The Lake on thewb.com
Web Series Focuses on Teens
Beginning August 10, thewb.com began posting four episodes of their new teen drama, The Lake. Four new episodes will be posed on the following two Mondays.
Jason Priestley of Beverly Hills 90210 fame, directed this new project which, in its entirety, runs the length of a feature film. In this new format, each episode ranges from about 8 to 12 minutes long, so viewers can download them and watch them at their leisure. With today’s fast-paced world and people’s short attention spans, this is an interesting way to view a series.
The show was actually shot in Big Bear, California. Priestley and the cast recently answered questions from members of the Television Critics Association.
A Short Production Time
As Priestley says, “We were up there for five days. The rest of it we shot in and around Los Angeles here. Our entire production time was 12 days, so it was a rather quick shoot. We had a lot of material to shoot every day. But I think that because of the wonderful cast that we have assembled here, they really were able to pull it off.” He looked pleased with the accomplishment the cast and crew achieved.
Priestley also says, “I think one of the great things about the Internet is that it provides an opportunity with a much lower risk threshold to try something out. And we believe there are stories here and characters here that can go on for a long period of time.” Whether that means a new Internet series or a regular TV series is unclear. Until the filmmakers get more feedback on the popularity of the show and the format, they are not saying anything about any future plans.
The Lake takes place in the fictional town of Lake Eleanor, where families gather together for the summer. Some are locals and some are regular summer visitors, and there is one new girl who, as she says, just wants to be “normal” for the summer.
Everyone here is hiding something. There are as many secrets as there are cast members. To put it bluntly, it is like a soap opera for the teen-age set.
The Internet is the Newest Entertainment Medium
A series made specifically for the Internet is a new format in the entertainment industry. As Priestley explains, “I challenged myself by taking on this project, and working with this new medium was part of that. I think that the Internet and viewing things on the Internet is going to be part of the entertainment landscape. I don't think it's going to become all of the entertainment landscape, but I think it's going to be part of it. So for those of us who make scripted content need to be able to do it, whether it's for television, whether it's for feature films or whether it's for the Internet, which is going to be part of our landscape. So I think that taking on this project was a great challenge for all of us, but especially for me because I really had to learn about the limitations of the medium.”
The budget for the project was small as was the schedule. “People didn't quite have to bring their own lunches,” Priestley says with some humor, “but we definitely worked with a much smaller crew than is generally used when shooting television. Obviously we shot with two cameras all the time, so you can save a lot there just in paying people. But we were streamlined all the way from the top on down. It was an incredibly streamlined production. We could load up the entire production into two little tiny vans and get wherever we needed to be. So it was very lean and mean, because we had to be.”
Whether this new medium will be embraced by viewers or not remains to be seen. Perhaps it will appeal more to younger viewers who get all their information from the Internet. That might be the reason the producers decided to make this with a young cast and with storylines that appeal to young viewers.
The Lake is available at this website.
For more about alternatives to television, read this article.
The Lake Web Series
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