by Jenni Powell on November 7th, 2009
Armed with a coffee cup painted with cherries, fresh-faced Josh Dove sends out a heart-felt vlog to his mom who is in the hospital due to a freak moped accident that left her with a broken hip. He describes his excitement at having met a new friend, a foreign exchange student who mysteriously appears in his room (”it’s how foreign people say hello”). Oh, and he wishes his dad wasn’t dead…but at least he’s found his old video camera.
And within that first thirty-second vlog, you are off and running on the quirky comedy series that is MacAwesome. Created by Graham Bowlin (American Heart) and Waffle Feast Media’s Cameron Strittmatter, the series comes out of North Carolina where the two, along with partners Daniel John Lerch and director Andy Mitchell met while at UNCSA film school. The series thrives on its randomness…a visit to the shows Facebook page greets you with “A comedy web series about the dangers of subsidized healthcare. Just kidding.”
But this description is just as close as any one could give for the series. On the one hand, it’s a coming-of-age tale of a 17 year-old boy attending public school for the first time. On the other, it’s a classic romantic comedy where the underdog is trying to win the girl from the popular guy at school. And then of course, there are the guys running around in speedos and tearing the sleeves off their shirts for fun.
by Marc Hustvedt on August 31st, 2009
We were messing around on YouTube recently, cause that’s what we do, and stumbled across a curt little promo video of a flabby fellow running through a field lugging an old TV. Turns out this ‘TVs are heavy’ lesson was a promo for an upcoming web series, though it might as well be our new Tubefilter mantra. Unabashed. Stalwart. Practical.
Promos are key to snatching attention in an ever-crowded sea of budding web series, and the guys behind MacAwesome only needed to 36 seconds to grab ours. Co-creator Graham Bowlin plays Shannon Abercrombie, the twentysomething bonehead 80’s TV jogger in the spot. As it turns out, the series isn’t just another clan of ironically-dressed acting class buddies riffing each other. It’s actually one of the few web series centered around an underage kid.
hat becomes a little more obvious in the second promo (below), a longer form intro to homeschooled protagonist Josh Dove. The 17 year-old high school senior has to survive life at an actual school with an assortment of oddball characters. That, and he’s trying to land the lead role in the school play (Shakespeare’s Macbeth) to score his dream girl (Sydney Shepherd).
For half of the team behind the series, Bowlin and director Andrew Mitchell, MacAwesome is actually their second web original, having made the zombie comedy series American Heart last year that also found a home on KoldCast.
