NEW: Web TV Series ‘In Plain View’ Will Film In Rhode Island
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Although web television may not have been on anyone’s radar when it was introduced in the 1990s, it’s now a thriving medium that most TV viewers can’t live without. Now a legitimate entertainment market in its own right, web television currently boasts the talents of stars like Jerry Seinfeld, James Franco and Tom Hanks.
Aside from A-list celebrities, online television gives promising talent the chance to showcase their work to the masses. One such up-and-coming individual is Massachusetts-native Joseph Conforti, who's currently looking to tap into the web television phenomena with his gritty cop drama In Plain View. Set in Boston, the upcoming web series is set to film partly in Rhode Island and also features Ocean State actors Armen Garo and Manny Perez.
Despite being hard at work scouting locations and securing financing for In Plain View, Conforti, the show's writer and producer, was kind enough to sit down with GoLocal to discuss his forthcoming web series.
Q: Can you briefly describe the plot of In Plain View?
A: In Plain View is the story of four Boston cops, life long friends, whose world shatters when the road they thought they left behind, looms ahead.
Synopsis: Forced into medical retirement after a shoot-out with a notorious drug dealer made him a cripple, his once powerful body racked with cancer, former Boston police detective Butchie Wells now lives off a small disability pension and the meager income from his near bankrupt pawn shop. Exiled from the job he loved and estranged from his ex-wife and daughter, Wells spends each day searching desperately for a reason to live. The cold-blooded execution of his ex-partner, controversial rogue Boston detective Patrick Rhodes, gives the desperate Wells a reason to die.
It is a character driven piece, much more based on psychological conflict than bang! bang! shoot’em up! The murder is the rail the plot moves along, but the real story is how the characters interact. It’s more Bad Lieutenant than The Departed.
Q: What's the inspiration behind the show?
A: It was inspired by the brutal execution murder of Boston Police detective John Mulligan. I have to stress it is a fictional story but inspired by that brutal event and other real world incidents.
Q: There seems to be a never-ending supply of cop dramas on television; what will set In Plain View apart from the pack?
Agreed! What will set us apart from most is the writing. Good stories well told, in any genre, never get old.
Q: Can you touch on your decision to utilize crowd-funding and what your goal is?
A: Because, as you said, there’s a never-ending supply of cop dramas on the market, I decided to use crowd-funding rather than equity funding. I am embracing three new models, crowd-funding, the SAG/AFTRA New Media contract and the internet distribution model. It is very risky in the genre I’ve chosen and non-equity crowd-funding seemed a better way to approach this; more a patron-of-the-arts approach then an equity investment approach on a risky proposition.
With that said, I am discussing possible equity investments with qualified investors. The whole concept of monetizing content on the Internet and through various platforms, while real and the future, is very much misunderstood and cluttered. Once you clear through all the clutter, you realize, like most things in life, it is a new paradigm, but it ain’t as easy as it sounds! Even the studios and all the other big business elements are trying to figure out just what the hell is going to fly and what is going to crash and burn. Sorry, I’m a pilot and tend to overuse aviation metaphors.
Q: Although the web show is set in Boston, you're choosing to partially film in Rhode Island; what led you to make this decision?
Everything I’m doing is driven by cost. That’s the reality of modest budget content making. This is a lower-budget high quality project. And although I want to keep it “local” everything is analyzed through cost. Providence is more user friendly than Boston logistically. Whatever I can shoot in RI that will keep my costs down and also meet the demands of the scene visually, that’s the location I’ll choose. I won’t compromise on the visual needs, but I will hunt down hproper locations, both aesthetically and budget-wise, like a hound dog. Remember, I am both the producer and the director, so I have to think in both hemispheres. It will be nice when I only have to wear one or two hats, rather than a dozen. Of course, the hat wearing is all based on budget.
Q: Have you started scouting any locations in RI, and if so, which ones?
I’m always scouting. Most of what I’ll use are scenes in appropriate R.I. neighborhoods that can replicate Boston’s Roxbury and Dorchester sections, or Boston’s downtown area for tighter shots.
Q: Assuming crowd-funding is successful, do you think In Plain View will help stimulate the Rhode Island economy?
A: I would be stretching it to say that if we get enough funding that our web-pilot will be a major stimulant to the RI economy. But with that said, we would be a small part of stimulating a large economy. Ten years ago my small (and first) film Abracadabra was shot in MA (around a 400K equity financed film). I remember looking around at all the production people and the actors and thinking, man, some words I typed on a small screen and then printed on plain white paper, gave all these people a job for a month or more. That’s pretty cool!
It would be the same with the web-pilot, and even more so if we got the web-series funded, then we would be adding a lot more jobs. It’s a strange thing, but film commissions’ talk about helping small films and projects, but economically they are really more interested in the big stuff, which does generate (if debated by economists) more economic activity. Us smaller-budget folks are really on our own. Crowd-funding can help only to the extent that the local actors and production people support the project and get their supporters to contribute. I hear an awful lot of complaining about the lack of acting and production work, by that I mean smaller high quality, home grown fare, not junk. But this higher quality work isn’t going to magically appear by complaining and thinking it will conjure it up. It requires hard work by talented people and lots of support. Otherwise we just have to be content with waiting for the big budget ships to dock. And I have a news flash for anyone who doesn’t understand it yet, waiting for that career making ship to come in is futile, those deck chairs are almost always full of NY and LA actors or production people.
I am going to create a killer pilot, with the highest quality local actors and production crew, whether it’s 22 minutes or 11 minutes and then try my best to sell it into syndication. That will help, if only in a small way, to stimulate local economies. If others are so inspired to do the same, than we may begin to see some serious stimulation. Stay tuned!
For more information about In Plain View visit the series’ website at inplainviewthewebseries.com or visit RocketHub.com if you'd like to help fund the project.
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