Craig Frank as Mark, Janna Bossier as Justine, & Annemarie Pazmino as Cassandra

Looking at my previous post on internal voice overs, I realized that I referenced a great deal of character psychology without even referencing its origins in the series. I think that character origins are so important when trying to craft a continuous story, yes origins can evolve as stories progress but it still is that foundation that drives the character. So in this post, I will touch upon the literary origins of the three leads that will help highlight the basis of their individual psychosis.

In looking at our three leads (Mark, Cassandra, Justine), a common classification is to call them all sociopaths. Personally I feel this is a little extreme of a classification, but that’s just me who read about a lot of sociopaths while researching Compulsions. Granted I do believe that Mark, Cassandra, and Justine are disturbed people, but I feel that they are capable of feeling empathy and thus believe that their levels of psychosis are definitely in the more infancy stages than say Ted Bundy or Charles Manson. But like any sociopath, they all have their origins. Ted Bundy wasn’t always Ted Bundy the serial killer, and thus our leads are at that early stage in their De-evolution. Sure they do bad things, but are capable of growing into so much worse when pressed and stressed. (continue reading…)

Craig Frank on set.

It’s been a long couple weeks with the Streamy Nominations and such, I wanted this blog to come right after my previous two writing blogs on Themes and Drama, but this month continues to be a whirlwind. None the less, let’s get right into it.

Being a creator and a fan of Web Series I’ve found that many shows contain some form of narration. These types include, but are not limited to  -

• General Narrator - A person not part of the story/world telling the audience what is going on.
• Vlogging - A character speaking directly to the camera telling the audience what he/she is observing in the world.
• Voice Over(Internal Monologue) - A character speaking through her thoughts as he/she goes through the story.

Philosopher Jacques Lacan once said,
“The narration, in fact, doubles the drama with a commentary without which no mise en scene would be possible” (continue reading…)

Craig Frank (right) and Janna Bossier in Episode 1: Unleash

Thank you everyone for reading my previous blog on Writing and Structuring Drama for the Short Form.  I was worried that the subject matter would get too deep into the thinking I put into my craft as a writer. So now I follow it up with an even deeper writing blog post.

I’d like to showcase how I tried to make Compulsions a truly thematic based series. As a writer/story teller, one of the challenges I placed on myself in tackling this show was whether or not a short form web series could be presented thematically.  And adding to the challenge, could a short form series support not only an overarching theme, but showcase different individual themes from episode to episode.

Stanley Kubrick once said, “A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” (continue reading…)

Bernie Su (center) answers questions on the RadNerd post show with hosts Flitz (right) and Damian Beurer

Thanks everyone that watched my guest spot on the RadNerd Show on Tuesday night. It was an amazing experience and the guys over there are awesome. I had a lot of fun just Nerding it up and big thanks out there to those of you who asked questions in the chat room.

One of the great questions I got asked on the show was “What was the biggest challenge of making a thriller in 3 minute chunks?” – I did answer the Q on the show, which you can watch here at about the 48 minute mark, but I’d like to center this post on my thought process on  how I approached writing an intense drama in the short format.

Note: I am not claiming that this is the “right way” to write drama in short format, these are just some of the choices I made. This is simply one of many ways to approach the craft. Like any web series, this show was in a way an experiment. Whether it worked or not is for the audience to judge.
(continue reading…)