We are back with one of our best Spidcast episodes to date this month (listen in below and subscribe to “Spidcast” on iTunes) with a focus on filmmaking, web series, collaboration, acting, and other interesting sound bites! April’s Spidcast features the incredible individuals Victor Solis and Allie Olson. They are our amazingly sexy and talented guests for Spidcast 16, April 2012.

Our Guests

Victor Solis is a seemingly rare specimen, a Southern California filmmaker who was born and raised in Southern California. He first began collaborating with his long-time creative partner Steven Itano Wasserman in the late 1980s, a dark age of VHS cassettes and voodoo economics. The duo soon discovered they shared an appetite for the craft of storytelling, satire, photography, science fiction, and films of all genres.

Victor and Steven have formally studied film and literature at the university level. In the late 1990s, they began training themselves on various film industry projects for little to no wages. Victor eschewed selling his soul, adopted a journeyman approach instead, and has worked in virtually every film department including development, camera, and lighting.

Victor’s first foray into the webseries space is the superhero adventure “Generic Girl” starring Alexandra Olson in the title role. He co-created, co-wrote, and co-produced the 10-episode series with Steven in 2011-2012. The show premiered Feb. 14, 2012 exclusively on JTS.tv and will launch widely online beginning in May 2012.

Victor is currently producing “Trouble Is My Business,” an original feature film written by and starring Tom Konkle and Brittney Powell. He is also developing a slate of feature films with Steven Itano Wasserman.

Allie Olson is an actress from Pasadena, California. She has appeared in many films and shows.

We thank Victor and Allie for being such fun and inspirational guests!

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Victor or Allie talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from it!

Full Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael London: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the Future of Collaborative Video Production brought to you by Indie Source Magazine where they believe free is better and I like the way they think. On this episode, we’re talking with Allie Olson, an up and coming actress that you’re going to see a lot of very soon, you mark my words on that. In fact, she stars in the web series and we’ll visit with her producer, Victor Solis of the web series as well. He’s not only a producer but he’s done just about every job on the set and got some great insight. So let’s just right in to today’s Spidcast.

First up is producer, Victor Solis. Victor, welcome to Spidcast.

Victor Solis: Thank you very much, Michael. It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you.

Michael London: So tell us a little bit about yourself; the Reader’s Digest version.

Victor Solis: Alright. The digest in a nutshell. I was born and raised in southern California so there are a few of us filmmakers out here in LA who are natively from LA and I started off really fascinated in all aspects of story-telling, and we’re talking old school as in when I was in elementary school, telling stories to my younger sister, reading mythology, Moby Dick, the classic literature that a lot of us have usually forgotten about. My first fascination was in photography.

I started working in the beach cities down here south of Los Angeles with primarily as a wedding and portrait photographer. You wouldn’t think that that would’ve been the utmost training for cinematography but the fact of shooting events and shooting weddings is that you’re always working for a client. Your primary service is not that of a photographer. It is not that of just you capturing images. Your first service to any client is really providing piece of mind.

I certainly learned how to walk the walk; how to treat people with respect; how to always serve the client’s needs; but technically speaking, you learn to work very fast and very efficiently and you’re literally very light on your feet. The sun could be going down in 15 minutes. The power could go out. You need to be able to go to your redundant batteries to your other backup lens. I learned on both medium formats which is a 2.25 inch negative. It’s much larger than even the size of a super 35mm. So learning on those cameras – it’s a much larger camera as opposed to a handheld SLR or now they say is DSLRs.

We came up also during the time that film was transitioning over the digital and I started learning about the DSLRs and how much you could do; without being limited by the cost of every time you press the trigger, every time you take a picture, that’s about a dollar worth of developing film cost, print cost. You learn to work fast but you also learn to be very economical and very judicious about how you shoot and what you shoot.

Michael London: Now you see, that’s a great story because it encourages us to find experience and develop it wherever we can. It developed your eye, your craft, so whatever, whenever and however, take that opportunity to get the experience where you can, right?

Victor Solis: Absolutely. It’s all about whatever and sometimes whenever. Anybody, if you’re in Anchorage, Alaska; if you’re in Peoria, you can find other people out there who do work in a creative field and ideally, something like photography is creative yet technical at the same time. You don’t have to be out here in Los Angeles. You don’t have to be in New York City but the first thing that I always was trained to do and they definitely owe it to my parents for that and to the photographer that I learned with was find other people, reach out to others who know more than you and definitely, it’s easy to find people who know more than you. I’ve found a lot of people who know more than me reach out, volunteer, maybe you’re sort of the intern but by demonstrating that you have the passion and that you have that work ethic, that to me is worth far more than anybody who has the natural talent. Natural talent is surely a great asset but if it’s with a wedding photographer, fantastic. Do whatever works for you but learn the basics. Learn the fundamentals of how to work with equipment, how to tell a story, train your eye as you said, and you can do that in any city.

Michael London: Exactly. Victor, you mentioned a moment ago about reading to your sister and enjoying the classics, I bet you enjoyed classic movies as well.

Victor Solis: Anybody who goes into film has to be literate is what I would recommend. If you’re going into an art form – you have to love story at its core. I’m not talking about specifically cinema or video or the technology itself, but as you said, it’s the basics of what makes a fantastic character when you open up the beginning of Moby Dick and the narrator says, “Call me Ishmael”. I’m in with him. I’m going to be rooting for him. He’s going to transport me into this world I’ve never been before. You could do that with shadow puppets. You could do that with sock puppets or you could do it with a red epic camera and put together a crew of people and shoot it on digital. Really, the format and your style, your medium of choice is less than becoming very literate in story at its core what his character, what our character beats, what our emotions, how can you harness all of those, and maybe it’s true that there was no there was reading a book to my sister or putting on a puppet show in my backyard for the neighborhood kids that I was slowly learning more and more about what are the things that actually make people laugh? What are the principles of comedy? What are the principles of drama? It certainly takes time but I’d rather be doing this than doing dentistry.

Michael London: You got that right. You also talked about puppet shows a little bit ago in the backyard and such. Tell us about making that jump from your backyard in the Hollywood?

Victor Solis: The first production – I remember pretty vividly, it was out above the hills right as you would look up from Pacific Coast highway in Malibu and you see these rolling hills that are perfect for fog banks that always come in. Anybody who thinks that LA is sunny year-round, just come on down in May or June. I was still doing undergrad, studying English and film studies at UCLA and got a position on an AFI – American Film Institute – thesis film. They were shooting up in Malibu and I came one as the lower lead but very important to any production PA or production assistant. There was about three of us and everyday was totally different. It wasn’t just get the director a cup of coffee. It could’ve been on one particular evening where we had this pond – man-made ponds on the premises of this mansion that was up in the Malibu Hills. We’re shooting at night which is always interesting because you must light everything and the sound department calls one of us over and I had no experience with sound. I don’t know why the sound recorder wants one of us. So he calls us over and he says, look, guys, we need you to go out to that pond in the backyard and get a stick or get something, figure it out and we need you to keep those frogs quiet. Apparently, there is this nice community of frogs that were all ribbiting in sync much to the chagrin of the sound recorder and the director who was pulling out his hair.

One of my main jobs on that set was to run around the man-made ponds with another PA, shaking our hands and banging sticks together as long as it wasn’t too loud in order to get the frogs to shut up so we could get our takes in the can.

Michael London: So now you’ve gone from frog wrangler to wrangling the “Generic Girl”. Tell us about “Generic Girl”.

Victor Solis: Yes, fast forward several years, in fact, probably at least a decade, it was in late 2010 that I have been collaborating with my creative partner Steven Wasserman and his production company for a long, long time. We met actually in elementary school. When I was working on shoots like that AFI shoot, he was also working on shoots in northern California. That’s where he went to school. We’ve been in touch forever and we were painting his house. The doldrums of rolling pain on the wall will definitely get two men in a room to either drive each other nuts or come up with a concept for a 10 episodes super hero series.

We came up with the latter. We said if our next project is going to be something fun, why don’t we do something that amuses us? Hopefully, it amuses a few other people as well. as we’re painting his house, we conceived the story of a girl caught up in a world governed by comic book physics and inhabited by super heroes and villains and henchmen, but in our world, they have to follow union guidelines. You can’t become a hero until you have your three vouchers. A lot of it was winks to the labor unions in LA and to super hero and comic culture. That’s how we conceived the project and we shot it in 2011. Finally, we are still working on post-production and getting about to audiences. We have about five episodes remaining before all 10 episodes are online.

Michael London: Excellent. Where can we get a peak? Where can we see “Generic Girl”?

Victor Solis: Right now, you can watch it exclusively without ads on http://JTS.tv – Just The Story. Later in May, we’ll be going more widely online – YouTube and other platforms. Our website is www.gogenericgirl.com.

Michael London: Very good. Where can we learn more about you, Victor?

Victor Solis: My page is certainly up on IMDB and my info and more tidbits and behind the scenes about the making of “Generic Girl”, my bio is up on www.gogenericgirl.com.

Michael London: Shameless plug time. Talk if you will for a moment, Victor, about the value of www.spidvid.com.

Victor Solis: As a producer, you are all about collaboration. As a producer, you have to be always reaching out to others and it’s so much easier now that we have widespread internet access and people are online looking for like-minded people, looking for other collaborators, filmmaking, unlike something like photography, it’s fundamentally collaborative. You are always dependent upon everybody around you. For us, using technology, using the internet and using websites to reach other filmmakers, we work with a VFX artist who’s in northern California. I have stories of friend who have produced web content or other content and their different team members are in different parts of the US. You can do it. You don’t need to only have your same crew of five people always meeting at your house. You can do it online. It really teaches you how to juggle tasks, how to manage people, but it’s absolutely critical and that would be my recommendation. Reach out to other people and see who agrees with your mindset and who agrees with your vision and hang out with those people. Nurture those relationships.

Michael London: Right. Relationships and networking and that’s what it’s all about. How about a parting shot, Victor? A nugget of advice?

Victor Solis: Whether you are wrangling frogs on a film set or whether you are wrangling actors in a super hero series, whatever you may be doing, be humble, learn, learn, and learn. There is no shortage of literature out there to learn whether its stories, whether its photography technique, lighting, sound, learn from others. Offer your services. Be on the shoot. Work with people and you may not necessarily be receiving the paycheck but you were going to receive the hands-on knowledge of filmmaking, creating video, this is all hands on. You will always learn from others. There are always going to teach you a little tidbit, a little tip that you may not have ever thought of. Be humble and get yourself out there that’s probably the best advice that I can provide.

Michael London: And wonderful advice it is. Victor Solis, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

Victor Solis: It’s been a real pleasure, Michael. Thank you.

Michael London: Spidcast is brought to you by Indie Source Magazine, the fastest growing independent filmmaker resource and the only free publication of its kind. Their mission is to bring you not only stories of the industry’s highly celebrated but also stories and insights from players in all areas of the media creation process. At Indie Source, they believe free is better. Visit them at www.indiesourcemag.com.

We’ll continue now with the Spidcast and joining us is the Generic Girl herself, Alexandra Olson. Allie, welcome to Spidcast.

Allie Olson: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

Michael London: Tell us a bit about your story. Well, I’m Alexandra Olson, I’m an actress. I’m from Pasadena, California and I actually wasn’t always into acting. I started off pursuing music. I was all set to go to Cal Poly Pomona for college when I was kind of scouted by a Disney Record Label and I did the whole manager-producer thing for a while and it just ended up setting me on a completely different course than I had planned and made me want to pursue a career in the arts. I didn’t end up signing with that label but I did do music for a while. I did pretty well. I got some independent film placements, some really small artist cuts, but I just didn’t have the love or the passion to really do what it takes to make it in music and since I was more of a songwriter rather than a performer, I spend most of my time kind of alone in a studio or a marketing my stuff on the phone talking to like 50-year-old publishers and meanwhile, all my friends who are out of college and partying and having fun and I felt like I was missing out kind of on my youth so I decided to go to Pasadena City College where the goal was to do get credits and most important to have fun.

I was like okay, I’m here to have fun. Let’s go out for a play. I auditioned for the play and I got in and I ended up absolutely loving it and the teachers and the people in the theater department were just so funny and cool and all of a sudden like I had this great bunch of friends. I remember my dad actually called me one as I was heading home from rehearsal and he asked like hey, are you coming home for dinner? And I was like no, I can’t because I’m going out with my friends. I have friends again, Dad. I ended up just becoming really involved in the theater department there and going kind of from show to show. I discovered that I just really loved acting and loved the community of it and just working with really talented people to create great art together and to tone off the story. That’s what I want to do with my career.

Michael London: A moment ago, you mentioned music being your first love. Tell us a little bit about that.

Allie Olson: I tend to go more of the songwriting route. That’s actually my true passion and I think that’s my strength. I sing and I play guitar and keyboards but those are kind of tools for me to use to write my songs. I love to write and I love to listen to music and I think my style is really kind of sweet, pop, acoustic, organic feeling. But I love a good song in any genre.

Michael London: What was your very first production?

Allie Olson: The first production I did? I think the first real production, real part that I got – I was so excited about getting it. I played Eve in “The Apple Tree” directed by Whitney Rydbeck at Pasadena City College and I was just elated. I had never really had a lead role and I was terrified out of my mind but I worked really hard and the experience of just going out with the people after rehearsals and then forming a community as a cast was so much fun. Definitely one of my favorite plays that I’ve done.

Michael London: So from being on stage and live productions, you get a call about doing a web series. First thoughts?

Allie Olson: To be honest, when I auditioned for “Generic Girl”, I didn’t really think much about the fact that it was in that digital video format. I was just kind of like reading the breakdowns and saw what looked like a really cool project that I want to be a part of so I went out for it, but I just gotten more into promoting it. I really learned a lot about the merits of the web series format and how digital video has really sort of democratized filmmaking. I just think it’s so cool that independent filmmakers and actors like myself can realize the vision without needing this huge budget for like distribution and you can make your seven-minute episodes or your short film and upload them to all these platforms like Blip.tv, Dailymotion, or JTS.tv, which is “Generic Girl’s” network, et cetera.

Basically this worldwide distribution without the monstrous budget and it gets lead to lots of consumers really being able to discover a whole bunch of great content that may never have even gotten made but for this new digital way. I’m really glad to be a part of something like a cool web series in a format that’s sort of the apex of the whole wave. It’s really cool. I love doing independent stuff. I think a lot of great talent really exists in that medium.

Michael London: Before you’re on Spidcast today was Victor, who you mentioned a moment ago. Tell us about him.

Allie Olson: Oh, Victor is so cool. He is a person that has so many ideas and he’s one of those people that actually really works to put them into action. The work that he’s done promoting “Generic Girl” has been outstanding. He’s constantly out there doing everything from networking, getting us on this new JTS network to even going to Comic Con and handing out business cards. He’s like a really even a foot soldier and a general. He’s great.

Michael London: Traditionally, through the years, Hollywood has been the stage and then to the small screen and hopefully to the big screen at a theatre near you, but you seem to have fallen into that new, hip, cool place called the web.

Allie Olson: Definitely true. I think the web series – I think it would be cool if web series became the new episodic television. I think there’s always a place for sitting down in front of your television and waiting for that 10 o’clock slot to come on and waiting for it all week and being really excited and watching it with a big group of people, but that can also be done online. I think it kind of actually mirrors what’s going on in the music industry too which is what musicians and actors were able to act like our own production companies almost and promote ourselves and reach our audience without needing to go through like a network per se. I mean, it is a network, but it’s like a different kind of network. It would be awesome if web series just became accepted as a regular episodic TV format.

Michael London: And of course, there’s no man in the ivory tower telling you what you can and can’t do and what will be produced and won’t be produced. You make your own content and find your own audience.

Allie Olson: Exactly. That’s a beautiful thing because if it were the case that we’d have those network producers sitting in the ivory tower shutting down some potentially great project. Thos projects can be made anyway. They can find their own audience without needing to go through all these screening processes.

Michael London: Allie, what would be your advice to someone just getting to Hollywood today?

Allie Olson: I myself I’m definitely just starting out and still really trying to make it in the industry and I mean, I would say two things probably come to mind that are really important. One is really find that teacher or that director that you feel you can really learn from and then absorb everything you can to really get the confidence in yourself as an actor. For newcomers like myself, it’s really important that we know our brand and know our strength and really play them. I think working with a great mentor can really help with that.

Michael London: I’m going to bet that you’ve come from a performing family.

Allie Olson: Oh yes, my family is – we get called the von Trapp’s sometimes. When we call people to say happy birthday, we actually sing “Happy Birthday” in three-part harmony. My mom and dad actually met in a band so we’ve always had jam sessions with our friends every month and it’s so cool. Just the other night, we’re actually sitting around our living room playing with a couple of family friends. We’re playing Iz’s version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and we had a fiddle, a saxophone, my mom was singing, my dad was playing guitar, and I was doing harmony. It was just ethereal, wonderful experience. I love it so much.

Michael London: That is so nice, so fun. Tell us a little bit about “Generic Girl”.

Allie Olson: Oh my gosh, working on “Generic Girl”, it was incredibly fun. Definitely the coolest thing I’ve yet gotten to be a part of. Everyone on set just has this awesome mixture of professionalism and pure silliness. There were a lot of times when we would actually have to improve and we have a lot of really experienced improv actors in our cast like Matthew Bohrer and Johnny Skourtis. I could barely keep a straight face. Oh, also Matthew Farhat. I could not keep a straight face of all the craziness that was going on and the great staff that the cast have come up with.

To be honest, I knew this was going to be a really cool project to do from the very first audition because of the way they auditioned us. Sometimes you go to auditions and they hand you like a sheet of paper that’s like okay, fill in your sizes, tell us about your relevant experience but this audition, Victor and Steven, the director and producer actually handed us a piece of paper that asks questions like what comic book do you like to read or if you could have any super power, what would it be and what would your super hero name be. Immediately, I was like, okay, this is going to be awesome.

Michael London: Allie, what super power would you have and who would you be?

Allie Olson: I think I put that my super power was to be able to shoot purple sparkles from my hands but they weren’t just any purple sparkles, they were purple sparkles of death. I had named myself – I think I named myself Sparkle Super Nova, which sounds like a different kind of name, but it was favorite hero name.

Michael London: Hey, where can folks see “Generic Girl”?

Allie Olson: You can see it on a networked called – it’s an online network called http://JTS.tv. It stand for Just The Story. It’s an ad-free subscription network. New episodes go up every Wednesday. There’s actually a lot of really cool shows on there like “Continuum”, and I think it’s called the “Jeff Lewis Comedy Hour”. Those are the cool ones. There’s a lot of good content.

Michael London: And where can we read all about Alexandra Olson?

Allie Olson: You can go to my website which is http://allieolson.com.

Michael London: Perfect and for those listening, Allie, how about a great nugget of advice, the great take home message from you.

Allie Olson: The great nugget of advice from Allie Olson – I would say just make sure to always care about telling the story. That’s what I’ve learned as my biggest piece of wisdom of training that I’ve gotten from my mentor, Duke Stroud. I will just say tell the story, always be honest when you’re acting and love what you do.

Michael London: Love what you do. Excellent advice. Allie, thank you so much for being with us today on Spidcast.

Allie Olson: Thank you so much for having me, Michael. I had to say, you have the coolest voice that I have ever heard. You sound like on those movie trailer guys that could voice overs.

Michael London: That’s very kind. Thank you very much. I will tell my agent to start booking some of those jobs.

Thanks for listening to our Spidcast show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidvid.com or on our Spidvid blog and you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

We are back with one of our best Spidcast episodes to date this month (listen in below and subscribe to “Spidcast” on iTunes) with a focus on web series, acting, creative freedoms, Playboy, and other interesting sound bites! February’s Spidcast features the incredible individuals Brittney Powell and David Beeler. They are our amazingly sexy and talented guests for Spidcast 15, February 2012.

Our Guests

Brittney Powell is a talented and beautiful actress who was born in Würzburg, Germany. She has appeared in many TV shows and films including: Airborne, That Thing You Do!, Fled, Stacy’s Mom, Safety Geeks: SVI, and countless others. She was also a Playboy playmate, which brought her into Hollywood.

David Beeler was born and raised in Kerrville, Texas. He went to school in London and trained at The Central School of Speech & Drama while Laurence Olivier was the President of the school. David was “over there” for 10 years and highlights include: playing Hamlet in London and at Kennilworth Castle, Ritchie Valens in Buddy, Puck, Edmund, and being directed in “The Scottish Play” by Dame Judi Dench.

Along with comedy writing/performing/producing partner, Tom Konkle, Dave & Tom have a rapidly growing presence online with over 12 million aggregate views. Please visit Dave & Tom for latest news, videos and general silliness.

David stars as Brian Forbes in Invention with Brian Forbes. (Selection ITV Fest 2011), co-wrote and produced with Tom the 3D Film Festival Award Winning, Safety Geeks: 3D and played the suave, yet totally inept Reginald Syngen-Smythe. He has appeared in over 55 national commercials, several of which aired in various Super Bowls.

We thank Brittney and David for being such fun and inspirational guests!

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Brittney or David talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from it!

Full Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael London: Hi, I’m Michael London. Welcome to Spidcast, the Future of Collaborative Video Production brought to you by Spidvid.com and sponsored this week by Indie Source Magazine where they believe free is better and you know what? I think they got a point. On this episode, we are talking with Brittney Powell, an actress you’ve seen plenty on episodic TV and movies too and lots of other things. Also, David Beeler will be here. He’s an actor, writer and web creator. David is certainly one of the pioneers of the new media and he has a great story to tell us and will take us to at least two continents.

First up is, well, ladies first. She’s an actress, producer and I’m told an all-around awesome chick. Brittney, thanks for being with us today.

Brittney Powell: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to this.

Michael London: So, tell us a little bit about Brittney.

Brittney Powell: Well, I’m an army brat. I’ve traveled the world just in being an army brat because that’s what we do and I would say that translates into why, one of the reasons why I moved to Los Angeles, the career path of an actor is very much a person who has to fit into new environments quickly and make themselves at home and make new friends randomly and get sent across the world to go on location and so forth. So, I find that being an army brat was good training for being an actor.

Michael London: Well, I can see that. So, where was the very last place you were right before Hollywood?

Brittney Powell: The very last place I was before I came to Hollywood was a little town in Texas, right outside of Dallas, Fort Worth which has grown exponentially since I’ve moved away and that was, well, I won’t say how many years ago that was because I’m still only 29 years old.

Michael London: And what is the name of that little town?

Brittney Powell: It’s Mansfield, Texas. In fact, I just found out from my parents that Kelly Clarkson now lives in Mansfield, Texas. I knew that she had been from Burleson but I had no idea that she went ahead and made the big move to Mansfield.

Michael London: Well, you have to fight her now for hometown girl billboard space.

Brittney Powell: I know. When I come to town, she better scoot aside because I want to be on the front page of the newspaper.

Michael London: I don’t blame you. So, tell us about that path, army brat lived in 10 or so places, new school every year?

Brittney Powell: Well, actually, when I was about six, I would say, I started—my father was an officer, so he would always get options of where we were going to be stationed next and I swear to God, that’s when I would pull out a map and a ruler and whatever was closest to LA, that’s the one that got my vote. So, when we had the opportunity, I was born in Germany, but then we moved back to the States and traveled a bit. When we had opportunity to go back to Germany, of course, that’s the one my parents chose but I’m thinking, no, no, I think Phoenix is a better option. Phoenix because it’s closer to LA.

Michael London: Good thinking and what about early performing opportunities?

Brittney Powell: Mostly, I started just doing family stuff whenever we would have family functions. I would write little plays and I would enlist the help of the friends and families that were there, and make them perform and then I would get, I didn’t understand when they would get nervous in front of their parents. I’m like, we’re just acting and they’re your parents, they love you. Just do it. Then I would get all frustrated if they got all nervous.

And then I started doing community theater. I would UIL competitions and they were One-Act Play competitions in high school and what I realized was that I would win and I loved getting the ribbons and the trophies and stuff but I realized very quickly that if I moved to Los Angeles and did this as a living that I could get as little green bio survival tickets that we called dollar bills and those were my trophies that I preferred. So, I just went ahead and I was like, I’m moving to LA. I’m going to make my living doing this.

Michael London: All right, all about the Benjamins. What is UIL competition?

Brittney Powell: UIL competitions, they’re One-Act Play, so you’ll take an entire play and you’ll go through it and just start editing down lines or even scenes and turn the entire play into one act and then you perform them starting at just the little district level and then you would move to Regionals and if your entire cast continues to win, then you go on to state and so forth.

Our cast never actually made it to State. We were always beaten by Martin High School so I’m going to go back and punch them.

Michael London: Darn those Martin High Goons. So, we fast forward a bit and you finally land in Hollywood. What do you think?

Brittney Powell: I loved it. I originally came out to Hollywood because I accidentally was in Playboy, the girls kind of things, just one those little side picture once they do and the editor saw that, asked me to be a playmate so they started flying me out to Los Angeles a lot and when I was out here, I was meeting agents and they told me point blank that I’m marketable, that I’m talented and that if I would just move out here that I could actually start booking work. So, that’s what I did. I just packed up my little car and tripped it on out here and I started booking work right away. They were right.

So, that’s what brought me to Los Angeles and then once I got out here, really, I started booking work right away, lots of commercials and a lot of episodic television, anything that Aaron Spelling had done.

Michael London: Wait, wait, wait, tell us where we’ve seen you.

Brittney Powell: Oh, my goodness, anything Aaron Spelling has ever done, I’ve been either a recurring role for half a season or I’ve been the series regular for like “Pacific Palisades”. I was a series regular on that. Then Stu Segall Productions, he would do all of the “Silk Stalkings” and “Renegade” all those kind of shows and so they would bring me down and just keep constantly casting me in those shows and then night time episodic was the majority of my career and then films. I had a little, not a little film, it was one of Icon Pictures, first venture into feature films. That’s Mel Gibson’s production company and that was a movie called “Airborne” which is a coming of age movie and I was the lead female in that. Just the (cutest little) movie and I still meet people today, kids who are still addicted to it.

In fact, I rented a car the other way and the guy behind the counter, I walked in and he looked me and he goes, “Airborne, right?” How do you know this? I’m like ancient compared to those days, how do you even still recognize me?

Michael London: So, he says, “Airborne” and your first word should have been, “Upgrade” right?

Brittney Powell: Oh, yes, and don’t think I didn’t. I got the upgrade.

Michael London: Good for you. So, you’re really living the working actor’s dream. You’re working a lot. You’re being seen. You’re making your contacts all in traditional media. Then you take a sharp right into the web world. Tell us about that.

Brittney Powell: Ah, this I owe to my business partner, writing partner, acting partner, best friend, Tom Konkle. I was at an audition for a commercial and I was just kind of being a little smartass kind of in my own little world but funny, I don’t know, it’s kind of quirky and I realized there was a human being very close to me who was laughing at all of the twisted things that I would say out loud to myself and so he and I started saying weird things out loud to each other and after the audition, I followed him to the parking lot and I told him that I have to know him and we became friends and he had been working on a script called “Safety Geeks: SVI” and very Monty Python-esque but in getting to me, he realized that I was the lead female that he had written.

And that started our ventures into the web world. It got a wonderful reception. Immediately, we were one of the first web series that was actually funded by an outside source. So, it was a platform called (Cold Cast). They went ahead and paid for it and it went crazy. We started winning awards, nominated for Streamy Awards and LA Web Fest Awards. It got an amazing reception and that’s when we realized we’re really on to something and then Tom had also in the past had worked with John Cleese who saw it and decided that he wants to be in our—we’re not going to call it a second season. We’re going to call it a sequel because we’re turning that actually into a feature film instead of a web series but it will be on the web as well so John Cleese, we have him on board. Virginia Hey wants to be in it. It’s so silly and it’s ridiculous, it’s so our humor.

So, that got us going. Then we decided based on that, other people were asking us to be in theirs doing cameos and so we were doing that. That’s when we realized that we’re going to start our own YouTube channel which we’ve recently launched. It’s RomComtTheSeries, so you can find that at YouTube/romcomtheseries and it is going to be Tom and I playing different characters, romantic comedy, just silly stuff, our humor, the one thing that we did notice with that is that we posted some of what we find to be romantic comedy and in researching the demographics, we’re realizing that we’re serving an underserved market which is people our age watching the internet, looking for more mature romantic comedy.

So, we started posting a few things up and when we first put, we just put up a silly sex scene, really fun, romantic but a bit off the wall and we were getting about a thousand hits an hour when we first put it up and it’s continuing to grow.

Michael London: Goodness gracious, it sounds like it. Now, John Cleese decidedly silly and then romantic comedy, who exactly is your audience?

Brittney Powell: Females love what we’re doing. The main genre, we’re serving it right now, our demographic on there is 60% female within the ages of 18 through 54. So, what we want, actually is for people to email us at tomandbrit384@gmail.com and start emailing us some of their ideas of what they would like to see like if they actually did have the weirdest little romantic scenario in their life, we want to recreate that. We want to write it and put our own spin on it but we want their ideas, what they find to be funny and romantic and then we’re going to put those up as well and we fortunately found that people are finding it funny as well which is nice because sometimes, you put something up that you think is funny and they just run the other direction but they seem to like our weirdness which is cool.

Michael London: And you’ll know, you’ll know right away like you’ve seen before with the hits.

Brittney Powell: Yes, and I’m very, very fortunate to have Tom as my business partner because he loves computers so he has all the different spreadsheets and everything that are telling us what countries are from, for instance, “Safety Geeks”, when it first launched, we were very big in the United States, but now, we’re finding Saudi Arabia. We’re spiking in Saudi Arabia right now and we can’t exactly explain it. We aren’t going to complain about it.

Michael London: Yes, no need to explain it, just enjoy it. So, honest question time, all right? You’re doing well. Your career seems to be on the (uptake), features, episodic TV, you meet Tom. Tom approaches you and says, “Hey, want to do some stuff for the web?” Really, now, what do you think?

Brittney Powell: I’ll tell you what, what first caught my attention to say yes was the interaction that I had with Tom and I knew that we could create something that was unique and I knew that we could create something that made me happy. It was our product. We had control over what we were putting out and we had control over how it was put out. That got my attention because a lot of times, you’ll go into a sitcom and you have to do exactly what those writers said and they might not have quite your same personality but you do it because it’s your job and I love my job.

However, I love being able to tell Tom, “Can we twist it in this direction as well and have it still be as funny?” And then we can mull it over. We can twist it and tweak it and do that sort until we make it what we want and then we put it up and if people like it, they like it. If they don’t, that’s okay because somebody likes it. There’s not one guy sitting in an office somewhere that it’s his opinion of what’s funny. It’s actually out there for the public to determine and if they like it, they can go to it and watch it.

Michael London: Now, you know what? For my money, that is the single most exciting thing about this venue, no gatekeeper. So, literally now, being a pioneer, how about some words of advice for those coming up behind you.

Brittney Powell: I think my main bit of advice that I would give to people coming up in the web world would be really pay attention to what you’re writing because you can’t just write something and throw it up and expect it to hit. You’ve got to pay attention to the actual quality of the writing and then pay attention to the quality of production. A lot of people on the web, they’ll have an idea on the weekend and then they’ll shoot it over the weekend and get their friends together and they’re not real actors. They should hire real actors to portray the characters they’ve written instead of saying, “I want to be on TV so I’m going to write something and just put it up there.”

Don’t just put it up there. Make sure it’s good enough to represent you as a writer, as an actor and as a producer because that is what, I mean, it’s going to live on the web forever and if you’re just putting up crap, then that’s what people when they do go back 10 years from now and they’re like, “Who’s this person?” And they go back and see it, they’ll be like, “No, they suck. I don’t to watch it.” So, truly pay attention to the quality of what you’re doing and play to your strengths.

Michael London: Wonderful words of experience there. So, Playboy, did it hurt or help?

Brittney Powell: You know what? Playboy helped, I have to say. It was right around the time when Pamela Anderson was making it okay to be a Playmate and an actress. At that time, I actually turned down Playmate. I’ve shot my centerfold and it was right before Pam made it okay. So, I was noticing that a lot of the other Playmates who were trying to be actresses, they were losing jobs even after having booked the job, they were getting fired off sets once the producers realized that they were Playmates. So, I backed out of the centerfold but what I got out of that was connections. I actually met my first commercial agent through Playboy and we didn’t promote that I was a Playmate or that I had worked for Playboy or anything but I did continue to do the lingerie issues as a way to pay my bills in one day so that the rest of the month, I could be going out on auditions.

