#NMTD ensemble

[flutishly]

As the daily rewatch of NMTD gets going (avoiding the actual phrase/tag, per my previous post), I'm finding myself discovering parts of the show that I never actually knew/processed. Logically speaking, I knew that there were Tumblr accounts and I think I was even following them from some point. But I never followed them at the beginning of the show's run (I only discovered it a few episodes from now, and don't recall going back to fill in the transmedia blanks) and certainly never processed that Ursula's "Vox Pops" video was actually the first (chronologically) of the NMTD-verse.

The first episode of NMTD is naturally Beatrice's first vlog. I still find it immensely watchable and engaging. Bea is funny, approachable, and bursting with a liveliness. She feels realistically teenaged and Harriett Maire's acting makes Beatrice seem entirely real, particularly in the way she shifts between different performance styles as she introduces herself and her family. I've long adored "And So It Begins..." as an excellent example of how an episode manages to cram its background in without seeming like it's trying too hard. It's also just... enjoyable to watch, and this is again purely down to having such a charismatic lead.

If we then loop back to "VOX POPS" (don't ask me why I wrote it normally earlier but am now stylizing with caps), there's a sense that Beatrice belongs to a whole, rich world. In "VOX POPS", she's hardly the main character, which is of course the point. Watching these videos in their chronological - rather than logical - order makes the show feel a teeny bit wider from the start. But it also begs the question why Beatrice is vlogging at precisely the same time as Ursula begins uploading her "artsier" videos. This is answered to some degree in "And So It Begins...", by the fact that Bea's life has undergone major changes of late and she's figuring herself out. Would it have made some sense to have an in-story inspiration from Ursula's videos, in that first episode? Maybe! Then again, this is one of those things that necessitates some degree of suspension of disbelief, when asking why webseries characters begin (or stop) filming videos when they do.

Both of these videos are just introductions... and of course, there are several more introductions to come (not just in terms of characters, but distinct channels/styles, like the Watch videos and Ben's vlogs). NMTD is one of the best shows I've ever seen when it comes to having a full, ensemble cast, which I think is beautifully illustrated by "VOX POPS" being its "accidental" premiere. Yes, Beatrice is the show's main character (and she is, both in terms of plot-centrality and driving the presentation/performance of this story), but she never feels like a character who sits alone at the top of a pedestal while other characters revolve around her. She doesn't change based on who's filming her, but her centrality does. It's something that I still think NMTD did best out of so many webseries.

There's not much to write at this stage, given how little of the story has unfolded (and knowing just how much plot is still to come. So far, I'm mostly surprised by the transmedia (which I remember being fairly thin and far from NMTD's strength, an assessment I stand by so far... it's not bad, but it's clearly supplementary) and by the instant worldbuilding.

So it begins, indeed.

[thecandlewasters]

Happy International Women’s Day!

To celebrate we’re showing some gratitude to all the incredibly talented actresses who have worked with us to bring our characters to life. We cannot sing your praises enough.

And to the ladies who work tirelessly behind the scenes of film productions, we love you to the ends of the earth (this is sneaky cos the earth is round and never ends so really we love you forever).

To anyone who identifies with the female gender - please keep being the intelligent, beautiful, kick ass gals that you are. Thank you for existing, and thank you for your support.

[literaryinspiredwebserieslove]

LIW Review: Nothing Much To Do

Posted (late) in honor of the third anniversary of the first episode on March 26th. 

Nothing Much To Do has been the gold standard in literary-inspired webseries for close to three years. The series won eight out of ten awards (best supporting actress, best costume and set design, best ensemble cast, the honorary award, best script, best actress, best actor, and best LIW) at the first-ever literary-inspired webseries awards in 2015.

NMTD was created by The Candle Wasters, a group of four young women from New Zealand who decided they’d like to create a Shakespeare adaptation. They chose Much Ado About Nothing and set it at Messina High School in Auckland, New Zealand, where Beatrice Duke has moved to stay with her cousin Hero while her parents are in Australia. Bea decides to take up vlogging, and that’s where the story starts.

