INDIE SOAP BEAT: June 18, 2010

In this week's "Indie Soap Beat" feature we reveal the latest happenings from around the world of independent soap opera and web series production. Click the show logos to visit the official websites.

WINDSOR HILL is a web series chronicling the lives, loves and tribulations of theater majors at the Fictional Dowell University in the fictional city of Windsor Hill, Georgia. Creator Lawrence Weber tells We Love Soaps: "I wrote the pilot about four years ago when I lived in California, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, I was inspired by the crazy memories of my time as a theater major at Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana (where the show is filmed) and wrote it out of missing my friends. The actors are actual Theater majors at Dillard, for that extra accuracy. In fact, the very first episode was a final grade! WINDSOR HILL has eight episodes in the first season, with us filming the second season in the fall of this year. Stay tuned as we will have more interesting storyline and an ending that will blow you away!"

MONTECITO HEIGHTS, the soap written, directed by, and starring Gene Gabriel, has three more episodes before the season finale. Says Gabriel of the project, "I knew I had to do my own thing and the web was the best, cheapest and fastest way to do it. Iʼve known that the internet was the future of Hollywood for some time now and by doing MONTECITO HEIGHTS I have gotten myself out of a three year slump. Itʼs funny as soon as I uploaded the first episode the phone started to ring and it hasnʼt stopped since."

ANACOSTIA will be featured in the Anacostia Smithsonian Museum Documentary which will run for an entire year. The Indie Soap Award winning show is also nearing completion on its second season with only two more episodes left to shoot teases creator and star Anthony Anderson.

LUCK AND THE VIRGIN (La suerte y la Virgen), the 60 second soap from Jaime Byrd, has now aired 20 episodes. The show takes you on a wild ride of how things can go very wrong in the small Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende. Ricardo, a burnt out hit man with a funny accent, and Valentina, a clueless women running from her boyfriend with all his drug money, end up becoming involved in some unfortunate ways after their bags are switched accidentally at a tamale stand.

INDIE SOAP BEAT: August 25, 2009

In this week's "Indie Soap Beat" feature, we take a look at the latest happenings from around the world of independent soap opera production.

VENICE - THE SERIES
Mimi Torchin announed in Monday's "Soapgeist" column that Crystal Chappell would indeed, as many suspected, be playing the lead role of Gina on the series. Monday also saw the release of a fabulous New York Times article on Chappell/Otalia and VENICE which has since been republished and repackaged on a variety of websites including Gawker, Huffinton Post and Eclipse Magazine.

Producing VENICE is a labor of love as everyone is working without pay for now. Ms. Chappell recruited as cast mates the actors Hillary B. Smith (ONE LIFE TO LIVE), Jordan Clarke and Daniel Cosgrove (both from GUIDING LIGHT), and Elizabeth Keener (THE L WORD). 'I can’t pay you anything,' she said she told them. 'How’s that for an opening line?' (She’ll cover food and transportation, she said.)

Camera equipment was donated by friends. And her partners in the newly formed Open Book Productions — Kim Turrisi, the writer for VENICE, and Hope Royaltey, the series’s director — are also donating their services.

It’s a business model that costs next to nothing — only one Web designer is paid. And now Ms. Chappell has taken the next step: calling on fans to design the logo and music for VENICE through contests. Ms. Chappell’s fan club president, Cathie Wagner, a 54-year-old married kindergarten teacher from Ohio, oversees 15 volunteers for Ms. Chappell’s Facebook page and Web site.