The Odd Sock tells the story of an alcoholic TV star that has a sock puppet melted to his hand after a freak accident. As Michael’s world crumbles around him, the puppet comes alive with the force of 1000 Tyler Durden’s, and Michael’s downward spiral becomes a helix. Break ups, brawls and betrayal lie in wait for the unfortunate pair as they try to reclaim Michael’s life.
What kind of preparation goes into each episode, in terms of SPFX?
The SPFX for Sid were handled on a case-to-case basis with an external SPFX artist, Anita Zuscak coming in to help R.J. Perret burn the wretched thing to Guy May (Michael) whenever the script called for it. Luckily most of the time we simply hid the bottom half of Sid under a long sleeve shirt or jacket but when we didn’t the arm was a mixture of tissue paper, fake blood and a paste to resemble skin. The scene where Sid ignites into flames was shot at a students rural property late at night with lots of lighter fluid, a c-stand, a couple of lights, a bucket of water and lots of hope. We only had 1 puppet…no reshoots, no pickups!
What (and/or who) inspired your series?
Funnily enough it was the teacher of our unit (Guy Richards) who gave me the idea. It was the first class and I didn’t have a show to pitch, which we conveniently had to do the very next day. Shit. Paraphrasing Guy’s classroom chat I found my idea “It doesn’t matter how big your idea is as long as you have an idea, it can be something as simple as…as me with a sock on my hand!” A talking sock puppet, hilarious. I spent the night writing a circumstance that would force a puppet onto an individuals hand and keep it there. After the initial setup, films like Fight Club and Me, Myself & Irene and the show Wilfred were reference material for the relationship we began to cultivate between Michael & Sid. I love to create characters that are down on their luck and only through turmoil and struggle do they grow a big ol’ pair of cojones; it’s fun to watch.
How do you finance your series?
The 20 film students in our class chipped in $50 each and that was our budget, we also had a few hundred dollars donated from SAE to pay for our actors. The upside of it being an SAE assignment was that we had easy access to great equipment and a sound stage.
Is there a magic formula for a successful web series?
The only magic formula’s I know are mathematical (–b±b2-4ac2a) everything else is hard work.
Is your series an ongoing project? If so can you give us some clues about what comes next?
Unfortunately I don’t think we’ll make more episodes but the concepts we came up with for a second series weren’t too bad. Basically Sid and Michael wind up in jail and are appointed a run of psychiatric consultations and anger management classes before finding work in the real world. It’s tough. Again.
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