He was married to Kimberley Heffner at that time and she was very strict at the mansion so when they would bring me out, they would put me up at the mansion and I didn’t have to worry about lecherous old men trying to say, “Well, I can help you, baby, but this is what I like,” and I didn’t have to worry about that because she was like, “Anybody in the swimming pool, you got clothes on. I got a baby running around this house,” or when we would have the Sunday night movie night, it was just his closer friends that they trusted. It wasn’t really just kind of anybody who thought it would be fun to go see a bunch of hot chicks. It was people who actually had integrity and had something to say in the entertainment industry.

So, I met some really wonderful people that way and some of whom, I’ve remained in contact with since. So, Playboy I loved and I would do it again.

Michael London: Interesting, so what can you tell us about your experience with collaboration?

Brittney Powell: I think that what you guys have going with Spidvid is incredibly helpful to the independent producer because we can come to you and say, “Hey, look what we’ve got,” and then you have a whole targeted audience that comes to you guys to say, “I have this to offer but I’m lacking in this area,” and they have that to offer but they’re lacking in that area so it does become very much a collaborative effort and with people of like-mind. So, that to me is invaluable. So, thank you, Spidvid, for existing. It is invaluable what you guys do.

Michael London: Very kind words, Brittney. Thank you so much but the only way we exist is because of people like you.

Brittney Powell: Oh, well, thank you very much for saying that.

Michael London: So, what would be the takeaway message from Brittney Powell today?

Brittney Powell: Taking talent and utilizing it along with what would otherwise be considered maybe a more surfaced quality. People do pay attention to my looks and I know that but that doesn’t mean that I have to only use my looks to get ahead. My looks get attention and then from that, people can really go, “Whoa, wait a second, she can walk. Whoa, she’s intelligent.” That is what I appreciate about being on this planet.

Michael London: All right, and speaking of looks and talent, where can see everything Brittney.

Brittney Powell: Everything Brittney, well, IMDB as my entire resume and that’s of course, Brittney Powell on IMDB. You can find, a lot of the new stuff is going to be on the RomComTheSeries on YouTube. There’s a lot of stuff too on the www.safetygeekssvi.com. In fact, I even have a little bit on “Invention” with Brian Forbes. I have kind of a cameo in that. I’m a guest star on that one, a recurring player. The internet, I mean, anything Brittney, just Google it. Everything will come up. What won’t come up are my photos from Playboy. I don’t know why. I think it was because that was back in the ancient days when they didn’t have digital.

Michael London: I just sense a disturbance in the force.

Brittney Powell: That’s funny. Well, I’ll go find some of those old pictures and scan them and put them up and then I’ll put them under fake names so that nobody will come after me for copyright infringement.

Michael London: You can say, here’s Kelly Clarkson.

Brittney Powell: I will say, “Kelly, can you just come here and say a few words standing next to me and then I can pop up under your Google searches too?”

Michael London: Always thinking, Brittney Powell. Thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

Brittney Powell: Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time talking to you.

Michael London: Spidcast brought to you by Indie Source Magazine, the fastest growing independent filmmaker resource and the only free publication of its kind and their mission is to bring you not only stories of the industry’s highly celebrated but also stories and insights from players in all areas of the media creation process. At Indie Source, they believe free is better. Visit them at www.indiesourcemag.com.

Let’s continue now with the Spidcast. Joining us is actor, writer and web creator, David Beeler. David, welcome to Spidcast.

David Beeler: Well, thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Michael London: So, David, tell us a little bit about your story.

David Beeler: Goodness, I was born of poor black child. No, I’m sorry, that’s already been done.

Michael London: Yes, already taken.

David Beeler: No, actually, I’m an actor, professional actor. I live out in Los Angeles. Before that, I lived in London, England for a decade. I went to drama school over there, a conservatory for three years and then wound up staying and working there for that decade before coming back to the States. But I was born and raised in Texas in a small town and I was kind of a class clown, enjoyed making my friends laugh because I quickly got that that made them like me more and there’s something very powerful about laughter and that it opens up people. It’s that saying that “laugher is the best medicine” and there is actually physiological evidence that that’s actually very true.

I did all the stuff as a kid. I got local theatre to local television show and by the age of 15, I decided, this is what I wanted to do. But when I was about fifth grade, my mom used my full name and I knew I was in trouble so I’m thinking, what did I get caught doing? And she goes, “I got a call from your teachers.” And I’m like, oh, what did I get caught doing at school? She said, “Well, they’re very concerned about you.” And I thought, all my grades are good? And then she said, “They think something might be wrong with your brain.” And I was like, “What?”

So, it turns out they thought I had an equilibrium problem because I had gotten so good at walking into desks, bumping at doors, and just falling over doing these pratfalls to make my friends laugh but they thought something was actually wrong with me. So, I kind of blame my teachers that I don’t have Jim Carrey’s career because my mom told me to put the brakes on that which I did.

But by the time I was 15, I knew I was going to be a professional actor and that’s what I was going to do with my life as a vocation. So, it’s been a couple of years at UT Austin, in Texas on a scholarship and then I applied for the school in England and got accepted which was a real coup and I didn’t realize it at that time, it was as big a deal for me as it was going to be.

And then I was paying for school so I had to pay for a lot more of school by going to this conservatory in England which was the Central School Of Speech & Drama and so I wrote and produced plays in Texas to pay for my training in England and that actually worked. So, it was ironic that I paid for school by doing what I was going to school to learn to do.

Michael London: Well, how cool is that? I’m sure this has helped throughout your career so far?

David Beeler: It was pretty cool. It was a big learning experience to get to school for me as it was being at school and that was really fascinating and some of that entrepreneurial spirit and production just sort of, “All right, we’re going to figure out how to make this work,” has carried into the stuff that I do now with my creating partner or creative partner, Tom Konkle because he and I do comedy and almost all of our stuff is a comedy based online.

Michael London: Now, we’re going to get more into your current stuff in just a bit but I want to hear about more of the stuff from England. This is good stuff.

David Beeler: I had some really cool opportunities there, things like I got to play Hamlet in a castle; did a one-man show called Booth about the actor Edwin Booth, took that to Denver Festival and won an award. A director who saw this wanted to work with me. She said, we need to retool the script and before you do the show again, which was about Edwin Booth preparing to play Hamlet after his brother assassinated Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth. She said, “You need to play Hamlet.” I said, well, it’s on my list and she said, “No, no. You’re going to do it.” And so I wound up getting to play Hamlet.

A company I was working with touring around England doing Shakespeare, we actually got to play Hamlet at Kenilworth Castle. So, that was an amazing experience for me.

Michael London: I’ll bet so you work your way to England. Played Hamlet in a castle no less so in your mind, had you arrived? Where you successful?

David Beeler: I do my goals between Christmas and New Year’s every year and realized, am I doing what I want to do? And I’m like, yes. I’m an actor, I’m earning my living. This is great. I thought is this really what I want to do and I went, what if I could do anything, I’d work in movies. And I thought, oh, well, I’m in the wrong place because they don’t do that many films in the UK sadly because when they do, do them, they do them very well.

So, from there, I thought, okay, I’m going to pick up and head back to the States. So I took a reconnaissance holiday, came out to Los Angeles and stayed here for eight weeks with some friends of mine from drama school and found much to my delight that it was actually a very nice place and in being here, one of the things that happened along the way was when I first got out here, I thought, gosh, I haven’t done comedy in years and that’s something I really loved. It’s partly what got me to acting. So, I signed up with LA Connection, which is a place out here that does improv and had found that some of the other places that are very famous for improv, you have to go through years of their training programs before you get to perform but LA Connection had a fast track where you could do that within a couple of months.

And so, I thought, well, that’s what I want. So, I did that. A group of us kind of got bored there, splintered off with some people from the groundlings and created a new sketch troupe and one of the guys from that group which fell apart fairly quickly because different people wanted to do different things. So, the group fell apart but one of the guys later was producing a show called “Beyond the Fringe” which is the seminal British review that launched the careers of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, you may have heard of and Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller are very big in the UK and one is the director and one is the writer. This guy, Joe Dunne who was producing the show, he said, “I need you to play the Dudley parts because one of the improv characters I created having lived in London was an out of work mortician and I thought, oh, it would be fun. I lived in South London for the most number of years of my time in England and I can do a very good South London accent and I thought, if this guy is an out of work mortician but he’s on the dole but he’s so broke he has to nip at the formaldehyde if he can no longer afford to go to the pub and I thought, oh, that’s a fun idea for an improv character so I brought that in and what happened was he wound up sounding very much like Dudley Moore, completely by accident and “I’m going to go in and I’m going to do this thing and his name was (Glenn Long) and he was a less successful brother of (Forest Long). And of course, I didn’t hold that over Forest, God bless him, but he was very frustrated. He couldn’t get things to work right.”

So, everybody was like, “Oh, that’s a great Dudley,” and I’m like, oh, no, I don’t want to do Dudley. Dudley did Dudley so I was like, ah, back to the drawing board but they insisted that I keep doing this character because they all thought it was very funny. So, Joe knew I had done this character and he said, “I want you to play Dudley Moore in this review show,” and I was like, okay, “And you’re going to meet this guy who will play the Peter Cook parts. Tom Konkle is very funny, I think you’ll get on.”

And at the read through, sure enough, Tom and I got on like a house on fire and in doing that show which won Take of the Week in the LA Weekly out here, Tom said, “We need to do the two-hander that Peter Cook and Dudley Moore did called ‘Good Evening.’ They did this on Broadway,” and I was like, okay. And Tom said, “No, no, we’re going to do it.” I said, okay and then two weeks later he called me and said, “Okay, I’ve booked a theatre, we’re doing a show.” And I said, oh, all right. When? “In two weeks.” I was like, whoa, goodness, we probably should rehearse. We got the show up on its feet real fast. I had a great time and then in the process of doing that show, we kept kind of improvising and playing with those characters and we decided that hey, we could actually continue playing and develop that into some of our own original material which we did and that show was called, “Goodnight” and that was basically a tribute to “Good Evening: The Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Show” and in that process, Tom and I found that we worked really well together as a writing team that we were very (simpatico).

And about that same time, I’d written the stuff that paid for my training but I don’t write a whole lot because it feels like work and I’ve had a number of people go, “You’re good at writing. You should write more.” And so I was looking for a way to enjoy writing more and then Tom showed up and we had a great time writing. It was just a laugh and we would catch stuff and try to get it in the computer while it was fresh and still making it laugh and so we began to collaborate and write and around about the same time, I joined their sketch troupe called Lester McFwap and we were doing live sketch shows. We did them in different places around the country at different festivals and around LA and about that time, a guy came to one of our shows and said, “I think we should do a television pilot,” and we said, okay. So we wound up producing this TV pilot called McFwap with an exclamation point and not the musical but just McFwap!

So, we produced this pilot and it was green lit for along weekend before it fell through the cracks in the Vivendi sale, when Universal was bought by Vivendi and lot of these other TV network, cable networks that they owned, all kinds of people losing their jobs and so we fell through the cracks of that sale which was very frustrating. But at that time, we’d already began doing some sort of interactive media stuff in our live shows and filming things and putting them in our live shows.

So, when the internet began to come out with an opportunity where the bandwidth was large enough that you could actually post something and have people watched it without being it completely stilted, the very early days of YouTube, then we were like, oh, well, we should put something up. So, Tom and I did a sketch and we put it out and I think it was a month or two, we got like 500,000 hits.

So, here’s half a million people watching our comedy which was more than we had seen all of our live shows combined over the entire time we’d been working together before that. We’re like, wow, this is powerful. So, we formed Pith-e Productions and the idea of that was to keep it short and pithy because at that time, that was what it had to be as dictated by the bandwidth and a guy approached us about doing stuff for mobile and that was still way too early for mobile to have satisfactory mobile video. Nowadays, you have that quite readily but at that time, that was sort of more of an idea than a reality but we got this idea of, oh, we could do this and we kind of build a footprint here and then expand it out and hopefully go into new media, create our brand really strong and then take that brand and move it into old media or the more established media, however you want to look at that. So that’s kind of partly how we came to be and how we came to be doing what we’ve been doing.

Michael London: So, is “Invention” an outgrowth of that relationship with Tom?

David Beeler: “Invention” with Brian Forbes grew out of a sketch show. Tom and I were doing a two hand sketch show and Tom had this idea for this crazy inventor and being interviewed in a show that’s the guy who’s running the show was trying to do a very serious show but his guest is just a whackadoo and we did it as a sketch and I thought it was a great sketch and it always got a great reaction and at one point, Tom said, “Let’s film that.” And I’m like, okay, we’re doing these little short pithy one offs and so fine.

And then Tom later said, I think we should do that as a series because we’ve done another live sketch show and we’ve done another invention and Tom said, “Let’s do this as a series,” and I said, I don’t think it will sustain as a series, Tom because it’s a little just, they’re little snippets. They are really just little sketches and there’s no kind of continuation in that. I don’t see that being a series and I said, I think people will stale of the same thing again and again. And Tom said, “No, no, no, I’ve got so many ideas. They won’t.” And I’m like, all right, okay.

The great thing about Tom and I is if either one of us feels passionately about something, the other one usually goes, “All right, I trust you.” And that’s come from years of working together. And I was like, okay, if you really feel like that, let’s do it. So, we did. We began doing more and more and more of these and I have grown to love, love, love the show. It’s one of my favorite things we do because I love the relationship between Brian Forbes who’s desperately trying to do something legitimate and I think for a lot of artists, that craving of legitimacy, of I want to be accepted and do something that’s good and be lauded by my peers. Most artists have that in some capacity once they get involved in their disciplines, their craft that they want their peers to recognize them. Hence, the proliferation of award shows.

So Brian Forbes is deadly serious and then you have this force of nature which is the only guy that I know who’s just out of his mind or eccentric as they say in England I think the combination of that is really wonderful and it’s just a very simple idea that relies purely on the writing and the performing and the relationship between these characters.

Michael London: And David, how did you find your audience or better yet, how did they find you?

David Beeler: We call it our web series that good. It’s like the little engine that gets over the hill because for years, we would just do them because we wanted to and we never had any sort of game plan or sort of we must (do a mark at) this and put it out there and figure it out how we’re doing this. It was really just, we were doing it and we’ve never ever gotten a bad review. We’ve gotten tons of great press. Everybody seems to love the show and we’ve only gotten positive feedback on it and a few years then, on doing the show, we were like, oh, we probably should look at this. Another positive review would pop up and that’s a neat thing about the internet in a lot of traditional media. Once you have an opening, you air the show and it’s over and maybe it comes out again in rerun but it’s looked as a sort of second tier because it’s already been out.

Whereas with the internet, one of the things we have discovered is there are ways of discovering. We had this very recently where we don’t quite know why but on YouTube our views peaked into the hundreds of thousands out of nowhere. Just suddenly we were getting like hundreds of thousands of views in a week and it just sort of had this little peak and I was like, well, that’s interesting. We don’t quite know why but somebody somewhere might have discovered it, put it on Facebook and it just spread virally or something. We don’t quite know what that is although we’re trying to figure it out.

Michael London: But isn’t that one of the coolest things about being involved in new media that your show has literally forever to find an audience and there’s not one guy in the ivory tower saying, “No, this will not be made.”

David Beeler: That is phenomenal. Never in history has it been a more democratic platform where you can put what you want to say out there and people vote on it with their eyeballs. So, that’s incredibly powerful. As you said, there’s no men in the ivory tower, there are no suits going, “No, no, we’re not going to do this.” There aren’t gatekeepers other than people wanting to watch it or not wanting to watch it. And that’s amazing. That’s crazy cool, the fact that like I said, Tom and I were blown away and this is many years ago. Many years ago, and I think 2003 or 2004 when we put up a video and it got half a million views in a month or so and we went, “Wow, that’s amazing. The fact that that many people could see your work.”

Here’s a funny story, one of the things is called the “Prostate PSA” and it’s basically a public service announcement for men’s health and we did this thing. It’s pretty funny, it’s out there Prostate PSA, Dave and Tom, go check it out but we did it, put it out. Several months later, an old girlfriend of mine from Texas emailed me that her husband had just gotten that video sent to him from his friend in South Africa because he was having a prostate issue and it was sort of one of those things where I was like, wow, that circumnavigated the globe to come back to someone I know who says, “Oh, my god, I saw that (video.)” And that’s happened two or three times where people I know have said, “Oh, my dad just got this thing and it’s you and somebody that I didn’t know had sent it to him. And then it came back to me and they had discovered it.

