FUTURESTATES
On Monday, ITVS (the Independent Television Service) launched a new online series titled FUTURESTATES, eleven short films imagining a contemporary American issue thrust in to the future. Full disclosure: I’ve got a piece in the series. But it’s worth a plug here: it’s the first time to my knowledge that a major funder (ITVS, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) has invested this heartily in a web series, and almost most importantly, put significant marketing muscle behind it. In the press release, Executive Producer Sally Jo Fifer (haven’t you seen that name dozens of times on television docs?) says: “FUTURESTATES is an opportunity to reach new audiences that are younger and more diverse by combining online viewing with a shorter-format and edgy content with a sci-fi twist that inspire, entertain, and inform. Our end goal is to make FUTURESTATES available for public television broadcast down the road bringing along the new online audiences we gain.”
David Kaplan and renowned gamer Eric Zimmerman created PLAY, which imagines a not-too-distant future where video games have become indistinguishable from reality. Beautifully shot by Michael Simmonds (BIG FAN), this is a tightly stitched world.
Tze Chun’s SILVER SLING compellingly imagines a world wherein corporations offer financial incentives to their high-ranking female employees to pay for chemically- accelerated surrogate births – three months, ba da bing (sounds great; sign me up). Chun’s feature debut was CHILDREN OF INVENTION.
Amyn Karali’s THE OTHER SIDE is a border story (like mine is, titled TIA AND MARCO) with a major twist. And Ramin Bahrani’s piece PLASTIC BAG imagines the world of said trashy protagonist (voiced by Werner Herzog) who longs for its maker. It’s starkly original. Bahrani made MAN PUSH CART and GOODBYE, SOLO, amongst others.
The series is firmly science fiction, but also rooted in a TWILIGHT ZONE foundation, cautionary and conceptual. The big unknown question – speaking of the future – is how will the web develop further in this arena? ITVS spent over $500,000 to develop and produce the series, as the New York Times reports – will this level of funding be sustained for the web? (Even though on my own set we were pinching every penny, and it was tough.) I hope so.
–AH