Plot Overview:

Beatrice Duke’s parents move to Australia, and she chooses to spend her last year of high school at Messina High with her dear cousin Hero, her old friend Pedro, her arch nemesis Benedick, and the rest of the gang. Hero has a crush on soccer goalie Claudio, and when it starts looking like things might be on track for the pair of them, the characters decide, led by Pedro, to get Beatrice and Benedick together. The result is a romantic comedy musical of Shakespearean proportions, with the occasional flamingo or bathtub thrown in, just for good measure.

Format:

The series takes place across three YouTube channels, all of which are essential for understanding the entire story. The main channel is Nothing Much To Do, home to Beatrice and Hero’s weekly vlogs. Once he sees Beatrice doing it, Benedick decides to take up vlogging as well. His channel is called benaddicktion. The third channel, Watch Projects, is home to Ursula’s film projects, Verges and Dogberry’s detective show, and Balthazar’s music videos.

Realism:

NMTD was the first webseries in which all of the content on all YouTube channels was equally important to the plot. The description boxes on every video were written in character and were often as important as the content of the videos themselves (see “An Ode” and “one foot on sea one on shore one in the boiling hot lava”). The titles of the videos also reflect the personalities the person uploading them (Benedick, for example, gives all his videos one-word titles that are thematically linked in his mind to the contents of said video). 

The Candle Wasters stayed up late to upload videos when the characters would have. The characters interacted with the audience (and once with each other) in the comments section. Beatrice also had a Twitter account, Hero had an Instagram, and Ursula had a Tumblr, and the transmedia supplemented the story but was not necessary for understanding it. 

Also, these people act both like the characters in the play and like actual high schoolers, which is rare in any sort of adaptation, much less one with no budget.

Representation/Diversity:

The only non-white character is Ursula, who is of Asian descent, but the LGBTQ+ representation is strong, especially for 2014. Hero and Leo have two moms, who are off on their belated honeymoon for the duration or the series. Balthazar is openly gay (though he never actually uses that word). There’s also another semi-surprising and very satisfying coming out in one of the final episodes.

Film Quality:

Astonishingly good for not having a budget, because The Candle Wasters put in the extra effort to borrow good film equipment and to edit skillfully.

My three favorite things about NMTD:

1) Benedick’s bathtub vlogs

2) The music. Seriously. These people deserve many awards for the music in this show.

3) “one foot on sea one on shore one in the boiling hot lava” – you have to watch it to know why.

While I personally don’t find any faults in this webseries, there are a few things about it that are difficult for other people. The Candle Wasters have a hatred of exposition, so a lot of background information is late, vague, or nonexistent. It can also be hard to understand all of what’s going on if you don’t read the video descriptions, which is an extra step not required by many other webseries. Racial diversity, as I said, is low, but considering the resources The Candle Wasters had at the time, I can’t fault them for that. Besides, every last one of their casting choices was perfect. 

The verdict:

NMTD takes a famous Shakespeare play and, while staying completely true to the story, manages to bring in discussions of slut-shaming, create queer representation that doesn’t even go against canon, AND make the whole thing a musical. They explored the vlogseries format almost to its limits. And the characters are just so loveable. 

I would recommend this webseries to anyone and everyone with any interest in Shakespeare, feminism, musicals, literary-inspired webseries, or a whole load of other things. My love for NMTD is eclipsed only by my love for the sequel, Lovely Little Losers, so stay tuned for that review soon.

5/5 stars. And I probably won’t be giving out many of those.

Wow, that got long. I wouldn’t have written a review this long for anything else, I swear.

Starring:

Harriett Maire @harriettstella as Beatrice Duke, aka Queen of the World

Pearl Kennedy as Hero Duke, her cousin, “practically perfect in every way”

Jake McGregor @jakeasaurus--rex as Benedick Hobbes, Brit, Whovian, bird enthusiast

Matthew J. Smith as Claudio, long-time bachelor and soccer player extraordinaire

Caleb Wells as Pedro Donaldson, “all round great guy”

George Maunsell as John Donaldson, Pedro’s shifty half brother

Holly Parkes as Verges, has to wear the suspenders to prevent the Devil from infiltrating her

David Hannah as Dogberry, Sherlock fan and adorable little muffin

Jessica Stansfield as Margaret “Meg,” aka Queen of Scream

John Burrows as Robbie, Meg’s boyfriend

Reuben Hudson as Balthazar, the most adorable, precious, talented, non-confrontational person in all of webseries history

