INDIE HOUSE: HUSBANDS, PIECES, SHARKS, THE OUTS, INTERSECTION, THE CAVANAUGHS

HUSBAND MATERIAL:  Sean Hemeon returns for HUSBANDS season two.

Gossip, secrets, leaks; kudos, picks, congrats - in the Indie Soap Web Series (Indies) world, this is where they live. Listen up: Kevin's Indie House.

Question: What's better than exceeding your original $50,000 Kickstarter campaign goal by ten thousand clams?

Answer: Kicking it HUSBANDS style and going for the big $75,000!

Showrunner Brad Bell is hellbent on giving us as much season two goodness as he possibly can, and fans have been responding splendidly to the notion that - in addition to earning more traditional incentives such as autographed photos and TV paraphernalia - the more money we give, the more show we're going to get.

See, back in April, the campaign closed at $60,000, but momentum was still rolling, motivating Brad to thing even bigger. With the real possibility of a $75,000 fan contribution, here's what the second season is shaping up to look like:

- Instead of 11 episodes of about two minutes each, we'll see three, much-longer episodes (about eight minutes each).  This change alone is an enormous upgrade!
- There will be lots more Cheeks, Sean Hemeon, and Alessandra Torresani, PTL!
- Joss Whedon acolytes Felicia Day, Amber Benson and Dichen Lachman will also appear.
- For the 2012 Indie hat trick, the indomitable, fierce and funny Emma Caulfield (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, BANDWAGON), who is presently involved with Steve Silverman's THE INN as well as the genre-smashing Jeff Koenig & Julie Ann Emery production DRIFTER, will also appear in HUSBANDS (and all this just months after Emma won the Indie Soap Award for Best Actress (Comedy) for BANDWAGON; holy wow, Emma!)
- HUSBANDS season two will also feature guest stars such as Tricia Helfer (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA), Sasha Roiz (GRIMM), Magda Apanowicz (HELLCATS), Clare Grant (MAD TV) and Aasha Davis (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS).
- Finally, reaching the "enhanced goal" of $75,000 will make it possible to produce a "behind-the-scenes documentary."

We have started to think more about the Behind-the-scenes documentary, and we’re really excited about the prospect. We would want to hire people – a camera person and an editor at the very least – to collect and cut all the footage. Cheeks and Jane writing. The cast reading the script aloud for the first time. Production meetings. The first look at the new locations. Rehearsals. Editing sessions. We would love to share all of that with you.

It's a documentary and an Indie all in one!  By the way, you can still be a part of season two of HUSBANDS by contributing here.

INTENSE:  The PIECES entourage at the 3RD Annual Indie Soap Awards

WHO'S NEWS?
Some bullets on the Indie scene this week.
- Need money for your Indie? Nationlight Productions is raising one million dollars (first installment: $150,000) for content exploring nothing less than the meaning of life. A significant chunk of the funds will be dedicated to "fictional webisodic programming about characters who are searching and wondering and trying to keep their sanity amidst all of the craziness around them."
-Make some time July 8 for what promises to be a satisfying and fascinating conclusion to the psychological thriller PIECES. Showrunner Dylann Bobei has sustained an unprecedented level of tension, mystery and intrigue for two seasons, now, and last week... well, I can't tell you what happened. Everything and anything in this Indie could be spoiler! We won't know until it all comes to a close in just a few days. But let me single out cast members Dylann, Amber Plante and Jesse Laing in particular, for a gripping and athletic knack for storytelling that kept me engaged though all the insanity. What will this crew from Winnipeg come up with next?
- It turns out pool cue accoutrements guru Paul Murnak isn't half bad as a showrunner, either. SHARKS is a hardcore love letter to the New York City billiards hall scene, and if you shoot (or if you just happen to like leggy NYC sharks) it's not to be missed.
- This just in from showrunner Jonathan Betzler: "Starting on July 14th, 2012, INTERSECTION will be re-released - this time on YouTube. One episode a day for a full fortnight." Here's hoping this tale of "two sets of friends - no-longer-that-young artists and professionals, struggling to let go of unrealized dreams, trust in what they’ve got, and walk away from what’s safe to take a chance on happiness" reaches the audience it deserves this time! Tell me what you think of INTERSECTION in the Comments section, below.
- Here's that CAVANAUGHS trailer I snuck a peak of last week. It's live now. It's pretty good.
- Finally, on a personal note, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish my favorite real-life supercouple, Carol Mulcahy and Michael Bean, all the best on their wedding day this Sunday, July 8, 2012. Congratulations, little sister!

SPOT ON:  Writer chick Sasha plays a Brooklyn Hipster in THE OUTS.

GASP!
We interrupt this week's Indie House column to bring you something that is a rare thing indeed these days:  some really good news.

