Left to Right: Michael Tohl, Bernie Su, Nathan Atkinson, and Annemarie Pazmino show of the hardware.

We are proud to announce that Compulsions has received five Awards in the 2011 StayTunedTV Awards, including

Best Drama
Best Actor in a Drama – Craig Frank
Best Writing – Bernie Su
Audience Choice Award – Best Directing – Nathan Atkinson
Audience Choice Award – Best Actress in a Drama – Annemarie Pazmino

Director Nathan Atkinson holds up the Best Drama trophy. - Nathan also won the Audience Choice Award for Directing in a Drama.

Producer Michael Tohl holds up the Best Drama trophy

The team poses behind the three trophies for Drama, Writer, and Actor.

Bernie Su wins The Streamy for Best Writing in a Drama - photo by The Bui Brothers

Last night, at the 2nd annual Streamy Awards. Compulsions won a Streamy Award for Best Writing a Drama for Writer/Creator Bernie Su.

Compulsions was nominated for four Streamy Awards overall, aside from Writing, it also had nominations in Directing Nathan Atkinson, Actor Craig Frank, and Best Overall Drama.

A complete list of winners can be found here.

http://news.tubefilter.tv/2010/04/11/the-2nd-annual-streamy-awards-the-winners/

Other photos by the Bui Brothers from the Red Carpet – More will be added as we find them. – after the jump

Craig Frank - Hops onto the Red Carpet

Producer Michael Tohl arrives to the Streamy Awards

Director Nathan Atkinson and wife Chandra

Writer Bernie Su arrives to the Streamy Awards

and root for us.

Our Nominations again are as follows.

Actor in a Drama – Craig Frank

Writer in a Drama – Bernie Su

Director in a Drama – Nathan Atkinson

Drama Web Series

Thank You all for supporting us!

Craig Frank wields the belt against Taryn O'Neill

Looking back at our series, one of my favorite stories was the rumor that Craig Frank is a method actor. This started last July, back in Pre-production, when Craig came up to the production team with a request. He asked that during the days that we’d be shooting in the interrogation room, that he get some space to prepare and be by himself to be away from the hustle and bustle of the set. This one request would begin the chain of events that became “Craig Frank is a method actor”.

Let me give you some back story, we shot our 8 episode season over five consecutive days. Day 1 were the office scenes, Day 2 were the IT Room/Garage scenes, Day 3 and 4 were the Interrogation Scenes, and Day 5 were the House/Cassandra’s room scenes.

During the first two days of shooting, Craig was his usual self on set. A couple wise cracks here, some playful fun there, but still the consummate professional and a great guy to have on set. He came, he did his scenes, and he even hung out for a while afterward. At the end of Day 2, as he did his goodbyes to the cast and crew he said to all of us, “see you all in 3 days,” for the Craig that we knew would not be with us, but rather someone else.

Day Three started with a different feel. We knew it was going to be a “different day.” We were shooting some very intense scenes, and we had a very different lead actor. When Craig pulled into the warehouse, he stayed in the car while the crew prepared. I remember watching him sitting in his beat up old Integra staying very still. An announcement went over our walkies from Producer Michael Tohl with explicit instructions that no one was to disturb Craig’s concentration. Eventually Michael came over and personally walked Craig over into a room designated to him, a room labeled “Do Not Disturb“.

The next two days were filled with different little tidbits. We had Craig shuttled between the set and his room, to ensure that he was never bothered. He never interacted with his scene partners Seth Caskey, or Taryn O’Neill, with the exception being in front of the camera. Actually no one interacted with Craig, save for a handful of the principal crew. Through the shooting days Craig remained intense, he brooded, he was stoic, and he was very quiet. Was it method acting? Was it Craig making demands? No… it was Craig committing to the character, and thus we committed to Craig.

Craig has stated to me that he never was lost in the character of Mark Sandler the Sadist, but I believe he convinced the rest of us that he was. There was a perception around the crew that no one was to look Craig in the eye (I don’t recall if this was a stated rule or not, but it pretty much became one). I also remember ‘shuushing’ someone for making too much noise outside of his room (yes I committed). And my favorite story was on set where our D.P. Jason Raswant was so intimated by Craig that when he needed him to move a simple step or two over he’d flag down Director Nathan Atkinson to relay the instructions.

The rumors began to spread, the crew, the actors, the guests on set,  ”Craig Frank is a Method Actor”, but it all just a rumor. The truth was that Craig did immense preparation for this role. He did his research, he prepared himself and had committed to the Mark character to put his all in this performance. We as the crew thus committed to Craig. He gave us everything he could, we gave him everything we could back, and the result is the performance you see today.

