The Official Selections of the 4th annual Independent Television Festival have been announced, completing the slate of indie web shows joins series OzGirl and Operation Midnight Climax we teased out last week. The ITVFest is a festival for independently produced, original and innovative television pilots and web series which offers a chance for web television creators to showcase their work to a live audience and the chance to pitch development executives that can bring their projects to the next level. All of the selections are independently produced webseries produced completely on spec and available for further development opportunities. The festival takes place in Los Angeles from July 31st to August 6th.
Official 2009 Web Series Selections:
2012
Los Angeles-based producers Jessica Bertulis, Kamali Minter and Helen Truong present this interactive viral and webisode series abouta techno-geek who embarks on a quest to change the future when he intercepts a series of internet transmissions from the future warning the impending apocalypse. The series stars Kevin Held, Jared Asato, Brit Marling, Neal Xingu Rodl, Ron C. Patric.
The Clean-Up Crew
Last summer we discovered this USC film school graduate thesis from writers Tim Dragga & Scott Rickles about the misfit crew at Frank’s Crime Scene Steam-N-Clean and the hilarious and gruesome world of crime scene cleaning, where “death means dollars.” The series stars Dale Midkiff, Richard Riehle, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Tuione, Chrissy Anderson, Travis Willingham, and Jessica McClendon, and is produced by Tim Kolesk and Tarika Khan.
Imaginary Bitches
Andrew Miller’s inventive comedy starring Eden Riegel about a single woman who deals with the lonely reality that all her friends are busy with serious relationships by creating imaginary friends—who unfortunately turn out to be total bitches caught our eye a year ago as it emerged from the 100-day WGA Strike. The series also stars Elizabeth Hendrickson, Brooke Nevin, Connie Fletcher Staton, Jessalyn Gilsig, Greg Rikaart, Chandra West, Michael Traynor, James Kee, Aaron Staton, Brittany Ishibashi, Sam Page, Billy Aaron Brown, and Charlie Koznick, is written by Andrew Miller with Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price, and produced by Seth Adam Cohen and Judson Morgan.
Johnny B Homeless
New York-based producer-actor Al Thompson presents the story of a professional couch surfer (in fact not homeless but rather just constantly stays away from home to give his girlfriend some space) who has the uncanny ability to help those he comes in contact with and whose couch he crashes on. The series, produced by Kahler R. Hart, Jennifer Westin, and Geoffrey Quan, also stars Kenan Thompson and Kevin Christy, is written by Sherman Payne and Christian Magalhaes and directed by Greg Stees and David Spates.
The Lone Wolf
We traced this web series from Johnny Borda as it launched out of Los Angeles’ Channel 101 community into a Clearwire deal this past October. The comedy series follows a Hollywood stuntman who loses his memory when the perfect stunt goes wrong and who must embark on a tireless quest through the great Los Angeles area in search for his own identity. The series stars Matt Peters, Bennie Arthur, and Chad Fogland, is directed by Oren Kaplan.
Operation Midnight Climax
This stylized drama from producers Ramesh Thadani, Juan Reynoso, Zach Jordan and Glenn Sauber explores the CIA LSD experiments conducted in San Francisco brothels during the 1950s. The series stars Meredith Salenger, Todd Cahoon, Quinton Flynn and Stephanie Lemelin. Read our recent coverage for more details.
OzGirl
We’ve had our eye on now nineteen year-old Aussie director Nicholas Carlton since the debut of Austrailia’s first lonelygirl-esque social web show back in November. The series stars Sophie Tilson, Shanrah Wakefield and Richard Askin and is executive produced by Darryl Carlton. Catch our recent coverage about OzGirl’s DVD launch.
Psycho Bob
The AV Club’s Andrew Cochrane has developed an experimental “Sunday comic strip” storytelling technique for this series about the adventures of a psychopath named Bob. The series stars Sean Bury, Marie Lively, Nick Clark, Jesse Jones, Nick Armstrong, Evan Gaustad, Douglas Sarine, Mary Pat Farrell, James Applebury, Mark Rogers, Matt Wyatt, Phil King, Kevin Ford, Jillian Batherson, and is produced by Craig Bauer.
