The launch of SOLO-The Series, (the greatest event since 1776), could not come at a better time. It joins the ranks of high-quality science fiction programming premiering this summer in hopes to counter the rather dry reality shows that dominate the summer TV season. Two weeks ago we got the triumphant return of Futurama, this week we got the second season of Warehouse 13, and now we have the Web premiere of SOLO-The Series, which burst onto the scene with a mix of humor and sci-fi references.
Now I love most anything sci-fi. My favorite film is Kubrick’s 2001 and my favorite TV show is Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, so when I first heard of the sci-fi comedy web series SOLO, I knew I had to check it out. The first episode was finally released earlier this week. Here it is so you can watch it, and my impressions and an interview with creator and lead actor Jonathan Nail afterwards.
So, what did I think?
1. PHAL 9000? I’m sold already.
2. The shot of Earth looks remarkably like a shot of Earth from BSG. Score another point for SOLO.
3. This is a web show that probably had a very small budget, but they really do some amazing things with the limited budget they had. The special effects are fantastic and the set design is believable and unique. PHAL 9000 has a Lost in Space puppet charm that is a welcome change of pace from the usual CGI extravaganzas that we are now used to.
4. The short doesn’t give me much time to get to know the characters, but after this first episode, I really love Scott Drizhal (played by Jonathan Nail, who is also the creator and writer of the series) and PHAL 9000. Their characters are charismatic and interesting enough to make me want to see a lot more of them in future episodes.
5. I enjoy the concept of a reality show gone wrong (or in this case, cancelled) and how that affects everyone involved (especially when said reality show takes place in outer space).
6. I like the clash between Ground Control’s external desperation and Scott’s wife Rebecca’s quiet intensity as they work together to save Scott and bring him back from outer space. Michele Boyd has a memorable moment with the leader of ground control Jack Spratt (played by Jay Caputo)
As a whole, I really enjoyed the first episode of SOLO-The Series. The show is well acted, funny, and it pays homage to some great sci-fi series while at the same time creating an original story perfectly fit for the Web world. I was a little disappointed to learn that there are only three episodes (Episode 2 premieres Tuesday, July 13 and Episode 3 on Tuesday, July 20), but I’m hopeful we’ll get more in the very near future. I’ve seen the next two episodes, and they are not to be missed.
Yesterday I had a chance to chat with the creator of SOLO – The Series, Jonathan Nail, about the show’s inception and how it’s been received so far. Here’s my interview:
Clicker: How come there are only three episodes of SOLO so far?
Jonathan Nail: It comes down to finances. You know do you try to produce a feature length film or an entire web series, with say, $5000 and you have to thin that out over 9 or 12 episodes or 60-90 minutes, vs. put everything you’ve got into a short film or a 3-episode arc that really encapsulates the story, sets up the characters, sets up the major plotline, and makes the people beg for more. That was our goal here. So we could go the Compulsions route and put everything we have into doing however many episodes they had, and just release the entire thing as one serie vs the goal that we really wanted, which was to focus on character development, look and feel and production value of the show, and I think we’ve achieved that goal. The first comments we get from everyone is, “The show looks GREAT.”
C: That’s one of the first things that stood out for me as well. Not only the set of the ship, but ground control and the shots of the spaceship look absolutely fantastic. Everything looked very professional and the production quality is top notch, considering you worked with I’m assuming a very small budget?
JN: Thank you, yea that set is built in my garage. It takes up half of my garage- I promised my wife that we would be able to park our other car there and I have yet to fulfill that promise. The ship itself was built over the period of April-October of 2009. Took about a month to design the sets before actually starting construction. I actually was trying to go for this retro-FlashGordon style control panel, you know very 2001 with the switches and dials and buttons. Yet I wasted so many hours just looking for materials and building stuff… and things just did not look right. But then a friend of mine suggested using a digitized computer board with touch panels like on Star Trek, which I had never really thought about since it would be too time consuming. The next day he came in with a digital mock-up of what it looked like, so we printed it out, and we basically put that down on top of some plexiglass and put some lights under it, and it looks gorgeous.
C: You wrote and produced SOLO. Did you direct it as well?
JN: No I did not direct it. I realized at an early point that there is the possibility of spreading oneself too thing. There was one review that talked about my character being very flat until I start reacting to things with my wife, and as a producer, looking at that I have to be objective and say, “yes. I think they were right.” I think my character was because at that point it was the end of a long day of producing and I had to change hats and put on the actor hat, and I didn’t have that much time to really focus on my lines and I was worried about camera angles and the effect and what was going on behind me. I wasn’t focusing on me the actor, the character. I made the decision early on that I didn’t want to be the director. That’s why I go out and find a really good director for that. Jorge Urbina did a good job of that in the first two episodes and he brought his own ideas to the table which is part of the creative process. There was some back and forth and there were some disagreements, but at the end of the day I trusted him to take my vision and put it on the screen. The only reason why we have a different director for episode three is that [Urbina] got a really sweet gig doing some work in the Philippines and he was unavailable at the time when we had the money to film episode three.
