The Deep End (Aus)
Going through puberty, growing up and transitioning into adulthood is tough. As a young person you navigate through feelings like you belong, or worse, you don’t belong at all.
This year, Melbourne WebFest presents two web series that showcase the teenage life as characters go through self-discovery, dating and “hook-ups”, independence, and more as they emerge into the world of adulthood.
Student Selection and Official Selection web series The Deep End (AUS) and Yasmina & Rim (FRA) take us into the lives of adolescents going through self-discovery, dating and “hook-ups”, independence and more, as they emerge into the world of adulthood.
2019 Student Selection web series The Deep End is a series about Andy. A helpless romantic who has fallen head over heels for the girl of his dreams, audiences are brought to ask the question ‘will he finally find love?’ With the help of his roommates, viewers join in the mischief and plans of a household trying to put together the pieces to figure life out.
Director William He says the inspiration for The Deep End sparked from watching Master of None, and wanted to re-invent the idea behind that in a more relatable and ‘audience-grabbing’ kind of way.
“I was irritated by this new fangled trope of an average-joe somehow magically being worth romantic attention and sympathy even though he’s shit, isn’t self-aware and isn’t working on himself to try and make himself better – kind of like a softer version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope”.
He wanted his audiences to engage with the web series’ characters, trying to subvert it in the stupidest, most absurd way possible.
With millennial audiences steering their attention to anything that ‘speaks to them on another level’, The Deep End produced scenes filled with unintentional meme culture and relatable scenarios that take place within shared-renting households.
He says that nobody was really thinking consciously about the way certain dialogue and scenes were projected. Due to the use of a young-aged cast, The Deep End was able to deliver effectively to a Millennial audience.
“None of us were really thinking consciously about memes while writing the series- we just tried to make each other laugh throughout the production. I guess we’re just all the same internet generation”.
Whilst The Deep End connected to audiences on a comedic level, Yasmina and Rim (FRA) is about two sisters who are discovering love and sex, but also sexual harassment and abuse towards women. The web series goes into the journey of the siblings fighting to get their dignity back.
Director and Screenwriter, Antoine Desrosières, wants the viewing experience to be useful to both male and female audiences, young and old.
He also says taboos create controversial topics, and that they should be spoken about in an educated and appropriate manner.
“As unspoken desires and sex taboos create frustration, and frustration creates violence, in a way we can say that taboo creates violence. We dream about a world with less taboos and more education and dialogues about sexuality between generations”.
In choosing strong female leads, Desrosières’ intention was to have let scenes unfold as naturally and realistically as possible, allowing the cast to express themselves through the storyline.
“The whole story is based on a testimony, so the main character was the girl who tells her story. With the collaboration of screenwriter Anne-Sphie Nanki, we have built a main character who always fights when the situation seems hopeless”.