Lucie Everett-Brown as Cora, John’s shifty friend

Tina Pan as Ursula, lovely girl behind the camera

Alex MacDonald as Leo, older brother of Hero and coach of the soccer team

Created by The Candle Wasters @thecandlewasters

Running time: 

Approximately five hours

You can watch the whole thing on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ4M4eic7acSLgM6Fs_VYWafCgwIByldy

Or here with links to the transmedia elements:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e5Y1TM2sDnE5SuaBl6Y9fFm3F2d9eptde0PjUTwN3oY/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g617374c14_124

[xxbillieshears]

OMG that last drabble was so beyond adorable! How about a sequel where they tell everyone else the news?

They planned on waiting until the end of the first trimester to tell anyone. (Except for Hero, of course – the cat wasalready out of the bag, with that one, since Beatrice had called her whilewaiting in line to buy the pregnancy tests. She never could keep a secret fromHero.) However, they barely made it a month before their cover was totallyblown.

They were at Meg’s house for a New Years Party,and Beatrice had successfully avoided alcohol all night without raisingsuspicion.

“Oh yeah? Well, Bea will do a shot with me,” Meg was saying to Pedro, who’d justmade a comment about them being too old for such things. She turned around,brandishing a bottle of tequila at her. “Won’t you, Beatrice?”

“Um, I’d rather not.” 

Meg’s smile immediately dropped.

“Why not?” She demanded. “You’re not drivinghome. And it’s not like you’re pregnant.” She scoffed when she said it, butwhen she saw Bea’s jaw drop and Ben’s eyes widen, she froze.

“Oh my God, areyou pregnant?” She squealed. “Bitch, you’ve been holding out on us!”

“Is that true?” Balthazar asked, looking fromBen to Bea, “Are you?”

“No use denying it now,” Ben said, shrugging atBea.

“We weren’t supposed to tell anyone for anothertwo months,” She explained, “Hero’s the only other person who knew.”

“That’s so exciting,” Ursula smiled, “Congratulations,you guys.”

“I can’t believe the two of you are going to beparents,” Pedro joked, grabbing Beain a hug, “this kid doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Have you thought about baby names? Because fora girl, I highly recommend Margaret,” Meg grinned, “and for a boy, alsoMargaret.”

“And what if they don’t subscribe to genderroles?” Beatrice asked.

“In that case, also Margaret.”

“We’re going to name the baby Floyd, after themost majestic creature I have ever known,” Ben said, placing a hand on Bea’sbelly.

“Under no circumstances is that true,” Bea saiddryly, “Do not listen to him.”

“Oooh, what about Margaret Floyd?” Megsuggested. “I’d even settle for Floyd Margaret.”

“Floyd Margaret does have a nice ring to it,”Ben said thoughtfully. “But it would be a bit of a mouthful. Floyd MargaretDuke-Hobbes. Or Margaret Floyd Hobbes-Duke? Or –”

“Absolutely not,” Beatrice shook her head. “Weare not naming our baby after any of you, and we are especially not naming ourbaby after a toy.”

“How dareyou!” Ben cried, aghast, “Floyd is not a toy.”

“I’m sorry, let me rephrase that. We are notnaming our baby after a lawn decoration.”

“What if we combine all of our names?”Balthazar joked. “Hergretsula Pedrazar Hobbes-Duke.”

“I love it,” Ben said, wiping an imaginary tearfrom his eye.

“I hate you all,” Beatrice declared, as sheheaded for the kitchen, “and I am not taking suggestions for baby names fromany of you.”

“It’s okay,” Ben stage-whispered to them, “youcan submit all potential baby names to me, and I’ll pretend I came up with themand bring it up to Bea.”

“Ican still hear you, dickface,” She called over her shoulder, “and you’ve justlost baby naming privileges!”

prompt me here, if you like!

[literaryinspiredwebserieslove]

LIW Review: Twelfth Grade (or whatever)

Twelfth Grade (or whatever) aired for much of 2016, with the first episode on January 6 (twelfth night) and the epilogue exactly one year later.

