True brains make better content
In this guest post, Dylan Watson, co-producer of Movie Extra Webfest finalist project True Brains, talks about his experience working on a web series.
Movie Extra Webfest is the first competition of its kind in Australia. With the webseries being a fairly new format, we weren’t sure what to expect when we entered with our trailer True Brains. Now we’re in the final 15 out of around 100 original entries. Beyond that, we’re part of a competition urging Australians to put quality content online and see what happens. We’ve seen short films, trailers and teasers launch international careers thanks to viral media, YouTube links and Facebook. Any one of us could be the next big thing and all we need to do is indulge our little filmmaking fantasies (not just the clean ones) and hit “upload”.
True Brains began as a spoof of a particularly successful television show called Glee. But with no access to a high school or auto-tune programs, things had to change. Sorry, wait. It was another show we were spoofing. Anyway, the point is our concept evolved. Our core team of seven – The Cameralla – spent a great deal of time developing the concept as it moved from “Let’s mock something popular” to “Let’s create something we haven’t seen on Australian screens before”. Our end product is part horror, part mystery, part comedy. No cop show, no underdog/crime family story, no Aussie Battler – well actually, there’s probably a fair bit of that come to think of it. But you get the point.
True Brains is set in the fictional rural Queensland town of Bindaree Gulch. A mild zombie plague has struck Australia, and though these flesh-eating undead aren’t exactly superhuman killing machines, they’re not doing wonders for our tourism industry. A great deal of the afflicted seem to be finding their way to the once sleepy Gulch; but being a friendly local town, they are integrated into society as best they can – which really depends on how much grey matter they’ve got left in their skulls – and left to their own devices. With their hunger sated by Lecter’s True Brains™ (current flavours: Mild, Crunchy and Grape), they coexist with the locals. But something more sinister is happening in Bindaree Gulch, and it’s far beyond what a drooling mass of rotting deadbeats are capable of. There are whispers in the air: In the land of the dead, fear the living.
