LA FOCUS - Doucheaholics
Web Series Title: Doucheaholics
Logline: Everybody can be a douche.
Length: 7-15 mins. (per episode)
Director: Sean McCarthy
Producer: Elizabeth Mitchell, Sean McCarthy
Writer: Sean McCarthy
About the writer, director and producer:
Sean McCarthy is an award winning filmmaker, who has been creating short films, music videos, and commercials as a writer, actor, producer, and director.
Elizabeth Mitchell is an award winning filmmaker and actress. She is a strong creative producer who has had a life long love of movies and puts that passion into the projects she's involved in.
Key cast: Anthony Marks, Ashley Sullivan, Mitch Costanza, Elizabeth Mitchell, Syra McCarthy, Jenn Tripp
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists):
Funders: Guerilla Wanderers Films, Sean McCarthy, Elizabeth Mitchell
Release date: TBD
Where can I watch it at the film festival or in the next month? June 10th, 615pm we world premiere episode 1 & 2. The full season will premiere later this summer.
Congratulations! Why did you make this web series?
My co-creator/co-showrunner Elizabeth Mitchell and I collaborate on many projects. She's a producing partner and a wonderful actress, and we've been doing a lot of commercials and music videos. We're also a couple who are both cinephiles. We wanted to create something personal and original together. It was our special project together.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this web series?
This is an entertaining comedy series grounded in real emotions, where people with bad habits, poor behavior and various forms of douchebaggery come together and try to help each other. The problem is they have the best intentions but all are unaware of their own selfish tendencies causing more conflicts.
We explore the idea of what is considered a douchebag, then delve into various types and cultures that break out of the cliched douchebag. Each episode follows a different character, culture and idea of douchery.
How do personal and universal themes work in your web series?
I am a big proponent of personal filmmaking and exploring your inner feelings and thoughts, then expressing them in the work. The challenge is looking within ourselves and discovering the universal themes that resonate within a lot of us. It's really having fun with it, while looking at every character archetype from all walks of life and digging deeper to see what makes them tick because in essence we're all guilty of some form of douchery. So looking at myself, sharing stories with each other and just a lot of conversations exploring observations of others and how we relate to that too.
I think, without sounding like a pretentious doucheaholic myself, that's both the fun of the show and the real humanity within in it because everybody can be a douche, and that's part of being human. So to explore what leads to these tendencies of being a jerk or having conflict with others is a real exploration into each character's psyche and emotional trappings, wrapped inside the funhouse ride of all these douchebags having conflict with one and other.
How have the script and web series evolved over the course of their development and production?
This was a fun small thing that Elizabeth and I wanted to do together. We were gonna shoot 1 episode, then we ended up shooting 3 episodes and now we have a full season. We're not making a sketch comedy because even though it's high concept, these characters we wanted to approach as real as they can be.
So it's been fun to have all these talented collaborators who come in and just really contribute their talents to this world. Since each episode was an evolution of what happened in the previous episode but also self contained, there was a challenge in finding that balance.
So that fans could enjoy the world building of the show and characters, and someone could just happen on one specific episode and just enjoy. I always disliked watching shows where the consequences of one episode had no end result on the next episode. At the same time, I want people to maybe get introduced into episode 4, enjoy it and go back to 1.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The feedback has been great. People seem to really enjoy it and see it's not a sketch but we approach this world and these characters as real. Our goal was the comedy comes from the characters and their perspectives and that seems to really excite people when they see it.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
We welcome feedback and constructive criticism, we want to make personal work but we don't want to make it within the bubble of just ourselves. We know as creators, you can get lost in it. I know as a writer/director, I live it with it everyday but someone watching it needs to have an understanding of the world and characters conveyed. So I'm always asking "are we conveying this? is that character's intentions coming across? is this a joke or coming from character?"
My editor Dustin Strocchia will sit with our assistant editor Justin, myself, Elizabeth and others and ask "is this working? is it not? how can we fix it?". So we have a shared passion for finding the best, so good feedback let's us know we're heading in the right direction or wrong. We all want to be proud of what we are doing as filmmakers and part of that is letting in different points of view in and challenging ourselves to find the best. That goes for every stage of the film.
What are you looking to achieve by having your web series more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We made this out of our shared passion for tv and film as one of the greatest artistic mediums. We read your site and discover new voices. We hope people do the same with our project and check it out. Hopefully they'll enjoy and share it others.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this web series’s message?
We would love to find more producers and creatives to collaborate with, buyers, financiers and distributors who would be interested in possibly creating more episodes. Obviously, film festival directors and journalists who see the quality and are in the position to be curators/ambassadors and influence others to see it.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this web series to have?
If you want to just watch something entertaining that hopefully makes you laugh. Awesome, it's there! If you want something that's character driven and a real exploration of flawed characters, that's in there too. So awesome! If you want both then it's a 2 for 1. Since the comedy comes from character, it allowed us to make something that's not just a bombardment of jokes but the comedy is coming from characters and a place of truth. That's fun to explore.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this web series?
How have you been a douchebag in your own life? How could someones unawareness with our situation and ours with theirs have lead to some source of conflict that could've been avoided.
Would you like to add anything else?
It's a project Elizabeth and I, and dear collaborators, made from the heart and it's personal filmmaking, as well as a labor of love. A small group of cohorts got together and we wanted to collaborate with a lot of talented people on both ends of the camera. The initial person we developed the 1st episode for was our friend Anthony Marks, who's a terrific actor that inspired me to write something he could bite into and shine because I want everyone to see how awesome he is.
It's also fun when you get to collaborate with your significant other, your family (my sister Syra plays yoga douche), and your friends. I've found when you approach something with the most sincerest intentions and come from a personal authentic place, a truth can emerge that strikes a chord with others. So hopefully when people watch, we'll have people who really enjoy the uniqueness of the show.
We've been making it quietly in the dark by ourselves, so we're just happy it's going to be put out into the world and have others enjoy it. It's fun entertaining and engaging others.
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
We shot all of season 1 and started shooting season 2. Our Guerilla Wanderers Films team have been working hard to make more episodes and expand the Doucheaholics world. We have an influx of commercials we are working on, we have an vfx/animation division team that handles vfx for other companies, and I am working on a feature film and developing other series.
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If you enjoyed reading about 'Doucheaholics' we recommend:
Bad, Bad Men: After being taunted by a cocksure “big shot” at a coffee shop, a timid young man enlists his two best friends to help him track his newfound bully down and put him in his place. They do just that, but misguided machismo then fuels an escalating battle of wills.
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela