New Web Series

Seeks Local Talent

By Nancy K. Crevier

As a mail carrier in Newtown, Michael Sneideman delivers messages by the bagful every day. By the end of summer, though, Mr Sneideman hopes to be delivering his own messages in a very different manner — via a web series he is writing and producing, called Women and Other Pre-Apocalyptic Distractions.

Mr Sneideman has filled his free time for more than 15 years practicing the craft of writing. After graduating from Connecticut College with a degree in political science, he migrated to Washington, D.C., where he realized within the year that his passion lay in the written word and self-expression, not in public service.

“I spent about ten years doing different things, like a nurses’ aide, a restaurant and bar manager, and as a political campaign volunteer, so I could say I was a writer,” said Mr Sneideman. He was writing, but not making much of an attempt to find an agent or to get published, he said.

He has been with the US Postal Service for nearly ten years now, but has always continued to write on the side. About a year ago, he joined a writers’ group at the C.H. Booth Library, facilitated by Newtowner magazine editor Georgia Monaghan. He brought with him a screenplay he had written four years earlier, Women and Other Pre-Apocalyptic Distractions.

“Georgia and the group seemed to like it a lot, but it is hard to get a movie made,” Mr Sneideman said.

“It is very funny, quite avant garde, off the wall, and absurdist in parts,” Ms Monaghan commented about Women and Other Pre-Apocalyptic Distractions in an e-mail. “I think it is interesting to see a local budding film writer workshop a web series locally, and then also produce it on location locally, with local actors and crew,” she added.

At the same time that he joined the writers’ group, Mr Sneideman got rid of his television. “I thought I’d spend more time reading, but I found I was watching more stuff on-line,” he said.

That was when he got the idea to revamp his screenplay entirely, and create a web series. “Really, I got rid of everything but the name, practically. I had a lot of vignette ideas,” Mr Sneideman said.

Encouraged and inspired by the group, he has written 12 “webisodes,” each one to be no more than 10 minutes long. “I always knew I was going to get a camera and make it happen one day,” he said, and indeed, when he jettisoned the television, he did buy a camera, and has taught himself to use it.

Women and Other Pre-Apocalyptic Distractions falls into his favorite “kind of indefinable” genre, said Mr Sneideman, somewhere between farce, satire and absurdism. Each webisode, or chapter, is the name of a woman, although her influence may range from very subtle to looming.

The series’ main character is Mark Fiddleman, an unemployed, woman-obsessed, 40-year-old man. He is working on his memoirs, 100 Women, as he tries to get his life back into some order. A failed novelist, Mark is a member of a writers’ group.

The web series will feature a number of other quirky characters in Mark’s life, including his bacchanal, blog-writing best friend, Dusty Stein; his psychiatrist, Dr Murphy — whom no one seems to notice is always tied to a chair with silk scarves, and who is somewhat catatonic; Tina Chaobella, a female country-rap band leader with a criminal mind, described by the author as “a cross between Norman Mailer and Lindsay Lohan”; Tracy Robinson, a lesbian personal trainer and professional fighter who regularly steals Mark’s girlfriends; and a French-accented narrator who likes to drop nuggets of unsolicited information into the stories.

“I guess you could call it comedy… with a desire to sometimes kick the audience in the behind. People tend to think my stuff is a little different,” said Mr Sneideman.

He is hoping to find a like-minded group of people in Newtown to produce and star in his web series this summer. He will star as Mark Fiddleman — “I’m ready to step in front of the camera and ready for self-effacement,” he said — but has put out a casting call for other actors and actresses willing to work for free, as well as for experienced and willing-to-learn production crew members. Auditions for the parts will take place Thursday evening, May 26, from 5 to 9 pm, at C.H. Booth Library.

“It has to be people who really want to do it, because I have absolutely no budget. My selling point to actors who are used to getting paid,” explained Mr Sneideman, “is that they would get a chance to play a good role, with a short commitment, because of the structure of the series.”

Each webisode will be filmed in Newtown, and he hopes to feature local talent.

Lanky and outwardly calm, Mr Sneideman is a coiled ball of energy inside, excited to get the project underway.

“I have a good idea of how I want the film shot, how the lines should be read, but I’m open to interpretations,” he said.

The creation of this web series is a kind of defining moment for him, Mr Sneideman said. “I’m 40 years old. Either I create something, or I go to law school,” he joked. By setting the task of creating the series, he feels he is moving forward. “If I get 10 hits or 2,000 hits on the web, it will be of value to me,” said the new filmmaker, who continues to drive toward his ultimate goal of writing and producing a full-length feature film one day.

“I guess this is about meeting creative people and having fun,” said Mr Sneideman. “I’m pretty jazzed about this.”

To see a complete list of characters and for more information on the May 26 casting call, visit www.DeadHorseProductions.com. A recently filmed trailer is posted on the website, as well.