Can a few young men live the good life – with no money? That’s the question posed by the new comedy web series BOYCHICKS, co-created by, and co-starring Julian Silver, Ethan Dawes, Josh Margolin and Quinn Beswick. Dawes, Margolin and Silver play three friends whose dreams are bigger than their means, while Beswick plays a new character in each episode. The show now airs on Youtube, with a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr (see links below). Eight episodes have aired so far, and more are on the way, according to the cast. “We’re just gonna keep making them for as long as we can.”
BOYCHICKS grew out of a sketch originally conceived by Dawes, and each episode depicts not only the group’s crazy pursuit of fun, but also portrays the often stressful experiences of college graduates with little to spend and little hope of finding a career in today’s economy. “Ethan (Dawes) had an idea for a sketch about a bunch of poor straight guys who concoct a plan to get free drinks by going to a gay bar. That became our first episode, we had a blast shooting it, and enjoyed playing these dumbed down versions of ourselves. We thought there was a lot of fun to be had with the setup of a couple guys who had no money but really wanted to live large. We also felt it to be particularly relevant, given the current post-grad predicament that we and a bunch of our friends find ourselves in.”
Each member of the show’s cast participates equally in the show’s production. “The cast and the creators are essentially one and the same. We reach out to our friends for supporting roles, but the core group is responsible both for the content and the execution,” they say. “The production team has changed a bit over the course of developing the show, but generally we just work with a pretty small crew. Usually it’s just us, a DP, and a sound operator.” The cast also kept the production process running tightly. “We keep everything as small and efficient as possible. We’ll all write something, revise it, then go for it. Our turnaround time is usually very quick – it typically takes about a day to shoot. Josh will usually edit for a couple days, the rest of us will look at the cut, give thoughts, and we release a couple days after that,” they say.
Silver, Dawes, Margolin and Beswick feel that BOYCHICKS stands apart from many other comedy web series in terms of its episodic approach. “We aim to strike a good balance between a sketch sensibility and an ongoing series. A lot of web content seems to be either topical sketch or centered around a narrative through-line. With BOYCHICKS we make each installment pretty episodic, so you could watch any of them and understand the content and the jokes. At the same time if you watch the whole series, you’ll see that there are callbacks and recurring themes. It’s a similar model to a show like IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA.”
With BOYCHICKS, the four actors hope that their show will not only continue to attract audiences, but will also explore the potential for larger formats. “We really want to create something that people enjoy watching, and will continue to watch. Beyond that, we’d like to find a way to continue to expand viewership, and maybe down the line adapt it into a half-hour pilot.” The boys sum up the theme of BOYCHICKS this way: “If there’s one legitimate piece of inspiration anyone could possibly take from our idiot characters: Be silly, live large.”
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/user/boychickstv
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/boychickstv
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/boychickstv
TUMBLR: https://boychickstv.tumblr.com