C: So how did this story come to you? You’re a really accomplished actor, so what was about this story that you felt you had to do it and produce it, and get the right people for the job?
JN: I think it comes down to wanting to create something. I’ve been desiring to create something of my own for quite some time. I tried several attempts, from a reality series about wine called “Beyond the Vine”, to a horror film called “A Midsummer’s Nightmare”, but I just couldn’t put the pieces together. I think everything was too large of scale and cost prohibitive. So I started to watch this community start to build around web series and finally people started going “Oh yea! This is an actual thing.”. It became a way of telling stories in a short format that appealed to me. I was getting jealous of all the people around me like Bernie Sue and Brett Register who were creating shows left and right. So I hunted for a story in my mind. It had to fit in with what I could afford, it had to fit in with a story I was interested in-I’ve always been interested in sci-fi and fantasy. I’m a huge fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams is a huge inspiration of me. At the end of the day, it’s a character study that was formulating in my brain early in 2009, so I started putting the pieces together. I was inspired by other filmmakers around me, then it was just about selecting the story I wanted to tell.
C: Did you know Bernie Sue and Brett Register from their other projects?
JN: I did. Bernie and I hooked up early on while he was working on The Crew, and I’ve always been interested in what Brett Register is doing, but never had an opportunity to meet him until around six months ago. You know I’m jealous and in awe of the man. He’s a guy who has a lot of resources and time on his hands so he’s able to generate a lot of these ideas. It keeps me going too. I was picking Bernie’s brain after his success with Compulsions; I wanted to know what worked and what didn’t work for him. I knew early on that I wanted to cast the best people for the project. I didn’t want to cast my friends, because that would just be too easy. I wanted to go out to the community of actors and make this a SAG project and get the best talent on a scale we could afford.
C: What has been the response to this first episode of SOLO?
JN: I’ve been overwhelmed with the response. We’re getting many, many hits. We went through Blip.TV because it was the easiest way to distribute to Boxee and Roku, and TiVo, and we got around 25% of our hits were from Roku. Which was great! That meant there was someone, somewhere with a Roku box watching our show on their TV. The reviews that came back on the first day were critical, but praise-worthy. I think they were very fair in their assessment of the show. They were basing the reviews on all three episodes of the show, which is great because it’s so hard when people have only one episode to judge, bewcause there’s so much that has to be set up for a show to proceed.
C: And it’s even harder to do so in seven minutes.
JoN: Yep. Exactly. There’s some people out there doing it in two minutes, so I tried to give a little bit more. My goal was to drop the viewer right in the middle of the action, when basically all hell breaks loose and everything goes terribly wrong. We’re getting great reviews from Tubefilter and LAist, and other reviews that I heard but forgot to bookmark so I need to go find them. Tuning into SciFi said it was “Like Defying Gravity, but funny”
C: You mean like Defying Gravity, but watchable right?
JN: Ha exactly.
C: Are you guys funded in any way?
JN: Well we are actually sponsored through FracturedAtlas.org, which is an artist organization that allows creatives to put together a way to accept donations to do their art. We were able to film episode three due to generous donations from people we have never met, and all they had seen were our trailers at the time, which was a great thing. We are currently looking for more sponsorhip, but the hard part right now is proving Return on Investment. Our show is created in a way that it is a welcome opportunity for sponsors to jump in at this moment. Now that we’ve created these three episodes, anyone could become a sponsor of the show and very little money, and get a lot of coverage on the show. I’m modeling what we’re doing on how Felicia Day did The Guild. They really targeted their audience and that response came back ten-fold from the fans. The overwhelming response from the fans allowed them to finish the first season, put out the DVD, and then that attracted the attention of MSN and other networks. Now they’re on their fourth season.
C: Finally, what’s next? When do we see new episodes? What’s going on?
JN: We are in pre-production for the rest of season 1, which is nine episodes total. I’ve blocked it out for three seasons and 27 episodes. We want a big cliffhanger at the end of each season and then a really big finale. In order to get there, though, we are going to have to a) really be diligent about finding sponsorship or b) really rely on the community to maybe help support us. And it may be a little bit of both. I would love to a month from now begin filming episodes four through nine.