So, that’s crazy (call). The downside of this very open democratic platform is that there are no gatekeepers by which I mean, for an audience, you sometimes have to sift through a lot of dirt to find a lump of coal much less a diamond because there is no barrier at all for submission. Anybody can do anything they want and put it up there and so sometimes, you have to kind of wade through some not so good stuff to find the good stuff. However, I would much rather have it this way than the other way where there’s, who’s deciding whether you get to watch that or not.

And then the good stuff tends to get the cream will rise to the top. The good stuff tends to get referred. It gets noticed. People write about it, blog about it. Other people share it. So, in that way, the good stuff tends to rise anyway.

Michael London: Right, not only does the good stuff rise but the good stuff gets very strong word of mouth, the best advertising for any business at any time in history.

David Beeler: Exactly, exactly and that’s where I would say if anybody is going to attempt to create video or do web series, there are a few things I would consider moving into it at this time. First of all is just to look around and see what’s being done and try to find a way to either do something that’s not being done and part of it just because this is an open platform so no one is going to say no. So, this is the chance to do something different as opposed to trying to recreate a television show with the resources to do it which a lot of people do and then it looks like a very sad sick cousin of something that you could see on television. Do something else. Find a way to use your voice to express your creativity, follow your passion but do something that’s been different.

If you’re going to do something that’s been done, for example, like another zombie story or vampire story which are just ripe at the moment, then do that really, really well. And one of the interesting things right now is because there are so many good shows out there, production values have gotten very good very quickly. It’s sometimes very amazing what people can do with very little resources and still have it looked very close to being a TV show. So, that is something you have to bear in mind that to be competitive if you want to, I mean, because you can also just put stuff out there and allow this to be a type of film school where this is where you’re expressing yourself, trying things out, learning and put it up there and if somebody likes it other than your friends and family, cool. And this is like film school. A lot of school films get made not to be watched necessarily but for the learning process that they give.

So, you can either do this to try build an audience and have people follow your shows or just for your learning curve and actually both of them will happen if you’re going for an audience. You’re going to learn stuff. You cannot help but learn stuff.

Michael London: Now, talking about that very topic, where can we follow your stuff? Now, talking about that very topic, where can we follow your stuff?

David Beeler: Well, if you would like to watch some of our shows, the easiest place to go to is daveandtom.com because everything is parked right there. You can also go to our YouTube channel. We’re on Vimeo (Cold Cast). We’re on over 200 portals so just do a search for David and Tom and you’ll find our videos. You cannot help but find them. We are out there and that’s amazing. We actually have had, we did this one thing about a genie and we did a search one time because we were talking to a new media agent and we were like, “Okay, how much are we out there? Let’s find so we can report back and say, this is where we are,” and we did the search and on page, I don’t know, 40 something or 50 something deep in the Google, we were on a French genie fetishes site. We’re like, (What?) That our video was part on a fetishes site for people who were into genies because we’d had a sketch about a genie popping out of a bottle and we’re like, “What the hey!”

So, that is the other wonderful thing is you’ll turn up in these wonderfully obscure and bizarre places.

Michael London: So, let me rub that lantern and wish for a parting shot, some words of wisdom, a golden nugget perhaps of advice?

David Beeler: Well, I think my biggest kernel of advice is one of the signatures on my Dave and Tom email which is a quote from Joseph Campbell, “Follow your bliss,” and it’s one of the easiest and hardest things to do. The beauty of the web space is that you can create whatever you want and that’s both like Spiderman, an awesome responsibility. It’s a power and with that power comes responsibility but if you follow your bliss, you set out doing what you really want to do. It makes your heart sing and there is this easy and difficult because yes, that’s easy to tap into. It’s difficult because there will be many hurdles like what they said, “Well, this seems like it’s been a pretty easy process.”

No, no a lot of it is really hard work but like playing a game like if you play soccer or tennis or any game, when you’re playing it, you’re putting a ton of energy into that but it doesn’t feel like work because you want to play that game. You’re having fun. So, follow your bliss, have that fun. Follow the thing that makes your heart sing and have the courage of your conviction to start. There is no path. Everybody’s path will be different so if you look at somebody else and they’re something and you go, “Well, that works. I need to do what they do.”

No, you need to follow your bliss, follow your path, follow your knowing because your path will be your own and you can’t look at somebody else’s and try and emulate that. Learn from them absolutely but have the courage of your convictions to know that you’ve got to do what you need to do and knowing that is sometimes very hard because there are so many different influence is they can push you in this way or that.

And I think that is it. Like I say, it’s a very simple but difficult thing to follow your bliss and that would be my primary advice to somebody wanting to do anything creative whether it’s making web videos, painting, doing music, an acting career, have that courage to start and then continue and as you continue, really tune into what makes your heart sing and constantly pay attention to that.

Michael London: Best advice I’ve heard in a while and David, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

David Beeler: You are very welcome and also, I think you need to check out the website like Spidvid that allows you to join up with other people or try to collaborate and do the same things you are because if you’re making anything with a camera, a video or film, it’s a collaborative process. You can’t do this by yourself and you’re going to need to find those people that are your peeps that share your vision and want to do similar things to you. So, I would say, use those resources.

Michael London: Absolutely, make use of those resources. Use us often and as you wish and thanks for listening to our Spidcast show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidvid.com or on our Spidvid blog and you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

We are back with one of our best Spidcast episodes to date this month (listen in below and subscribe on iTunes) with a focus on web series, acting, getting lucky, and other interesting stuff. January’s Spidcast features the incredible individuals Tom Konkle and America Young. They are our amazing guests for Spidcast 14, January 2012 which you can listen to below.

Our Guests

Tom Konkle is a professional actor and writer who has also done sketch comedy for over ten years. Tom is the founding member of the sketch troupe Lester McFwap, and has performed hundreds of original shows around the country as well as having completed the television pilot, McFwap!

Tom has starred in the short films “Who Makes Movies,” and “Sanctuary” to name only two. He has appeared in comedy films with David Beeler including “Seat Fillers!,” “The Animal In Us All,” “The Secret To Happiness,” “A Paid Advertisement” “Destiny’s Stop” and “The Argument Clinic.”

Tom has written three screenplays including Village of the Darned and Last Breath. He has also written for television, short films, and industrials.

You may have also seen Tom in commercials, guest star roles on television and independent films. His stage career is extensive with shows including The Real Inspector Hound, Beyond The Fringe, Clare and Tom: A One Woman Show, Loot, Nevermore: The Black Cat, Good Night, Britcom, Double Act and many others.

The remaining Monty Python members asked him to direct, perform and ruin their never before seen sketches live in a show called Owl-Stretching Time. Tom was a series regular on NBC’s Spy TV, Sci-Fi Channel’s Scare Tactics and Fox’s The Orlando Jones Show, Arrested Development, NBC’s The Office, Back to You, Secret Life of the American Teenager and CW’s The Game. Tom stars in four episodes of Comedy Gumbo for Sony Pictures Television and is the voice of the cup in the film Behind the Cup.

Tom recently wrote for and starred in a two man sketch show with John Cleese called The Art of Football. Tom is starring in, co-writing and co-producing the comedy horror film, Quarter Cool Cthulu.

America Young helped start the Feel Good Film Festival in 2008 where it ran until May 2011, while it was at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Her titles were Executive Director and co-Programmer. America is behind the web series Geek Therapy which is where non-geeks go to find their inner geek, and geeks go to cope with geek-related problems. She has collaborated on many online video projects, and she has been involved with many traditional films as well including Abandoned.

We thank Tom and America for being such amazing guests!

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show with a product or service you sell that’s filmmaking related, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Tom and America talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from its content!

Full Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael London: Hi, I’m Michael London. Welcome to Spidcast, the Future of Collaborative Video Production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with Tom Konkle. He’s an actor, director and co-owner of Pith-e Productions. And Thomas moved into the new media space and will tell us all about that. Then we’ll visit with a lady who has a kind of unusually hyphenated title you don’t often hear. A director-stuntwoman, America Young will be here. She has a wonderful outlook on this business and some great insights as well.

But first up is Tom Konkle. Tom, we’ve seen your face, I know we have. It’s all over TV. Tell us a little bit about your story.

Tom Konkle: I started as a professional actor and director in Los Angeles in the early ‘90s and obviously in traditional media. But I also had a background in sketch comedy. I love performing live. I had a sketch troupe for a long time. We toured many places in the world and around the US, ended up partnering up with Dave Beeler and doing a two-man sketch show as British guys. Our hook was that we would British comedy American made and we started a comedy called Pith-e Productions. Pith-e meaning when the internet, at least when it was first starting, everything had to be very short because of bandwidths and storage so we were short and pithy. So, we’re Pith-e so like email Pith-e Productions, myself and Dave and we started filming our sketches.

And I would take stuff that I would make in traditional media and I’d roll through that money very much like something like Orson Welles would do. He’d work on a studio film and then he’d do his passion project as independent project. He’d roll some of that money into it and we did a very similar thing where we took a leap and made shows like “Invention” with Brian Forbes and “Safety Geeks.”

So, my background really is as a filmmaker and actor who finally found the internet as a way of combining those disciplines.

Michael London: So, take us through that process of you venturing into internet production.

Tom Konkle: Well, the story behind me, I was very fortunate. I came out and I really had a passion for acting and directing. I came out from—I actually moved here from Virginia because I went to college at American University in DC and got a degree in Cinema and Theatre from there and I kind of moved here knowing nothing or anyone and lived in a truck and I found a place on the last day before I had to turn the truck in and have my stuff on the street. I found an apartment somewhere in Glendale, California; lovely Glendale and from there, began working getting an agent doing commercials.

I’ve probably 50, 60 commercials. It’s been a really nice way to free me up to do other creative pursuits and then I’ve always had a passion for writing and directing. I’ve done a lot of short films and short form things; beginning to develop now some features because I’ve made the connections I need to make but really I’m a unique animal and that I’m an actor who understands the technical side, the post production and production side intimately because I’ve been doing it for 17 years.

Michael London: Well, you know what, nothing speaks like experience, that’s for sure and you’ve had a lot of experience in commercials. I know you might not want about them. We want to hear about them. Where have we seen your face?

Tom Konkle: Okay, well, commercially, at the moment I have a Coca-Cola running which runs a lot during American Idol. I have a pretty famous internet meme once where I play Brahms in a thing called Raisin Brahms and I think there’s about 100 little mini-fan films where people have corrupted and changed my spot into something else. So, it’s a very bizarre spot and it’s kind of wonderful. I’ve done spots for Quiznos, most major car companies. ING right now is running where I’m up in a hedge, so there’s a bunch, I usually have four or five at any given year. So, that’s been a real boon to keeping the acting career going.

Michael London: What does that feel like? What does it feel like to be the focus of a (parity)?

Tom Konkle: I have to admit, I love it. The Raisin Brahms one with Guten Tag, I have some of them myself that I’ve saved. There’s one guy who did a screensaver of me doing Guten Tag and it’s actually me saying, “Guten Tag” for full two minutes. I was like “Guten Taaaag” it just cracks me up. I love—everything is a remix and everything is a sort of reformulation and what’s cool about the internet is it’s cross pollinating in everything that happens. We didn’t have that in the ‘90s. We didn’t have that happening and now, I can put something up on YouTube or Blip or KoldCast or wherever and it might inspire something else or I might see it reformulated and then come back to me and I love that.

Michael London: Oh, that’s great. Now, you mentioned earlier that you are a hybrid, the talent and techie and that you really put that into play on Safety Geeks: SVI, right?

Tom Konkle: Absolutely. With Safety Geeks: SVI, that was really, I wanted to see the show. I really love Adult Swim and the Adult Swim sense of humor but I always thought with the human face, being an actor, (I was) like, there’s nothing more expressive than a human face. What if you took the sensibility of Adult Swim and (married it) with actual people and of course, I couldn’t destroy a (Costco), I couldn’t do all the same stuff they do so me and Mike Smith and Thor Melsted and Dave Beeler and Brittney Powell, we all got together. We’re all friends that are professionals and said, how can we learn? What’s our learning curve to create a universe build? How do you make it effects latent comedy because there aren’t a lot of, (in fact), heavy ones and we were really groundbreaking.

We started a company called Lumen Actus which was a subcompany and Lumen Actus really is a visual FX and even 3D company and I know the post process. I’ve worked in the studio system as well and I’ve had to deliver films and television shows and I know how to cut them and if I don’t know how to physical do the mix, I know how to supervise it. And so, Safety Geeks was all these disciplines coming together into a sort of passion project of what would make us laugh, how silly can we be and how can we build a world and the effects are part of the joke and so the acting is there and the writing hopefully is there but what’s cool about is without a filter unfettered by a middle man or anything else, right or wrong, very much like putting up a play in a 99-seat theatre, you rise or fall on your own decisions and I really like that about Safety Geeks. And I think Safety Geeks are groundbreaking because it’s the first 3D web series in the world.

Michael London: You got to love that. No brag, just fact. Now, take us a bit deeper into that somewhat uncertain world of 3D.

Tom Konkle: Well, there’s been slower adoption than was predicted and I think part of that is mistakes made on both side. I think there’s still a stigma that somehow it’s a fad or a gimmick which actually came up as an objection when sound was introduced to film like, “Ah, sound will never last,” and then when color came in, they’re like, “It’s not necessary. I like my black and white TV.” But with 3D used properly, it can immerse you further into it.

I think the problem is the studios paid lip service to the company that make it but we have all hardware and not enough software, not enough shows to watch it on so I think we’re kind of upside down. It’s ironic to me the most successful 3D film in history Avatar is not available on 3D Blu-Ray which, I think, is very odd and we’ve been working to get Safety Geeks out on 3D Blu-Ray through our distributor named Yabazam. It’s a division of DDD, Digital Dynamic Depth and I think as people adopt the television and get more comfortable and hopefully, we’re getting into glasses free 3D, I think that for Indies like us, that becomes special. It becomes almost the hook, the niche is, oh, here’s some 3D content where they won’t go, “Is Will Farrell in this comedy or we won’t take it?”

In this case, well, hey, it’s in 3D. The 3D is decent. It’s good. It doesn’t need to have star names in it, big names. We have certainly some great credits because it’s in 3D, it open doors that we wouldn’t normally have opened. We never would have gotten a deal to have a 3D Blu-Ray of our web series had it not been in 3D.

Michael London: Well, that is a perfect example of collaboration as technologies helped you and you have helped pushed technology with your creative work, right?

Tom Konkle: Absolutely, yes. We broke a lot of ground with it when we started Geeks in 2009. There was really no—there wasn’t even a standard for 3D and originally, we delivered it in 2D to KoldCast who helped with some of the negative costs of creating it and it had 7,000 composite shots which is more than the first three Star Wars, the original Star Wars movies combined. Every single shot is an effect shot in Safety Geeks.

Unless you’re physically touching something and nothing is there and as a filmmaker, I was like wow, it’s an interesting challenge plus I’m in it, plus I wrote it plus I’m worrying about bringing the sandwiches. So, for me, any studio project or if I step on to a television thing, I recently did a little guest spot on community or something, it’s like taking weights off my ankles because I’m like, “Really? I don’t have to pick up the cable?” It’s kind of nice.

Michael London: I bet. And that brings me to one of the main points here today and that’s all about collaboration. I’m certain that you found along the way how valuable collaboration is.

Tom Konkle: I think collaboration is really the most important part of the creative process. Unless you’re a novelist or a painter, it is a team effort. Certainly, you have to have your own vision and people will march in the same direction with you if they feel like you know what you’re talking about but I couldn’t do it without the, they’re frankly friends, without the very dear friends that happened to be artists. We call it friendship with a purpose. Most friends get together and go to the bar, well, we, our friends all get together and go, “Okay, let’s make a show.”

And what’s nice about that is I try and bring out the best in myself and in them by enthusiasm and them knowing if I say I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it and in this town in Los Angeles in particular, a lot of people have a lot of plans and a lot of things they’re going to do but what I pride myself in is with myself or Dave and I or me or Brittney, we’ve worked on some things. If we say we’re going to do it, by golly, we go and do it and people know that it will be fruitful and that they’ll be respected and that their contribution will be considered important and for me, that’s the most exciting thing. Collaborating with people that make your game better, it’s like tennis. You want to play with people as good or better than you.

Michael London: Tom, that is such valuable advice. If you say you’re going to do it, just do it. Great stuff. Now, you might have answered a part of this next question, but what advice can you offer to those just starting out?

