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.

For Your Consideration: Guest Star - Taryn O'Neill

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.

Taryn is an experienced Actor and received a Streamy Nomination in 2009 for her work in After Judgment. Last month she won an Indie Soap Award for Best Supporting Actress in her work in Compulsions.

From Director Nathan Atkinson: The single most exposed, and thereby critical role in the series. Why? And, why Taryn? We saw actor after actor for this role – and everyone brought something different, something valuable… but what Taryn was able to capture is what sold me. I’m getting ahead of myself. So, during the casting process, what I was looking for was to find someone who could genuinely come across as someone who was lying to the one they loved the most – out of love. …And then gets caught. The whole concept fascinated me. And, bound to a chair what lengths would she go to, to save the one she loved. It’s complex and twisted, but somehow, out of everyone, Taryn made me believe. She made everyone believe, that’s what really added the depth that the Series needed – adding that credible, fourth perspective on the interconnectedness of everything.

(Watch Taryn in Episode 6 as she goes through the journey as Nathan describes)

From Creator Bernie Su: This is one of those meaty/rich  performances that you just need to watch an appreciate. I remember the day Episode 4 aired and Taryn’s Facebook/Twitter exploded with people in awe of her performance.

One of the base themes of this series is deception. But like all deception there are clues (or bodily “tells”) that a deception is happening, the difference is how big the tell is. In this scene below, Mark(Craig) is interrogating Sara(Taryn), Mark asks “Where is it?”, and Sara gives an answer. It’s specific, it’s detailed, and she does it without breaking eye contact, so then how does Mark know she’s lying?… In the clip below from Episode 4, watch the 2:21 mark (you may need to watch it a couple of times to catch it) but Taryn does a slight subtle flinch (“The Tell”), which follows into the rest of the scene. There is a tell, and Mark catches it and he then punishes her for it.

This role required someone who could big and go dark, and just commit. Taryn committed to it, and what came out was an amazing performance.

So please consider Taryn O’Neill  in Compulsions for Best Guest Star.

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.

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.

Incidentally this day also is the last day for the public to submit their Streamy Nominations and in relation to both I’m reminded of our amazing and diverse cast.

Early in our casting process we as a team were adamant about having a racially diverse cast. Did we cast on race? No… we just wanted to be diverse to feel real. The real world isn’t predominantly one race, and as such our world in the show isn’t either.

One of the exciting results for our cast is how well they’ve come together as an ensemble. One of the most consistent complements we get for our series is in our performances. NewTeeVee said that we have  ”some of the best acting in web series last year.” A praise that really goes out to the cast and our director Nathan Atkinson

If you’re reading this you’ve probably already seen our Season 1,  so I’m sure you have your own opinions. If not please watch and see for yourself. – Watch Season 1

I encourage you to send some submissions votes for show and cast today for the Streamys. Don’t submit because I’m telling you to, submit/vote because you believe in the strength of the performances on screen.

Best Male Actor in a Drama – Craig Frank

Best Female Actor in a Drama – Janna Bossier

Best Female Actor in a Drama – Annemarie Pazmino

Best Guest Star in a Web Series – Seth Caskey

Best Guest Star in a Web Series – Taryn O’Neill

Best Guest Star in a Web Series – Sean Spence

Best Directing for a Dramatic Web Series – Nathan Atkinson

Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series – Compulsions

Best Drama Web Series – Compulsions

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

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. Spurred by it’s ensemble of character and drama heavy storyline Compulsions was rewarded with 11 nominations.

The Indie Soaps Awards are sponsored by We Love Soaps and the nominees were selected from a first round of judging from a panel of entertainment critics that cover the industry.

We Love Soaps is a high traffic website and podcast dedicated to the world of soap operas, and has recently begun covering Independent Dramatic Content with it’s Indie Soap Beat

Compulsions is also up for the Fan’s Choice Award at the Indie Soaps – Poll Embedded below

Mark Sandler (Craig Frank) use a “patience” approach to manipulate the information he’s seeking as Sara Flannery (Taryn O’Neill) speaks to her partner Adam Creedy (Seth Caskey). Meanwhile, Mark is pushed by his enthusiastic co-worker Randy (Sean Spence) into speaking with Lacey (Elizabeth Tsing)

Mark Sandler (Craig Frank) begins to interrogate the formidable Sara Flannery (Taryn O’Neill) while juggling a technical problem at work. He proceeds to seek out the help of IT Tech Cassandra Morrissey (Annemarie Pazmino) and gives Sara a devastating revelation.
Also starring: Seth Caskey, and Sean Spence

Previous – Episode 3: Fairy Tale

Justine Davis (Janna Bossier) follows the information given to her by Mark Sandler (Craig Frank) and abducts Sara Flannery (Taryn O’Neill), after handing her off to Mark’s methods, she heads to meet her boyfriend David (Andrew Clemons)