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”

As narration can elevate the drama, I feel that it also can be a very slippery slope. By definition it goes against one of the old adages of filmmaking “Show me, don’t tell me”. This warning should be especially observed in a web series simply because your run times are so short. One minute of narration feels a lot longer in a five minute episode than it does for an hour long. Thus for our show, I tried to limit the narration to come only when absolutely necessary and even attempted to give it a fresh unique spin to the characters.

In Compulsions, the narration comes in the form of Internal Monologue Voices Overs. Each of the three leads, Mark, Justine, Cassandra, all use Voice Overs to narrate the story and reveal more about their characters. It was important to me that when any of the characters would give a voice over, there would be a level of differentiation that was more than just “this person speaking his mind”. Our narration is instead grounded within the individual character and would come from a place where they’d reveal layers to themselves you would not see otherwise.  You’ll also notice that in each lead characters first feature episode, the final voice over is a defining character point for each and stated in their own unique voices.

Mark Sandler’s (Craig Frank‘s) voice overs come from a place of being instructional and ‘to the point’. His characer is very much in control of the situation. Thus in “educating” the audience with his VO’s it serves as a demonstration of his inner emotional control and confidence. At the end of Episode 1: Unleash, he proudly declares in VO – “My name is Mark, and I am a Sadist.”

Justine Davis’ (Janna Bossier‘s) voice overs come from a caring story teller origin, like a parent telling a child a fairy tale. I backstoried her psychosis as coming from a glossy yet troubled and twisted childhood, which would be shown onscreen as a strong yet extremely vulnerable and disturbed young woman. At the end of Episode 3: Fairy Tale, she ends her tale in VO - “That Halloween my Mother bought me a princess costume but I was disapointed… I wanted to be the Fire Breathing Dragon.”

Cassandra Morrissey’s (Annemarie Pazmino‘s) voice overs come from a literary narrative POV. The insipiration was if she’s watching a play and is acting as the commentator/narrator. If you haven’t noticed, Cassandra’s VOs are all written in Iambic Pentameter, which is by design. I thought the Iambics would add a level of creepiness to the character, which would in turn add to her own psychosis. At the End of Episode 5: Only I Can See, she narrates “People keep Secrets, every he and she. For they keep secrets, only I can see”.

Three characters all giving voice over narration in very different ways, thus justifying its existence in the first place and hopefully elevating the drama in each scene with its commentary. I encourage all writers to find new ways to bring narration to screen, if anything, it will hopefully give your work a fresh distinctive element.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post on using narration to elevate the character. I encourage you to check out my previous posts on Theme and Writing for the Short Form.

As always be sure to sign up on our EMAIL LIST, fan us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter

Streamy Nominee Craig Frank shows off his pliers - Click to watch the Episodes

We are proud to announce that Compulsions received four Streamy Award Nominations in the 2010 Streamy Awards.

Best Drama Web Series

Best Directing for a Drama Web Series – Nathan Atkinson

Best Writing for a Drama Web Series – Bernie Su

Best Male Actor in a Drama Web Series – Craig Frank

In the Drama Category, Compulsions is going up against Sony/Crackle’s Angel of Death, and The Bannen Way, as well as MTV/Viacom’s Valemont, and the ITVFest winner OzGirl.

A full list of nominations can be found here.

- The Streamy Awards is the first and most prestigious awards ceremony devoted to honoring excellence in original web television programming and those who create it. The annual ceremony, and its live online broadcast, brings together top talent, decision-makers and influencers shaping the online entertainment industry. – from Streamys.org

For Your Consideration: Cinematographer Jason Raswant

This Post is in a series of posts that is directed at the members of the IAWTV/Streamy Awards. The content will highlight different members of the Compulsions team. These are meant for both awareness and as a guide to showcase what each individual brought to the project.

From Producer Michael Tohl: Jason had limited equipment, limited crew, and tough conditions to work in.  We shot all eight episodes in July, and two of our days were particularly tough on him and his crew… when we shot our warehouse scenes.  Lighting an empty space the size of three football fields with a lighting package smaller than one  typical on a student film is hard enough.  They were using practically every single thing they hand to light each shot one at a time.  Having a “skeleton crew” means less hands on deck to move that heavy equipment around for each shot, and running it around such a large space is tiring.  That makes it hard to keep up with the shooting schedule.  We had a “diffuser” (similar to a fog machine) to create “depth” and “texture” in the background, and that created swamp like humidity.  And to push the crew to the edge, we had to keep the air conditioning off to keep the sound from getting ruined, and from blowing the diffusion around.  The crew was quickly fatigued, and it took all their heart to keep going.  So aside from his creative talents that can be seen on screen, what you didn’t see was how he remained strong (but not mean), calm (but not lazy) and constantly thought on his toes to keep his crew from losing heart.  It takes some serious leadership skills to keep a crew moving on schedule, and doing quality work under such harsh conditions!

