MySpace seem to be getting increasingly more adventurous in
their aims to produce professionally made, high budget drama series.
In spring, or Q2 to be more
precise, of this year, we all saw the debut of MySpaceTV’s first
serial drama, called “Prom
Queen”, which was broken into 90-second-episode snippets and
ran for just over a month.
Then just over a week ago, the social network announced the
launch
of its second episodic production, “Roommates”,
an ongoing, scripted, viewer-influenced drama occurring over the course
of 45 weekdays.
Now, MySpace has made known its intentions to go even further
into
the realm of top quality film making.
MySpace Members Part Of Cast
This time, it’s
heading forward with plans to wander into the world of film making. And
hired a select few (ten, to be exact) MySpace
members (from the UK
only) to be part of the cast.
Yes, that’s right, the cast. MySpace even went so
far as to arrange
for the site’s membership to select its movie’s
director (Vito Rocco,
who’s short film, submitted to the site, won 500,000 votes),
and opened
a poll for the choice of cast among a group which auditioned for
roles.
Those chosen, “which include a student and an
aerospace engineer,” says
the BBC, will “star alongside actors Paul Nicholls and Tim
Healy.”
The premise of the film, titled “Faintheart,” is a
romantic comedy. It is slated for a summer 2008 release.
Outside Studio Support
Like past professionally-produced video-based creations which
MySpace has piloted, Faintheart is being supported by outside studios (Film4 and Vertigo Films),
so, if nothing else, the visual value of it will likely be half-decent
at the least.
MySpace expects to have users interested in the project
to “contribute to the script,” in order that it
continue exemplifying
the practice of including public input in it’s creations, be
they
website related, or content-specific.
Back in February, when
MySpace first publicized its search for participants for the
venture,
the company made it known that the production would have a £1
million
budget. Roughly speaking, that should tell you what to expect of it
come it’s debut mid-2008.
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
