The moment a Twitter user started quoting his cranky dad onlineand wound up with a prime-time sitcom starring William Shatner, popculture analysts started obsessing over Internet projects making thelong leap to the small screen.
Now someone's going the opposite direction: Kiefer Sutherland,star of Fox's long-running drama "24," just announced that he wouldstar in and executive-produce a 10-part, scripted, online-onlyseries.
"The Confession," a drama about a hit man spilling his secrets toa priest, will also star John Hurt. Premiering sometime in March, itwill be available on Hulu.com, Digital Broadcasting Group's onlineplatforms and on gaming systems.
Producers call "The Confession" a "watershed" moment in onlineentertainment, even though a well-known television actor starring ina Web series is nothing new. Lisa Kudrow starred in "Web Therapy";Neil Patrick Harris was in the musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-AlongBlog."
"This is really the first of its kind in terms of caliber oftalent, script and production quality," said Chris Young, chiefexecutive of DBG, which is co-producing the series. "Now that peopleare spending more time with their computers than they are with theirtelevisions, as long as there's fantastic storytelling, there's roomto really push the envelope in terms of the length of programming."
In terms of "length," Young means much shorter than averagetelevision shows: Each episode will run around five minutes. Bydoing so, Young hopes to grab the busy-on-the-go audience with "bite-size" pieces of content.
Sutherland is already known for innovations in TV time, by makinga splash playing the slick Jack Bauer in the real-time series "24,"which ran on Fox for eight seasons. Having completed the run of theshow in the spring 2010, he jump-started "The Confession" when amutual friend introduced him to Young.
The actor was immediately intrigued by the "challenge" of makinga gripping story out of such short episodes, Young said. AfterSutherland thought up the basic idea for the series (hit man plusconfessions plus priest), he helped recruit a pal, screenwriter BradMirman, to write and direct.
Mirman, who has known Sutherland since they worked together on amovie in the '90s, was mum on many details, describing the show onlyas a drama with action that explores "the definition of right orwrong, and the gray area in between." A trailer reveals a slow,creepy zoom-in on Sutherland in a confessional, with a lone voicesinging "Silent Night" eerily in the background.
Filmed over about 10 days in December during a snowstorm in NewYork, the series stars Hurt as the priest, with Max Casella ("TheSopranos") and Michael Badalucco ("The Practice") among the co-stars. When the actors showed up on the first day, Mirman said itwas a surprise to those who thought the set would have a differentfeel just because it was a show for just (cue dramatic music) theInternet.
"That was the talk among a lot of the actors on the set," Mirmansaid. "It had the same production value and same feel of any networktelevision show."
The producers hope for a big reception for a network-type showavailable only on computer screens, though they're aware of thechallenges of promoting such a series - it could be difficult toattract those who are uncomfortable using the Web to watch TV.
Still, those in the industry think the market for higher-techonline series with television actors will grow. Elisabeth Flack,executive director of the International Academy of Web Television inLos Angeles, said she has been seeing more Web series with highproduction quality, as artists are able to afford better equipmentto produce shows - and in the long run, more well-known actors willstart to gravitate toward the online arena.
And Young remains optimistic the series will find an audiencewith the draw of a big name in a unique venue.
"Exactly what you would expect from TV, we're offering in thiscase," Young said. "But you know what? You can't watch it on TV.Everywhere but."
yahre@washpost.com
No comments:
Post a Comment