One young woman’s hapless – and stoned – pursuit of love unfolds in the comedy web series LEAST FAVORITE LOVE SONGS, written and created by the show’s co-stars, the husband and wife team of Helen Krieger and Joseph Meissner. Four episodes, featured previously on #WebSeriesWednesday, make up the show’s first season, with a second season currently in development. In addition, the show is just over half way through a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for production of the second season.
Krieger stars as Molly, a beautiful woman and struggling writer, who, while blessed with brains and sarcasm, also has a pension for getting high, and it’s these qualities that have proven to be a liability for her in her quest to find the perfect mate. Meissner plays her dealer, Tim John. The cast also includes comedian Chris Trew as Helen’s boyfriend Eddie, Tami Nelson (co-founder, with Trew, of the New Orleans comedy theater The New Movement), Shanna Forrestall (who appears in THE LAST EXORCISM and the new film OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN), plus Ali Arnold as a mysterious woman who leads Molly to doubt her sexuality, and comedienne/filmmaker Eritria Pitts as Helen’s roommate, Rocki.
The show, based on an unpublished novel by Krieger (which was later developed into a short film, which evolved into the series) was produced with an outstanding cast and crew of New Orleans actors, writers, production designers, and others, who contributed in their own ways to the success of the show’s first season, and it’s a show that, unlike many others online, takes time to tell each episode’s story, in an intelligent and humorous way, regardless of length. While the second season’s episodes may follow the same pattern, Krieger says, she is open to short form, yet feels that in terms of length, web series can only evolve. “There is a bias against longer form content on YouTube because it doesn’t go viral the way shorter content does. However, good content still rises to the top and gets noticed online. And as our viewing experiences become more device agnostic with sites like Netflix and Hulu, I think we’ll see longer-form content becoming more important on sites like YouTube, and web series are already reflecting this.”
Krieger and Meissner developed the series after the success of their award-winning post-Katrina feature film FLOOD STREETS. Yet, after repeated viewings of the film, at festivals and elsewhere, they both wanted an escape from the monotony each viewing provided, not to mention that it was a project that ended up being so expensive, it forced them to sell their house, in the midst of the economic downturn in 2008. With LEAST FAVORITE LOVE SONGS, they decided to take a chance on web series, but with a unique style of storytelling that transcends the boundaries of regular TV. “I see a movie like THE HUNGER GAMES and think how cursory the storytelling seems and how much better it would be if they had as many hours as they needed to fully develop those characters and that world, like GAME OF THRONES,” Meissner says.
He also hopes that with the second season, the overall scope of each episode will expand, though the first season’s episodes showed signs of improved production values. “The first episode was basically two actors in a room, the gym at the martial arts school I run. The second episode went out on location in the French Quarter and involved some physical comedy, multiple characters, and the use of prime lenses. Season two is going to end with a massive kung fu fantasy sequence. We always just put ourselves in a situation where we don’t know how we’re going to pull it off until we do it.”
While the talented husband and wife duo hope for bigger and better things for their show (a network TV deal, a larger budget, etc.), their main wish is that LEAST FAVORITE LOVE SONGS will not only be a showcase for New Orleans’ talented actors and filmmakers, but also will provide viewers not only with a uniquely dark, edgy brand of humor, but humor with a lot of heart, as well, says Krieger. “I think there’s so much wonderful tension and comedy in exploring that gulf between what we want to be and what we actually are. And of course sex is a great microcosm for studying this dissatisfaction with ourselves. Also, because the tone of the series is funny even when it deals with some pretty deep issues, I hope it sends a message that it’s okay to laugh about serious shit. Sometimes that’s the only way to deal with it.”
To help LEAST FAVORITE LOVE SONGS get a second season, visit:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lfls/least-favorite-love-songs-season-2
ON THE WEB: www.leastfavoritelovesongs.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/LeastFavoriteLoveSongs
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/LeastFavorite1
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMf_Uu14hSmdMNSNPolGQ3IxtB9QSHDeP