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Sure, the web is full of comedy videos and user-generated chaos, but where are the good dramas?... And where do we find good, smart, complicated female characters?
Back in November, I chatted with writer/director/producer Tina Cesa Ward, who has released three different online dramas over the past two years, amassing millions of views and a long list of accolades and awards. She won the first ever Writers Guild of America Award for Original New Media last year with co-writer and co-executive producer Susan Miller, for the hugely popular Anyone But Me, which tackles the coming-of-age of a lesbian teen whose father suffers post-911 related disabilities. She also directed the hit online dramedy series Bestsellers, centered on an all-female book club of professional women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Ward's new dramatic online series Good People in Love premiered its first three episodes last month on BlipTV and airs its final two episodes December 13th and 20th.
[Daryn Strauss and Tina Cesa Ward - Courtesy of Digital Chick TV]
DARYN STRAUSS: First of all, explain the basic premise of your new miniseries Good People In Love.
TINA CESA WARD: It’s set on the night New York passes the Equal Marriage Bill, and it's about an engagement dinner party which takes a turn for the worse when the story’s narrators, Scott and Sarah, make a bet to prove their distinct points of view on love and marriage, using the party’s two couples as unwitting examples.
DARYN STRAUSS: Was this an idea you already had in your head, or was it motivated by the bill?
TINA CESA WARD: I was writing a version of Good People in Love back in 2007 and thought maybe of doing it as a series for the web then, but I decided the timing was right to put my efforts into working on Anyone But Me first. So when I revisited the script over the summer I wanted to adjust it and use the day the Equal Marriage Bill passed as a backdrop, which also works as a great catalyst for the conflicts that happen through the course of the night.
DARYN STRAUSS: Web series fans will see some familiar faces like Rachael Hip-Flores (Anyone But Me) and Renee Olbert (Seeking Simone). Can you tease what they will be playing?
TINA CESA WARD: Rachael plays Sarah who’s in love with the idea of love and sets out to prove that it does indeed conquer all. She is the one person not invited to the party but her presence makes a large impact. Renee’s character is forced to face the reality that even though she may soon have the option to marry, she may not want to, which then forces her and her longtime girlfriend to look at some harsh realities in their relationship.
DARYN STRAUSS: You often edit your own projects. Knowing that, do you shoot a lot of takes or very few?
TINA CESA WARD: Because I work on low budgets, I try to be reasonable. I can move set pieces and the camera around all day to get the best composition if given the option, but the number of takes often has to do with how quickly actors get to where they need to be. With some actors, they burn out after the first two takes. With others, it takes three to get close. I work to stay in tune with that rather than say, "ok we’re only doing two takes and moving on." But also since I'm directing with an editor’s brain, I work from a tight shot list and know exactly what I want and need, which I hope helps to provide the time needed for the actors to do their best work and for the camera operator to do the best they can on a limited budget.
DARYN STRAUSS: You are so good at making a dialogue-driven scene seem filmic as opposed to feeling like a theater scene. Let's talk about how you get through a scene with six characters at a dinner table. How long did that take to shoot? How many cameras did you use?
TINA CESA WARD: It was the first time that I ever used two cameras. I usually shy away from it because I don’t want to have to light everything flat. But the plan with this project was that every scene would always be lit from one source. So with that, I felt
