Hello world wide web! It’s time for another installment of “The IndieNet and Beyond.” More of the news and newest web series episodes you are used to, including an interview with Yuri Brown. She is the creator/writer/star of the new supernatural web series Cursed. The series is scheduled to premiere this Wednesday evening, December 8th.
The series is about an angel incarnate, Crystal Jones, who struggles between a life of being a single mom and a killer of killers. It’s a balancing act between her loved ones and her desire to ascend. Yuri Brown (Deliver Us from Eva) stars in and writes this new web series, which is directed by Jeff Kanew (Revenge of the Nerds).
“[It’s] about a fallen angel. She’s an Earth angel that… is cursed. She desperately wants to break the curse and be close to God again,” explained Brown. “So she is sort of on this path and the way that she feels she will be able to redeem herself is by killing bad guys. She feels that if she shows God that she doesn’t stand with them and that she willing to be a destroyer of evil that he’ll reclaim her.”
But things aren’t as simple as just hunting down the bad guys for redemption. She has earthly ties that complicate things: a son, a father, and a lover.
“Meanwhile, in her earthly life she is a mom. So she sort of has this pull between wanting to ascend and leave this place. And also taking care of the ones that she loves on Earth,” said Brown.
“Basically I just had an idea and I decided to give birth to it. It didn’t take very long [to write], ” said Brown. But that original story was about vampires, not angels.
“It was a dark and mysterious vampire thing that I would probably need five million dollars to shoot. I wrote it and let it go for a year. Then I came back to it. I’ve been acting for a number of years and thought I would give myself the opportunity to create my own work. I believe if you’re an actor, it’s your job to create your own work, if you can. But vampires suck peoples blood and I think it’s kind of negative,” laughed Brown. “So I decided to make my character dark, but wanting to transcend as well. So that is kind of how she became a dark angel. And also I thought it would be neat to bring people into this world. Not a lot of people know about Earth angels.”
The term Earth angel was one I was unfamiliar with and I figured she just made it up the term for the series, but not so says Brown. “There are a lot of people that believe in this term and in fact I recently found a Yahoo group where they … have this short list of questions. And they say it is possible you are an Earth angel.”
“In my story, if you were an angel with God and you chose to not follow him, the way that Satan did—when Satan left heaven he took followers with him—if you went with him, then you are cursed to live as a human being unable to connect with the Higher Power at all,” said Brown.
Crystal seeks redemption, but why does she think killing bad guys is the way to that?
“Because I think she made a bad choice to stand with evil and this is her way to show she doesn’t. My mother hates it. [My mother says] ‘I don’t understand why the angel has to kill people.’ [But] that’s actually what they do,” explained Brown. “Angels have killed lots of people in the Bible. They are delivers of judgment and blessing. She has decided to be a force of judgment against the evil. In hopes of reclaiming His grace and love. Not sure if she is going to be successful, but she’s trying.”
Cursed has a talented and experienced cast, which includes James Black (The Burning Zone, The Starter Wife) who plays Jeff Gerrard. Gerrard is Crystal’s love interest who has a secrets of his own.
“One of the things I love about [Black], besides the fact he is so amazingly easy to work with, I thought we had great chemistry and I really liked working with him. His character is very interesting. Lots of fun twists and turns. There is more to him than meets the eye,” said Brown.
Brown said it was fairly easy to get actors she knew to join, but finding a director was a struggle. She said she is very thankful to have gotten Jeff Kanew, a very experienced director who is probably best known for directing Revenge of the Nerds. He was actually the third director to sign on.
She advises aspiring web series creators to “write around your resources” and emphasized that the quality of acting is very important. “If you don’t have good actors forget it. I mean that is my opinion. And I’m an actress so of course I’m going to say that. I’m very thankful for the cast [of Cursed],” said Brown.
There are so many different ways to tell a story. Books, movies, TV, etc. So why did Brown choose to turn Cursed into a web series? Or as a man once told her, ‘Why would you do this little web series. Why don’t you do a two million dollar movie?’
“I said because I’m doing what I can do. There are a lot of uses of these web series. You can use it to explore the idea of storytelling or to develop a project. If you have an idea you should go for it. One of the reasons I wanted to do the Internet, because I wanted to create a production that could be small, that could be niched.”
The plan is one episode a month, equaling 7 episodes for season 1. Brown explained her reasoning for the wait between episodes, “I took a lot of care into it. Because we have a great cast and director, I did not want to rush the production at all.”
Cursed is written by Yuri Brown and directed by Jeff Kanew. The series stars Yuri Brown, John Wesley, James Black, Alex Skinner and Roy Werner.
Calling All Angels
Last week was the interview with Thomas Gofton, creator of Mind’s Eye. A web series where a boy is stuck in the middle of an ancient battle between angels and demons. This week we have Cursed, about an angel incarnate. So I wondered what other angel themed web series are out there. Here are a couple that you may like to check out: Soul Fire Rising and Passenger.
Soul Fire Rising
Passenger
Coming Soon…
Naught for Hire
Naught For Hire is an upcoming sci-fi/noir web series starring Ben Browder (Stargate SG-1, Farscape) as Private Detective Nick Naught. The series is created by screenwriter and producer Jeffrey Berman and will have 13 episodes in season one. Other members of the cast you may recognize: Juliet Landau (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel), Samm Levine (Vamped Out), Chase Masterson (Star Trek: Deep Space 9) and Phil LaMarr.
No trailer yet, but until then you can check out the interactive web site.
eScape
The scifi kids web series eScape returns for a second season. The series is about a group of summer campers trapped in a video game.
eScape the Series Trailer 2 from Runic Films on Vimeo.
What I’m Watching… Are You?
Bite Me – Episode 1 “Outbreak”
Three gamers, one zombie outbreak. A new zombie comedy web series that launched December 1st. Warning, it is a little on the NSFW side.
The LXD – Season 2: Episode 7 “Origins”
The origin of the Dark Doctor is revealed.
Mind’s Eye – Episode 2 “A Budding Thought”
Illia and his friends play a light-hearted game, wondering where Nadia is. Visions reveal her fate and the danger that is coming for Illia and the Dreamweavers.
Suck and Moan – Episode 7 “Shelf Life”
Is a zombie immortal or do they eventually just decay away? These are the deep questions pondered by humanity’s unlikely vampire ‘heroes’ who are trying to save their food source from the zombie outbreak.
Vampire Zombie Werewolf
I’m waiting for new episodes. They recently released this behind-the-scenes of the teaser trailer to help hold us over.
That’s A Wrap
Got a web series, web comic, web… whatever, then I want to know about it. Contact me at: marxpyle@scifipulse.net
That’s a wrap for now. Take care friends. Until next time… Marx out.
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