Friday, 15 April 2016

27. Shades Of Bad is back, and bigger - season 3 starts this week.

The new season of the very dark and very dry comedy Shades OF Bad starts this week and runs for the next 20 weeks. Out with the old cast, in with the new ... and as Doris says, it is not illegal to eat other humans in the United Kingdom, a fact gleaned from a very intellectual TV quiz show she saw hosted by Stephen Fry. (fact). (click this paragraph for episode 40)


New star cast, new locations, foreign countries...... An Olympian, an EastEnders actor and Norway and Barcelona. And it is all on the web !!!!! (click this para for trailer)

So, 'all change' on the web TV series Shades OF Bad which has been honoured to have almost never left the world web TV series chart top twenty since its release mid last year. For this small UK series to up there in the chart complied by Roger Newcombe's team at We Love Soaps and Indie Series Network in the USA has been an honour and a surprise. To see the US site click this paragraph.

But, in true soap tradition, the cast must die, long live the cast. Replacement just happens a lot faster on the web, and a little odder. Maybe it is slower if you watch each episode by week and they come in coffee bite sizes, but add the minutes together and it all happens rather fast.

To recap when the two actresses sat in their kitchen and said let's make a show for the web, they never expected it to go this far.  But Jean Heard had always produced and had just lowered the final curtain on a touring play called Mutton, which had run for seven years in various forms. She is also a co owner of IndyUK Films and has produced movies, and IndyUK owned kit ... Dragon and Scarlet Cameras etc....  However, this proposal morphed into another challenge that required it's own kit and staff and Shades Of Bad TV Channel was born.

If you look at the YouTube Channel now it is only just beginning to look like a TV Channel, but small companies like Jean's may be forging a change that only the future knows the answer to. As broadcast TV fast becomes a thing of the past, content ownership is the new buzz word.
Shades Of Bad TV groups three YouTube Channels with over 750,000 views, to the viewer they all appear on the channel.

It will be interesting to see if each needs their own Channel and needs to be grouped as playlists. The growth of social media is so fast this kind of research can only be done by small channel owners.
The playlists are clearly laid out on the Shades Of Bad TV Channel and it is worth a look just to study the work that she and her small team have put into it.

1. The Shades OF Bad series lists 40 coffee bite episodes up and they have 20 more auto scheduled for release. 
2. Doris Visits is a spin off series which is aimed at a market they have decided to study. It is a travel show which mainly hits cruise stops and takes an unusual informal look at places. There are 20 films up and another 7 in the edit and they visit Russia in June and the Canaries in November.
3. How To Film is a web series that is there to help enable people to make their own shows. Having made a five features and now running the channel there are many useful tips to share and this series will form into a logical series. There are about 5 films on the playlist and the gaps will be filled.
4. Is the behind the scenes material for the film FREIGHT they made on sex trafficking, and the book FREIGHT is currently being proofed for publication within weeks.
5. Bula Quo is the site they have using the material they have with the UK rock legends Status Quo and film they made with them in Fiji. They have untold footage and interviews that have never been seen, that will be edited and added this year.
6. Then there is Ask Doris, an out of the box series where she just mends stuff. This has been tested and the list will be added soon.
(click this para to go to channel, please subscribe)

Eventually the Freight (DorisTV) and Bula Quo channels will return the honour by reflecting the lists there, but building the film output on Create Space and owning the unsold territorial distribution rights is also ongoing, and the novels of the work. The integration is one massive experiment of owning content.

Back to Shades OF Bad and the new Season. The first two seasons never strayed far from the kitchen and never left the house. It was a self imposed rule set, that each episode would be 3 to 5 minutes long, released weekly and had to end on a high.

The show has reached as high as number 2 in the Indie Series chart and Jean Heard has been voted Best Actress twice. Season three sees more dead bodies, a greater foray into crime and off to Norway and Barcelona. The current cast start to fall and in comes the new. They may have discovered a hidden acting talent and thrust a new male black actor into the market place with Derek Redmond. He is a World Champion and Olympian and plays Drek. Oliver Degnan who Jean used n IndyUK's first film The Usual Children, appears as Ben Manstead. The Bin Man who is dead. Manuel Martinez appears as the fixer in Barcelona, and then she can't get rid of him. And finally Nej Adamson, the pub quiz question actor ... who was the very first face on EastEnders ????  Nej..... appears. Quite a new cast as Shades OF Bad stretches out for a new season.

Please subscribe and enjoy the ride.

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