SCRiBBLES (USA)
What would you do if your favourite drawing came to life? How about if you were able to have a conversation with your guts, what would you tell them? Would you be in a mess if all the characters you’ve ever created were to come to life?
One way to answer these interrogations is to watch three of the web series that made it into the Melbourne WebFest selection this year. SCRiBBLES (USA), Gut Feeling (AUS) and Boldiouk & Bradock (BEL) turn imagination into reality through humorous and impossible situations.
SCRiBBLES follows Larz, a young artist struggling to find inspiration – until one of his drawings come to life. Turning the cartoonist’s life completely upside down, Brandon Garegnani, writer, producer and lead actor of the series, explains that the character of Larz was created to express his own struggles as an artist.
“Our hope is that our audience sees someone they can relate to – a young professional who is stuck, depressed and at a loss as to how to move forward. That they are not alone if they feel similarly,” explains Larz.
Based on a character in a children’s story called The Fairy With No Wings, Larz’s creation is a fairy named Scribbles. Matched with messy hair, a deboned umbrella as a skirt with bright yellow rain boots, her extravagant replicates her personality – and it doesn’t take very long to drive her creator insane.
According to Garegnani, it was really hard for the producers to find an actress for the role of Scribbles. A difficult role to fill, the crew found their perfect match in Jeane Reveendran. “Her exuberance, naiveté and circumstances juxtaposed with her violent outbursts is an attractive vehicle for an actor to play,” says Larz.
The story of Larz and Scribbles is far from being finished, with season two, three and four already written and ready to be filmed. And… “for those who are eager for a snippet of season two, we completely switch to Scribbles’ POV as she lives her private life in Larz’s imagination centre. As things typically happen with Scribbles… shenanigans ensue,” says Larz.
Struggling to come to terms with his imagination and inspiration, Belgian web series Boldiouk & Bradock looks into the life of young screenwriter Boldiouk (Loïc Buisson) who is incapable of finishing any of his projects. This is until he finds himself stuck in the Schpountz, a world populated by his old abandoned creations.
Theophile Mou, creator of the show, says that many young writers can identify themselves in the protagonist.
“Because it’s easy to have a good idea, it’s easy to write a good intro, but finishing a story? It’s a lot of work and patience… ” says Mou.
In the Schpountz, Boldiouk meets Bradock, who helps share inspiration to the screenwriter by facing an incredible adventure. Together, they will have to face impossible situations in order to save the world from an insomniac supervillain, Capitaine Dodo. Along the way, they meet Emeline Ouvre-Portes, a superhero who is able to open doors. And, as you can imagine, hilarious scenes ensue.
Mou explains that he hates classic perfect superheroes who are too good to be true and “kick ass on Saturday night between two mojitos.”
“I prefer super losers… I prefer the weirdos, they’re really touching because they have weaknesses, but also a great and hidden strength that they completely ignore.”
More adventures of Boldiouk and Bradock in the Schpountz are to come.
“Real life is so cruel and boring, and that’s why the authors and I are writing stories… that’s why we’ve chosen to do this job. We imagine fantastic adventures, because we can’t live them! Basically, we’re a bunch of retarded kids.”
Channelling the inner self, Australian student series selection Gut Feeling introduces us to Liv (Bridie Connell), who after a freak accident wakes up to be able to hear and talk to her intuition. She calls herself Uta, and explains that she has been living in Liv’s gut since forever – but the latter had simply not been able to hear her.
Producer Hattie Archibald explained that they had another actress, Clare Cavanagh, to join them on the sets where Uta and Liv were talking to each other in order to help create a conversational dynamic.
After the shock of discovering that they can talk to each other, Liv and Uta learn to live together, the latter trying to convince her host that she needs to make changes in her life.
“It’s often our gut that will tell us when a situation just isn’t right, even if there is no logic pointing to that conclusion,” says Archibald.
Throughout the show, Liv will see her life turned upside down, finding herself into awkward situations, to the amusement of the viewers. But between the funny scenes, we watch the protagonist slowly learning how to trust her intuition and how to believe in herself.
“What I really wanted to talk about was confidence,” says Archibald.
“This is something I find that so many of my girlfriends struggle with, something that I struggle with at times, and I wanted to create a fun, warm story that could talk about confidence and self-love, and hopefully inspire audiences to feel more of it within themselves.”