted showcase forming the third and final part of my blogs on making Series One. The hard work continues, we are currently making Series 2, with loads of plans for what comes next also flying around.
We hope there's nothing else like it on the internet, and we hope we blow your minds with Series 2.
In the meantime , I'm gonna stare at the top 25 list in proud disbelief. And you can too by clicking on the following link.
Top 25 web TV shows you need to see
Still can't believe it. Twisted Showcase has made the guardian guide Top 25 list of Web TV shows you need to see.
Jaw - dropping.
The list includes Vic and Bob, David Lynch; how Twisted Showcase got on there I don't know. but I'm not complaining.
We began Twisted Showcase for one just to make films and have a base where they can be seen. We also knew we wanted it to be weird, different and open to be anything it could each episode, not restricted by genre, tone etc
We never expected this sort of recognition!
So happy we are getting it though. It's nice to be recognised, and get more people to come and watch the hard work that has been put in. Which will be covered in the next blog which will discuss the last two episodes of Twisted showcase forming the third and final part of my blogs on making Series One. The hard work continues, we are currently making Series 2, with loads of plans for what comes next also flying around.
We hope there's nothing else like it on the internet, and we hope we blow your minds with Series 2.
In the meantime , I'm gonna stare at the top 25 list in proud disbelief. And you can too by clicking on the following link.
Top 25 web TV shows you need to see
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Twisted Showcase: Part 2
I've already mentioned on Twitter that the 3rd episode of our first series is very personal to me, even calling it a Horcrux, to say it has a part of my soul in it. I'm only part joking.
FEAR OF LIVING
I've talked before about this film being written in order to film easily, one cast member, one location. And I've already discussed how the idea came about after a coffee binge. The original inspiration being what if you feared absolutely everything, even the prospect of being alive. Let's not hide this, Fear of Living definitely comes from a place of depression. There is nothing good in Ian Marksman's world, he is alone, scared and has nothing to live for. A comment on the Twisted Showcase website links the character to paranoid schizophrenia, I'll admit some of this probably seeps in to adhere to the horror conventions, but I was also writing from something far more personal which hopefully comes across in the second half of the film as it shifts from the horror genre to something far more heartbreaking and real.
The shoot was very helpful for my writing, realising how much dialogue I could cut. Ziad El-Hady's performance made it instantly clear that I'd over written. He was saying sentences, paragraphs of dialogue I'd written with one facial expression. As we were shooting I'd sit next to the camera crossing out loads of dialogue and asking Ziad to try it without certain lines. In most cases they were the takes we used. When it came around to releasing the film was when it dawned on me, what the film was about to me personally, maybe I was too close to it beforehand. But it has proved a helpful experience all around.
Unfortunately, this episode has been seen a little less than some of the others. Maybe because we were promoting a new episode every week and people were still trying to find time to watch Episode 1 and 2, shooting starts on series 2 tomorrow and we're already discussing how we'll release the next episodes. But in the meantime, the great thing about films on the net is that they will always be there. Fear of Living will continue to be seen. So, go and watch it.
FEAR OF LIVING
I've talked before about this film being written in order to film easily, one cast member, one location. And I've already discussed how the idea came about after a coffee binge. The original inspiration being what if you feared absolutely everything, even the prospect of being alive. Let's not hide this, Fear of Living definitely comes from a place of depression. There is nothing good in Ian Marksman's world, he is alone, scared and has nothing to live for. A comment on the Twisted Showcase website links the character to paranoid schizophrenia, I'll admit some of this probably seeps in to adhere to the horror conventions, but I was also writing from something far more personal which hopefully comes across in the second half of the film as it shifts from the horror genre to something far more heartbreaking and real.
The shoot was very helpful for my writing, realising how much dialogue I could cut. Ziad El-Hady's performance made it instantly clear that I'd over written. He was saying sentences, paragraphs of dialogue I'd written with one facial expression. As we were shooting I'd sit next to the camera crossing out loads of dialogue and asking Ziad to try it without certain lines. In most cases they were the takes we used. When it came around to releasing the film was when it dawned on me, what the film was about to me personally, maybe I was too close to it beforehand. But it has proved a helpful experience all around.