Taryn O'Neill looks on to a bleeding Seth Caskey in Episode 6

From Director Nathan Atkinson: Here’s the thing about Jason, I think he was given a budget of something like $600… and then we cut it back. Because he has such a great eye, he was able to take his pocket change budget, call in dozens of one time favors, and make it look like a studio had picked us up and we shot it for seven figures. Simply amazing. The camera we used (Sony EX3) is a camera that many feature films use as “crash cameras” – cameras that are cheap enough to destroy… just as long as you get the shot from them first. But, with Jason, you’d never know it. Again, you can have the flashiest gun in the world – but if you don’t know how to shoot it, you’re just going to hurt yourself. Jason’s skill, his attitude, and his almost magical skill of taking next-to-nothing and making it look like a million bucks, not only makes him the best candidate for this award – it makes me want to work with him again, and often.

A silhouetted Craig Frank in Episode 6

From Creator Bernie Su: From day one Jason was the first pick of both Nathan and Michael for this project and I certainly feel fortunate to work with someone so driven and talented in his craft. I was always impressed from his use of shadows in a scene, below is the first scene from Episode 6, one of our most complex scenes as far as coverage. Take special note of Jason’s incredible use of shadows in contrast with the lighting in each shot. The depth and layers added so much to the “grittiness” that serves the sequence so well, and like Jason stands by, “serves the story.”

Please consider Jason Raswant from Compulsions for Best Cinematography in the 2010 Streamys.

Production Designer Rachel Payne works on set.

This Post is in a series of posts that is directed at the members of the IAWTV/Streamy Awards. The content will highlight different members of the Compulsions team. These are meant for both awareness and as a guide to showcase what each individual brought to the project.

When you approach Rachel and ask what a Production Designer does her response is, “A Production Designer is the person that is in charge of everything in the frame…that doesn’t move…and is usually out of focus”.

From Producer Michael Tohl: Given the gritty tone of our show, it was a natural dilemma… how do we balance our budget while pulling off sets that “sold” on screen? My favorite creative solution to a production design challenge we faced, can be seen in the climax of Episode Eight. At the end of the episode, Justine goes to pick up “the package” in a vacant parking structure. When she goes to the drop off spot (a hole in a pillar behind a parking sign) the package is not there, and all we see is the chunky inside of a concrete pillar. That pillar was a fake pillar, that she handmade hours before we shot that scene! It only cost us a few bucks, and it looks great on screen. That is one example of her excellence, but there is also so much fine detail work that she did, and as long as you don’t notice it… that means she did her job well.

Janna Bossier stands in front of the false pillar in episode 8

From Director Nathan Atkinson: Rachel Payne is my “go-to” Production Designer, period. I’ve done a few projects without her (due to availability) and when others simply couldn’t, I always found myself saying, “Rachel would’ve been able to make it work.” She has simply never failed. No matter how outrageous the request, she always comes up with a (ridiculously practical) solution… even if it’s constructed of nothing but “gaff-tape.” For example, we needed a pillar in a public parking garage with a hole burrowed into it. She made one out of paper mache for next to nothing… and, every time I watch, I truly forget that it’s fake. She’s really that good. Other times it’s a priceless antique. “Rachel, that’s amazing, where in the world did you find that?” Rachel, with her ever-disarmingly thick Alabama accent, “Well, none of the Prop Houses had one, so I said to myself, I’ll just make one … and then I found this at a Thrift Store.” To be perfectly frank, Rachel took our shoe-string budget and made everything you see in front of the camera look just as real as if this were a documentary – or better, in some cases. She’s simply the best.

From Creator Bernie Su: In reality most Art Direction is hard to notice, and in reality most production design you really shouldn’t notice. But in highlighting the skills of Rachel Payne I’m going to point out what’s fake to appreciate what she brought to the table.

Craig Frank stands above his tool bench.

Interrogation Room – This is THE set piece of the series. Here you can see the details of what Rachel brought. Early on Rachel envisioned a bevy of tools to place at Craig Frank’s arsenal, but not only tools. She wanted a bench, an artificial quick to strike table that added to the simplicity and the fear of the scene. Thus Rachel went about constructing this table from scratch. Morning of she yanked out her power tools, goggles and away she went building  her bench.