Source material/premise:

Based pretty closely on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or what you will, one of Shakespeare’s darker comedies, a story about twins, cross-dressing, and love triangles. In this version, Viola Messing disguises herself as a cis guy, Sam, in order to attend the all-boys boarding school that rejected her trans brother, Sebastian. If you’ve seen She’s the Man, you know the basic plot already.

Spoiler-free plot overview:

Viola/Sam’s roommate and best friend, Oren, has a crush on local girl Olivia “Liv” Belcik and sends “Sam” to be his wingman, which results in Liv’s developing a crush on “Sam.” Meanwhile, Viola definitely doesn’t have a crush on anyone... All sorts of adventures ensue.

Format:

Uploaded without any sort of regular pattern on three different YouTube channels: S Messing (Viola/Sam, Oren, and their other friends at school), Liv Belcik (Liv and her family and friends), and S-messing around! (Sebastian). The whole thing is available in one playlist, which I will link below. All of the videos exist in-universe, but there’s quite a lot of creativity that goes along with that: there are a couple gaming videos, one filmed entirely in the dark, and one that, in-universe, was deleted shortly after being uploaded.

Realism:

Fairly strong. A few things stretch belief, but those issues ended up actually being dealt with (like why people weren’t watching each other’s videos and what happened when they found them) and actually became part of the plot. Though the lack of communication between Viola and Sebastian was a little hard to believe. The different types of videos also helped improve the realism factor, but something else that took away from it was the fact that many of the actors seemed to be looking at the script in several episodes. The characters themselves, however, are very realistic as both high school students and Shakespeare characters, and all of the casting and acting was great.

Representation/diversity:

So, so good. So many characters are played by minority actors, and race is just a total non-issue. Liv has agoraphobia (Confirmed! They use the word!). 

LGBTQ+ representation is almost at an all-time high here. The series starts out with everyone being straight and ends with no one being straight (also no endgame heterosexual relationships whatsoever, which meant that both my ship and Shakespeare’s were wrecked, but I was still happy with the ending).

Sebastian is trans and interested in men. Viola is bisexual and demiromantic and probably a demigirl, though she doesn’t end up finding the right label for her gender before the end of the series. Liv is also bi. Oren is eventually questioning/(spoilers). Drew is gay. Vic and Curt are assumed to be gay. Tammi is a lesbian. Maria is pansexual. Foster uses they/them pronouns but I am unsure of their official gender label and so won’t use one here. Viola and Sebastian also have two moms (named Hermia and Helena because this is a Shakespeare webseries after all). Malcolm might be straight but we don’t care about him.

Film quality:

Not great. They only had one camera, and it wasn’t a very good one, but it was pretty realistic to what the characters would have realistically had, and it’s hard to make visually high-quality content without a budget.

However, what they lacked in camera, they made up for by having very creative episode titles (lots of references to SO MANY THINGS) and actually utilizing the description boxes, which is still not done nearly often enough. Sebastian’s titles are very in-character. The others are relevant and could potentially have come out of the heads of the characters, though it’s nothing on the level of NMTD/LLL episode titling. 

My three favorite things about 12gw:

1) The first episode. Everything about it is perfect and sets the tone so well for everything to follow.

2) All of the internal shipping that happens in this series. These people come up with occasionally intentional, occasional accidental ship names for themselves, they talk about ships in ways that torture the audience to extremes, there’s an episode called “Ship Steer” – need I say more?

3) Oren Douglas. The acting, the character development, Julian Hermano’s face (sometimes I’m shallow). I love the man so much.

Less great things about 12gw:

The low film quality and the actors’ occasional script glancing are definitely the big ones here. Another negative aspect is that the actor who played Sebastian couldn’t  be in the same location as the rest of the cast, so he isn’t in any group scenes, which is extremely disappointing. I personally am also sad that they changed Shakespeare’s endgame so much in this particular series, just because I came into this with a ship already formed, but regardless you will ship everything and be disappointed by something, because they can’t all be endgame.

Viewing time: about three hours, easily bingeable in a day.

Verdict:

3.5/5 stars, edging toward 4. I highly recommend this series to lovers of bisexuality, crushing the patriarchy, extreme sassiness, and shipping absolutely everything with absolutely everything else.

