The IndieNet and Beyond Enters The House Between...

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that in 2006, I created (and self-financed...) an independent, sci-fi web series called The House Between (2007 - 2009) that eventually went on to be nominated twice (in 2008 and 2009) as "Best Web Production" at Sy Fy Portal/Airlock Alpha.

The crazy idea was to shoot seven half-hour episodes (25 - 30 minutes each in length) in seven days, on a budget of seven hundred dollars an episode. Most of the budget actually went to equipment and catering.

With a stellar group of actors and crew members (including Nightmares in Red, White and Blue writer and producer, Joseph Maddrey and composer Mateo Latosa, editor-in-chief of Powys Media), we eventually created twenty-one episodes (and three seasons) in this fashion.  It was a tremendous amount of fun, and a happy collaboration overall.  Working with that talented cast and crew has been one of the highlights of my writing career, and I was also gratified that the show quickly developed a devoted fan base.

Since the series folded in 2009, I've been working on re-editing the entire series for a DVD release in 2011, upgrading effects and fixing some stuff that we didn't get right the first time around; particularly matters of editing and pacing.

Now, journalist and filmmaker Marx Pyle (Silence of the Belle) -- who covered The House Between during its original Internet run -- has posted a new retrospective of the web series for his IndieNet column/blog at Sci-Fi Pulse.   

Marx interviewed me for the piece, which discusses the creation of The House Between, and the success/failure of the web series environment/platform today.  This written piece will be augmented by an audio interview with me, to be available soon.

Here's a snippet:

“We shot this in black and white so we could do all these sort of things with shadows and silhouettes. I remember one of the things I told my cinematographer starting right off. ‘We have no props so lights and the shots sort of have to create the props.’ The shadows almost become the props,” Muir continued. “One of the great things about black and white is that it hides the seams. We’re dealing with very low budget. The budget for the show was like $700 including the catering. But also the look I was going for with the show, I wanted to do something along the lines of The Twilight Zone or the anthology of One Step Beyond or the original Outer Limits… Somehow the black and white makes it timeless. I did want to emulate that… and try to recapture that feeling.”

John Kenneth Muir and his crew worked at a neck breaking pace by shooting about one 25-minute (or more) episode each day. It lead to some rough edges, but gave a massive amount of story for fans to devour each year..."