|
|
|
Caught In The Act
October 5, 2008 4:25 PM
|
||
|
Bound by a thin red frame, Sylvester takes a drag from his cigarette and coolly puffs out a cloud of ashy-white smoke before talking candidly in front of the “confessional cam.” “Yeah, I seduced Professor Williams one day at school.” Sly pauses. “But the problem is, he’s in the closet, he’s divorced, he’s got a kid, and it’s all on the down low.” Before the video finishes, the dreadlocked Sly divulges that he’s willing to “overlook these minor inconveniences if there’s money involved.”
“Wow, that was great,” exhales Professor Alder Williams, an older, bald man, after kissing Sly inside of his green car. Sitting in the parked car on the roof of a garage at San Francisco State University, Alder Williams makes a proposal. “You know, you can actually come over sometime.”
“Well, it would be better than this, Alder, sneaking around all the time,” Sly counters.
“Me being a college professor, this could ruin my career. If you hush up a little longer, I can compensate you. Financially,” Williams offers soothingly.
While Sly and Williams’ complicated love affair could be reality on any college campus, this one isn’t. It only exists in the world of Naughty Soap Bubbles, and also includes the muddled relationship of Candy, a young woman “haunted by a mysterious stay in a mental hospital,” and her boyfriend, Andy, a player who is slightly suspicious of his father Professor Williams’ sexuality.
Naughty Soap Bubbles, or NSB, is a soap opera-meets-reality-TV production that sprang to life in the fall of 2007 from the imaginations of Fenecia Garner, Jason Sayler, Olivia Barchard and Santiago Rockwell during a BECA course called The Mobile Medium from A-Z.
As an assignment for the class, students were asked to produce a show that could be watched on cell phones, iPods or video-sharing sites like YouTube. Jason, who is co-producer, co-writer and plays the role of Sylvester, explains that because the show is meant for on-the-go entertainment, the episodes have to be short and the restriction on length actually helped in naming the project.
“Thank you Jason,” Fenecia says through a chuckle as she recounts how Jason came up with the title. He was like, ‘Why don’t we just call it Naughty Soap Bubbles?’ They are three to four minute episodes, so they are like little bubbles, and there’s people being naughty.”
“It started with me just trying to come up with a show that would profile San Franciscans,” Fenecia says passionately. “Being a lesbian, I wanted to incorporate the gay and lesbian communities in my production. That’s what I want to do in my career.” Fenecia prides herself on starting the first gay club at her high school in Vallejo, and now works for a production company called The Big Picture, where she has done video shoots for MTV Italy and recently finished working on a Bollywood film.
Since beginning NSB, Jason has produced a promotional video for the San Francisco Conservation Corps, and spent last summer in Guatemala, where he was the post-production supervisor for a twenty-five minute film for TRAMA Textiles, a Mayan women’s weaving association. He now interns at NBC’s promotions department.
After the initial idea was formed, NSB gained enthusiasm from viewers, and what was then a two-minute clip posted on YouTube and blogspot.com has now turned into a web series. Their next step was to talk about characters. Fenecia wanted them to be a reflection of San Francisco, both gay and straight, and decided to focus on SF State in order to “catch people at a point in their lives when they’re most receptive.”
As the group focused on writing the scripts and developing the storyline, Olivia, a professional TV actress, posted a casting call on Craigslist. The listing got many responses, but on the day of the event not many people showed up. As a consequence, Jason acquired the part of Sylvester. “Acting is not my forte. I have my moments, but I was told I wasn’t being gay enough,” he laughs.
Filming for all five episodes took over two months, and scheduling time to work on the show became challenging because of school, internships and graduation preparation.
“During production, there were usually three of us, never more than five, and we were all wearing different hats,” Fenecia recalls of the hard work put into NSB. When Jason wasn’t on screen, he took on the task of holding the boom mikes and helping with lighting and set placement. Fenecia shot the scenes using a Canon hand-held digital camcorder that she rented from the BECA department. After filming she became the editor and used Final Cut Pro on her laptop to edit scenes and create the soundtrack. “Hopefully I won’t be doing the music in the future, and focus more on writing.”
“It’s basically pure entertainment at this point,” says Jason of the status of NSB. Fenecia plans to do a scene in a nightclub in an upcoming installment, and wants to expand the setting to the greater Bay Area. She’s also excited to begin incorporating local underground musicians into the show.
Although it started off as a small student project, NSB is only the beginning for Fenecia, who’s planning on pitching a show to HBO. “The only thing I can say about that is it features lesbians, a serial killer, and just craziness.”
“My advice is kind of like Nike: Just Do It,” Jason encourages. “If there’s something that you’re interested in, set time aside and just do it. It doesn’t have to be big.”
Forming connections with classmates is another great way to make things happen, and he stresses the importance of networking in order to be successful after leaving college. “The sky’s the limit,” Fenecia concludes. “Remember our names; you’re going to be hearing about us on True Hollywood Stories.”
»
|
PHOTO
 Alder Dixon, Alexandria Williams and Santiago Rockwell are part of the cast and crew of the online show Naughty Soap Bubbles.
ADVERTISEMENT
| |
|
|
|
 |
||
 |
|
|
 | ||
| BACK TO TOP | Copyright © 2008 [X]press | Journalism Department - San Francisco State University |