Annemarie Pazmino in the Cassandra set.

Cassandra’s room -We always envisioned this as the 2nd setpiece of the series. It really is just a room, but we went as big as we could. 4 Monitors, all active with two floating on arms. We got an obsessed voyeur here, so Rachel went all out. A great little detail of this scene is the DVD rack behind her, a mass archive of all the footage the character has acquired from her victims.

One final note on Rachel. The Office set seen throughout the show was originally a completely vacant office. Everything you see from the stationary, the supplies, the white board, to the copier were all artificially brought in by Rachel. There is nothing like walking in on that set you get completely lost in, “Wait, this isn’t a working office?”.

So please consider Rachel Payne from Compulsions for Best Art Direction in the 2010 Streamys.

Craig Frank accepts his Indie Soap Award for Best Actor

It’s been a great week for us over here at the Compulsions camp. I’d like to lead off by thanking all of our friends and fans for the immense support for the wins. It was definitely very exciting on Monday night watching the Twitter and Facebook streams pop off  in support of our winners as they were announced. Second, a big thanks goes off to  We Love Soaps for putting together a great Inaugural Indie Soap Awards show and for doing a stellar job in raising awareness of Indie Dramatic content across the web. It’s also great to see an “awards season” start to unfold for the web space as a whole. Starting with the Clicker award, and now moving through the Indie Soap Awards and on to the Streamys and Webbys.

A great benefit to web content fans is that it gives us another outlet to discover content across the internet. It also proves how difficult it is to really be on top of what’s going on in WebTV. Going through the nomination process I had only heard of about half of the shows on the list, so even from my perspective it pushed me to sample several shows that were previously completely unknown to me. 

As for the awards itself, I was happy to see that the voting committee took the process very seriously in declaring their winners. For example, before watching the awards (which you can re-watch here) I was sure that Tatyana Ali would take the Lead Female Actress award for Buppies simply off of the number of total nominations for the show (13) and that she’s probably the highest profile actress in the field. (note: I am not taking anything away from her performance. I’ve watched several episodes of Buppies and she’s great in it.) Thus, seeing Rachael Hip-Flores take the win for her angst driven, conflict heavy teen aged character in Anything But Me was pretty awesome and definitely well deserved.

As for our awards, saying that I am thrilled about them would be an understatement. It’s exciting for a writer to see his/her own characters lead to award winning performances. So even though I technically lost in my category, I felt richly rewarded seeing Craig Frank and Taryn O’Neill take home big wins. It was very validating and it gave me a great sense of pride in my craft. At the very least, I must be doing something right.

Fun facts: This is actually the 2nd time I’ve written Craig into an acting award, and the 2nd actress named Taryn that I’ve written into one… so I guess I need to reach out to Taryn Manning.

Anyway let’s not take anything away from the actors. Earlier in the week one person commented to me about how “gripping” the series is. Going into our series, it was pretty evident that the Mark(Craig) x Sara (Taryn) x Adam (Seth Caskey) dynamic would really make or break the tension of the show. To see it executed so well by the three of them as well as being supported so well by our entire crew behind them was definitely rewarding at the very least.  In a later blog post I’ll showcase several of the performances specifically.

For our technical awards winners, Tom Boykin (Sound Design) and Michael Darrow (Editing), I’m thrilled to see them both being recognized for outstanding bodies of work on both fronts. I really encourage film/web series makers out there to reach out to either of these two. They’re both talented (award winning) and reasonable technical experts that are great to work with. Tom can be reached through his website http://www.tomboykin.com, Michael can be reached via twitter (@darkxavier666) or Facebook. You can also email contact at compulsions dot tv and get other contact information.

Compulsions received 11 nominations in the 1st Annual Indie Soap Awards

The winners of the 1st Annual Indie Soap Awards were announced in a ceremony on Monday night from Shetler Studios in New York City. 13 web series were honored with various awards. Compulsions tied the most total wins of any show (with Anyone But Me) – The total list of winners can be found here.

Compulsions won the following Indie Soap Awards.

Best Performance by a Lead Actor-
Craig Frank as Mark Sandler

Best Performance by a Supporting Actress
Taryn O’Neill as Sara Flannery

Best Editing
Michael Darrow

Best Sound Design
Tom Boykin

The 1st Annual Indie Soap Awards were developed to honor the efforts of creative forces in the world of independent web series production, specifically those who produce continuing drama series.

One stand out episodes that showcase all four winners is Episode 4

The Indie Soap Awards wins adds to its previous Clicker Best Original Web Drama Win.