Four teenagers, each different in their own ways, share one major thing in common, one that sets them apart from the others – incredible supernatural powers.
In the new sci-fi web series ROVER’S HILL (named for the Texas town that the series is set in), whose twelve episode first season debuted on October 21, 2012, and created, written, produced and directed by two college students, Chelsey Asonibe and Ruben S. Conner III of Tomadchi Productions, the show follows the lives of four friends, Blake Emerson (played by Kostas Pagoulatos), Julio Torres (Leonardo Velazquez), Ira Miller (played by Larissa Dawn) and Alexandra Davenport (played by Laiken Thompson). While each go through problems typical of average teenagers, from family issues to love and relationships, each are blessed with unique powers: Blake with telekinesis, Ira with teleportation, Leo, with psychic powers, and Lexi, with the power of time travel – powers that make them unique – and that make them a target.
Asonibe, who wrote an unpublished sci-fi novel that served as the basis for the series, was approached by Conner, an old friend from high school, to develop the show, despite the fact that neither had had any experience in filmmaking, and from there, the pre-production process began.
“We knew from the start, based on the nature of my novel, that the show was to be about a group of kids with powers, and we even already knew where the powers came from, since I’d written it all already. Basically, we outlined the plot for the show, then he wrote episode one, I wrote episode two, he did three, and so on. The show’s plot evolved with Ruben’s input, and it ended up being more loosely based on my novel, rather than verbatim. In the end, we had a pretty engaging, complex, and original story in our hands.”
The show’s casting process was also extensive. Originally, both Asonibe and Conner planned to use their friends to appear in the cast, but after Asonibe conducted an extensive casting call on the Texas-based Short Film Texasweb site, the response was overwhelming. Over 40 people auditioned for the series’ 13 roles, though casting the role of Blake proved to be more of a challenge, Asonibe says.“We mostly needed someone who fit the age appearance we had in mind. We ended up searching around casting websites until we found an email from Kostas Pagoulatos, whom we then contacted and were lucky enough to secure for the show. Fortunately, our four leads were very flexible in their schedules to film when and as much as we needed to. It’s an understatement to say that Ruben and I were overwhelmed with how successful the casting went!”
Asonibe, who was inspired to create ROVER’S HILL by a series of novels called GONE, written by Michael Grant, described as “Stephen King meets Lord Of The Flies”, and cites another young filmmaker and animator, Dom Fera, as among her creative influences, believes that the show’s portrayal of four teenagers with incredible powers, and the consequences of those powers, is what makes ROVER’S HILL unique.
“At the start, maybe they’re a blessing; as the story progresses, they’ll seem closer to being a curse. The secondary thing that I believe sets this show apart, is the fact that it’s not a huge-budgeted blockbuster, and doesn’t pretend to be – this was a show created by two first-year college students who believed they had a great story that they wanted to bring to life and share, and did all they could to achieve that. This show is very ambitious, yet still humble in its own right.”
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