A feel-good story, an Indie fairy tale, as inspirational as it is true. In fact, one of our dreams here at We Love Soaps is that stories like this will soon become the new normal in the scripted, serialized entertainment industry.

But for now, this story - The Legend of THE OUTS, call it - is unique.  And beautiful.

And it goes like this.
Summer, 2006
Adam Goldman, a theater major at Bard College, lands a summer gig in Brooklyn: he's a writing intern at Midwood Studios, working for a venerable daytime television serial called AS THE WORLD TURNS.  He grows  to appreciate the culture of scripted, serialized stories, but also observes that their production model is, well, a bit klunky.  (By the way, if you didn't think this story would have at least one old-school daytime soap opera tie-in, you must be mighty new to our site! So, welcome!)
Winter, 2011-12
After a string of media-intensive jobs (at CBS, Internet Week, Mother Industries, etc.) Adam stops working for other people and starts creating his own series, using a script he wrote with partner-in-crime Sasha Winters and fresh, locally sourced North Brooklyn hipster techs and talent (including Hunter Canning, Zachary Clause, Jon Golbe, Michael Hanson, Jordan Barbour, Tommy Heleringer, Kate Dearing, Shawn Frank, Aaron Matteson, Jay Gillespie and more). No one gets paid.  However, they're all so terribly talented, creative, and adorkable - what they have is faith.  Faith in the power of hard work, in the Internet, and in the devastatingly clever script.
March, 2012
THE OUTS appears on Facebook. They launch their first Kickstarter campaign (for the sweetly naive sum of $1,000) with what is, to my mind, a perfect pitch.

You know that TV show you hate? No, not THE GOOD WIFE. The one with the stupid people and the bad actors spouting dialogue that makes you cringe? Less of that, please. Vote with your dollars. Then maybe next time someone's going to put something like the massively offensive, short-lived sitcom WORK IT on the air, they'll think twice and produce something you'll actually enjoy.

THE OUTS takes in a very respectable $1,685.
June 6, 2012
Having discovered THE OUTS a week earlier while bopping about the web, I'm fully smitten by the time I include this item in my Indie House column:

The charming Adam Goldman (showrunner of gay geek fave THE OUTS) has taken the welcome (but unusual) step of publicly inviting everyone in the Indie community to crash his set in Brooklyn - to recommend a band, offer feedback, or talk about the future of the project - and I think I may just take him up on that!

MAYBE NOT:  But some of Adam's dreams do come true.

June 19, 2012
The third episode is live, and while Queerty, Towleroad, Unicorn Booty, Out, HuffPo Gay Voices and many other gay sites have been gushing (along with We Love Soaps) for weeks, the money they had raised is gone. And then some. All hope rests on the that third episode, and the new Kickstarter campaign - this time, the target is higher. Eight times higher...
The Next Day
Angels start to sing. Kickstarter raises $9,000 in the first 48 hours of the new campaign.
One Week Later
As Neil Patrick Harris likes to say, "It's not just for gays anymore!" Trendy mainstream outlets from MTV to Paper magazine (even the "real" HuffPo) try to one-up each other as they applaud THE OUT's writing, the music, the acting... everything, really. View counts accelerate into five digits.
Today
The second Kickstarter campaign has ended and the original $8000 goal has been exceeded by $14,339.   Over 500 donors - most of them probably strangers - gave a total of $22,339. We're going to get a full season of THE OUTS - three more episodes - and a double-wide Hanukkah special, to boot. It's all going to look and sound even better than before. And, what's more - the ultimate happy ending:

As we move past our goal, the next step is to begin compensating the artists, both on the cast and crew side of things, who have made the show possible. This is our priority for a few reasons, not the least of which are the blood, sweat, tears and time that these folks have themselves donated to producing THE OUTS.

The people that believed in THE OUTS from the beginning, in addition to now being part of what has become a successful, high-profile project, will actually end up getting paid (a little) after all.

The Happy Ending
Adam, Sasha & co. got to realize their project.  The "nice guys" who joined team THE OUTS early on, in good faith, got paid (a little) after all.  We all get to enjoy a first-rate, new Indie.  And the 4th Annual Indie Soap Awards have an early frontrunner for the category, Best Web Series (Comedy).

So, could it be that we've arrived at an epic Indie crossroads, where THE OUTS's story might serve as, essentially, a brave, new entertainment-production parable? Is it a model for other, new Indies? To answer that question, you'll need more than just the history... it's time to watch the show.  So please, if you only have time to give a shit about one web series this week (yes, you guessed it) here's my give-a-shit pick of the week: please watch THE OUTS!

Thank you... and, you're welcome.

Do you have an item for Kevin's Indie House? Please email me!