Tom Konkle: If you were just starting, I would say have the courage of your conviction and what I mean by that is pick a project that’s scalable that will present you and you must know thyself, you are the expert on you and if you know yourself as an artist and where your strengths are, pick a project that is scalable that you can actually do. Don’t have the helicopters coming over the hill, that’s not your first project. That’s your 50th and pick several actually and take those projects and see them through and assume you’re going to learn a lot and fall and fail and be okay with it because a perfectionist will never start and for me, the first few steps into this world, well, you copy what you like. You learn from it. Like I said, earlier, you remix and reformulate something. Make what you want to see. If no one else agrees with you, get out of the business.

Michael London: I love the advice of picking scalable projects. Now, for the beginners, Tom, how hard do they dig their heels in for what they believe?

Tom Konkle: Well, when you’re starting out, there are places what I called the heel you want to die on. If you dig your heels in and you really feel passionate about it, it’s a double edged sword. People respect that and yes, you will have a singular vision come through but make sure that’s the who you want to die on. If you’re digging your heels in because it has to be this particular store, because it has blue in it, that’s not a battle you want to fight. Where you want to dig your heels in is the integrity of the project. Is it being fundamentally altered so this is no longer yours or worse, many people fall in the trap of doing what they think someone else might want? They’re given a brief like, “Well, someone else will find this funnier. I believe this to be commercial. Or I believe this is what other people want.”

You should be your own audience. You should really develop that compass, that internal compass of taste and your own artistic limitations and say, this is to scale, this is what I can do right now really, really well and present that. It’s great to overreach a little bit, push yourself a little bit, but you’ll never start if it seems so overwhelming or if you really fundamentally don’t believe it.

And last thought on that, this comes from experience. I’ve been doing this for very long time and I’ll say half the sets I’ve been on, with all the money flying around. You’re going to have a million dollar commercial. You’re going to have a television show, you could tell when no one on that show believes in what they’re doing. They’re collecting a paycheck or it’s a machine and it’s running through the machine and it’s reflected in the art. So, it may be a (solo) piece, it may be a commercial piece, it may be fluff. But when you’re on a project and there’s an energy and everyone believes in what’s going on, it transcends even its own limitations. If you have, for example, technique but no feeling, well, then it’s like watching a virtuoso but he’s playing with no feeling.

If you have no technique but a lot of feeling, well, then you have potential there but you’re not executing it. The perfection of art is matching technique and feeling so that what you’re doing is reaching the audience that you intended for which includes you but has a technique where you can execute the idea.

Michael London: And you have indeed reached your intended audience. Where can we see your stuff?

Tom Konkle: There’s a couple of places you can see it. One is really easy, I can’t believe we got this domain name, if you want to see the Dave and Tom stuff, some of its double act which is the British comedy that we do, the sketch show, you go to www.daveandtom.com and that’s AND spelled out so daveandtom.com. Also, it has Invention with Brian Forbes which is a show that has been critically, just chugging along. We call it the little show that could; safetygeekssvi.com, you can see Safety Geeks. If you want to see it in 3D, you go to yabazam.com and I’ll spell that, that’s yabazam.com. You can download it. You can take a look at it. Stream it if you have a 3D TV or computer and the other show that I’m doing is Ask Grim.

If you put in, Ask Grim in YouTube, you’ll see a very funny show that I do with Sandra Payne and all those are there and I have an upcoming series that I’m going to be doing with Brittney Powell called Rom Com which is kind of an edgy romantic comedy which will also be on YouTube. So, any of those places you can find me. And if you’re interested in visual effects or 3D work, lumenactus.com and I’ll spell that out, lumenactus.com and that is my production company and visual effects company.

Michael London: We will meet you there. And how about a parting shot for us to take away?

Tom Konkle: A parting shot would basically be this, take a real assessment of who you want to be as an artist and how you want to present yourself. Have a very real sense of your own audience and what you are capable of creating in this moment, not I want to or I will but where you are right now and know that that art that you create now, you’ll look back and it won’t be, that will be early stage you but it’s okay. So, have the courage of your conviction. Go for it, start, begin. There’s a great quote that I’ll leave you with. I believe it was Somerset Maugham who said, “I only do something when inspiration strikes.” Fortunately, inspiration strikes every morning at 9:00 am.

Michael London: Thank you, Tom Konkle for joining us today on Spidcast.

Tom Konkle: All right, take care. Thank you so much.

Operator: Spidcast.

Michael London: Next stop is director, stuntwoman, America Young. America, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

America Young: Well, thank you very much. I’m happy to be here.

Michael London: And for the benefit of those listening who haven’t yet heard your name, they will. Fill us in. Tell us a bit about your story.

America Young: My story, I’ve been living out in LA for a few years now. I’ve moved out here to be an actress and while I was out there, I also discovered that I also like bossing people around which naturally lead to producing and directing and I’ve also been doing a lot of stunt work in the last couple of years. So, basically, my story is I’m a storyteller.

Michael London: So, how do we know if you’re telling stories right now?

America Young: I’m always telling a story. Sometimes, they’re true then sometimes they’re not.

Michael London: Well, I say, good for you then. Hey, where have we seen some of your stunts?

America Young: I was actually just in Transformers 3 doing stunt work in Washington DC and I just filmed on John Carter of Mars which is a new Pixar movie coming out and I do a lot of stunt work in a TV show called Goodnight Burbank which is on Hulu and was on HDNet.

Michael London: Oh, we recently had Hayden Black, Goodnight Burbank creator on Spidcast. So, America, how or why did you make the jump to online media?

America Young: Because I was bored and I was not creatively fulfilled by the projects I was working on. A lot of the times, you take projects that pay the bills that you aren’t necessarily proud that you’re a part of or you don’t find them particularly interesting. So, I started just doing stuff online because then you get to tell the stories that you want to tell and the way you want to tell them.

Michael London: So, you’ve kind of taken a different path than most we’ve talked to and that you already had a traditional film career, then you got involved in this new media. Has that helped or hindered you?

America Young: I think it’s only helped jumping from film to new media. I know it does seem a little bit backwards but the truth of the matter is more and more are doing it because of the creative control they get over their own projects and because of the things that they get to create. When you’re working on a film, you’re hindered and helped. I mean, granted you’re helped by the studio and their money but you’re also hindered by the fact that they’re still pulling the strings and that you’re telling the story that they want to tell.

The new media online, you are the boss and you get to do what you do, money restricted, of course, and that helps so much. It helped with my creativity, it helped with my learning of all aspects because we’re doing independent film. You’re doing every aspects of filmmaking possible and I think the more you learn about filmmaking, the better it makes you at whatever you want to be.

If you’re an actor and you learn what it is to produce something, then that makes you a better actor because you know what you’re stepping into. If you’re a director and you have to teach yourself how to edit, that absolutely makes you a better director because then you know how to shoot for the editing room. So, in every single way, it’s like an intensive course on filmmaking.

Michael London: I love everything you just said. I trust there was lots of note taking going on as well. This is terrific insight, America. We appreciate it. Tell us your experience with collaboration.

America Young: The barter system is alive and well in Los Angeles. I’ll work on yours if you work on mine and that has helped so much because there’s no better way to learn than by doing it yourself, by doing it with people who know how to do it better than you and that’s what happened is. You work on somebody’s projects for them doing what you do best. I’ll get hired on someone’s project to do stunt work because that’s something that I do well and I can coordinate and as in return of a favor, then I’ll bring them on to my project to do what they do best and then I learn from them.

So, collaboration is the best way to do this and a lot of new media is not paid or if it’s paid, it’s peanuts. What you’re learning, what you get is so much more valuable because you’re learning and you’re getting the experience.

Michael London: At times, there are things more valuable than the mighty dollar. Now, you touched on so many good points and you may have answered part of this but what are some tips for those just starting out.

America Young: I say, just do it, man. Just jump in and do it. It’s terrifying at first. it’s overwhelming at first but you learn as you go and that’s the best way to go. So, find a story whether it’s a short one-minute video that you want to go viral or if it’s a web series that you want to tell that you think hasn’t been told or hasn’t been told in this way and find somebody who’s a friend of yours who’s a writer and say, “Hey, how do this and do that?” And then once it’s written, get your favorite actor friend that you know or hold auditions and meet a brand new group of talented people and just do it.

It’s a step by step by step and reach out to people in your lives that you know that know what they’re doing or have experience and something that you have questions on. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t have too much ego to not admit that you don’t know what you’re doing and just do it. And your first project most likely will be awful. They’ll be so many things with it that you wish you had done differently but that’s the best way to learn is looking back on that and going, “Oh, my god, I really wish I had done this or wow, we really needed a sound guy on that or next time, we’re definitely having a makeup artist.” And then as you go, you learn what’s important to you for telling your story. But that’s the only way you can do it is to do it.

Michael London: Excellent, love it, just do it. So, where can we see some of the things that you have done?

America Young: Well, I’ve done a lot of work with Comediva. It’s comediva.com. It’s COMEDIVA and it’s a website that’s like a funny or die college humor specifically geared towards female comedy and I’ve done a lot of work with them creating shows and directing things and writing things. So, there’s a lot of stuff of mine on there and you could always follow me on twitter and that’s @america_young and then my website, I usually update. I’m a little behind updating because I’m so busy which is a great excuse to not update but americayoung.com. I usually eventually post links everything I’m working on.

Right before the holidays, I directed a video that was a light saber duo between Christmas elves and you can se that on YouTube. It’s called Elf Sabers and Teal Sherer was actors in it who produced it. It’s on her YouTube channel, My Gimpy Life and I also just directed a web series presentation pilot called Wrestling with Parenthood and it’s basically Mr.Mom in the professional wrestling world so we have some real professional wrestlers who are in it and that’s pretty exciting. So, I’ll be posting updates about that on my website and on Twitter.

Michael London: Lots of cool things to check out so if somebody’s listening and you want them to say, “I was listening to this pod cast and this girl named America Young said blank,” what would you like them to remember?

America Young: Bite off more than you can chew and then chew it. Jump in the deep end and learn how to swim really fast. Just do it. if you want it and this is what you want more than anything in the world, don’t let anything stop you except the law but even law can stop you but other than that.

Michael London: You know, I once had a guy tell me that there’s a wall that I never want you to go over, luckily, it’s made of rubber and I won’t respect you unless you run and hit that wall as hard as you can every now and again.

America Young: I love that. That’s a wonderful expression because it’s true, you do have to hit the wall sometimes and it sucks, man, but it’s worth it because you learn from that and it makes you stronger and if you can survive hitting the wall, you can survive almost anything.

Michael London: America Young, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast. It’s been a delight.

America Young: Well, thanks so much for having me. This is really fun.

Michael London: And thank you for listening to our Spidcast show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidvid.com on our Spidvid blog and you can join on our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

We are back with one of our best Spidcast episodes to date this month (listen in below and subscribe on iTunes) with a focus on web series, acting, getting lucky, and other interesting stuff. December’s Spidcast features the incredible creator of the vampires vs zombies web series Suck and Moan, Joel Bryant, and the producer of hit web and TV show Goodnight Burbank, Hayden Black. They are our amazing guests for Spidcast 13, December 2011 which you can listen to below.

Our Guests

Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Joel Bryant attended La Cueva High School (former students include: Neil Patrick Harris, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Terri Conn and Tony Vincent). He started acting at the age of 11, doing stand-up when he was 14, and began improv training at 16. After winning Outstanding Actor at the New Mexico Theatre Festival, he was offered a theatre scholarship from Pepperdine University. He headed west and graduated magna cum laude in three years with a B.A. in acting. Among his numerous theatre highlights, he has garnered glowing reviews all over L.A. (Knightsbridge Theatre, Hudson Theatre, and The Next Stage) and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Texas Shakespeare Festival and a variety of regional theatres throughout the Southwest, including the world premiere of “Terminal Cafe” with Neil Patrick Harris. Trained in improv at the L.A. Connection (Best Newcomer in 2001), Joel is a co-founder and member of the award-winning comedy duo Deven & Joel with Deven Green, with whom he has toured with Armed Forces Entertainment entertaining the troops overseas, performed at a series of maximum security prisons, played at colleges and clubs all over the U.S., and have headlined at many places including The Comedy Store, The Icehouse, the Venetian in Las Vegas, the Chi Chi Club on Catalina Island, all over L.A. and San Diego, a week of sold out shows at the San Francisco Fringe Festival and won the Best of the Fest at the International Hollywood Comedy Festival. They have also opened for Eddie Griffin, Paul Rodriguez, and Andrew Dice Clay. Since starting stand-up comedy at the age of 14, he has performed in such places as The Comedy Store, The Icehouse, The Comedy Union, Laff’s, The Queen Mary, and many clubs in between. An accomplished dancer (hip hop, swing, ballet), he has been seen in “The Nutcracker” (with Moira Sinise) and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at Smothers Theatre. He has been a writer and performer for a number of well-reviewed sketch comedy shows (”Sketch This!,” “Sketch In The City,” and “Unnatural Selections”), written for “Friday Night Fix” on F/X, and has developed a full-length feature for Fox.

Hailing from Manchester, England, Hayden moved to the US in ’97 because he wanted to better understand the culture that produced five different home shopping networks. Hayden once sang with early ‘90’s new wave band The The The – but they only lasted long enough to put out one single, the ill-fated “I’d Love It If You Loved Me”. Shoving all those dreams into a bottle and burying it somewhere in the garden, Hayden eventually carved out a career in radio shipping news and has used that talent to catapult him to success here in Burbank at Channel 6. He loves Burbank and all nine of its restaurants. Gordon’s divorced, enjoys golf, and quiet weekends avoiding LA traffic. Hayden is also the co-host of the hit web and TV show Goodnight Burbank.

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show with a product or service you sell that’s filmmaking related, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Joel and Hayden talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from its content!

Full Transcript Below

Michael: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with Joel Bryant, actor and producer of the web series “Suck and Moan”. He’s also an accomplished standup comic as part of the comedy duo of “Deven & Joel.” We’ll also visit with Hayden Black. He is the writer, producer and co-star of “Goodnight Burbank.” Now, Hayden’s story has a wonderful twist to it that you will not want to miss.

First up is Joel Bryant. Now, tell us a bit about your story?

Joel: Absolutely. I was originally born and raised in Albuquerque in New Mexico. Lived there until I was 18 and came out here for college; actually, started acting in Albuquerque when I was 11 years old. No need to get into the arts because it was because I saw a buddy’s picture on a billboard for a local bank and he did a local commercial and everybody was talking about it and I really thought he was really cool for doing that so I thought this acting thing sounds like a blast.

So, I started looking into acting. I went into some acting classes and as soon as I started getting acting classes, I just got hooked on it. The bug kicked in so I was roped into acting classes and then after that, I started standup when I was 16 years old. I told my mom to take me to a club and to try an open mic, did it and it was great to be the young kid in the club.

I started improv when I was 17 and all that culminated in winning Outstanding Acting Award of the New Mexico Theatre Festival, which kind of cemented the fact that maybe I’m doing the right thing. I went out to Pepperdine University in Malibu on a theatre scholarship and since then, have been living in Los Angeles doing what I do.

Michael: So, my question is then what is the 16-year-old comic’s point of view in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Joel: When he was a 16-year-old at a comedy club, it’s amazing because your voice is so unique. There’s obviously not a lot of 16-year-olds there, so you’re talking about how interesting like girls are and I wonder what sex is, I wonder what drinking is and you’re so innocent and you’re naïve and the people are really on board with you because they’ve all been through that and no one can really represent that voice except coming from a real naïve 16-year-old point of view.

And it was interesting because after college just like a few years off of standup, I got back into it in my late 20’s and I tried to revisit some of those jokes, it didn’t quite fly because when you’re in your late 20’s, you’ve had the drinks, you’ve had the girl, you’ve had all these life experiences. So, it was an interesting obstacle, an interesting mountain to re-climb getting back on stage again and finding out, okay, what is my voice now? Obviously, I can’t be the naïve 16-year-old. I have a driver’s license now and not in school anymore. I have bills to pay. So, that was an interesting thing but I love being the 16-year-old. It was fun to be the kid.

Michael: So, you leave Albuquerque for LA and take us through that journey.

Joel: The reason I came out here for college, I only looked at Los Angeles schools because I always wanted to come to Los Angeles. As soon as I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I was in love with the idea of what Los Angeles was and so we came out for a vacation and went to Hollywood and finally realized, it’s not really glamorous there but I was still in love with the idea of it.