Unfortunately, this episode has been seen a little less than some of the others. Maybe because we were promoting a new episode every week and people were still trying to find time to watch Episode 1 and 2, shooting starts on series 2 tomorrow and we're already discussing how we'll release the next episodes. But in the meantime, the great thing about films on the net is that they will always be there. Fear of Living will continue to be seen. So, go and watch it.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Twisted Showcase Part 1
In this blog post I'm going to discuss what it felt like unleashing the web series Twisted Showcase onto the world through the internets.
It's not a blog about how to make a web series, which by the way is lots of hard work but quite straight forward: script, cast, film, upload, promote. This blog, which will be in two or three parts, is about the month of March from my perspective.
Twisted Showcase launched on March 1st, St Davids Day, and it's last episode of Series 1 was launched 29th March. It was a hectic month, and theres more to come before the end of the year!
But I'm getting way ahead of myself because this all kicked off a week before the launch as we inflicted the trailer onto our website and all over the internet including
Ok I'll admit I didn't expect any of that to happen, I knew the involvement of Gareth David Lloyd would bring us some attention but was still blown away by it all. There seemed to be anticipation for Episode 1.
Peter & Paul
Nerves. Bloody fear. Most of all excitement. These were all buzzing around as we launched episode 1. We knew we had a great central performance from Gareth David Lloyd (for more on how Gareth came to star in our web series check out the Peter & Paul commentary on the Twisted Showcase website, it's not as interesting as you hope though) but feared how we'd be judged, this was a no budget series and maybe the promotion we recieved made us look bigger than we were. The episode launched as the clock turned midnight to take us into the new month. Here's where we discovered one of my favourite things about the series, the instant feedback we recieved over Twitter. Mostly positive. I still want to thank everyone who watched and commented, still can't believe it really. But, I also came across negative feedback. which do you think I focused on most? Hours and hours stweing over it, analysing what they said, watching the episode again to see if i could see it from their point of view. I couldn't. I learnt that week to let people have their opinions and not to let them affect me. not everyone is going to like what you're doing. Can't please everyone and all that.
Eyeball
Episode 2 was even more stress. this week we didn't have a star name to hide behind. This week was a more experimental film, our star was someone's Eyeball for fucks sake, oh and an egg we'd painted a face onto. It was a three minute film rather than a more conventional ten minute that our first episode was. There's plenty more reasons we were worried, we thought there may be a backlash from people expecting a continuation of the first story not realising it was an anthology show, how would this one go down? Bloody well as it turned out. People even stcuk with us and reviewed us, thanks Gores Truly and Blazing Minds. We felt this episode summed up Twisted showcase, it was a truly weird tale. So were glad it went down well, but we ralso realised the downside of the anthology series, it's really hard to keep an audience who have no reason to return. They've seen a complete story so why come back. We thought Gareth would bring some people back, but why, he's only in our first episode. Oh shit! Maybe TV executives are right not to go for anthology shows, it's a whole new sell every week. No they're wrong. Fuck them, it's a challenge but the anthology show needs to come back. Our thinking is once people get a feel for what Twisted Showcase is they'll come back for that Twisted feeling, which is happening and will hopefully build.
NEXT TIME: We launch episode 3, Fear of Living, I may go into some depth here as it's a film I have a lot to say about. Bob Dracula and Devil Inside Her may be part of Part 3, we'll see
It's not a blog about how to make a web series, which by the way is lots of hard work but quite straight forward: script, cast, film, upload, promote. This blog, which will be in two or three parts, is about the month of March from my perspective.
Twisted Showcase launched on March 1st, St Davids Day, and it's last episode of Series 1 was launched 29th March. It was a hectic month, and theres more to come before the end of the year!
