Created by She Said Films, a Canadian writing, acting and producing team, consisting of Marie-Claire Marcotte and Rebecca Davey, Running With Violet is a serialized dramedy about a housewife, single mother and toddler who attempt a girl’s weekend, only to find themselves being chased by a small town meth ring.
Having set up the series for a second season in the final episode of season one, the team are currently working on season 2 of Running With Violet, as well as pitching the series to television.
Nominated for Best International Drama, Best Supporting actor and Best Screenplay in the 2017 Melbourne WebFest, Running With Violet’s creator Rebecca Davey discusses her series.
What inspired your web series?
We the creators were talking about what movies haven’t been remade in while…and Thelma and Louise came to mind. We love the badass women/female empowerment of ‘Thelma and Louise’ and wanted to do our own version, which meant adding a toddler J. Another influence for the show was the quirky small town humour of ‘Fargo.’ We are always attracted to weird humour and characters that have a dose of strange. We tried to add a bit of that in our show.
Why did you choose web series as your format?
We wanted to explore shooting with high production/cinematic value, and a web series was a doable format in which to achieve this goal! We had a decent budget but didn’t need millions of dollars.
As the series features guns, frying pans and dead bodies, how did you find working with these props?
These props required extra attention and responsibility. We had a stunt coordinator on set with us who managed the weapons and choreographed the fight scenes safely and believably.
What are the challenges you came across when making your series and how did you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges was shooting with a three year old (creator Rebecca’s daughter). She was super cute and added a charm to our show, but she was also the ‘X’ factor. What kind of mood was she going to be in? How much could we ask her to do? I think we were in denial when we wrote the series and got far too ambitious, and then during shooting reality set in! Oh right, three year olds have limits! We did a lot of cutting of scenes on set!
How did you finance your series?
We funded our series through several Canadian funds (one private, one government), as well as through a crowd sourcing campaign.
How long did it take to produce and shoot your series?
We had been writing the series for about a year before going into production. Actual shooting was 16 days and then the editing took another 3 months.
What was your experience with web series before creating your own?
We didn’t have much knowledge of web series before we started making our own. We made a first web series called ‘On The Heated Floor,’ which was in the early days of web series and we didn’t know what we were doing at all! We just holed ourselves up in a Montreal apartment and shot 8 episodes over 4 days with a camera and sound person. It was completely nuts and a huge learning experience for us as creators.
RUNNING WITH VIOLET ON SOCIAL