Guest post with Arron Fenton and her web-based series Blood Lies

Web shows seem to be picking up steam, much like self publishing is appealing to more and more authors, and the same can be said for actresses and screenwriters. Inspired by the writer's strike a couple of years ago, actress Arron Fenton chose to write her own series and found a home on the internet. My review of Blood Lies will follow the guest post so for now please welcome special guest, Arron Fenton, who is sharing her inspirations and explaining how the web series came to be.

Guest post:

Blood Lies sets up a whole new level of web-series and leaves you wondering "in a world where there are no good guys, who do you trust?". The show is about a girl named Elise who unknowingly saves a vampire from death and soon finds herself running from a secret that could threaten her life, and even the lives of the people she loves.

I started writing this script because I needed something to act in. Hollywood writers were on strike at the time and work was slow. My boyfriend Mike Darling (who is the director of "Blood Lies" ) read the script and loved it. We knew we wanted the look and feel of Blood Lies to be completely different from that of our other web-series Alpha Planet.  So he bought the Canon 7D to replace the Sony FX1 we used for the SciFi Alpha Planet, and the result was amazing! We are very proud of the look we achieved. 

I started falling in love with web-series when I first watched Neil Patrick Harris' show Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, which led me to watch amateur series such as The Legend Of Neil, and I said to Mike "We could do that."

As I was writing this vampire script I took inspirations from my favorite vamp shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, True Blood, and mini series I Heart Vampires. I'm proud of what came out of it. I think we chose the best actors for the roles, and being a low-budget film company, I think we are producing quality work that is lacking in many web-series out there now. We've had a few hiccups during the filming process, like losing our make-up artist the day before our huge fighting scene, forcing me to step up to the role. In between takes I would have to break character and rush for the fake blood and add extra bruises for our lead Bryson Kuan, who plays Cade in the script. During the scene I had to force myself to concentrate on the lines instead of worrying about how the blood wasn't flowing correctly on my co-star's face. There is always things that can be improved upon but what we hoped to achieve in Blood Lies was an interesting plot, intriguing characters, and a quality story that gets our audience "sucked" in. 

Series information:

Episode one   "Murder And Pizza"
There's been a series of strange murders in Elise's city. The only surviving victim is Elise's runaway mother, still in the hospital. While her father spends day and night by her side, Elise is left to fend for herself. Her best friend Skyler calls with some terrible news and Elise heads out for the night, unaware that someone may be following her.

Episode two "Best Friends Forever"
After accidentally falling asleep at Skyler's, Elise rushes to head home. But chance places her in the middle of a street fight and there's no getting out of it.

And coming soon: Episode three "Pretty Lies"
Elise ends up a little worse for wear and time is running short for her and the boy Cade. Matt and Bert seemed convinced Cade is a vampire and with options running out Elise chances fate at a daring escape... but can they out run bullets?

My review:


I had a chance to watch the first 2 episodes a couple nights ago and I was impressed with the quality. I guess I was expecting more of a homemade feel, like those ridiculous Blair Witch movies that everyone raved about, but Blood Lies has a more professional feel. 

Although the camera work was blurry in spots, as meant to be an artistic effect, it was far better than someone running around with a video camera, and overall very professional. The lighting was dark and brooding, something you would expect from a vampire movie, although not too dark that it prevented anything important from being seen. The script is short and sweet, each episode running no more than 10 minutes, but I didn't necessarily find the plot to suffer from the shorter format. It might have been beneficial to have more of the backstory laid out because at this point I'm still just guessing on a couple of things. So far vampires have only been hinted at and I'm anxious to see how they appear on film. That will, of course, be an important aspect of the show so it's crucial that the special effects be done properly. Both Flyboy and I found the acting to be moderately campy, especially with Elise's best friend, but to be honest, it seemed to fit the format and it wasn't bad by any stretch. And after watching the first episode we both felt compelled to watch the second, needing to know what would happen next. And you can definitely tell that everyone involved put a lot of effort into the project.


I'm trying to think of a comparison, or a frame of reference for you, but I don't have one. This is a new format for me so I am unfamiliar with other webisodes that might be comparable. I am interested in seeing how the story plays out, so I will tune in for episode 3.



Here are the web links so you can check the episodes out for yourself.


http://www.renrobot.com
www.renrobot.com/bloodlies