AWARDS!

Twelfth Grade (or whatever) is up for the Literary-Inspired Webseries Awards this year!  Go nominate them by April 15th and then vote for them afterwards! Eligible categories (plus the full cast list) below:

Best Actress: Sarah Taylor as Viola Messing and Kristen Vagahos as Liv Belcik

Best Actor: Julian Hermano as Oren Douglass

Best Supporting Actor: Jon Steiger as Drew Aguecheek, Andres Cordoba as Vic Caius, and Eliot Barnhardt as Sebastian Messing (you may also recognize him from The Adventures of Jamie Watson and Sherlock Holmes).  

Best Chemistry: Sarah Taylor and Julian Hermano or Sarah Taylor and Kristen Vagahos

Best Script

Best Ensemble Cast

Best Set and Costume Design

Best LIW

The rest of the cast:

Justin Linville as Curt Slender

Derya Celikkol and Michelle Persoff as Tammi Belcik

Adriana Figueroa as Maria Waites

Evan Neiden as Malcolm Volinsky

Jeremy Stewart as Anthony Capozzoli (this beautiful man also played Henry Tilney in Northbound)

Daniel Golden as Foster Page

Cathie Boruch as Hermia Messing

Created by Quip Modest Productions @quipmodestproductions

Mainly the brainchild of Jules Piggott @threeminutesfast

Watch the whole thing here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Aos6cZ-mUxgWreHGvC1S5dY5IHq3Am6

[literaryinspiredwebserieslove]

LIW Review: Nothing Like the Sun

I only managed to watch the last three episodes of this in real time, because that was when I finished binging Call Me Katie and got caught up, but I still feel very attached to these characters.

Premise:

Katie and Bianca’s mother from CMK is getting married, and George Bates has been asked to make a video about love for the wedding reception. So he takes up vlogging again to document the process. Katie is fulfilling her dream of becoming a cop, and she returns to town but not to vlogging. Instead, Annie picks up vlogging. Bianca also makes a triumphant return. The story isn’t based on any specific Shakespeare play, but there are elements of many Shakespearean plots, characters, and even sonnets.

Format:

Almost all of the videos were posted on Bates’s vlogging channel, though there was also one video on the Call Me Katie channel and several others on the George Squared channel. The series updated three times a week, so its run was pretty short. Several characters were also active on social media, mostly twitter. The videos themselves are a mix of Bates’s vlogs, Annie/Bianca’s vlogs, interviews about love (all sorts!) for the wedding video, and the occasional random other thing.

Realism:

These people are really prone to the “I was filming a boring video and then someone came in and crazy plot things happened and I just decided to put it on the internet like that” trope. Seriously. Everything is filmed by the characters. They also all start vlogging simultaneously and then stop simultaneously in a less believable way than how that usually goes down.

However, the characters themselves are amazingly believable, as is the transmedia, and the video descriptions are utilized really well – they’re not necessary not understanding the plot (except in one case), but all of them are in character.

Representation/diversity:

Discordia Productions is so good at this. Peter and Katie are now the healthy, functional couple, which in itself is a miracle in media, and basically no one else is straight.

Will and Annie are both interested in women, and their sexualities are never defined but are probably both on the bi/pan spectrum somewhere. Ditto for the Chris Marlowe character, who makes a few appearances early on. Bianca is officially bi now. The mysterious Tom, when he shows up, is also bi. Ben and Mark, the background gay couple from CMK, are allowed actual lines and personalities this time. The two endgame relationships are both queer, and someone (no spoilers) comes out as asexual, and the discussions surrounding that are so amazingly groundbreaking and beautiful.

In NLTS, we’ve finally made it to the point where the queer couples get exactly the same treatment as the straight ones. Bisexual characters are equally likely to end up with either gender. Queer characters cheat and break up left and right, but they also get happy endings. More of this, please.

Also, although people are on the whole very white, Annie is Jewish, and people actually talk about religious holiday observances, which definitely doesn’t happen enough. And Gleeson is as much a double-leg amputee as ever.

