Piloting

I'm excited!  We're making our pilot!

(You know what a pilot is, right?  It's the first episode of a TV or web series, which acts as a trial run to see if financiers want to go ahead with more episodes of the show.)

Since we all understand the term, please join me in my excitement over the fact that we're making our 'on spec' pilot!

(You know what 'on spec' means, right?  It means we're making the pilot without financial backing.  We're counting on the fact that sponsors will be so impressed by our product that they'll pay for it - and for the remaining 11 episodes of the series.)

Now you can definitely join with me in one voice to express excitement about our 'on spec' inter-erectile pilot!

(I made up the term "inter-erectile".  It's not a thing.)

John and I truly are over the moon that we're making the pilot for Ultra Clean.  The accomplished and adventurous Action Productions team was impressed with our concept and has decided to partner on the show with us.  It's great news for us, because it means our pilot will be slick, professional and ready for broadcast - whether that's via web or television.  We've set a shooting date in mid-November, so we've only got a few weeks to get our Toilet Ducks in a row.  That was a joke, because Ultra Clean is a show about cleaning and Toilet Duck is used to clean toilets.

We're meeting with the actors for a rehearsal this week, where we'll be nailing down the performances and the characters.  When you're making a pilot, you're actually establishing a huge part of what the show as a whole will be like.  Do we want a character to speak with a lisp?  Do we want all the characters to speak with lisps?  If we're going to make the world's first all-lisp sitcom, that's a call we have to make now.  This week.

The other reason rehearsal is important for us is that we'll be shooting our whole pilot in a day.  We won't have time to work things out while we shoot, so everyone will need to know what they're doing.  It's going to require almost military timing on the behalf of the whole cast and crew.

And, in summary, that's why I'm excited.  Because I love the military.  Go troops!!

Let's film a pilot

Well, just under a week after we started the discussions with various production houses to help us create this original look at the workplace comedy, we found a company keen to help us with a pilot (and hopefully our full series).

I would like to formally announce our partnership with 'Action Productions Australia' and an amazing like-minded Writer/Director/Producer Darren J Burns.

So what's next? Well we are looking at a date in November to film our pilot episode and from there we have an amazing opportunity to pitch our best possible version of the already strong first episode of 'Ultra Clean'.

Are we excited? You damn right we are!

We will continue updating this blog with the process and we look forward to continue with our plan to make this show hit your screens sometime in early 2013!

Cheers!

Less Is More (and all that)

John's and my meetings have been going well so far.  The production companies we've spoken to have responded to our pitch and can see the potential in our web series.  More to go and we'll keep you posted, dearest blog reader.

In the meantime, here's a great article about how sitcoms are getting shorter and shorter.  If you haven't seen it, Childrens Hospital is brilliant.

Meetings

We're having meetings this week.  I've been studying this instructional video from our computer overlords and as a result I'm now confident that I know what a meeting is.

We Have Actors!

John and I met with four actors last night for the main roles in our web series, and it went exceptionally well!  For some reason our meeting took place in a soon-to-be-demolished building, which seems to have been largely appropriated by birds.  Possibly zombie birds.  We could hear them scratching at the walls and thumping at the windows, trying to get at us.  There were several times I swear I heard my name, hissed softly through a half-open beak.  But none of that distracted from our excellent meeting!

We did table reads of our first two scripts, and our actors showed a wonderful understanding of the material and great affinity with the characters.  Choosing a group of young actors who know each other and have worked together before has made our job much easier.  They’re a ready-made team, they've got chemistry together and they understand each other's rhythms.

John's a great director and he instantly formed a working rapport with the actors.  It was a joy to behold.  I've directed scripts I've written in the past, but I can't really see why I'd ever need to again if I can get John Wood to do it.  The guy was born to direct.

So... the big moment.  We are pleased to announce our cast for Ultra Clean:

• James Chapman as Hunterr
• Tina Cornac as Marissa
• Oliver Brylynsky as Dan
• Tara Gallop-Brennan as Gabby

I saw these guys perform as part of a showcase for their acting class called The Playwrights' Dozen just over a month ago and was mightily impressed.  In fact, the idea for Ultra Clean was born as I watched these talented actors ply their trade and thought "Someone should really make a web series with these guys, so he can blog about it".

Our actors are going to start blogging as well, to give their perspective on this experience.  Stay tuned for four different versions of "the night of the zombie birds".  Fun game: see if you can guess who was bitten by a zombie bird and is hiding it from the rest of us!

How Do I Make A Web Series?

You might think that an article entitled “How do I make a web series?” would be full of helpful tips on how to make a web series, spelt out for you in easy-to-follow steps.  Not this one.  I’m actually asking.  How do I make a web series?

At this point I’m just a guy with an idea.  Admittedly, it’s a great idea.  It’s funny, it’s got heart, it’s got characters so richly imagined that Dickens and Dostoyevsky would have a knife fight over them.  But it is just an idea.  How do I go from that starting point to having something real up on the screen, to be enjoyed by all the differently-hued peoples of the world?

