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).

But If You Try Sometimes... You Find... You Get What You Need.

Making Apt1B was a monster exercise in necessity. We were, it turns out, being ambitious shooting nearly 40 pages of script in 60 hours over 6 days - not unheard of, but, when you do that, you have a clear view of the back of the 8 ball when you start.

Below, I've included a section of the actual shooting script for the sequence just after Becky realizes she's locked in her room. We opted for changing the point-of-view suggested by the script in order to streamline the story/the shooting - but the p.o.v. also changes how we experience this sequence in an interesting way. It's worth a look, if you're interested in what the script-to-screen trip can look like.

Give it a read. Then go back and watch Episode 1 at disgracdtv.com or vimeo.com/disgracedtv again to see what we did with it.

INT. BECKY'S BEDROOM - DAY

BECKY'S EYES scan the room for something that might help.

She grabs her CELL PHONE off the bed side table. But its plug lies next to it unconnected and the phone’s battery is dead. She bangs the phone’s BLANK SCREEN against the side of her hand. Nothing.

She KNEELS DOWN in front of the door and peers at the unmoving latch.

CONT.

She runs her fingers over THE HINGES.

CONT.

She tries to DIG HER FINGERS around the pin in the hinge to pull it out.

CONT.

She BLOWS into the space between the handle and the wall like you’d clean off a CD.

CONT.

She TUGS at the door, one leg up on the wall for extra oomph.

CONT.

She sweeps off all the books of a BOOKSHELF hanging over the foot of the bed.

CONT.

She uses the HARDCOVER of one of the books to try to PRY THE PIN out of the hinge.

LATER

BECKY sits with her back against the door. She WIPES TEARS out of her eyes with the back of her hand.

Her eyes settle on her ALARM CLOCK. It’s not on. She remembers the man from what she is still hoping is last night’s dream.

It sinks in. Her EYES WIDEN.

She looks up and sees that the overhead LIGHT IS OFF.

She looks; the LIGHT SWITCH IS STILL ON.

She gets up and FLIPS IT ON AND OFF. Nothing.

All right. Probably just a power failure. Not some creepy dream guy.

But…

She creases her forehead, eyes moving around the room looking for something…

Something…

And finding nothing, her eyes stop moving.

The room really seems to be CLOSING IN ON HER. She has to get out.

BECKY looks at THE WINDOW.

Whole Lotta Me

Last week, I got the opportunity to sit down with nytheatre.com's Martin Denton and talk a little 2009. Specifically, we talked about my writing and producing projects as I took a year's divergence from theater: Disgraced TV (and our new web series, Apt1B) and Disgraced Comics.

Martin was good enough not to take my shift in media personally and much of our discussion has to do about how similar the experience of producing independent theater in New York City is to doing online comics and an independently produced web series.

I go on at length - but I'm insightful, entertaining and (lest I forget) breathtakingly humble. So, settle down and listen to Nytheatrecast's first podcast of 2010...