The House Between at Sci-Final

Hey everybody, my 21-episode si-fi web-series, The House Between (2007 -2009), is highlighted today at the great site, Sci Final, "The last-stop for independent sci-fi online."  

There's this awesome banner (above) splashed on the home page there, celebrating the show.  And I'm also featured in interview at the creator's corner, here.

Some of you may not remember, but in 2006, I set out with The House Between to make seven half-hour original episodes of a sci-fi series on a budget of seven hundred dollars each...in just seven days. 

I wanted to prove that you didn't need a ton of money, two years, or Hollywood connections (or Hollywood special effects, for that matter...) to create something interesting, original and exciting online. 

We repeated the "experiment" for two additional seasons of the series, in 2008 and 2009. 

In the end, the series was nominated for "Best Web Series" twice, in 2008 and 2009, at Sy Fy Portal/Airlock Alpha. 

In 2008, we came in second place to a Star Trek film "Of Gods and Men" by a margin of  less-than 100 viewer votes.   Now the series even has an official soundtrack release.  

And to this day, I still get e-mail from the series' small but devoted fan base, asking me when season four is going to start. (Short answer: when I can afford the time/budget again....)

So, in addition to my book deadlines on the horizon, I'm currently working on re-editing the entire web-series (all 21 episodes) for an upcoming DVD release (replete with lots of behind-the-scenes material about the experiment...).  More on that project as I know more.

But in the meantime, here's a little of the interview at Sci-Final:

Where did the idea/concept for your web series come from?

Well, I wanted to tell, in microcosm, the story of man on this island Earth. In essence, we're all strangers trapped in a house surrounded by blackness (outer space), forced to consider how to get along for the common benefit of the species. As a starting point, I re-read Jean Paul Sartre's 1944 existentialist play, No Exit. I wanted to play with the idea that "Hell is Other People" and do variations on it; see if the proverb holds up.

Name some of your sci-fi influences. Any favorite movies, TV shows, novels?

For the grainy, primitive look of the series, I sought to emulate TV classics One Step Beyond (1959-1961), The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) and The Outer Limits (1962-1964). I shot in black-and-white, added film grain, scratches and dust... and basically wanted audiences to get a timeless feeling or vibe from The House Between. Like you had turned your TV on at 2:00 am and suddenly intercepted this weird broadcast from who knows when, and who knows where. That was my experience growing up in the 1970s, first encountering late night fare like One Step Beyond. It seemed piped in from another universe.