Producing a webseries is similar to producing a TV series – you need cameras, lights, producers, directors, actors, locations, makeup, costumes, grips, clips and dollies. And, perhaps most importantly, Craft Service. The scale may be different but it still requires the same skills, dedication and hard work. Season 1 of
The Guild brought together a wealth of production talent:
Jane Selle Morgan: Producer, Director and Editor
Since graduating top of the class at film school Jane now has a string of successful productions to her name. She has created content for clients such as Microsoft, Amazon.com and Expedia.com. She also has a very spiffy website.
Kim Evey: Producer
Kim is an established actress who also stars, writes and produces her own webseries including the hilarious
Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show. Find out more about Kim in our exclusive interview.
Greg Benson: Director and Editor of several episodes in Season 1.
Greg has a long acting career and has his own production company
Mediocre Films.They have an impressive string of quality comedy shorts including "
Retarded Policeman" and "
Greg Hits Hollywood."
Felicia Day: Writer and Producer
In addition to starring as Codex in
The Guild, Felicia wrote and co-produced it. She has been involved in many TV and film productions and has put this experience to good effect for
The Guild.
Season 2 of
The Guild has many of the same team plus some new faces. The team wanted to reduce the gap between episodes for new season, planning on releasing an episode every two weeks. In order to do that and maintain the high production values more help was going to be needed.
So, what would you do if you need help for your award-winning webseries? For Felicia the answer was obvious - she put out a little notice on
The Guild website and repeated it on Twitter! They had an overwhelming response with people expressing interest from all over the world! Unfortunately only those in the LA area could be considered but even then they had many more applicants than there were vacancies. Applications were all read carefully and vacancies were filled after interviews.
Chris Freyer caught up with Felicia at GeekKon and he shared these snippets about Season 2
on his blog.Felicia was interviewed by NewTeeVee.com this week after being listed as one of their
‘Top Ten Video Breakout Stars’ for 2008 and you can
see the video here. Felicia talked about what running a webseries is like and announced that there is now a sponsor for the show who will be revealed next week.
Another change is that the series is being filmed in HD thanks to camera rental company
Bunch Casseday. The new titles have already been completed by
Matthew Brackney and can be previewed on
The Guild Community site
The premiere of Season 2 has been confirmed as 25th November, with filming going on weekends for several weeks.
With less than two weeks to go here are some quick facts to impress your friends with:
Season 1 was self-financed, with help from donations via PayPal from fans and money from Awards.
- The Guild Season 1 won the following awards: Yahoo 2007 Best Web Series Award, YouTube Best Series Award for 2007 and SXSW/On Networks Web Series award
- Felicia’s experience with The Guild helped inspire Joss Whedon to create Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
- Previously Joss had cast Felicia as Vi, a Potential in Buffy Season 7
- You can follow these members of The Guild on Twitter: Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, Vork Kim Evey Greg Benson (as Mediocre Films)
- Members of the cast and crew can often be found on The Guild Community Chat talking to fans. The Community website which has chat, forums, groups, videos and lots more
- The “Watch The Guild” Website is featured on the Wordpress Showcase which highlights websites with great Wordpress designs
- Felicia, Jeff and Sandeep are part of an Improvisation Group called Being Human
- There are many great interviews and reports about The Guild online but if you want a good summary of why you should watch try this one by Tilzy.tv
In the final part of our Introduction to The Guild we will have an exclusive video interview with the series star and creator, Felicia Day. It’s not too late to submit a question for us to ask her, simply register with the site and add your question to the comments, below. And don’t forget to check out the exclusive interview with The Guild producer Kim Evey.