Passionate about cinematic experiences, Xander Michalak created Cluster Agency – the story of how one mission turned into a perilous situation beyond anyone’s control.
Out of France, the 2017 sci-fi action features Director Xander Michalak as Bulk, Otis Ngoi as Ginger , Leslie Carles as Tank- who take on a journey together as Cluster employees after the H15 flu break out. Nominated for Best International Drama and Best Directing at the MWF, the web series has also he received awards for best screenplay with Samuël Salaün and Emmanuel Jégo at The 2015 Geekopolis Festival (FRA) and received the first prize of Best Director at the 2015 Festival Francophone de la Webserie (FRA).
How did you fund your series?
The series was financed mostly from personal funds, as well as about 1.500€ gained through a crowdfunding event and the selling of a few items of merchandising.
What did you want to achieve in creating this series?
The aim of the VRAC (the association that produced “Cluster Agency”) has always been to help its members learn and practice movie making skills. With this challenging new series, we aim to promote those acquired skills and everyone’s hard work – hoping that production companies or broadcasters will find it interesting and agree to help us make a sequel or another series.
What was your experience with web series before creating your own?
I started directing short amateur films and skits in 2005. I had never heard about web series. I grew frustrated at the limitations of short, one-off productions (I couldn’t develop the characters or stories beyond this very short span), and thought about making several short films back-to-back. I then found out such a medium already existed: web series were on the rise. Not only did they allow for a much more rewarding character development, but they also made it possible to improve production means and fix mistakes as the story went on.
What was your release strategy?
At first, we released one episode a month on Youtube, and promoted it on various social networks. After working on this series for two years, we decided to upgrade the 9 episodes we had already produced (new scenes, improved special effects, more efficiency in the structure and editing), and re-realeased them first on Youtube, then directly on Facebook (with French and English subtitles in both cases), before releasing the final two episodes in 2017.
What is your background as a web series creator?
My first web series, a sci-fi/fantasy series called “Les Souverains”, won the Best Directing award at the 2013 Francophone Festival of Web Series in Toulouse. I also directed a segment of the web series “J-5”, as well as a couple of comedic series.
What did you learn from making this series? What would you do differently?
We encountered many hardships in the making of this series (which is why it took us four years, including the improving of the first version). If we were to do it again, we would spend even more time preparing it than we did at the time. We would also write the screenplay while keeping in mind our production limitations. We always try to challenge ourselves when producing a series, but we also need to be realistic in order to work efficiently and not suffer major obstacles every step of the way.
What was your target audience and how did you build a relationship with them?
Our fanbase is mainly teenagers and young adults, but more specifically those interested in geeky sci-fi themes and grim, gritty storylines – drawing our inspiration from such productions as Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica.
We have been building a relationship with our audience for many years by frequently interacting with them, both online and during entertainment conventions, and also by offering them to feature in our productions as extras.
What advice would you give to emerging creators?
Firstly: never give up when difficulties arise. Always hold on, until you see your project through to the very end.
Secondly: surround yourself with the right people. They have to be really invested in the project and passionate.
Having worked with a small budget, were their any hard decisions you had to make when creating Cluster Agency?
Yes. Several scenes had to be rewritten because we couldn’t find the shooting locations we needed. The outfits are not as futuristic as we had hoped: they look a bit DIY. Also, the short format and the limited budget prevented us from developing any surrounding story to help introduce the world of “Cluster Agency” and its characters: we had to start right in the middle of the action, and get right to the point.
The colouring of the series is quite grey but the colour yellow is highlighted and exentuated, what is the importance of this?
There are several reasons for this aesthetic. Firstly, we wanted to create an original colour-grading. We thought about highlighting one colour while attenuating the others as it had already been done in major productions with the colour red, for instance. We then came across a DVD box set of the show “24” (one of the inspirations of the show in terms of rhythm and storyline), which prominently featured yellow: our preliminary tests with that colour were rather conclusive. We were also interested in the symbolism of yellow: despite its radiance and happiness, counterbalanced by the grim, desaturated other colours of the world of “Cluster Agency”, it’s also the colour of betrayal, madness and illness. Those themes fit our story quite well.
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