OTHER: Webseries Pilot: Sex, Drugs, and A Cappella

Mattykins

Mattykins

Cute Member
Hey everyone, I wanted to share with you all something I've been working really hard on for the past year and change. It's a little web series pilot presentation (we only have Pilot part 1 + 2) entitled Sex, Drugs, and A Cappella. Sex, Drugs, and A Cappella is a brand new web series about the ups and downs of collegiate a cappella! Think Glee with a twist - larger than life humor, but with more believable, relatable college scenarios.

On the show we'll be exploring the world of collegiate a cappella singing through the lens of what it's actually like to be in college (with all the humor and heartbreak that comes with the territory). Like Glee, the show will be character centric, and will use music performed by the cast to advance the drama. Unlike Glee, nobody's getting slushied - more likely drunk. Music is performed by the cast.

We made this on a 2400 dollar budget, almost 1000 of which went to music alone, and 400 went to a location. Almost everyone involved was a student. And this was my senior thesis project at Ithaca College.

DVXuser's very own adamr316 did the sound mix for us. I really hope you all enjoy it.

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAuDabfxYM8&feature=BFa&list=PLD48512F4174 7CBDA&lf=autoplay" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="cursor: pointer; color: rgb(59, 89, 152); text-decoration: none; "><span>
 
I did an interview into some of the background of the project here:

[video]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150283584367167[/video]

We shot this on a combination of a 5D, 7D, 60D, and a JVC700. So there was quite a collection of cameras. Basically everything was borrowed, we had a distinct equipment advantage since we were enrolled at a film school, and I got to use pretty much whatever I needed. It was a blast. I really don't know what else to add for behind the scenes at the moment, but if you have questions, I can answer them. I really hope you like it!
 
Fu*king Excellent Mattykins!!! I give you an A++++ Just brilliant.

Over the years, I've recorded & mixed a ton of college A Cappella groups (Union College, St. Rose, SUNY, Williams, etc.) and loved each & every one. There is NOTHING like the human voice.
This totally captured the drama and excitement of this art form. You nailed it and should be very proud...well done....very well done.

I'll be looking for the series... you really should do a Kickstarter project.... I bet you could fund this no problem.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Aww, Zaza, thank you! That means so much to me.

We're super psyched about the project. It's the first one I've been really really proud of. We're getting a pretty good amount of traffic so far. I'm really happy.

We don't know what we're going to do next, a lot of people so far have been saying "we look forward to it". But it's expensive, of course. We are hoping to get enough interest that someone will help sponsor us so we can continue making episodes. Right now, the most important thing for us is to get it seen by as many people as possible.

Thanks for the kind words. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. :)
 
I'm telling you... Kickstarter... with that one video, I bet you could fund easily for at least 6 episodes...easy. It's a great subject and really well done.
Hats off to the entire cast & crew!
 
Matt,

The videos look great man! I'm glad I could be apart of the project, thanks for the mention and contacting me so many months ago :-) Definitely get something going with kickstarter!
 
wow, stellar work so far - great pilot episode. whatever you're doing over there, keep it up :)
 
I was so very impressed by this! Before I watched it, I read Za's critique and thought this must be pretty good if he's giving all that praise. I still didn't expect what I saw. My hat goes off to you and everybody that made this happen. Great story, great music and talent behind and in front of the camera. The only one shot that threw me a little was when the lead was in the hallway talking to the guy in the hat and the guy in the hat lead him into the other room. That cut to MCU of the leading him out of the room right before you show the wide, was off-center or something. There was something a little distracting about that shot like he was a little too far out of frame or something. Anyway, that's THE ONLY minor, minor thing I saw.

I would also agree with Za about the kickstarter. This is a good pilot for any and everybody to see. I don't know who wouldn't like this. It's about school kids (everybody loves that) and it's got great singing. I would think about kickstarter and ask for a minimum amount and you'll probably get way more than you asked for. Great job!
 
Mattykins said:
Think Glee with a twist
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I thought when watching. I've seen enough of Glee to see the influence. Although, I think Glee is high-school, right? Yet their kids look older, like most TV shows. :)
I liked this, although that comparison is going to follow you guys around. Glee is huge right now.

A little more sound design would be great. Even out the opening, it changes a lot when he's standing by the billboard.
Add sounds for things like when the girl walks in and opens the door while the other guy is auditioning. Stuff like that.

I loved it though. You guys did an amazing job! Keep going.
 
Yup, Glee is (shockingly) set in Highschool. Almost all their people are mid-late 20's. Though I think the show would be really awkward if they did go with younger kids. Though it can be done. I saw 13 on broadway, which had a cast of all 13 year olds. And that was set in Jr. High (I believe). And that was an incredible show. I really enjoyed it.

And yeah, we made the comparison because people would make it anyways. Might as well talk about the elephant in the room before someone else does.
 
Mattykins said:
And yeah, we made the comparison because people would make it anyways. Might as well talk about the elephant in the room before someone else does.
Click to expand...
Good idea. I don't even watch Glee but I've flipped by it enough to know what it's about and make that comparison.
Again, I think you guys did an amazing job! Keep it going and move forward with this. It's quite good.

But if I see a character who's hell bent on destroying the group then I'm calling foul! LOL! :)
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
But if I see a character who's hell bent on destroying the group then I'm calling foul! LOL! :)
Click to expand...

Goodness, I hope we have more class than that. Haha.

Actually Sue's character on Glee always upsets me. The whole series upsets me, but I keep watching. It's really too bad. If you ever stumble across the directors cut pilot for Glee, (you'd have to torrent it), you'd realize the potential it had. I mean, it's doing well on the ratings board, but I don't really think Ryan Murphy is about good television, he's just milking it for all it's worth.
 
Woah! I want to be a part of this feature film!! (reported! but thanks for choosing my series to spam on, did you at least watch it?)

Also, Zaza - If I told you how I found my elephant, I'd have to kill you. And we don't want that.
 
Matty,

Even if the show were an outright rip of Glee that was fine with me. As long as the story is good and it entertains everyone.

But after watching your video on the Facebook page about how you had the idea before the Variety article (or whichever trade it was) that makes it even better. Hell, Glee ripped off Saved By The Bell and before them The Wonder Years had a show choir episode. So...yeah.
 
Really well done. Music is great. Never seen glee, but I dug this. If I were you, I'd kickstart the hell out of this. Your first episode is enough to a nice crowd source following.
 
We'd definitely Kickstart if we knew we could do it for the same price per episode as we did here. We had to cut a lot of corners and ultimately, people (since our cast is huge) aren't as available as we'd like/need them to be. We had a few people move away as well. So the only way we'd be able to keep going is if we had a substantial cash injection.

If we wanted to do a 13 episode order, we'd need to raise 6,000 dollars just to cover music recording/engineering/mixing alone. Which is the problem with doing musical things. Of course, our music is available on iTunes and Amazon, but we don't get to see our sales numbers for a while. So I couldn't tell you if we'd cover our music expenses just yet.

We'd love to keep pushing forward, and maybe something special will happen and we can figure out the logistics behind producing more episodes. We'll see.

The largest issue we've hit so far has been figuring out how to jump from our core demographic of a cappella people to a larger demo. We are taking the aca demo by storm, but we haven't jumped yet. Our press releases went out today, so hopefully we'll have a bit of response there.

It just goes to show how hard it is to get content seen, even with a built in audience.
 
We'll we've hit 6,600 views on the pilot episode. Which is 6,000 more than we were predicting, it still keeps getting discovered, but we haven't jumped into a larger demographic just yet. It's really interesting to watch this grow, since at this point, I don't know where additional discovery is coming from.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top