Ahead of Melbourne WebFest 2014 we are profiling all the series in the Official Selection as well as the “Second Look” series.
Smolen says that Chris & Josh was inspired by the opportunity to create a ‘no-risk/high reward’ type scenario. He really wanted to develop skills in directing and editing, whilst the actors wanted to have a lot of control in shaping the characters.
He says that unlike a lot of series online, they’ve been able to create recurring characters with standalone episodes. He has made sure that audiences could jump into any episode without any prior knowledge and enjoy it, whilst also being able to follow the progression of Chris & Josh from start to end.
What do you want people to take away from your series?
A good sense of fun and a few laughs! We’re trying to entertain. We want to be able to make you giggle, chortle, snort, belly laugh or ROFL as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. On top of that, we’d love people to see how much fun we had making it. We think it’s pretty hard to watch and not pick up on the positive vibes from the making of it. It translates through the episodes, and hopefully onto the audience too.
How do you finance your series?
We finance the entire series ourselves. It’s challenging, but it’s also the best way of locking into a mindset of making the show the best it can be. Nothing like a bit of an investment to motivate creativity!
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome in production?
Budgets are always tricky to navigate. As we went as big as we could this season, it meant fronting some costs for locations etc. That then means you only get a certain amount of time to shoot there (because we couldn’t afford anymore). And that doesn’t budge. Rain, hail or shine, the show must go on, and you have to be able to plan for and react to those limitations that having a small budget imposes.
Is it an ongoing project? If so, can you give us some clues about what comes next?
We’re in a bit of limbo at the moment. We poured our hearts, souls and savings accounts into the current season, so we’re pursuing places to take it from here.
Trivia: please tell us a quirky and/or interesting fact about yourself or team that’s unrelated to your web series.
Matt Werkmeister (plays Josh in the show) was nominated for a Logie!
Chris & Josh on the web:
Website: www.chrisandjoshseries.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/chrisandjosh
YouTube: www.youtube.com/chrisandjoshseries
Twitter: www.twitter.com/chrisjoshseries
Keep up to date with Melbourne Web Fest on twitter: @MelbWebFest
La Trobe University is a festival sponsor of Melbourne WebFest.
