Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It? (Part 1)

If you've seen Disgraced TV's web series, Apt1B, you know we like questions...

Is Becky imagining that strange man watching her?

Does Ray really black out for days at a time? What's with all those pills he's taking?

Oh, and a new one I just heard: What's a nice girl like Becky doing sharing an apartment with a guy like Ray? (No offense, Ray.)

I'm not going to take away the fun and answer those right now. What I will do, though, is answer another question I've been getting quite a bit: How did you come up with this?

In the fall of 2008, some of my actors and I were talking about the advantages of doing a film/video project and, frankly, it scared the hell out of me. I was used to taking the slap of what I saw as the relatively modest cost of producing independent theater in New York. If I was spending X to put a play up, I reasoned a shoot would be even more expensive and even more problematic. There were locations to figure out ... and a crew of people whose jobs I wasn't familiar with ... and there was equipment ... and there was a list of things that kept going and going.

But in the late-spring of 2009 I decided to, at least, begin to develop the project. I wanted to figure out how to do something that I could actually make work. I started with the location: I'd develop a story that could be shot all in one place ... one place I knew I'd have access to whenever I needed it ... how about my apartment? Perfect! (yes, Becky, I know "less than perfect" ... I hope I put it back together okay)

My solution to never having my characters leave the apartment was to make the apartment an instrumental part of the story. The apartment is a character too.

I thought about the NYC apartments that had been displayed on television before, like on Friends where part of the joke is that these people's apartments don't exist for young, partially-employed 20-somethings in this city. I wanted to use the tightness, the lack of space you have to share with your roommate(s), the claustrophobia that makes us live a large chunk of our lives here in restaurants, coffee shops and bars, and make a show where the walls might literally close in on our characters at any moment.

Check back soon for Part 2 of this post. In the meantime, check out Apt1B at www.disgracedtv.com (for faster computers) or www.vimeo.com/disgracedtv (for easier downloads).