By April MacIntyre Oct 20, 2009, 4:16 GMT
These days, the really funny stuff seems to be coming out on webisodes versus full-length expensive traditional comedy series on network television.
10/03/2009 - Krysten Ritter - Josh Gad stars as Matt, Drex’s roommate who is determined to profit from his friend’s changes and Krysten Ritter stars as Cassie, a beautiful young med student whose curiosity fuels a powerful interest in Drex's new condition. Jean Smart stars as Meryl, Drex’s mother, and Wayne Knight appears as Andy Batten, Drex’s nosy co-worker, who is determined to create trouble in Drex’s career. © PRN / PR Photos
Examples of this phenomenon are "In Gayle We Trust," "CTRL" and now "Woke Up Dead," which stars Napoleon Dynamite’s Jon Heder.
This series is the new live-action zombie comedy from Electric Farm Entertainment for Crackle.com, Sony Pictures Entertainment’s online video network.
The original online series stars comedian Jon Heder, Josh Gad, Krysten Ritter (“Breaking Bad") Jean Smart and Wayne Knight among others. This series marks Heder's first foray into the world of web programming, and takes place in various locations around Los Angeles, California.
Heder stars as Drex Greene, a regular recent college grad who finds himself undergoing an inexplicable transformation that begins when he wakes up at the bottom of a water-filled bathtub.
Drex’s roommate Matt, who has been eagerly filming his demise, informs him that he’s easily (and inhumanly) been underwater for more than a half-hour.
As he starts to develop zombie-like tendencies, Drex finds it increasingly difficult to focus on his new job and his love life, so he enlists the help of two friends, Cassie and Matt, to help him uncover the truth about the peculiar changes he is experiencing.
In the process, Drex meets Aurora – who may hold the answers to Drex’s many questions. Drex must decipher whether he really IS a zombie, like Matt is convinced he is, or whether he’s something entirely different.
Josh Gad stars as Matt, Drex’s roommate who is determined to profit from his friend’s changes and Krysten Ritter stars as Cassie, a beautiful young med student whose curiosity fuels a powerful interest in Drex's new condition. Jean Smart stars as Meryl, Drex’s mother, and Wayne Knight appears as Andy Batten, Drex’s nosy co-worker, who is determined to create trouble in Drex’s career.
Other members of the star driven cast include Dan Roebuck ("Lost" "Eleventh Hour") as the mysterious Shadowman; Ellia English (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Semi-Pro” as Diana Phillips, Drex’s supervisor; and Meital Dohan (“Weeds,” “The Sopranos”) as Aurora.
Monsters and Critics spoke with Krysten Ritter about this clever new webseries.
Are you finding fresher ideas and better writing in the scripts for these web shorts coming your way?
Krysten Ritter: It's a totally different animal but it is very fresh as you say. I think there is a real science to getting enough story across in a 4 minute episode while also keeping you wanting more. This is the only web series that I am involved with at the moment but I had a lot of fun and appreciate how hard everyone worked.
Describe working with Jon Heder; how much fun was that?
Krysten Ritter: So fun. He's a really great guy. Humble, down to earth, and kind. We have similar taste in music and as soon as we figured that out we were having a field day making playlists for each other.
Describe your character, her flaws and strengths...
Krysten Ritter: Cassie is a driven med student who has big ambitions for herself. She is intrigued by Drex's condition because it is a challenge and also she is turned on by the idea of a Nobel Peace prize?
The production value looks very polished for this effort. How big is your crew?
Krysten Ritter: Medium sized. It wasn't totally roughing it but it was a relatively small budget for the amount of pages we were blasting through. We were doing 10 pages a day and a lot running around. It was a very high energy set.
Where do you shoot this series?
Krysten Ritter: Downtown LA in this big huge warehouse loft. Which is nice for me because it's just a few minutes from my place and you can get the best ramen downtown.
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