SamHas7Friends
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| SamHas7Friends | |
|---|---|
 SamHas7Friends logo |
|
| Format | drama, internet video |
| Created by | Douglas Cheney Chris Hampel Chris McCaleb Ryan Wise Marcus Blakely |
| Directed by | Douglas Cheney Chris Hampel Chris McCaleb Ryan Wise |
| Starring | Stephanie Marquis |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 80 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Marcus Blakely |
| Running time | 90 seconds |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | YouTube Revver iTunes |
| Original run | August 28, 2006 – December 15, 2006 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Prom Queen |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
SamHas7Friends was a 2006 internet-based serial drama made by the production company Big Fantastic. The series appeared on YouTube, Revver, iTunes and its own web site. The show revolved around its tagline, "Samantha Breslow has seven friends. On December 15, 2006, one of them will kill her," with each episode bringing Sam one day closer to her death.
Contents |
[edit] History
The series was created as an experiment by a group of young Los Angeles-based filmmakers, Marcus Blakely, Douglas Cheney, Chris Hampel, Chris McCaleb and Ryan Wise, in their spare time. The project was self-financed on a budget of around $50,000.[1] Chris Hampel and Chris McCaleb were also working on Michael Mann's film Miami Vice; Hampel as Mann's assistant, McCaleb as an assistant editor.
The group formed a production company called "Big Fantastic, LLC" and set about creating a series of webisodes. The producers believed there was an untapped market for people with short attention spans, or office workers with only sporadic free time, who would watch a short-form scripted, serialized drama.[2] The series was distributed for free on YouTube, Revver, iTunes and its own site, samhas7friends.com. The series was produced with no business model, and only minimal support from advertising via post-roll Revver ads.
[edit] Story
SamHas7Friends is variously described as a soap opera or murder mystery. The story follows an attractive cast of young actors around LA with the knowledge, throughout the series, that one of them is going to kill Samantha Breslow, an aspiring actress.[3]
The seven "friends" that appear in the series opening credits are Sam's boyfriend Patrick, her ex-boyfriend Willie, her best friend Dani, Dani's boyfriend Chivo, her neighbor Scott, Patrick's other girlfriend Vera, and Sam's agent Roman.
The characters get in various fights with each other over the course of the 80 episodes. With webisodes of only 90 seconds a piece, each episode focused on the most interesting minute and a half of the characters' days.[1]
Throughout the series, Sam has a bad run of luck, going through two break-ups, struggling to find acting work and getting in fights with her best friend, her agent and her sister. After attempting various reconciliations, she decides she has had her fill of LA
On the December 15, 2006 episode Sam is murdered while preparing to move out of her apartment and leave L.A. forever. The murderer cannot be seen in this final episode, leaving the mystery up in the air.
[edit] Reception
Critics had mixed reactions to SamHas7Friends. Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times described the series as "respectably viral."[4] Television critic Andrew Wallenstein was perplexed by the series, and suggested that "maybe drama remains the domain of traditional mediums."[5]
The series received small audiences of several thousand viewers at YouTube, Revver and its own site. At iTunes the show was more popular, receiving more than 10,000 downloads a day through the show's run.[6]
[edit] After Sam's Death
While the show attracted less views than many of the most popular Web serials, SamHas7Friends caught the eye of the United Talent Agency, one of the big 5 Hollywood talent agencies, which operates a unit to scout for online talent.[7]
After shopping the series around, United Talent Agency and the producers of SamHas7Friends caught the eye of Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Walt Disney who was creating a studio to produce content for the internet. Eisner purchased the rights for season 1 of SamHas7Friends as well as an option to produce any future seasons. Eisner's also hired the producers through his production company Vuguru to create his first internet series.[8]
The series Prom Queen debuted on MySpace on April 1, 2007.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Sam Has 7 Friends" yourLA Feature Interview. yourLA on KNBC (2006-11-03). Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Glenn Garvin. "Webisode: Think 60 seconds, not 60 minutes", The Miami Herald, 2007-04-23. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Rick Aristotle Munarriz (2006-10-31). Clip Culture Gets Clipped. The Motley Fool. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Virginia Heffernan. "Who Is the Player King Behind 'Prom Queen'?", The New York Times, 2007-04-16. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Andrew Wallenstein. "Online TV Series Has Drama, Lacks Staying Power", NPR's Day to Day, 2006-12-13. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Rick Aristotle Munarriz (2006-11-07). Can YouTube Me Now?. The Motley Fool. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Patrick Goldstein. "Hollywood is seeing fans pull a power play", Los Angeles Times, 2007-01-23. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Dade Hayes. "Eisner unveils Web studio", Variety, 2007-03-12.
[edit] External links
- samhas7friends.com — Official site
