Ever wanted to find out what it takes to write, cast, shoot, edit, and distribute a web series?
Well so did we, so we've decided to do it. Follow along with us as we create the pilot episode
for Jenn2.0, a show about a young social media consultant attempting to build her brand and
define herself in the ultimate connectivity of the Web 2.0 world.
The process of making a web series is very entrepreneurial. People have to bring their skills as well as their willingness to help out in any and every way possible. Rob is learning about marketing and I’m learning about tech. Across the board, we’re trying new things to make this as best as possible. Why? Read More
My eye has been twitching for a week now. In looking it up and asking around, I hear its from stress. While I don’t necessarily feel too stressed out, I can’t stop thinking about this weekend. This is it. Tomorrow we start shooting for Jenn2.0 and I couldn’t be more excited. Several of the scenes have been playing over and over in my mind and subtle nuances of characters have been making me almost giddy. The pre-production process for this project has been long and at times stressful, but I think everyone who has put work into it would say its been more than worth every bit of it.
So here I sit, less than 24 hours before we start shooting and all I can do is wait. There’s no point in stressing over anything at this point. I mean, there’s still much to do as far as getting equipment, props, locations and such set in stone, but its at least been taken care of, mostly.
I’m excited to get out there and really work with our actors. I can speak for everyone when I say I can’t wait to finish this and share it with the world. So that’s all for now, I need time to get Zenlike or something.
As you’ve seen, we are using 12seconds.tv to have some fun and communicate some of the things we are up to. So below you’ll find a quick hello from the fabulous team at NAS. You’ll find more of our 12seconds videos in the sidebar and on 12seconds.tv here.
Auditions went very well. We had callbacks and really confirmed some of our initial thoughts. It’s always good to hear your words read by others and I was pleasantly surprised by the actors that read. During lunch for the 1st auditions on Oct 4, we had a great, collaborative effort on the script, the characters, etc. Surprisingly, there was a long (really, really long) conversation about the stage of relationship between Ian and Jenn. Are they at 3 months? 6 months? Have they slept together? What does this all mean to the pilot and, thus, the series?
The first video of our casting process is finally up. Note to you videophobes: unfortunately, not being a part of the NAS crew I am more likely to make dumb mistakes. Like posting the interleaved MPEG2 version of this video instead of the progressive version. I’ll do my best to get this swapped out as soon as I can. - Rob
After the initial idea was fleshed out and I had a chance to learn more about the real-life Jenn, Rob and I collaborated on a treatment. Within that, we discussed the main characters and the core of the show, in addition to an outline of the pilot. I wrote the first draft rather quickly and completed it on Sep 2. It came in at 6 pages and served as the basis for our first group meeting on Sep 4 with the NAS team. Ian was in this draft, but Larissa was not. In short time, Josh came back with some comments. For the next draft, some were included, others weren’t, but Rob and I could tell they got it and had a connection to the project (which was also exhibited in our first meeting). The draft that was completed on Sep 20 ran 7.5 pages and served as the 1st audition draft. Larissa was now included. We wanted to introduce that conflict since we had discussed it further and thought it not only had potential for humor as a character who wants the spotlight, but also continuous conflict for Jenn who is trying to build her brand. And, that’s the idea for any pilot: introduce your characters, your conflicts… and get out.
The original concept for Jenn2.0 involves following around Jenn Van Grove, a very talented real life person. We would be capturing both the real situations that she deals with and also the intriguing and edgy community of friends around her. We wrote a treatment and included a sample episode of fictional situations that we thought would be similar to what we might capture. Then came the hard part.
Yesterday Darren (the writer) drove down from L.A. so that we could have an in-person meeting with the team at New American Standard (NAS). We actually met Josh (the producer) through Jenn and things went from there. Jenn was present as well and arrived separately.
So, here’s what went down. Darren and I made a horrible attempt at video documenting our initial thoughts on the drive over. You guys may see some of this in the documentary footage, but I’m sort of hoping you don’t. Anyway, it took a few minutes after the meeting got underway for us to remembered to fire up the camera again (a room full of equipment and nothing was rolling, heh). So we got the majority of our conversation and, whatever you see of that will hopefully give you an idea of just how “starting from nothing” we are.
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The original concept for Jenn2.0 involves following around Jenn Van Grove, a very talented real life person. We would be capturing both the real situations that she deals with and also the intriguing and edgy community of friends around her. We wrote a treatment and included a sample episode of fictional situations that we thought would be similar to what we might capture. Then came the hard part.
