Hello hello! Guess what? I've been watching some awesome internet movies over the last few days and I wanted to share them with you!
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
This 42-minute movie, originally released in 3 separate "acts," was co-written, directed, and produced by Joss Whedon in response to the 2007-2008 Writer's Guild of America Strike. He put in $200,000 of his own money to fund it and partnered with friends and family who worked for free until money started coming in from the DVD sales. The production was able to pay all its bills, cast, and crew, and ironically, Whedon ended up earning more from this movie than he did from writing and directing The Avengers (one of the highest-grossing films of all time)!
The film stars Neil Patrick Harris in the title role, with supporting roles from Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion, and a few other familiar faces. It is a silly, ridiculous comedy, that ends up going in a very non-traditional direction. The songs and music are just really... perfect. Seriously, I think that even if you don't like musicals, you will probably like this one--it just fits together so well. Do yourself a favor and look it up. :)
The Guild
The Guild is a six-season web series created and written by Felicia Day, who also plays the lead character. It's about a guild of RPG players and the adventures they have in real life. Now I'm not a gamer at all--occasional bouts with Tetris, Zuma, and Best Fiends represent the entirety of my gaming experience. Nevertheless I loved this show! I'm sure some of the jokes went over my head, but I never found the humor exclusionary.
Felicia Day wrote the pilot because she had spent an insane amount of time playing RPGs and decided to put her experience to good use--and also because she was tired of always being given the same kind of acting roles. The series started out being funded by the filmmakers themselves, then by the fans, and was finally picked up by a series of sponsors. It's interesting to watch how the show grows in production value as you move through the series.
I love comedy, but to be honest, sometimes I'm a bit hard to please--there are a lot of mainstream sit-coms that most people love but I just find annoying. While I was watching The Guild, I often found myself laughing out loud. It never stopped being interesting. One of the things I really admired about it was how deftly it handled an ensemble cast--there are six main characters and they are all interesting and funny. I watched the whole show in one week! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Though these movies may be considered "old" by Internet standards, I'm just now discovering them, thanks to a friend's suggestion. These were the rare masterpieces of filmmakers who saw the potential of straight-to-Internet release before Hollywood and everyone else caught up.
Have you seen them? What did you think? Do you know of any other productions in this category? Do tell!