But I'm getting way ahead of myself because this all kicked off a week before the launch as we inflicted the trailer onto our website and all over the internet including
Ok I'll admit I didn't expect any of that to happen, I knew the involvement of Gareth David Lloyd would bring us some attention but was still blown away by it all. There seemed to be anticipation for Episode 1.
Peter & Paul
Nerves. Bloody fear. Most of all excitement. These were all buzzing around as we launched episode 1. We knew we had a great central performance from Gareth David Lloyd (for more on how Gareth came to star in our web series check out the Peter & Paul commentary on the Twisted Showcase website, it's not as interesting as you hope though) but feared how we'd be judged, this was a no budget series and maybe the promotion we recieved made us look bigger than we were. The episode launched as the clock turned midnight to take us into the new month. Here's where we discovered one of my favourite things about the series, the instant feedback we recieved over Twitter. Mostly positive. I still want to thank everyone who watched and commented, still can't believe it really. But, I also came across negative feedback. which do you think I focused on most? Hours and hours stweing over it, analysing what they said, watching the episode again to see if i could see it from their point of view. I couldn't. I learnt that week to let people have their opinions and not to let them affect me. not everyone is going to like what you're doing. Can't please everyone and all that.
Eyeball
Episode 2 was even more stress. this week we didn't have a star name to hide behind. This week was a more experimental film, our star was someone's Eyeball for fucks sake, oh and an egg we'd painted a face onto. It was a three minute film rather than a more conventional ten minute that our first episode was. There's plenty more reasons we were worried, we thought there may be a backlash from people expecting a continuation of the first story not realising it was an anthology show, how would this one go down? Bloody well as it turned out. People even stcuk with us and reviewed us, thanks Gores Truly and Blazing Minds. We felt this episode summed up Twisted showcase, it was a truly weird tale. So were glad it went down well, but we ralso realised the downside of the anthology series, it's really hard to keep an audience who have no reason to return. They've seen a complete story so why come back. We thought Gareth would bring some people back, but why, he's only in our first episode. Oh shit! Maybe TV executives are right not to go for anthology shows, it's a whole new sell every week. No they're wrong. Fuck them, it's a challenge but the anthology show needs to come back. Our thinking is once people get a feel for what Twisted Showcase is they'll come back for that Twisted feeling, which is happening and will hopefully build.
NEXT TIME: We launch episode 3, Fear of Living, I may go into some depth here as it's a film I have a lot to say about. Bob Dracula and Devil Inside Her may be part of Part 3, we'll see
Friday, 6 April 2012
Twisted showcase script call out
Last year, probably around this time we put out a script call for series 1 of Twisted Showcase, which is now all available to watch online here.
Now it's time to prepare series 2, and another script call has gone up on the Twisted showcase website. Click the link and get writing, you've got two weeks.
SCRIPTS!!!
Now it's time to prepare series 2, and another script call has gone up on the Twisted showcase website. Click the link and get writing, you've got two weeks.
SCRIPTS!!!
Monday, 26 March 2012
Celestial Toyroom- Burning Human
A while back I said my 5th Doctor story would be in Doctor Who Appreciation Society's Celestial Toyroom. It had a delay but it's in the most recent issue.
http://www.dwasonline.co.uk/latest_issue
My copy arrived in the post today and I can't wait to read it and reacquaint myself with my story. It's my third Who story to be published after Escaping Sunbeams and The Prison Hiss in Blue Box. This one is called The Burning Human and features the 5th Doctor. My other two were 7th and 2nd if you're interested.
This one is more of a romp than the other two. Amazing fun to write and hopefully load of fun to read. If you do read it please let me know your thoughts on it.
Thanks
http://www.dwasonline.co.uk/latest_issue
My copy arrived in the post today and I can't wait to read it and reacquaint myself with my story. It's my third Who story to be published after Escaping Sunbeams and The Prison Hiss in Blue Box. This one is called The Burning Human and features the 5th Doctor. My other two were 7th and 2nd if you're interested.