Film quality:

Could be better, could be a lot worse. The segments filmed for the wedding video are all very high quality, and they actually show the lights and tripods required to make that a thing. Not quite as fun in the editing department as Call Me Katie was, but that’s because this series is more mature and sophisticated in general.

My three favorite things about NLTS:

1) The realistic relationships. People break up! People get together! People mend their broken friendships! Like I mentioned earlier, the queer couples also get the same treatment as the straight ones, and it’s about time.

2) George Bates. Steven Christie is such a good actor, and I love me my bisexual men in literary-inspired webseries (mostly Bates and Peter/Pedro Donaldson)

3) The little nods to other webseries. The series of videos from Gleeson on the night of a certain party gave me massive nostalgia for NMTD, and the aesthetic at that party was very BSN-ish, though that might just be shared party aesthetics between Australia and New Zealand.

Difficult things about NLTS:

Really just the realism issue. There is no real explanation for why anything whatsoever of this series is on the internet, but it’s okay because it’s so well done. I also wish there had been more episodes and maybe a little more development of certain relationships, and I was seriously displeased with the way one of my ships got back together, but I doubt other viewers will feel the same way.

Verdict: While I have issues with the realism that prevent me from giving this series a top rating, I seriously loved it and think it deserves a lot of attention. I give NLTS 3.5/5 stars.

Awards!

NLTS is up for the Literary-Inspired Webseries Awards! Go nominate them by April 15 in the following categories, and then vote for them afterwards (full cast list follows). List in submission form order. Thanks to @discordiaproductions for the official list. Everyone else should make those too. Please.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Chelsea Taylor as Bianca Minola  Zoe Landis as Annie James 

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Steven Christie as George Bates 

Best Transmedia Experience

Best Script

Best Literary Inspired Webseries

Best Chemistry On Screen: Steven Christie and Adam Bowes  Chelsea Taylor and Zoe Landis  Briony Burnes and Lachlan Stafford  Blake Hedley and Louis Regan Steven Christie and Myra Holani 

Best Ensemble Cast

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Adam Bowes as George Gleeson  Alex Chalwell as Tom Carlisle  Lachlan Stafford as Peter Glover 

Best Set and Costume Design

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Myra Holani as Milly Baptista  Briony Burnes as Katie Minola 

Created by Discordia Productions @discordiaproductions

Runtime:

Somewhere between three and four hours, I believe. 42 episodes. 

Watch the whole thing here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxx2-9ONuap5AvReDEoAmTEAiukHn0iBY

You can also find all of the transmedia on Discordia Productions Tumblr. 

[thecandlewasters]

Hi there! I'm a big fan of the webseries and I was wondering what was the reasoning/creative decision of not changing the names of the characters to more modern type ones (Charles Bingley being changed into Bing Lee in LBD for example)? cant wait to see the rest of the series :D x

Thank-you!

We had a lot of discussions about whether or not we should change the names, and in the end the majority of them we argued, while unusual, were not exactly unheard of in the modern day.

Many of the names we actually have reasoning for.

Benedick we couldn’t resist keeping because of all the possible dick jokes his name presents. Most of the characters refer to him as “Ben” to keep him modern. We think Ben’s parents are a bit odd themselves and genuinely liked Benedick as a name.

Beatrice is a name still used today, but also this play is famous for the bickering of ‘Beatrice’ and ‘Benedick’, and we didn’t want to change that.

Ursula, again, is a name still used today.

Hero’s name, in our series, has a little story behind it, which you will find out in the near future…

We naturally changed Leonato to Leo early on.

Dogberry and Verges are nicknames. They do have real names too. Anyone want to take a guess?

“Meg” is short for Margaret, and she is also called Meg in the play

Don Pedro was changed to Pedro Donaldson. However, Pedro is a nickname. His real name is Peter. :)

Again, Don John became John Donaldson.

Conrad became, “Cora” which is also reasonably dated and so fit in well with the other names.

The characters call Claudio “Claud” occasionally to bring the name forward somewhat. It felt weird to change his name to something more modern with the main characters name’s left unchanged.

“Borachio” became Robbie’s last name because it was slightly too “out there”.

The only name which really, really stands out in a crowd is Balthazar’s, which is his middle name. It was too good to change, but Balthy’s full name is Stanley Balthazar Jones.