And so I just looked at schools out here in Los Angeles. I looked at Pepperdine and a couple of other schools and I just kind of went to the school that would give me the theatre scholarship and the best deal and Pepperdine came through. The reason why I wanted is kind of dipped my toe into Los Angeles and kind of feel it out a little bit while I’m still getting some money from the government, from mom to kind of ease into it as opposed to packing everything in a car and just moving out here not knowing anything.

So, it was a nice introduction to be in college and kind of feel the city out and feel the industry out but then when I actually graduated, they didn’t teach you a lot of the business aspect. They taught you how to act in college and how to do Bertolt Brecht and the existential movement and all that sort of stuff and then when you leave, you have no idea what a headshot is or a resume is or how to network or anything.

So, it took me a number of years in trying to maintain jobs, trying to pay for college, trying to find out what theatre were or what it wasn’t, what was worth taking. So, it took me awhile to navigate the pitfalls of Los Angeles. I think a lot of other people, they got a strong programs or they have a good mentors when they get out and I was kind of on my own a little bit and trying to figure it all out.

So, I use my same black and white headshots from my first theatre gig in college and a resume I half wrote up on paper and pencil. So, it took me a few years to figure it out.

Michael: And Joel, what was your breakthrough moment?

Joel: Oh, the breakthrough. You know that’s an interesting question. It hasn’t really been necessarily a huge breakthrough. It’s been kind of a slow steady build, it’s like I’ve always been a very proactive person, someone who really hustles and finally, in like my late 20’s, all that work start to kind of culminating into consistent work.

One of my first breakthrough, I did a film called, “Life, Death in Mini-Golf” which I was guaranteed, I thought this is going to be a hit. This is going to be huge because the role is written for me. There was a budget. There were some actors who would actually have credits. Actually, Kristen Wiig from Saturday Night Live was actually in it way before Saturday Night Live and everything. So there were all these talented people and now, with the film, I was sure it’s going to be a huge hit so that made me quit my waiting table job. So, I was like, “I’m just going to quit waiting tables. I’m taking the leap of faith now.”

Obviously, that didn’t work out as a hit movie but it did give me the impetus to, “Okay, now, I don’t have a job. Now, I really have to start acting.” Between that and meeting my wife who just has a great business mind. She has the business acumen. She’s the one who taught me that acting isn’t all living in your cars and doing black box theatre and doing three lines and a TV show or doing some small stuff. It’s a business and meeting her and knowing that business is 90% of it and then there’s 10% fun and talent, all the other good stuff that you love about it but really to focus into the business sense. She was the one that really guided me along.

Michael: Well, that’s wonderful that you have a partner that understands and keeps the business in rolling.

Joel Bryant: Absolutely, it’s the best partnership because we get to not only do we have our own individual careers. She has a huge online career. I have an online career as well as traditional media but we also tour around as a comedy duo together so we get to literally tour the world. We went to the troops overseas and performed for them, at Canada, all over the place and it’s so much fun when you get to tour with your spouse/comedy partner as opposed to calling her from the road and saying, “Hey, Italy is great.” You’re experiencing this together, the good and the bad. We did a series of prison shows. I want to do this with my wife, you know what I mean? This is how to actually experience this.

That became the goal for me later on. It was always to win an Oscar by the time I was 24 years old. That was the goal coming out of the gates but the goal slowly merged into, I want to enjoy what I’m doing and have fun doing it and that’s once I started reaching that level, I could finally step back, look around and say, you know what? I kind of make my own schedule. I’m doing things I want to do. I’m doing it with people I want to do it with and I think that became the goal. That’s the place I’m at right now.

Michael: So, then tell us a bit about your web presence. Tell us about “Suck and Moan”.

Joel: “Suck and Moan” is a web series that in the later stages of release, we have two more episodes to release. It’s played a number of festivals and it’s done really well. Got a lot of good awards which really makes me proud and it got some nice notices and reviews across the board.

It was the brainchild of a friend of mine, Brendon Fong who came to me with the idea and he had shot and everything and I’d been in the new media market for a couple of years working at other projects. He said, “I had this project ‘Suck and Moan’.” And so what it is? “Well, it’s zombie or vampires trying to survive during a zombie apocalypse.” I said that’s kind of clever. It takes two big pop cultural horror icons and smashes them together in a very satirical way so it’s kind of “Shawn of the Dead” meets vampire clerks if you will because the vampires are mad because the zombies are eating all the humans and they’re also really loud at night and all this. They’re kind of ruining the peace that these vampires have established for themselves.

It’s very tongue and cheek and it’s very fun but I’ve been in thedia, I got nominated for a Streamy Award for “After Judgment.” I’ve done some other guest spots and that kind of got me in that world and I realized how much of a fun, proactive community it is and how amazing it is that you can just create a project with a friend of yours, have other friends come on board, talented people and kind of shoot all that and meld it all together and make your own project.

So, “Suck and Moan” suckandmoan.com and we just had our big screening of our big rap party/screening of the last two episodes to a packed house up in Burbanks. So, it’s kind of, we’ve put the nail in the coffin, not to use a really bad pun right now, put the nail in the coffin on season 1 and then we’ll see where it goes.

Michael: And Joel, what advice do you have for someone coming from Boise or Springfield of Albuquerque to LA?

Joel: Coming from Albuquerque, there’s been a lot of us actually. Neil Patrick Harris from Albuquerque, Freddie Prinze Jr. Albuquerque, all went to my same high school. The advice coming from a smaller town going to a bigger town is to do everything you can within your small town before you jump into the bigger market. It’s a lot easier to gain credits and experience, be a bigger fish in a small pond before you have to jump into being a smaller fish in the big ponds.

Make your mistakes when the stakes are low. Screw up on stage in a small theatre in Albuquerque before you get cast in a huge equity show in LA and screw up there. I think that’s really the main key and then only come out when you’re ready to come out. I think people are going to want to rush coming out. Take your time. Ease into it. Find a good support system when you get out there when you got to LA or New York or Chicago. Don’t lose your head. I think the main thing is when you start actually working, don’t burn bridges and don’t be an A-hole. Show up early. Be fun to work with, do a good job and then leave a good impression behind.

Michael: Superb advice. So, what is next for Joel Bryant?

Joel: Next for Joel—looking for funding for season 2 of “Suck and Moan” and selling that. My wife and I are going to be hitting the road during December to do some holiday shows, comedy shows, private corporate stuff, which is always a nice Christmas bonus.

I also got just a couple of firm projects in the (hop) I’m making the film festival route right now doing two plays here in Los Angeles, one in February and one in March, balancing that out and actually, recently I cast in a broadway show so I’m going to be going out there hopefully, in April, I think. I got to look at the calendar. I like to keep busy, I told you.

Michael: Wonderful to hear. So, where can we keep up to date on your busy schedule?

Joel: You can always go to joelbryant.net. It’s also devengreen.com, same website, devenandjoel.com. It’s all the same website. We have all of our stuff up there. Her videos, my videos, our calendar, some fun stuffs there and Facebook, email, Twitter, all that stuffs on there and we love interacting with people so give a shout.

Michael: And how about a parting shout, Joel, a great nugget to take away?

Joel: The nugget to take away from this, from Joel Bryant, your free nugget of the day, if you will, I think, I actually closed—I was lucky enough to go teach in my alma mater at Pepperdine last year which was kind of a big honor to go talk to the kids and it sounds weird to say kids and the nugget I told them was, constantly redefine your success. I think you always have to do that. There is obviously some major goal that you want but you have to—I think your success should be very fluid. So, when I graduated college, I wanted that Oscar at 24, the Oscar didn’t come so I want to just work by 25. Work didn’t come at 25 so I just wanted to quit my day job by 27.

So, I think, keep realistic goals in mind but realize it’s very fluid and a lot is up to luck. So, you know what? Just have fun on the journey.

Michael: Thank you, Joel Bryant, for joining us today on Spidcast.

Joel: Thanks for having me.

Operator: Spidcast.

Michael: Next up is writer, producer, actor, Hayden Black. Hayden, for the benefit of those listening who haven’t heard your name yet but they will, fill us in. Tell us a bit about your story.

Hayden: A little bit about me, Hayden Black. Well, I’m from England. I come from Manchester, I moved to Florida which is not fun but been in LA for a while and I do a few shows on the web one of which is going to television which is “Goodnight Burbank.” So, I guess, the first thing about me is I identify as a writer, first and foremost.

Michael: So, tell us a bit about the process you take as a writer and also how that role expanded and evolved.

Hayden: Well, the writing is something that I’ve always done since I was in high school and then it was 2006, I was taking a class, an improv class at Upright Citizens Brigade, UCB and somebody there mentioned that they had access to a green screen studio and we should shoot stuff for the web and for mobile and this is 2006.

So, all of us, myself included were basically like, “What’s that all about?” So, I did some research and saw what was coming and I went, wow. This looks amazing. Plus, it’s a great way of letting people producers and whatnot see your stuff. So, I wrote this pilot episode. We shot it a few days later and we kind of hit the ground running but it became so successful, we started to do more and that’s when I found myself not just as a writer any longer but as a producer.

And I hadn’t acted before and I was acting in it so there were just many new hats that I suddenly found myself wearing and because there was no pressure to do the most amazing work that a billion people are going to watch immediately. It allowed me the time to learn the craft better and to do more and that’s what we have over the years.

Michael: Now, you mentioned being involved in online content as far back as 2006 which makes you a bit of a pioneer but your web series has done something quite unique. Share that with us.

Hayden: Well, we started about just over a year ago 2010, I guess it was, took a meeting with Hulu and they suggested doing a half-hour version of “Goodnight Burbank.” Up until that point, we’ve done about 30 odd episodes and just again, learning, learning, learning. And then I went back to England, I haven’t back in years and met with a couple of networks over there and pitched them some ideas one of which was a British half hour version of Burbank and they were very interested in that but they asked the question which kind of threw me. “So, what does a half-hour version look like?”

And I realized, I don’t really know. I’d original had an idea for a half-hour show. I whittled it down to five minutes so it became “Goodnight Burbank” but that was so different to this original half-hour that I’d initially created back in 2005 that it was like starting all over again. So, I then spent two months just working on developing what a half-hour version of Burbank would look like.

And then I started casting it with a new cast. We got the amazing Laura Silverman. We got Dominic Monaghan. People like John Barrowman came on board, Miracle Laurie, Camden Toy, people from the world of Dollhouse and Buffy. It was just phenomenal how just things started filling up. I wrote all six scripts which became the first season and we shot them slowly because our resources were fairly limited because now, I was in a whole new world at this point. Now, I’m producing half-hour, at that time, we couldn’t technically say half hour television but I was producing a half hour show that I’d written.

And so again, big learning curve and when we finished, two things happened. One was a company called Zodiac, the third largest production company/distribution company in the world, they saw a rough cut of the first few episodes and snapped up the global TV distribution rights and then we premiered on Hulu, it was April 25th or this year 2011 and Mark Cuban was watching and he snapped up the show for US cable the next day.

Michael: Wow. That is an amazing story. Now, everybody who gets in this business wants fame or fortune or however they measured their own success and you have achieved that. I’d like for you to tell us how that feels.

Hayden: Like it’s surreal. It’s the first feeling. I mean, it’s funny you should ask this because when we’re doing it, when you’re in the middle of it, you believe in it and you’re constantly striving to make it better and better and better in case you get the chance to go to that next platform. And you pour your heart and soul into it and as does the rest of the cast and crew by the way, this is not a one-man operation.

And so you got all this energy and you’re pouring into it and you’re all hoping and then it happened and I think when it happens, it really made me realize—I do come up with sayings but I came up with an expression that day explaining to my mom what had just happened. I said there are a million reasons to say no to something and only one reason to say yes and that is that you can’t think of a million reasons to say no.

There’s so many—just because Mark was watching the show didn’t mean that he was going to then want to pick it up for his network. So, so many—it’s just unbelievably surreal that he did and making it even more astonishing was that he wanted it immediately.

Michael: So, what were your first thought when he said, “I want to sign this.”

Hayden: Well, I was doing at the time, because I produced this whole show while doing a full time freelance day job. So, it was two careers kind of going on at the same time and I was still at the day job when we premiered and I got the email the following morning and I was then at an open-plan cubicle office over at NBC and I had to contain myself. I don’t know how I did it but I’m sure people probably still heard me jumping up and down.

Michael: That is a wonderful story. Now, knowing what you know today about the whole process, what would you do differently?

Hayden: Well, I think that the only thing that—I’m really, really glad that I put in the time to develop a show, write the scripts, keep rewriting the scripts and then rewrite the scripts more and then to keep rewriting the scripts. That was so important to the process. It was amazing, some of the things I learned as I went like watching how the crew—excuse me, the cast, kind of started jelling and finding their own chemistry. If you watched the six episodes, you can see certainly by episode 3 the cast really starting to find their feet and really starting to come together.

I think some of the pitfalls that we wound up and it’s because we have such low resources, it wasn’t until after we’d shot some of the shows that we found some issues with either sound or we’d shot on P2 cards and I think there were two scenes overall that did not transfer. One we managed to re-shoot because it was very simple and the other, sadly, we couldn’t remount so we had to take the scene as is and edit it completely way down because I think we had one angle and because the other angle was lost and these are things, if I had known, I would have ensured somebody was watching every single P2 card as it was being downloaded on to a computer, stuff like that but just keeping a big eye over things production wise.

Michael: I would guess that each of us has at some point loss some P2 footage, I know I have, right. Now, tell us about how collaboration via places like Spidvid has helped it.

Hayden: Oh, boy, when we started the original, I spoke to a guy over a company called Live Video and they were very, very happy to give us use of their green screen office. Literally, it wasn’t even a green screen studio. That was a space outside their office that was painted green and they allowed us to use that in exchange for I was allowing them to put “Goodnight Burbank” on their platform which I did not have a problem with and I think the collaborative thing is taken every step further when you start producing. You’ve got actors who are bringing their game to the table and their choices of how they deliver the lines and what they can even possibly add.

You’ve also got the crew. You couldn’t do it without a fantastic crew pitching in and taking care of things and keeping an eye out for things that only they can see and certainly stuff I’m not going to see. So, it’s an entirely collaborative medium, entirely collaborative. You couldn’t do it by yourself. Like I said, I was working two jobs. I would come back from the one job, if I’d had a bad day, I had to literally leave that at the door because it’s all trickled down if I was in a bad mood, everybody else is going to be in a crappy mood too. And that would have been the height of unprofessionalism.

So I just really had to go that extra mile sometimes, not all the times, thank god, but sometimes you just don’t have a great day.

Michael: This is great advice for the young filmmakers. Thank you so much. I’d like to know now how you found an audience for “Goodnight Burbank.”

Hayden: Well, the original show in 2006, what happened was we got a couple of reviews and one of the websites apparently was being monitored by the guys over at iTunes who were looking for stuff themselves. They saw the review of “Goodnight, Burbank” again, this is back in 2006 and then put us, they went and watched the show and then put it on the front page.

So, we got very lucky. We were one of the first ones out then we were also one of the firsts to do really well. So, we could take advantage of that. This time around for the half hour version, we have an arrangement with Hulu wherein they give us some promotion and marketing and I think, it’s just so competitive these days with so many people uploading their stuff on a daily basis, it’s not hourly. Any bit of promotion and marketing can really help.

Michael: Well, it certainly can’t hurt. Hayden, where can people see your stuff?

Hayden: They could see “Goodnight Burbank” either at goodnightburbank.com or hulu.com/goodnight-burbank and they can follow the Twitter because I update the Twitter account with jokes taken from the news every single day and that’s @goodniteburbank, with the night spelled, N-I-T-E, in the Twitter account. N-I-G-H-T everywhere else and you can also follow me on Twitter @Haydenblack where I’m writing crazy crap all the time.

Michael: Yes, as you are but it is very entertaining crap. All right, Hayden, our time is short. You’ve had a degree of success. I was wondering if you could pay it forward just a bit. How about some free advice for someone just getting ready to dip their toe into producing web content?

Hayden: I would say, when you’re doing this, this is a fantastic form that’s open to us all. We can all now use the web as a means of distribution but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. It’s a great, to me, like when we started “Goodnight Burbank,” it wasn’t done in a sense of, “Oh, my god, let’s conquer the web. Let’s show the world how brilliant we are.” It was really done more out of a sense of let’s see what we can do and let’s see how we can learn and I see this, it’s a fantastic learning opportunity but I see a lot of people are so terribly impatient and they want everybody to look at what they’ve just done and oftentimes, it’s not there yet. They haven’t spent the time working out the scripts or casting it well or whatever.