This one is more of a romp than the other two. Amazing fun to write and hopefully load of fun to read. If you do read it please let me know your thoughts on it.
Thanks
Friday, 16 March 2012
Web Series Interview 2: Kristi Barnett
Twisted Showcase is now in it's third week, and getting lots of great feedback for Fear of Living. In fact we've had great feedback every week, I'm very chuffed we're finding an audience for our strange tales, which roam around the horror genre a little.
One writer who embraced the horror genre for the web recently was Kristi Barnett with her hugely innovative Twitter movie Hurst, which you can find out more details upon here
Let's see what Kristi has to say about writing for the web.
Why did you want to create content for the web?
I wanted to get one of my stories produced. I’d been writing for 3 years with at that time, not even a short made. I just bit the bullet and decided that using social media would be a cheaper and more immediate way to get an audience for a story. I wasn’t actually consciously looking at transmedia or web episodes itself but rather the idea of using Twitter as a story tool. I knew no one had tried to tell a story over twitter as a character using other media like videos, photos, weblinks etc. I love twitter and am constantly on it so it seemed natural to me that Twitter could be used in this way. And it is a writer’s medium when you think about it; every tweet is a piece of writing.
I’m guessing Hurst was the first Twitter movie, did you conceive the idea for the net or did that come later?
Yes it was. I made sure before embarking on the project that it really was a unique idea that no one had tried before with Twitter. I believe the most anyone had done was tweet out a full Shakespeare story. I came up with the concept of using twitter with a live character about middle of 2010. I finally started writing the script in Dec 2010 and finished the final draft in about March 2011; (86 pages). It was something that had been brewing in my mind, wanting to use twitter, the local woods and have this fictitious character that people would follow to experience a story with. She had to come across as real for the most part and interact and tweet the way people who use twitter do. But for marketing purposes I told everyone beforehand that she is fictitious and this was the first time it had been done. More people became very interested in the idea. They didn’t seem to mind that during the 3 week event Karen Barley was behaving as though she was real; in fact most people encouraged the character and tweeted back as though she was.
How important was having the characters be part of twitter and tweeting through the events of the film?
It was the main gist of what I wanted to do. I could’ve used facebook only or Youtube only but the idea that twitter was being used as a platform to tell a story through a character and her tweets was fascinating to a lot of people. It was a challenge to think of story plots as to why she might be doing this and posting tweets to links of her videos, but twitter is immediate (as opposed to facebook) and that’s the effect I needed. She was a character who was using her followers as some kind of comfort because they could see her tweets straight away and react to them if they wanted. What she was going through in the story would not have been as affective if people only followed it on Facebook.
How did you get the word out there for Hurst?
This was one of the hardest things I did because I really didn’t have a P.R team or anything. Publicity is the key with transmedia, because it’s not as in your face as movies and there’s so much content online; really hone in on a niche that you think your story will appeal to and start contacting blogs and online websites to tell them that you have a story in line with what they’re interested in. So I went for horror as that’s very popular and horror fans just love being scared in any capacity, (and I love horror); then I contacted horror websites etc. If there’s something really unique about what you’re doing, then contact your local newspapers and let them know; this may lead onto bigger news agencies picking up on it. And try and make a trailer of some kind using your media. This will encapsulate in a very visual and real way what you’re doing and I say real because people take you more seriously when they see you’re not just talking the talk; that you actually did make something! You can see some of the hard work that paid off with publicity here: www.karenbarley.co.uk/campaign
Does this project have a life beyond the web, and was that the initial plan?
I’d love to repackage Hurst in a way that will appeal to distributers and producers so I may look into putting a kit together with the media on it and perhaps rewrite the script as a feature for a found footage type film. There’s also a good opportunity to turn it into a mobile phone app but it would need someone who’s able to take it and develop especially for that. It’s all in my head these ideas and I’m just so glad and happy that Karen Barley and transmedia gave me my first opportunity to get one of these ideas out of my mind. But the initial plan was always to present it on Twitter as the first ever twitter movie and I’m very proud that we did just that.
Please check out all this interesting stuff and don't forget to keep checking Twisted Showcase.
One writer who embraced the horror genre for the web recently was Kristi Barnett with her hugely innovative Twitter movie Hurst, which you can find out more details upon here
Let's see what Kristi has to say about writing for the web.
Why did you want to create content for the web?
I wanted to get one of my stories produced. I’d been writing for 3 years with at that time, not even a short made. I just bit the bullet and decided that using social media would be a cheaper and more immediate way to get an audience for a story. I wasn’t actually consciously looking at transmedia or web episodes itself but rather the idea of using Twitter as a story tool. I knew no one had tried to tell a story over twitter as a character using other media like videos, photos, weblinks etc. I love twitter and am constantly on it so it seemed natural to me that Twitter could be used in this way. And it is a writer’s medium when you think about it; every tweet is a piece of writing.
I’m guessing Hurst was the first Twitter movie, did you conceive the idea for the net or did that come later?
Yes it was. I made sure before embarking on the project that it really was a unique idea that no one had tried before with Twitter. I believe the most anyone had done was tweet out a full Shakespeare story. I came up with the concept of using twitter with a live character about middle of 2010. I finally started writing the script in Dec 2010 and finished the final draft in about March 2011; (86 pages). It was something that had been brewing in my mind, wanting to use twitter, the local woods and have this fictitious character that people would follow to experience a story with. She had to come across as real for the most part and interact and tweet the way people who use twitter do. But for marketing purposes I told everyone beforehand that she is fictitious and this was the first time it had been done. More people became very interested in the idea. They didn’t seem to mind that during the 3 week event Karen Barley was behaving as though she was real; in fact most people encouraged the character and tweeted back as though she was.
How important was having the characters be part of twitter and tweeting through the events of the film?
It was the main gist of what I wanted to do. I could’ve used facebook only or Youtube only but the idea that twitter was being used as a platform to tell a story through a character and her tweets was fascinating to a lot of people. It was a challenge to think of story plots as to why she might be doing this and posting tweets to links of her videos, but twitter is immediate (as opposed to facebook) and that’s the effect I needed. She was a character who was using her followers as some kind of comfort because they could see her tweets straight away and react to them if they wanted. What she was going through in the story would not have been as affective if people only followed it on Facebook.
How did you get the word out there for Hurst?
This was one of the hardest things I did because I really didn’t have a P.R team or anything. Publicity is the key with transmedia, because it’s not as in your face as movies and there’s so much content online; really hone in on a niche that you think your story will appeal to and start contacting blogs and online websites to tell them that you have a story in line with what they’re interested in. So I went for horror as that’s very popular and horror fans just love being scared in any capacity, (and I love horror); then I contacted horror websites etc. If there’s something really unique about what you’re doing, then contact your local newspapers and let them know; this may lead onto bigger news agencies picking up on it. And try and make a trailer of some kind using your media. This will encapsulate in a very visual and real way what you’re doing and I say real because people take you more seriously when they see you’re not just talking the talk; that you actually did make something! You can see some of the hard work that paid off with publicity here: www.karenbarley.co.uk/campaign
Does this project have a life beyond the web, and was that the initial plan?
I’d love to repackage Hurst in a way that will appeal to distributers and producers so I may look into putting a kit together with the media on it and perhaps rewrite the script as a feature for a found footage type film. There’s also a good opportunity to turn it into a mobile phone app but it would need someone who’s able to take it and develop especially for that. It’s all in my head these ideas and I’m just so glad and happy that Karen Barley and transmedia gave me my first opportunity to get one of these ideas out of my mind. But the initial plan was always to present it on Twitter as the first ever twitter movie and I’m very proud that we did just that.
Please check out all this interesting stuff and don't forget to keep checking Twisted Showcase.
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