This dark comedy wasn’t meant to be a Web series. It was first developed and then shot as a short film, but as the response time for festival entries dragged on the producers took a different tack.
“We went into it with a very conventional, movie-making mentality, which is where [director] Jason Melius came in because he had a lot of experience in that traditional, Hollywood studio system,” says Cameron Comstock, who plays James in the six-episode series and co-produced it with Sean J. Miller (a contributing editor to Backstage).
Short films were once the springboard for young directors and actors. But in the digital age, the Internet's audience dwarf's that of film festivals. Sure, they remain good networking opportunities. But the audience for a festival shorts program ranges up to the hundreds -- at best. The audience online is, well, limitless.
“The Transplanters” follows the darkly comic story of James who, following an emergency kidney transplant, wakes up a changed man. He’s no longer the miserable, cantankerous leach he was to his girlfriend, Katie, prior to the surgery. Now, he’s affable and eager to please her, thinking she donated her kidney to him. Katie takes full advantage of his eagerness, which leads James to make some extremely questionable decisions in regards to his relationship with her and his new kidney.
The series had a budget of around $17,500, raised partly through an Indiegogo campaign and the rest covered by the producers.
Auditions took place at Space Station Casting Studios in Hollywood. Submissions came primarily through Backstage. Comstock played the lead, and Ashley Peoples was actually cast after a cold call by Melius, who had seen her performance in the short film “Abigail.” Jensen Atwood, who plays James’ best friend Phil, was also cast through a connection to the director.
During casting Melius was still busy working his day job as an assistant director on the TNT series “Rizzoli & Isles,” so many of the auditions were taped for him by the producers. “When I would return home from the set at night, I'd boot up the computer, grab a glass of wine and watch people audition in the privacy of my office,” he says. “It was fantastic.” Katherine Shaw, who auditioned, was cast to play Lindsay, Phil’s girlfriend and Katie’s best friend.
The series was shot over two, 12-hour days in four locations around Hollywood and West Hollywood. With such a tight shooting schedule, Melius credits his “crack group” of around 11 industry professionals. “I'd like to think that a lot of that was my own energy and setting the tone of the shoot from day one, but at the same time these are just genuinely good people who are good at their jobs,” he says.
While it was a quick and successful shoot, challenges came afterwards. “After we wrapped, we had to wait forever to get responses from festivals,” says Comstock. “We lost probably close to a year waiting for festivals to get back to us."
During that time, Comstock says, “it was really disappointing to not have anybody see what we had worked so hard on and invested so much in. We got sick of waiting. We were just gonna go find our own audience.”
A new editor was hired to cut the series into “snack size pieces, like a bite size Snickers,” says Comstock.
“The Transplanters” was released on YouTube in November and quickly found an audience. “If you want to attract the biggest audience, you kind of have to keep it brief,” says Comstock. “And that’s hard to do with a short film.”
On his next project, Comstock says he would skip even submitting to brick-and-mortar festivals.
“We would just go and get the fans,” he says. “Because at the end of the day, if you have somebody who likes your product, it doesn’t matter how you get it to them.”
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