And I think that we all have to do those things to learn from them but we shouldn’t be imploring everybody else to watch our mistakes. We should just be learning from them and that’s how we started “Goodnight Burbank.” We didn’t start out perfect. We’re still not perfect but just being patient and really realizing what this medium can truly bring to you. It’s a fantastic lesson, every time you do something and upload it, you’re learning and that’s how—Spielberg still I’m sure learns from every project he’s done and continues making even making better content.

Michael: Hayden, I got to tell you, stories like yours and series like yours is what keeps new filmmakers jumping in and making new and exciting content. We thank you for that. I’m so tickled for your success.

Hayden: Oh, thank you so much. I am too, still feel very surreal.

Michael: As well you should be. Thank you, Hayden Black, for joining us today on Spidcast.

Hayden: It’s my pleasure, Michael.

Michael: Thanks for listening to our Spidcast show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at spidvid.com or at our Spidvid blog and you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

We are back with our best Spidcast episode to date this month (listen in below and subscribe on iTunes) with a focus on storytelling and passion. September’s Spidcast features the incredible John Gray, who’s the creator of TV show “Ghost Whisperer” along with the amazingly talented Melissa Jo Peltier who’s the co-executive producer of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

Our Guests

John Gray is a writer, director, producer, who is the creator and one of the executive producers of the CBS television series Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. He has also written and directed many high profile movies for television, such as the remake of the 1976 film Helter Skelter, Martin and Lewis, The Hunley, The Day Lincoln Was Shot, among others. He has written and directed feature films as well.

Melissa Jo Peltier is a two-time Emmy Award-winning writer, director and producer. Melissa wrote and directed the primetime documentary special, Scared Silent: Exposing and Ending Child Abuse, hosted by Oprah Winfrey. She’s also a Peabody & Humanitas Film & TV Writer/Producer/Director & NYT Best Selling Book Author. And she’s Producer of the indie film White Irish Drinkers.

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show with a product or service you sell that’s filmmaking related, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Melissa and John talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from its content!

Full Show Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael: Hi. I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with John Gray and Melissa Jo Peltier. You’ve recently seen John’s work as a producer on the TV series “Ghost Whisperer” and in TV movies such as “Helter Skelter”, “Martin and Lewis” and a lot more. Melissa’s credits include executive producer with the “Dog Whisperer” and co-executive producer on “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. They collaborated together on John’s semi-autobiographical film “ White Irish Drinkers”. I’m certain you’ll enjoy their similar but quite unique stories as well.

First up is John Gray. John, welcome to Spidcast.

John: Well, thanks for having me.

Michael: Tell us a bit about your story?

John: Well, I was very, very luck to know, at a young age, that this is what I want to do. I used to think I wanted to be an actor when I was very young kid because I thought the actors kind of did a role and then it started to dawn on me as I made films with my uncle’s Super 8 camera and got more involved with what it takes to actually put a little movie together and tell a story, I realized that there was a sort of presence, another brain that was behind the camera that pretty holds the stuff together. And I gave up the idea of being an actor which I think is good news for the world and really got committed to writing and directing and they both came to be one thing to me.

I was very young when I made that commitment. I was also very lucky because I was so young and because I grew in Brooklyn and knew no one in the film business or the television business; no connections whatsoever. I had no idea how hard it was. I really did have no idea how impossible trying to break it to the business. I just kind of went on my way just thinking this is was what I’m going to do with my life and I’m going to make it happen.

It took about 12 years, I guess, before I can actually start making a living at it but I was just really persistent and always try to make movies on my own, always trying to do a lot by yourself and writing all the time and it opened to me that I got an opportunity to direct some educational films in Washington, DC that were dramatic films but they were for classroom use and it was great experience.

To make the very long story short, there’s the script I had written that got me signed by an agent in LA, and that’s what started my career, in earnest, I was then able to really make a living just writing and openly to directing and I got started in television. My first film was actually an independent feature and I started doing TV movies which I really enjoy because I was able to do really, I felt, really interesting stories. It really had some great material to work with. That’s sort of the really telescoped “Reader’s Digest” version of how I got started.

Michael: John, you touched on something just a moment ago. If you had known just how difficult this business can be, would you have taken the same career path?

John: You know, that’s a great question. That’s a really great question and that’s something that I often think about. One of the reasons why I think I’m so lucky that I didn’t know. Because maybe if someone sat me down and say, okay, you’re 18, (you’re going to reach to) 30, by the time you can actually make a living doing this.

I don’t know maybe don’t want to do that. I don’t know. I’d like to think that I was committed enough to not care, but in my mind I was going to be a (success) tomorrow. I’m going to get this next thing done tomorrow. That’s how the attitude had a little…so I never sat down and went, “Wow, this is taking a really long time. Should I give up?” The more obstacles I found, the more determined I got to do it. It’s really important here you’ll be desperate too because you’ll realize I didn’t think I was suited for anything else in life really than to be a filmmaker. That was really what I felt I was here to do. That’s a good question. I’m glad I didn’t have to answer it for real.

Michael: Tell us a bit about how creating content for television differs from content for the film world?

John: I think the big difference is that if you’re for TV, of course, for broadcast television, you’re trying to get that big here wide audience but at the same time, at least in terms of movies, not so much series but in terms of movies, the subject matter you can tackle is so much more interesting that what you can usually do in the feature world. I made movies about the first Civil War submarine. I did a movie about the partnership between Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. I did a movie about Lincoln assassination.

I was able to indulge a lot of my own personal fascinations by making movies about them for television which, in the feature world, you’re probably never going to get those movies made unless you have some mega star casting. That’s why always love working in television movies particularly. I did a lot of movies for TNT and for CBS. At that time, there are not very many made now, but at that time, it was easier to get to do something little bit different and really kind of interesting and each movie I did was vastly different from the other.

In the feature world, I found it difficult to try to anticipate what’s commercial and what isn’t. As a writer, I’m more attracted to sort of character-driven material. That’s very difficult to do in the feature world. I knew I’ve made a few features and I hope to make more features but mostly I’ve tried to stay in that indie sort of sensibility where you just sort of make new what they’ll consider small movies but to me are very big movies about relationships and people and humanity and how we all deal with each other.

Michael: Hey, John, I’d like to hear about your most recent film, “White Irish Drinkers”. Take us through that.

John: It was a script I had written about 10 years ago that I really, really wanted to make. One of the character piece, it was a very goody kind of violent look at growing up in Brooklyn. I could never get money raised to actually get it financed as a feature. For those 10 years, I just kept revisiting it and trying to figure how I can get this made.

A lot of people read the script in the business and liked the script and in fact, it got me a lot of work like writing work, but no one really wanted to make it. It even just felt like, you know, the character that’s small…so what happened during those 10 years then, really three things, I guess, one is that the technology changed so drastically in those 10 years. And then also, I was lucky enough to get a successful television series on CBS that lasted for five years so I had some more financial resources that I’ve never had before. The only thing was that I married Melissa, who’s a really brilliant producer and she kind of convinced me to not give up on this movie and so we have sort of teamed up. I realized that I could probably spend about $600,000 and make this movie digitally and call in on favors in people I’ve worked with for the past 20 years and that’s really how that came about.

We shot it for $600,000. We shot it in 17 days, all in Brooklyn. We have a wonderful cast Stephen Lang, Karen Allen and Peter Riegert and then some really exciting young actors Nick Thurston, Geoff Wigdor, Leslie Murphy, people I think that are going to be huge in the years to come. It is a wonderful experience. It was great making a movie just as what we wanted to make it. There was no studio. There was no network. It was just us.

The movie was released. We got a small release. We were out at about 25 cities. But that in itself is a miracle these days because the climate that the independent films in. It’s on DVD now and Blu-Ray and Netflix and iTunes and it’ll be on Showtime in the fall. It was a great experience. We got the movie out there and it was something I’m dying to do again.

Michael: And we do hope that you get that opportunity again. As you said, “Ghost Whisperer” allowed you the financing to make that film. Take us a little bit of the story of “Ghost Whisperer”?

John: It was really interesting because I’ve never done a series before. In fact, I’ve never even pursued a series. This opportunity just came to me because the executive I work with in CBS had wanted me to meet this woman who the “Ghost Whisperer” was based on. When I met this woman, I realized there was a way to maybe really do a series that for me to be really interesting in this was (meld) horror with emotional character-driven stories. That’s kind of how I pitched it and probably most people who get involved in the series is that they never believe they’re going to go and I wrote the pilot and I figured that that’ll be the end of that and then they said well, let’s shoot it. I thought, well, okay, I’ve never directed a pilot. I’ll see what that’s like and I’m sure that’s as far as it’ll go.

We made the pilot and they said, okay, why don’t you do 13 of them? I was like, “Oh no, I have to do this 13 more times. I don’t know if I could do it”. And they openly gave us a full season pick up and openly we went to do five years. I loved a lot of it. I wrote many, many episodes, directed many, many episodes and that was really fun because it was so fast. You get an idea for a show and then two months later, it’s on the air.

In that respect, it was very (heady) and we loved the cast and the crew’s really like family to me. That part was really great. The part that I enjoyed less was the kind of a show on her aspect of it where the first two seasons where it was really kind of dealing with more administrative things and creative things. Of course, writing, I guess were the biggest creative job but it was dealing with the network and dealing with the studio and dealing with agents and dealing with physical production and things that a producer does and things that I’d never aspire to do. I just consider myself a writer-director and that’s really what I wanted to do.

In that third season, we brought in P.K. Simmons to be the real show runner so that I could sort of step back and pursue other things but also keep writing and directing for this series and that was a wonderful change for me and that’s what openly allowed to write some of the pilots and also to get “White Irish Drinkers” off the ground.

Michael: So you have gotten one of your dream projects off the ground, you’ve had it made, you’ve had it distributed, but John, if you were a 20-something, just trying to break in to the business, what is the career path you would take? What advice do you have for the young filmmaker looking to get in?

John: I think the really advantage that young people starting out today have is again, the digital possibilities of cinema. When I wanted to make a movie, I had to do what I do it either in Super 8 or the Kid or 16mm. It was a huge expense but I mean, now, you see people making movies on their iPhones. To me, that’s really exciting and that’s what I really advice and I always advice everyone to do is get out there and make movies. Learn. Learn how to tell stories to the camera. Learn to how to work with actors.

That’s what I always emphasize because I feel like what’s happening with young filmmakers today is that they’re so involved with the technical aspects of it which are really fascinating and limitless. But I think what we’re losing a little bit is people being interested in storytelling and in creating performances with an actor and collaborating with an actor.

A lot of times, you’ll see a director on the set these days and they just hide behind the monitor and they never talk to the actors. That’s an art, I think, we’re losing and so that’s something I always encourage young filmmakers to learn. I encourage them to read not just scripts but read the great novels, learn storytelling in the best possible way, see every movie you possible can, and take acting classes. Learn what it’s like to be an actor. It doesn’t matter if you suck as an actor, but you have to learn what actors go through. And be a friend to the actor. Don’t be afraid of actors. To me, those are the best things to do. It’s a scary atmosphere today as it always do because the business is contracted and if you’re movie’s been made and there isn’t any longer that incredible reservoir of television movies where you can go cut your teeth and learn on. Now, I think, it’s just be who’s any young filmmaker to go out there and make your movie, make it as great as you can, learn from it, make another one, get it out in the internet, get it on YouTube, get it seen and just keep working that way. Just never rest. Just keep going.

Michael: Excellent advice, John for the young filmmakers. Now, as you said, you’ve seen in your lifetime the whole process of filmmaking change completely. Let’s go forward maybe to the year 2021, ten years from now. What do you see? What will filmmaking look like then?

John: It’s hard to guess because who knows what’s the next development is around the corner, but based on what I see now, I think everyone will be experiencing movies to their computers or certainly through the (ether). I think the idea of the DVDs, unfortunately, the hardware’s probably going to go away. I think that movies are going to get easier and easier to make, easier and easier to see, and I don’t know if that’s going to devalue them or if it’s going to make them more valuable. I’m not really sure how those all are going to shape out.

I think that we’ll probably look at it in the future. I believe that probably the only big studio movies that will get made in the future are big ten pole “Planet of the Apes” and gigantic event movies. I think the smaller movies like “The Help” and movies like that, I think we’re probably going to see more on demand or in delivery systems other that theaters because I just believe that it’s not going to be cost-effective in the future to make those movies and market them in theaters. I hope I’m wrong. I really do, but that’s kind of where I see it going.

Michael: Now, there you make an excellent point. The accessibility, the ease of use, the quality of equipment, but it still comes down to the writing. Am I right on that?

John: I think it does. I think, at the end of the day, the things that last, the thing that live on to people’s memories “The Godfathers”, the classic films, the Tennessee Williams’ movies…it’s all about the characters, the writing and the storytelling. The other part that’s great too, I’m the first guy on line to see the big effects movies. They just don’t go away. They will live on in the history of film.

Look at the movie, “Rocky”, couldn’t be a simpler film, done for I don’t know how much money, million bucks, maybe back in those days. People still reference “Rocky”, they still talk about it. They still it was just that movie about people. I think those are the kind of movies that live on and I would hope that there are more people that wanted to make those kinds of movies even though in the future, they may not be as widely distributed as the bigger effects movies but we need those movies and I think they’re starting to be eradicated a little bit by these big effects extravaganzas, which I think, I’m not down on those, I love them. I’m always there for them. But I just don’t want them to have to be all there is.

Michael: I am in agreement with you there, John. Tell us what is next from John Gray?

John: Well, right now, I’m in New Orleans. I’m directing a movie for TNT called “Hide”, which is a terrific thriller, which I did not write, but Janet Brownell wrote it based on a novel. Melissa and I are producing partners have another low-budgeted thriller called “Slander”, which is about hate speech that we’re trying to raise money for right now. We’re trying to do some casting attached. That’s another movie we’re hoping to make independently as a feature. I’ve written another TNT movie and basically just trying to stay busy and keep it all going.

Michael: Thank you, John Gray for joining us today on Spidcast.

Next up is writer/producer/director Melissa Jo Peltier. Melissa continues to produce the “Dog Whisperer” and co-executive produced “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding”. And as you’ve just heard, she is a frequent professional collaborator with our previous guest and is also married to John Gray. Welcome, Melissa.

Melissa: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Michael: Tell us about your story and how did you break into filmmaking?

Melissa: Well, my beginning in filmmaking was due to my father who is 90 and literally just retired from teaching. He was teaching at Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement and he was at the time an audiovisual librarian but (by first-rated) filmmaker and he actually taught me how to edit films when I was 9. I made my first movie when I was 8 years old. I was doing plays when I was 4. He has basically taught me film theory before I knew what film theory was. I was bitten by the bug that young and I was just…the national storyteller.

The way I got into the business really was I went to Pomona College in Claremont, California, which I was a really wonderful school and I was an English major there but I was also in theater there. While I was a senior there, I got an internship on a documentary and that sort of sent me down the documentary path even though my goal has been to do drama. I got very addicted to doing documentaries. I got sort of caught up in the excitement of being a fly on the wall and being in people’s real lives and doing what I felt was making a difference because that’s how that social justice side of me show. That was my beginning and because our business was so varied and there’s no direct 1-2-3 path, you can take to do anything. I definitely geared from that over the years but that was definitely my start.

Michael: So you say that you learned to edit from your dad, you mean you we’re actually cutting film stock or digitally?

Melissa: No, it was a long time ago, there was no digital then. I was editing Super 8 film on little, teenie movie. I was with glue, cutting it with glue. I had small fingers so it actually made it even easier because I was only 9.

Michael: What a great experience.

Melissa: It really was. I think one of the things that I learned early off from my dad, but also my mother was a third generation English major and there was a lot of reading in my family. A lot of reading a lot of classic films and theater and I think just the building blocks of storytelling. One of the things that excited me about documentaries was I’ve never thought about how the building blocks of fictional storytelling can be used in telling real life stories. That was something that just thrilled me and took me off in that direction. And those are things I learned (mine) too.

Michael: Well, fiction or non-fiction, you’re still telling a story so it always comes back to the writing.

Melissa: I think so. One of the questions I know you wanted to ask me was advice to young filmmakers and want to be filmmakers and my main advice, I was thinking about this today is to learn storytelling and to learn it from the (great) tragedies, the real ones today to the most avant-garde methods of storytelling today and try to see the patterns because no matter what you can have the most original work in the world, you can be the most imaginative person in the world, but you still work hard about tradition and you will fall somewhere along that line even if you’re pioneering a whole new genre.

