All Bi Myself follows the Mia, who, after coming out as bisexual to her extremely Catholic family, delves into the dating world.
After being in a committed relationship with God and her boyfriend of seven years, Tom, can Mia overcome the awkward first dates, masturbation and tinder blunders that await her?
The web series looks at the different standards of dating men and women as well as how dating culture has changed, and how the definitions of sexuality have broadened in 2017.Co-creators Elana Tkatch and Ruth McKenna chat to us about their experiences and findings, creating All Bi Myself.
What inspired your web series?
Ruth McKenna (RM): I had recently written a play about how modern dating can be. In talking to Elana about it, I realised the whole slew of difficulties which bisexual people face when entering the dating game, but also how fun, wild and community building these experiences can be and boom, All Bi Myself was born.
Elana Tkatch (ET): The inspiration came from both my life and Ruth’s, the writer, a little bit. We also borrowed heavily from the stories our friends told us.
Why did you choose web series as your format?
RM: Elana wanted to make a web series as part of her Masters project. I thought it was a great format to reach our target audience and disperse Mia’s story as widely as possible in the age of social media. It also makes the episodes short and punchy. I’ve since fallen in love with the web series format and I can’t get enough of them!
ET: Web series are (in my opinion) the future of storytelling. With so many streaming services and online content web series is definitely the fastest growing production style available at the moment. It is fun to work in, very flexible for us and easy for our fans to access thanks to sites like vimeo, Facebook and YouTube.
How long did it take to produce and shoot the series?
ET: The full project took a little under a year from start to finish. Ruth and I actually met in February 2016, through a mutual friend (who was actually one of our makeup artists on the shoot) through her, Ruth and I were able to brainstorm ABM and begin writing and editing the first few scripts. Then from there we started production; getting donors, fundraising, saving, hiring cast and crew as well as sourcing equipment.
In the trailer to All Bi Myself and in the first episode, we see the presence of the Church in the series,
what was your approach when representing the church in regards to LGBT+ rights?
RM: I think the church can at times be inviting, yet it can also, more often than not sadly be an intimidating and judgemental place for our LGBT Whānau. With regard to LGBT+ rights, I wanted to portray the church as a space which, like many community environments, needs to push forward into our brave new world of exclusivity. In later episodes, we delve into and explore this more and show development not only of our central characters, but for the communities surrounding them too.
What are the challenges you came across when making your series and how did you overcome them?
RM: We have finished filming the first two episodes, and they are ready for the public. The next episodes are planned and written, we are just awaiting some more funding. Hopefully we can get more episodes out soon – we think this is such an important and entertaining story to tell.
ET: We had a few challenges. Funding is always tight on a student budget. So we just found people who were passionate about the story and you’d be surprised how many people volunteered their time, talents, homes etc.
How did you fund your series?
ET: We were self funded through savings, the university also supplied us with our film equipment. We did have a few donors from a GiveALittle campaign as well as being supported by all our crew, families, friends and supporters during the shoot.
What do you want your audience to take away from this series?
RM: I want the audience to carry the piece of Mia’s story which relates and resonates with them, away with them. Mia faces trials in living out who she is, but she knows that it is the most important thing to do for her happiness and well being. Loving who you wish to love and being who you know yourself to be is crucial to a fulfilling existence. I want All Bi Myself to show the audience they can do just that – it requires a bit of bravery and grit – but it’s so worth it in the end.
What did you learn from making this series? What would you do differently?
ET: I think ABM, like with every project you work on reveals to you a bit more about yourself. It taught me to trust my instincts. We took a bit of risk in some of our casting and it completely paid off. We took risks that didn’t work out as great, but these are lessons you learn from and implement in the future. For example, there is such thing as ordering too much pizza.
What would we do differently? I think we had a pretty solid crew and cast so I’d do most of it the same. But in future do a head – count of extras before ordering pizza.
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