The transition from teenager to adult is never easy, and for many people in their late ‘20s, a lot of that time is spent not only reflecting on life, but also engaging in some very silly and foolish things. WASTED TIME, a new comedy web series produced by the production company Ravavilad! and created by Michael Sykora, Jesse Collier and Adam Jackson, portrays these events with its own brand of humor and a distinctive production style unlike many other web series. The show debuted June 24th and currently has four episodes airing on Youtube, with a second series (or arc) of five episodes on the way, according to co-creator Collier. “We started off with 4 for this arc (or season), but moving forward we can really do whatever we want. We might do a season that only has 2 episodes, we may do one with 10. We just want to keep making them and see what happens organically,” Collier says.
WASTED TIME was conceived after a series of short films produced by Sykora and Collier played the festival circuit, films that quickly won audiences. Concerned that their work would be inaccessible to the fans of those films, the pre-production process for WASTED TIME began, a process that continued a longtime collaboration – and friendship – for the show’s co-creators, going back to their days hosting an Internet radio show. Each of them set out to develop a web series that is distinctly different from many others in terms of its storytelling style.“We were inspired by a number of different ideas that we all brought together, and by bringing those ideas together it sort of became the crux of the show itself,” Jackson says. “We had a bunch of disparate concepts when we started out and our main focus was to try and link them together, so we all sat down and built connections between all the episodes, but still wanted each to stand on its own. The main problem with episodic television is that it can get a little too deep and self-referential and we wanted to make sure every episode can be watched independently, but you benefit from watching all of them. That way we can go full-on slapstick comedy with one episode and also do a really dark, serious episode without either feeling out of place.”
The show’s development was a collaborative effort with each of the show’s creators contributing their own ideas for the production of each episode, but it was Sykora who got the ball rolling. “He wanted to do something that had a very specific, cinematic look that was inspired by those smokey, tinted ‘80s movies. He also had a visual concept of shooting through a wine glass (which became the opening to Episode 2). Adam had a rough idea of a guy going to meet a girl late at night and there being another guy there. From there the three of us just met every week and chipped away at it. It was a very organic writing process. We’re very comfortable together and have been making stuff together and apart for years, so there’s no ego interference,” Jackson says.
After the scripts were written, casting the show’s first four episodes began in earnest, followed by filming each episode on weekends over a period of 3-4 months. It was a production process that ran smoothly in large part due to the varied talents and expertise of the show’s cast and crew. As a result of their efforts and despite little to no resources, WASTED TIME’s production quality is outstanding, and Sykora’s direction is among the biggest reasons why, according to Collier. “The man is a perfectionist and a natural director, without being a jerk. He keeps the energy up, keeps everyone motivated and doesn’t stop until everything is done. Every web series should be as lucky to have a guy like him at the helm (thankfully they don’t).” Other key factors in the show’s distinctness is director of photography Ryan Knight, who gave the show a cinematic look that also sets the show apart from many other web series, and Justin McDonald, who stars in the show’s second episode, ‘Wine and Porn’ and also contributed original music to each episode.
While each of the show’s talented creators hopes that WASTED TIME will be a showcase for their talents and those of the many others who helped to produce it, as well as a stepping stone towards bigger opportunities in the film and TV industry, Collier views the series as a reflection of the memories he and many others have experienced while trying to figure out their place in the world. Says Collier: “We all found ourselves at the tail end of our 20’s looking back on what we’ve done. Not depressed or unhappy, but just thinking about those long, lost days and nights that we have all experienced. We’re really trying to make something that’s heavily grounded in our realities. We take real things that have happened to us and our friends and flip them, heighten them slightly and blend them together. I don’t think we’re going for any particular message right now, but I think those sorts of things happen in retrospect.”
ON THE WEB: www.wastedtimeseries.com
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/user/000WastedTime000
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/wastedtimeseries
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/ravavilad_film
WEB SERIES CHANNEL: http://www.webserieschannel.com/wasted-time/