This is going to be a long one.
So, when I first came to NYC, three years ago, I wrote a lil webseries. I say “lil” because the episodes were designed to be extremely short. One joke, one punch, 2 and a half minutes max.
So I wrote 16 episodes. We called it “The Short Life of Diane Hunte”. Long title, short episodes. We called it SLODH cuz that’s faster to type.
But I didn’t do it alone. I had two incredibly talented, creative collaborators in Megan McNally and Alyson Roseman.
Alyson introduced Megan and I. She realized that both of us had independently come up with the same idea for a comedic webseries. The three of us embarked on a near impossible task: write, produce, act, edit, and release a whole webseries with a budget of ZERO DOLLARS.
Why did we do this? Well number one, we didn’t have any money. But also, because we were naïve and had a lot of wonderful friends who were willing to volunteer their time. It was 2016 guys. This was a whole different era in American history. We were young and unafraid.
Megan co-created the series, she co-wrote those episodes, she DP’d and directed everything, this is her baby as much as it is anyone’s. She schlepped her very expensive camera all across the boroughs of New York.
(Ok, we didn’t go to Staten Island. Or the Bronx. But we were all over Queens and Brooklyn and Manhattan. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.)
Alyson executive produced the series, which is truly a thankless job when you aren’t getting paid. She provided her insight and understanding of narrative, she used her skills to keep Megan and me organized, emailed talent, scouted locations, held boom mics, and tons of other jobs that weren’t really her responsibility.
It was hard. It was fun. It was not completed. For a long time, I was embarrassed about that. But in January 2019, I decided to let go of that embarrassment. Why should I be? We worked hard on this thing. Why keep it under a bushel basket, as the Colloquial Kid would say?
I set a deadline of March 1, 2019. I announced it publicly. It was getting out there, one way or another. I gathered the troops. I taught myself how to edit. I pulled my hair out trying to sync audio. I thought about how I’d do audio now. Not like that.
Megan and Alyson jumped back in. We stuck to the deadline.
If we were to do this again, I bet all three of us would’ve done our roles differently. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that. I think it’s also important to say I’m proud of what we accomplished, with honestly, nothing but pluck and the kindness of our friends.
I haven’t seen some of these actors/crew in years.
So today, I’m releasing all 8 finished episodes. Netflix style. All at once, babeeeeeeee. There are some incomplete episodes: some we partially shot and some we only wrote. I’m not releasing those, but I’m so thankful for all the people who contributed to this project (the aired and unaired). I’m so lucky to have a tribe of creative people in New York. Compulsively artistic people. People who say “yes”. I’m truly grateful. I will attempt to list them all, knowing that my memory fades after such a long time. In no particular order:
Michelle Maffeo, David T Patterson, Grace Experience, Lucas Thompson, Lukas Rafael, Sofia Piccolo, Andrew Martinez, Melanie Copeland, Lee Cohen, Erin Chiet, Carl, Derek Kirch, Kyle Walter, that bodega guy, Diana Jurand (for a gentle nudge), Max Patino, Helena Farhi, Joseph Manning (for joke punch up), Bryan Songy, Jamie Roach, and Abigail Cline
Here is the playlist of what we’ll call, Season 1. SLODH. You should be able to watch it all in under 15 minutes.
I hope you enjoy this “lil” project. If you do, please like, subscribe, share with all your friends.
Thanks gang. Grateful.
