The Beginning
In 2009 I wanted to create a realistic thriller series inspired by the fascinating trends I was seeing in the boom of social media. Everyday people are now stalkers. You might want to jump up and say stalker is a harsh word. Well, if you told someone from before Facebook that you knew everything about what they ate that day, what their vacation photos looked like, who they were dating, where they were that night, and all the plans they have for the upcoming week, and you haven't talked to that person since high school, you're a stalker. But I guess we're not anymore because everyone does it.
I set out to create a story of a real life stalker, someone who got wrapped up in the social stalking lifestyle and just took it one more step. Then they took another step. Then it got out of control. I'm fascinated by exploring different styles of storytelling. I decided I was going to try and create a full fleshed out storyline only using the footage from the stalkers camera. My goal was for audiences to get wrapped up in there voyeuristic nature and watch as the horrors unfold.
About the Series
The series is played out through the cameras of Z (Clayton Froning), our stalker as he follows our heroine Emily (Emma Fitzpatrick). She is not the perfect girl by any means. One of the first things you learn about this object of affection is that she is having an affair. She is a flawed character like all of us which makes her such an interesting stalking subject. The audience, through Z's camera get's to see a very intimate invasive perspective of her life, how much she struggles with love, her family, her finances, her hopes, her dreams, and her sanity. Z starts off as just an observer, but he is a story teller at heart. He can't help but plant seeds and influence the unfolding plot of Emily's life. Eventually, he makes himself a character in her story all while recording every detail.
My amazing team of producers Pamela Laurie, and Doug Oliphant helped me to develop this project into a multi dimensional, online experience. We had one major artistic goal in mind, do not be middle of the road. We knew we would get strong responses from people one way or the other. Some people would love it, some people would despise it, but they would have a strong response. Artistically the series was very successful. I had a lot of people watch it and tell me, it was too intense for them to keep watching. In my head I was like "That's awesome!" Except that meant that people were not going to keep watching it. As a business model, this was a terrible idea. People love going to scary movies and getting freaked out. The advantage of a feature length movie, is that after the scary scene is over, the movie keeps going on. You have to keep watching because it would be more inconvenient for you to get up and leave. With a web series, after you watch the terrifying scene, you have to click the next episode. If you're freaked out you're not going to click the next episode. You're going to close down your computer or maybe watch some cat videos to get your mind off of things.
My style of Thriller
The style of the series was heavily influenced by one of the craziest thrillers I have ever seen, Funny Games. This movie features two sociopaths that hold a family hostage using only fear, and a golf club. They don't really make threats, they just play around with reality. You as an audience member never know what is a threat, you only know that something is off and it makes you crazy. A lot of the shots are very long takes. The suspense is allowed to build and a very slow, unsettling pace. You also don't ever really get to see the danger. Instead, you are only allowed to hear the danger and let your imagination fill in the gaps. The Emily series is presented in a very raw, and drawn out format. The takes are long and unsettling like the shower scene you will see in the episode below.
How does it end? The mysterious episode 30
If you start watching the series, you will notice that you can only watch up to Episode 29. In that last episode, Z talks about his final plan but it never gets aired. There are a lot of reasons behind why it ends on episode 29 for the online version. But, you should know there IS an episode 30. In fact, there are two endings to Emily. We started re-cutting Emily into a short film in 2010 and the current ending just didn't make any sense. We wrote a new ending, a crazy ending which is just waiting to be aired. I can't tell you what happens, but I can say that it may just get released at the end of this campaign.
What's Next?
Our next step with Emily is to turn it into a feature film. I have been adapting the script and completely reshaping the story to fit better on the big screen. Once the script is finished, we will be shooting a trailer to help raise some money for the project. Until then, who knows what can happen? In the meantime, you should definitely take some time and see if you can make your way through the whole series. Don't get freaked out, it's not real...anymore.
Emily: The Series
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