I just recently read an article about how there’s a lot of people who wanted to become writers who don’t think they should have to read and they don’t think they should have to read classic and there are…that way, but the truth is, you’re reinventing the wheel if doing that. Also I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to experience the pleasure of reading and singing classic songs. To me, that’s one of those natural highs of life.

I think learning the basics of storytelling is one of the most important things that any storyteller can do whether even if you’re a cameraman and you’re just going to shoot, you still want to learn storytelling, story (beads), how stories unfold and how it’s been done and the many, many different ways it’s been done over the years. Whether it’s a mini-story or reality TV or it’s an opera, it’s the same basic principles of storytelling and everything flows from there. I can’t recommend enough to young filmmakers to really study great things in every possible film all the way back to the great plays.

Michael: Excellent advice, Melissa. Now, you recently were involved in a project with a fantastic story, “White Irish Drinkers”, tell us about that.

Melissa: “White Irish Drinkers” came about because my husband, John Gray had been doing the “Ghost Whisperer” series, which he created for a number of years and that went off the air and he had written a couple of pilots for network TV and he’s really an incredible writer and the pilots stopped to that point where they were in the running…it was between his pilot and another pilot and which then that happened twice in a row and it’s a good way to make a living. It definitely pays the bills but he was getting frustrated about not being able to tell his own stories.

So he pulled this script out of the drawer and he said, this is what I wanted to make for years. Is it any good? I don’t know and I read it and I just said “I think that this the most honest thing you’ve written and I think we should make it”. We actually decided to throw our money, well it was really John’s money he made from “Ghost Whisperer” and make it and call in whatever favors we could. Nobody works free on it but everybody worked pretty damn close.

To really get out there and make and for me, it was my first experience. I’ve actually been involved in independent films before but it was my first experience really getting down and dirty on the ground making an independent film. And I had two other producers with me, Paul Bernard and James Scura. Jim was more of the guy watching the budget. He was not on the set. Paul was actually doing the first assistant director. John was there also.

But really, between the two of us, we were putting out all the fires our film that’s smaller than a lot of fires but it taught me first of all, that all my TV experience, learning how to do down and dirty and fast, actually paid off because we were able to a feature film in 17 days and do it well.

I think the other think that it taught me in terms of filmmaking was it taught me about the honesty of a filmmaker’s voice and if you can stay connected to that how it really comes out in every aspect of the film, I believe John’s so connected to this film that it was infectious for the actors, the production and to all of us. Everyone up to the last possible minute was amazing, actors like Karen Allen and Stephen Lang were going out on their own with no money, nothing, just going out promoting this film because they believe in it so much.

I think that’s something that I kept with me about the strength of your commitment to a project can really be infectious. There’s part of me I do have to just do it for a living and film it in but when you’re passionate about something and you get the right people behind you, you can really make miracles.

Michael: Passion certainly is what draws many people into this business. What would you tell a young, passionate filmmaker about how to go about breaking into the biz?

Melissa: It’s such a different time when I started in the business because the technology has changed so much. I think that modern technology right now is very important. I think learning the building block is very important. I think being flexible is key. I think in owning what we want is important but there’s people out there who don’t know exactly what they’re going to do in this business are still going to find that by working. You don’t necessarily have to get an MSA to do that. You can get out there and get on the set and work and be a PA and work your way from bottom and see what you really connect with. That’s something that was true when I was starting and that’s true now.

You have to find something that will make you stand out if that’s the only the way you want to get in. knowing your craft better and once again, some of the basic rules of just being a good employee really apply in the business. There are a lot of people and I’ve had this experience because I have a company for 15 years and there’s a lot of people who come out of film school who are very bright and kind of big fish in a small pond and they’ll start out as somebody’s assistant and then they’ll three months later will say, when do I get a chance to produce. It doesn’t work like that. You still have to earn your way just like in any field.

It’s important to really work your butt off. Work hard. Have a great work ethic. Have a great attitude. Don’t expect your dreams to come true tomorrow. Keep dreaming them and keep working toward them but work hard and people will notice your hard work and your attitude, there’s no question. Still, even in our business, it’s not that common, by starting out. People will notice that.

Michael: So, what is next for Melissa Jo Peltier?

Melissa: Right now, I’m looking at a couple of writing projects my book projects, but I’m also working on a film with my husband, another independent film that we’re trying to raise money for. It’s being read by film actors right now and actor’s reps rather. We can’t name them right now but we’re hoping that we’re going to get a pretty important name to play this role. The name of the movie is “Slander” and it’s a small movie but it’s a really, really powerful story that John’s written.

We want to put our whole team together that we have on “White Irish Drinkers” again because that was such great experience for everybody who worked on it and this time, we had a little more money and maybe a few more days to shoot. Everyone who worked on the film was like us we just love the process of filmmaking. So it doesn’t matter that we don’t have (players) and all the perks that you might have on a network television show because actually, it’s more fun to have less money. Once you’ve actually worked with money, it’s sometimes a lot more fun to just do it the way that you did it when you were 9 years old.

Michael: Well, certainly things have changed since then including what we’re doing right now. Share with us your thought about Spidvid and what impact it has on future filmmakers.

Melissa: I think what’s exciting about it is that…and I like this about Twitter which was how I found Spidvid and I liked the fact that you can communicate with people who share your goals and also some of your values and your tastes who might be very far away from you and I think that that’s an important aspect of the organization that you have which is that people can reach out to others and they have a vision that nobody near them connect with their vision. They may just not connect, but somebody 2,000 miles away might absolutely connect and might be the piece of the puzzle that they need to get it finished. I think that’s a really nice thing about today’s technology.

We were isolated starting out when I began and I remember writing letters literally…typewriter and typing letters to producers trying to get meetings with them and it’s much more comfortable to reach out in other ways.

Networking is easier and I think that if you use it right and in a discerning manner, I think that’s a real advantage to the technology.

Michael: Speaking of networking, how can folks get in touch with you and learn more about you?

Melissa: Well, I’m on IMDb, so if they want to see everything that I’ve done, pretty much everything since IMDb started. I’m on Twitter @MelissaJPeltier. Whiteirishdrinkersthemovie.com is the website of our movie. My television production company is called MPH Entertainment. MPHent.com is out website. We’ve done a lot of non-fiction TV including the show “The Dog Whisperer” which we still do. That’s probably the best way.

Michael: Melissa Jo Peltier, thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us today.

Melissa: Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate talking to you.

Michael: That’s it. Thanks for listening to the Spidcast Show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidvid.com or on our Spidvid Blog. And you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

This week features the President and Executive Producer of The Show Channel Stephen Brown, and Owner-Operator of ELO Video Productions Erica Lynne Owens. Both discuss finding the talent they need for their video production projects, discuss the evolution of the Web, and give props to Spidvid’s new media model.

Topics covered in this episode:

- Finding the production talent you need for your videos

- Building credibility and a personal brand through collaborative video production

- How podcasting as a medium has evolved over the years

- How Spidvid benefits video creators

- Spidvid as a hybrid social platform

- A few websites that you may want to check out

Full Text Transcript

Show Introduction: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production. This week, we are fortunate to have the President and Executive Producer of The Show Channel, Stephen Brown. Stephen has been delivering video content via the Web from the very beginning and he has stories to tell.

And we’ll also visit with independent filmmaker, Erica Lynn Owens. She’s also made use of the Internet to facilitate her productions. So, let’s jump right in to this week’s Spidcast.

First up is the President and Executive Producer of The Show Channel, Stephen Brown. Stephen comes from a traditional video production background with credits ranging from directing the Dick Cavett Show to live productions featuring Kenny Loggins, Three Dog Night and so many others. In fact, we could spend the entire show today, just going over his credits. Stephen, welcome to Spidcast.

Stephen: Hey, thank you, Michael. Good to be here.

Michael: Now, Stephen, as way of introduction, could you share with us a bit about The Show Channel?

Stephen: Well, let’s see. We’ve been producing videos both live conventions for large organizations like the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters who’s an association in Hollywood of top people in the broadcast industry and five times a year, we will produce an event where they will honor someone in the industry.

Last year, for example, we had Robert Wagner honored. Just recently, Sally Kellerman. So we’ll do a big tribute. It’s almost like a roast, but it’s more of a tribute than a roast for top Hollywood people.

Then we’ll do big concerts for giant corporate events. One, we’ve done for many years is the Western Association of Food Chains, which is a giant organization of all of the major supermarkets on the West Coast. And they will have a convention and they’ll bring in entertainers like the Beach Boys or somebody like that. We’ll produce the big concert as well as all of the general sessions where people come and speak. We’ve had Norman Schwarzkopf. We’ve had Colin Powell. We’ve had a lot of big name speakers come and speak.

So we get involved in writing those, producing those and then of course, crewing those can be a really big job because you would have everybody from roadies to lighting directors to cameramen that you have to find somewhere and since these are in various cities across the United States, we typically can’t fly all of our people from California or Nevada all the way across the country. So we usually pick up local crews.

Michael: And what processes have you used to find those crews?

Stephen: Well, it depends on the type of person I’m looking for. If I’m looking for a cameraman, I would go to a site called Mandy.com or ProductionHub.com. Sometimes on ProductionHub, you can actually post your project and then people can bid on it. More on Mandy.com, you go through and read the ads of what guys have. “I have this particular digital camera package.” Then you send that guy an email and you communicate usually through email with these people or some communication tool on the side. I also use Guru.com, but that’s more if I’m working with guys in animation or computer-oriented person. I would go to Guru. I would go Mandy or ProductionHub if I was looking for a skilled technician.

Michael: And now as an independent producer, do you see Spidvid benefiting you and The Show Channel?

Stephen: Yes, I think in looking at Spidvid, the brilliant thing they’re doing is they’re taking a little bit where I have to go to multiple sites now to achieve what I’m looking for. Spidvid put it all together in one site for me. So it’s almost like I have Facebook. I’ve got a ProductionHub, a Mandy, a Guru; everything rolled into one. And we create a community of creatives and technicians all in one place that I can get to quickly. Because as you know, when we’re bidding a job or where specking a job, we need some answers and we usually need them very fast. And so you either go to multiple sites or Craigslist or wherever you’re jumping around or you now can just go to Spidvid and get it all done in one place. I like that.

Michael: That’s great to hear. And I want to remind our listeners just how much of an expert you are on Web-delivered content because you were trying to do this when it was really next to impossible.

Stephen: Yes. I was definitely a computer geek with the Commodore 64 back in the 70’s before there even was an IBM PC. The Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1998. That’s when he actually in Cern Switzerland invented what we know as the Web today, which was really HTML pages and websites.

When I saw that, because I was involved on sites like CompuServe before there was a Web, they were bulletin boards. Then we saw the Web. Now, originally, the Web, remember, all of us were on dial-up modems. There was no such thing really as broadband in the late 80’s, early 90’s. We we’re all dial-up modem people.

I remember going to the White House website in like 1990 or something like that and they had a big beautiful picture of the White House on their homepage and it took five minutes for the picture to download so I could just see a photograph of the White House. That was how slow the Internet was.

I think it was around 1995, a company called Progressive Networks, which later became RealNetworks invented RealAudio, which was here you and I are talking on a podcast now two decades later. But way back then, they actually came up with the first way to distribute audio on the Internet. It was called RealAudio 1.0. So we started playing with that in 1995 the minute it came out.

Two years later, they actually came out with video on the Internet. It was called RealVideo and it’s still really was watched by people on modems, so when they talk about postage stamp video, we’re talking about 160×120 pixel video image with really low quality audio and that was 1997. That was when it first came out and we of course because we were television producers already back then doing television commercials and things. We immediately jumped on board because we felt we could use it to show our clients samples of rough cuts.

Now think about that in 1997 and where we are today where you can watch high-definition movies on the Internet and now with the Spidvid, you can edit your video or a rough cut, throw it up on Spidvid and your clients can view it, your collaborators, animators, and graphic artists can work with you on it and they can be anywhere in the world. To me, that’s so exciting because I’ve seen it from the very beginning.

Michael: Yes, you have. So let’s jump back to the future and beyond and tell us about Show Channel and what’s next?

Stephen: Well, the Show Channel, we work primarily now on the Internet. Most of our projects are audio and video programs that are created specifically for the Internet. And our clients are primarily magazines. The vision we have for audio and video on the Internet – see magazines and newspapers are in deep trouble. They just financially are not getting the advertising to support the printing costs of publishing their magazines and newspapers. So they have to go to the Internet. But they really don’t know what to do with the Internet because they were really print people.

What we’re doing is working with a lot of industry trade magazines of various industries; the medical industry is really out front more than anybody else. What we’re trying to do is help them turn their website into a CNN-type website where it has news reporters. So instead of an author or an editor for a magazine writing a story and publishing it on the Web, we actually have them go out with a camera, interview the person, we’ll help them edit it, encode it, and of course, our company doesn’t just help them produce it, we also host it and do all the streaming for them. So we’ve done live events from trade shows where we will go in with the publisher and go around and interview all the top keynote speakers and industry leaders and publish it on their website so people the next morning can be up to date with what’s happening at the trade show without actually being there.

Michael: Virtual attendance – you got to love that. Stephen, if the folks would like to get in touch with you, how would they do that?

Stephen: Well the best way is email or through our website, www.theshowchannel.com. We’re always looking for good graphic artists, audio guys, cameramen, directors, even segment producers. Of course, we’ll be part of the Spidvid community too. So a lot of people will be able to find us through that.

Michael: Yes, they will. Thanks for being here, Stephen. It’s great to have you on Spidcast.

Stephen: Absolutely! Thank you, Michael.

Intermission: You know how challenging it is to produce quality videos without the help from others who have the skills and talent you need. Well Spidvid let’s you find the individuals you need for your video production project so you can create the Internet’s next big viral hit. Visit Spidvid.com. Click the sign-up link and reserve your spot with our collaborative video community today.

Michael: Next up, we welcome Erica Lynne Owens, an independent filmmaker and Owner-Operator of ELO Video Productions. Erica, welcome to Spidcast!

Erica: It’s great to be here, Michael.

Michael: If you would, Erica, tell us a bit about your body of work.

Erica: Over the past few years, I have gotten to shooting from shorts and commercials and just anything I can get my hands on. Right now, I’m in post-production on a full-length feature that I wrote, directed, and produced called When Love Comes Home.

Michael: And tell us a bit about that process? How did you find your cast and crew for When Love Comes Home?

Erica: Well, for When Love Comes Home, I posted on different websites, from Craigslist, to Southern Casting Call, which is a local website, which also carries national auditions. But anywhere I could find there’s a bunch of local stuff in Charlotte and then basically any Internet site I can find I posted on there and received hundreds, actually a thousand head shots.

Michael: So going through all those head shots and all those websites, how would Spidvid help you as an independent producer?

Erica: It would be a huge plus. The one really good thing I saw about Spidvid right away was the fact that it’s a social networking site as well as a contact point. So, from being on the site as both the producer and a person out there freelancing and looking for work, it’s great because it’s just not immediate-one-stop-oh-here-is-a-job-listing. You can actually get to know other people on that website which a lot of job sites don’t let you have that capability.

Michael: Now, Erica, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a fairly high flaky factor with sites like Craigslist?

Erica: Yes, most recently I’ve actually used Craigslist looking for music. And I have a song composer I’m working with currently, but we’re also wanting some band music to be in there with lyrics and everything that showed a couple of different themes and I have received hundreds of just really bad bands.

You have to fish through everything and there aren’t ratings on Craigslist and you don’t know who you’re getting and then to of course ask for CDs, you end up with a huge pile of CDs from people you will never listen to. And then of course, for me, I feel horrible big into the Green Movement to deal with and listen to all the stuff when there’s really not a good way to weed out people. You’ve got to listen or read their resumes or look at their websites in order to figure out who is quality and who you really want to talk to.

Michael: Now, speaking of that, if people would like to talk to you, how would they get in touch?

Erica: Well they can definitely check out my website. My phone numbers are on there www.ericalynneowens.com.

Michael: Erica Lynne Owens, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

Erica: Thank you, Michael. It’s been a blast.

Michael: That’s it for this week’s Spidcast. I’m Michael London. My thanks to The Show Channel’s Stephen Brown and Erica Lynne Owens. And thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you again next week on Spidcast.