Have you ever imagined watching your favorite Youtube show, only to find it interrupted by something totally unexpected? Like, say, an alien invasion? That’s the incredible scenario that a 7 year old vlogger named Angie Martinez manages to find herself in the acclaimed, award-winning kids’ web series THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS.
Written and directed by Mark Cabaroy of Minimally Invasive Productions, and produced by Marti Davis, 14 episodes of THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS have aired so far on its official Youtube page, and its channel is currently seeking to achieve 5,000 subscribers. (More on that ahead). The first episode of the series can be viewed at the embedded link located at the end of this article.
In total, 25 are set for the show’s first season. In addition to the main series, work is underway on a special illustrated comic book version of THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS, plus an animated version of the series that’s being drawn by animator Henry Blackshear.
THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS stars Catori Crawford (IAWTV nominee for Best Female Performance in a Comedy) as Angie, the show’s young Youtuber and protagonist. Along with her trusty teddy bear co-host Mr. Snuggles (professionally known as Ted E. Bear), Angie hosts her own Youtube series called, simply enough, “The Angie Show”.
Just when it seems like she’s guiding her viewers through another typical day in her life, Angie ends up having to save not only her babysitter Beth Adelman (Catherine Manett), and Mr. Snuggles, but also the entire free world, from a terrifying intrusion by some out of this world visitors she just manages to capture on tape.
Armed with her own homemade 40 watt laser gun, and a spaceship constructed from a spare refrigerator box, Angie fights to keep all of mankind safe from the unexpected threat posed by the alien invaders. With Mr. Snuggles along for the ride, Angie captures her mission through exciting and entertaining episodes that combine the vlogging format with traditional character arcs through each story.
Described by Cabaroy as GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY meets HOME ALONE, THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS grew out of both his longtime love of sci-fi/adventure movies, and his aspiration to create a web series that combines the dazzling visual effects and epic storytelling of those films with their distinctively lighthearted comedic elements.
“I wanted to do a web series that was fun to watch. Something easy to look at, even if it was hard to make,” he says. “I’ve always loved film series like BACK TO THE FUTURE and MEN IN BLACK, with their pseudoscience and wacky over the top characters. It was in the spirit of these films that I decided to make THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS.”
In the beginning, though, Cabaroy’s vision of what his web series would eventually become was much darker – and much more expensive. “When I first started developing the project, I had an ensemble of characters broken into two groups, whom each witness and subsequently react to the arrival of the Invaders in different ways,” he recalls. “As they went about trying to warn people of the coming invasion, they were also doing their best not to get killed or captured.”
Given that Cabaroy and his production team, including producer Marti Davis, had an extremely limited (read: next to nothing) budget, they knew that substantial changes needed to be made in many aspects of the story itself. As Cabaroy explains, it was at that moment that the concept for ANGIE’S LOGS began to develop.
“When my producer, Marti Davis, and I started developing the show, we realized what a huge undertaking it would be to produce a reoccurring episodic show on that scale with little or no money,” Cabaroy adds. “So we decided to take one of the characters and tell her origin story, similar to BATMAN BEGINS, in order to build an audience.”
THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS is also unique in how it skewers the world of social media, and how extremely prominent it has become in modern life. Making the show even more distinctive is how Cabaroy uses today’s popular online platforms to both bring each episode to viewers, and to further enhance the show’s story and characters, including its main protagonist.
“Since Youtube, along with other social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr have become such an integral part of our digital lives, I thought, why not parody their use as well as use them as a distribution platform?” he says. “This would also allow us to have Angie break the fourth wall and talk, when necessary, directly to the audience, similar to Matthew Broderick in the movie FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF.”
For Cabaroy, who wrote 15-20 scripts running roughly 2 pages (2 minutes) each, the goal of keeping each episode of THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS short but sweet was crucial.
So too was the task of developing a detailed, yet compelling episodic storyline that would both build and retain audiences, plus maintain their anticipation for each subsequent episode.
“I wanted to keep the episodes short, commercial like. I wanted meaningful relevant conversation,” Cabaroy says. “I wanted it to feel like we had created a dozen or so individual episodes that standalone like traditional television programming, yet they’d have a complex enough storyline to keep viewers interested and coming back to see what happens next.”
