Interview with Steven Tsapelas of We Need Girlfriends and My Future Girlfriend

As most of you know from my previous post, I had the awesome opportunity to interview Steven Tsapelas of We Need Girlfriends and My Future Girlfriend. I admit, my week has been so hectic that I've barely had enough time to even log on.. let alone post! So here it is, fellow readers, the long awaited interview. Enjoy and please don't forget to watch My Future Girlfriend when it premiers April 1, 2011! Add them on facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Future-Girlfriend/233489998992

for more news and details. :) Enjoy!

-- "We Need Girlfriends has enjoyed some internet popularity, is the outcome you received what you initially had in mind?"

In the beginning, no. We (by that I mean myself, Angel Acevedo and Brian Amyot) had come off of making short films and competition films and thought YouTube, which was relatively new (this was '06) would be a good place to get our work seen. Around that time, webshows were starting up and with little competition, we thought maybe we could get our stuff seen. There were no ulterior motives. We just wanted to make stuff because it was fun and because we thought we were good at it. We had no intention of selling it, which is why I think it was so oddly personal. About halfway through, the fanbase grew bigger and bigger, and we started to think that, maybe, one day, we could make a TV show. We really could not imagine that people from Los Angeles were already watching our little show. It was very unbelievable.

-- "Plushgun was featured in the score for We Need Girlfriends, and Dan Ingala has also composed a score for My Future Girlfriend. Do you feel your relation with Dan Ingala is a symbiotic one?"

Dan and Ragtag have certainly become very connected. We met in an interesting way. At the time that I was making "We Need Girlfriends," I was working for reality shows, and my boss wanted me to find talented singer/songwriters for a competition show. I ended up stumbling upon Dan's Plushgun page on MySpace and liked his music so much that I asked if he could contribute a couple of songs to WNG. Since he was local, I invited him to a barbecue and, before long, we became part of the same circle of friends. It's a good way to score free Plushgun tickets. For this project, especially, his synthesizer skills really paid off in referencing '80s music and culture.

-- "We Need Girlfriends was filmed in Queens, NY while My Future Girlfriend was filmed in sunny California. What prompted the move?"

Things were heating up with the "We Need Girlfriends" CBS sitcom and it looked like the pilot was headed for production. While the webseries was shot on the gritty streets of real New York, the CBS bigwigs decided that the sitcom would be better suited for a fake New York on a Los Angeles backlot. We were also having a lot of phone meetings with West Coast based production companies and thought the timing was right to explore all of our options. Once there, we realized production and development of a sitcom was just as slow if we were close or far from it, so, we got bored, and did what we do, which is make stuff.

-- "In what ways is production for My Future Girlfriend different from We Need Girlfriends?"

It was bigger in scope, scale and storytelling. "We Need Girlfriends" utilized what we had - which was, exactly, nothing. An apartment. A few friends. Local streets. With this, I wrote a bigger story with bigger scope. That meant getting bigger locations, securing a top notch DP like Jeff Billings, and top notch sound guys like Chris Hall and Evan Menak.

-- "We Need Girlfriends was picked up by CBS and abruptly dropped. What happened?"

It was actually not abrupt at all. We were in development with them for two years, with several different scripts and a couple of different showrunners. As we were heading towards the finish line known as "the start of production," CBS decided that the show was no longer for them and dropped it. We were all incredibly disappointed, but it's just the way it shook out.

-- "How did We Need Girlfriends get noticed by CBS? Was there anything that you guys did to make that happen or was it internet fame?"

I think it got noticed through consistency. We worked hard to make it good every month. It wasn't the most viewed webseries out there in terms of hits, but it was done in a way that made it easy to see how it could be translated to a longer form. As far as the "story" of how it got noticed, we were finalists for the Online Emmys, where we were seen by a producer named Clark Peterson, who brought it to his producing partner Dennis Erdman, who brought it to their friend Darren Star, who brought it to Sony, who brought it to CBS.

-- "What do you feel My Future Girlfriend has to brings to the table that is different from other web series?"

It's hard for me to say, because I haven't been too into the webseries world as of late, but I think this is more of an attempt to do long term storytelling in a webseries, as opposed to doing quick, one shot episodes. It really plays more like a truncated feature film as opposed to a traditional web or even TV show.

-- "What genre does My Future Girlfriend fall into?"

It's like if the cast of "The Terminator" invaded an episode of "We Need Girlfriends." So, a sci-fi rom com.

-- "What do you feel was the most challenging obstacle during production with My Future Girlfriend?"

There were many. Los Angeles, being the city it is, is more savvy and cynical about film shoots, so unlike "We Need Girlfriends," where we could nab locations for free, we had to dish out money for these. Luckily, my brother came on as a producer, and was able to help us out there. We also were working with five incredibly talented actors that were very good at booking jobs, so we had to work around their busy schedules. We also were filming five episodes simultaneously, which greatly complicated things. It was the toughest, most challenging shoot we've ever done.

-- "What goals do you wish to accomplish with My Future Girlfriend?"

First and foremost, I want people to watch it and like it. I know how hard it is to get noticed with so many people making webseries nowadays, but I'm hoping the quality in filmmaking, storytelling and performance will help it stand out and get noticed. If, by some miracle, we sell this to another medium, I think it would work very well as a feature film.

-- "Are there any web series that you are a personal fan of?"

I feel a little out of the loop, really. I haven't watched many webseries in the past few years. I didn't like a lot of what I saw and thought people were making things too quickly with little thought put into it. It wasn't my type of entertainment. However, I love "Dorm Life." Are they still making "Dorm Life"?

-- "What advice can you give aspiring film makers who are just starting out?"

If you really, really, really, really, really, really want to do this and see NO other option but filmmaking for yourself, you have to stick with it, you have to listen and learn from criticism, and you have to make things happen for yourself. Now, more than ever, that is possible. Pick up a camera. Get some cheapo editing software. And go for it. Tell stories that only you can tell but tell them in an interesting, accessible way. Utilize the internet. Surround yourself by like-minded, hard-working people. And have fun. It was so much fun making "We Need Girlfriends" and I feel like, after the trials and tribulations of actually trying to produce and develop something for TV, I'll never be as young and excited as I was then.