What I can say is that the first thing I did, after coming up with the concept for Ultra Clean and writing a couple of scripts, was to bring in John Wood as director.  John has a lot of directing experience  and – having met him through a theatre project last year – I know he’s got bucketloads of enthusiasm.  That’s the most important quality I can think of in any collaborator.  In John I know I’ve got someone who will help push the project forward.

“Okay,” I hear you say, “so you’ve got at least one step there.  Probably two.  You could write those down for us at least, lazyface.”  To that I say, while I don’t appreciate being called lazyface, I will do it, because I respond to assertiveness.

1.  Come up with good idea

2.  Find collaborator(s) to share your vision

Now I hear you say: “Tell us what you plan to do next.  And write it out in steps just like those two – otherwise I will force your jaws open and gently push my entire fist into your mouth.”  The things you’re saying are increasingly sinister, and maybe after I finish this blog post we should take a break from each other.  But okay.  Here’s what John and I plan to do next for Ultra Clean:

3.  Meet and cast actors

4.  Assemble art designs, logos and the ‘look’ of the series

5.  Pitch to production companies to make a pilot “on spec”

6.  Spend a day shooting the pilot

7.  Edit the pilot

8.  Use the pilot to generate interest from corporate sponsors

9.  Get paid to make a web series

10. Investigate good lawn care products

That last step isn’t strictly to do with making a web series, but it is something I need to do and 10 steps is a nice round number.

These steps are by no means set in concrete.  They’re sure to change as we proceed, but they provide a pretty good road map for where we intend to go.  In future blog posts we’ll expand on each step.  We’re meeting with actors early next week, for example, and we’re in the process of putting together the art elements of the show at the moment.

Stay with us and you’ll learn how to make a web series as we do.

Welcome

Hi all!

Well, the blog is up and it's all exciting times here at the 'Ultra Clean' camp. I will confess when I first heard Tristram wanted me to do something involving cleaning I didn't assume a web-series, in fact I went the opposite and expected to actually, you know, clean!

Luckily (and obviously) that wasn't the case and here we are about a week later taking this seriously. I read the scripts and I was immediately excited about the key conceit of the show, like what Tristram said (read previous post), outdoor filming just bloody sucks. However filming in different houses every episode could prove to be even more interesting, but I look forward to raiding another house each work, and I hope the viewers do to.

I will upload new stuff to this blog, whether it will be a production still, something about the cast (when they are locked in) and even great behind the scenes videos.

Watch this space!
-John W

Beginnings

Every great project has a beginning.  The Titanic started with someone thinking “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a really massive ship?  I mean bigger than anyone could possibly think is reasonable?  We could build it and then be hubristically overconfident about the possibility of it ever sinking.  Sigh!”  The film Titanic began when James Cameron thought “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a really massive film?  I mean bigger than anyone could possibly think is reasonable?  We could make it and then 12 years later make a different massive film with blue people that earns more money than the one I’m talking about making now, but only after 3D sales are considered.  Sigh!”

As you can see, beginnings can be audacious, even crazy.  Beginnings are for dreamers.  Well, right now, dreaming is exactly what I’m doing.  I’ve come up with an idea for a web series.  If you don’t know what a web series is, have a look at three of my favourites: Wainy Days, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and Burning Love.  Making a web series is just like making long-form TV, except what you’re making is not long-form and it’s not for TV.  Imagine taking a  car and shrinking it down to the size of a much smaller car.  Now imagine cramming that smaller car full of clowns.  That’s a web series.

My idea for a web series is called Ultra Clean.  It’s a comedy about four friends who run a cleaning company together.  The concept is that each episode will be 5 or 6 minutes long and will take place in one of the houses that the team is cleaning.  Each week brings a different adventure in a different house.  The idea stems from my love of ensemble comedies like Cheers, Seinfeld and Community, and also from my knowledge that it’s damn hard to find locations to shoot low-budget productions.  I’ve always found that the easiest place to shoot a short film is inside someone’s house.  You don’t have to worry about wind, or rain, or people driving by in cars and shouting “Pinch a handful of my genitals!” in the middle of a perfect take.  Dramatically, I also like the idea of a confined space, meaning there’s no escape-valve on conflicts that build up between characters.

As soon as I came up with the idea for Ultra Clean, I scribbled down a couple of scripts, which I then fiddled with until I felt they were funny.  My scripts feature a bossy character, a wisecracking character, a ditzy character and a character who was born in prison.  This what's known as the holy quadrinity of situation comedy.  Once I finished polishing the scripts, I sent them to a director I know called John Wood.  He liked them and we met to talk about the project.

What lies ahead of us now involves casting, rewrites, art design, rehearsals, rewrites, pitching, sponsorship, rewrites, shooting and rewrites.  I may be overstating the number of rewrites, but probably not.  We’re starting this blog so we can capture all the highs and lows of a web series production, right from the very beginning.  It’s going to be quite a ride and we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.  Will Ultra Clean be James Cameron’s Titanic, raking in piles of cash, winning awards and irritating viewers, or will it be the actual Titanic, rusting away at the bottom of the sea?  No one can say.  (Spoiler: it’s the first one.)