Nevertheless, he adds, there’s still room for traditional storytelling elements in each episode, along with plenty of room for individual character development. “We just didn’t want to always come back to the same place we left off in the last episode, leaving the audience (and, when needed, Angie) to fill in the blanks,” Cabaroy adds.
As a result of the show’s story structure, the characters featured in each episode of THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS will also benefit as much as the viewers. “This would also allow us to let Angie, Mr. Snuggles and whomever else they might encounter along the way to have adventures, not necessarily directly connected to the main INVADERS story line,” says Cabaroy.
Keeping the production quality high, but at the same time accomplishing that task within the parameters of an extremely limited budget, was another goal that Cabaroy and his team sought to accomplish as principal photography began on THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS.
As he explains, keeping the production simple while taking note of its more complicated elements was a large part of that goal.
“I mean, we were going to have this kid running around with this big old laser gun firing it in the streets, and have to eventually cart around her exterior spaceship prop, to show her climbing in and out of whenever she landed her ship on the street, and such. So we definitely wanted a production friendly environment.”
Before production got underway in June 2013, Cabaroy wanted to shoot the series in a setting he knew well. “I live in the Bronx, N.Y. and grew up in Queens, so I assumed I’d just film the show around the areas I knew,” he remembers.
Thanks to the suggestion of producer Davis, it would be the nearby state of New Jersey, and in particular the city of Edison, that would serve as backdrop to the tale of a mild-mannered young vlogger who finds herself battling to defeat an otherworldly enemy.
It also helped that New Jersey happened to be the new home of the show’s lead actress.
“It turned out that her (Catori’s) family had recently moved to Jersey City, and had a friend, Tanisha White from Edison, N.J.,” recalls Cabaroy. “Tanisha had the perfect location for Angie’s room, and much of the initial action takes places in her residence.”
In fact, adds Davis, finding the place that served as hub for Angie’s unexpected quest to save the world proved to be just as easy. “Tanisha’s five-year old daughter, Amber, had this great kid’s room. It had Hello Kitty, Barbie stuff and all these great toys all over the place,” she says. “We didn’t have to do a thing but set up our lights and cameras and stage the action with the actress.”
While THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS has enjoyed a substantial fan following on its Youtube page, Cabaroy seeks to build that audience even further through his ongoing campaign to gain 5,000 subscribers.
Through that campaign, which began on December 5th, he and his team hope to gain access to Youtube’s studio facilities, located at Google’s downtown New York offices. As of this writing, Cabaroy hopes to accumulate about 4,600 more subscribers to the show, with a goal of reaching that number sometime by next summer.
To help him achieve that goal, all you have to do is click “subscribe” on the show’s Youtube channel. While it’s free to subscribe, Cabaroy is also seeking monetary donations on the show’s official web site to help keep THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS going and growing.
“If you contribute, we give you a thank you/shout out on our web page. If your contribution is $50 or more, we’ll start giving people perks like T-shirts, mugs and other memorabilia from the show.” Details on the incentives and donation levels are available on THE INVADERS’ web site.
No matter how viewers contribute to the success of the series, though, Cabaroy strongly feels that the benefits of subscribing and supporting his series and other shows on Youtube help both the viewer and the web series creator alike.
“By subscribing, which costs them nothing, they get to help support shows you like and ensure the people making them will continue to make programs to entertain you,” he says. “It’s no different than watching your favorite TV show, the networks seeing people watch it and they continue to produce more shows. Subscribing and watching is Youtube’s way of keeping track of your audience.”
Through its memorable characters, and an incredible story filled with plenty of adventure, suspense and humor, THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS promises to be a one of a kind web series adventure that’s truly out of this world; one that kids, their families and viewers of all ages can enjoy. In fact, watching it may also make you want to explore not just your world, but maybe, the world beyond the stars!
[Note: Cabaroy says the series is already closed-captioned, and will be subtitled in Russian, French and Spanish through such platforms as Battery PopTV (www.batteryPOP.com), and Vertro TV Global (www.VertroTVGlobal.com).]
Episode 1 of THE INVADERS: ANGIE’S LOGS can be viewed below:
ON THE WEB: www.theinvadersseries.com
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/user/theinvaderswebseries
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/TheInvadersWebseries
TWITTER: @InvadersSeries