Venice the Series: Season 1, Episode 1

[Vee]

As expected, basically a love letter to the Otalias and little else. That's why I'm always skeptical about web soaps - the length is never enough to tell a story. At minimum an episode should be 10-15 minutes, and they can't afford to be charging for something that is this threadbare every single episode. Plus the sound was really off on those over the shoulder shots with Gering and Leccia, like GL-style off.

[jimmyk311]

I was looking at the reviews on Venice at WLS site and other boards by posters, and damn, how my crazed Otalia and Big Purple fans are there? Are the soap press and the rabid Otalia fanbases so naive and blinded with what's good quality or bad quality? Much less, what's good or bad storytelling?

I wonder if having these rabid fanbases for these web series can do more harm than good.

As far as the first episode goes, WTF? I mean, what's the rush to do a kissing scene right off the back without a back story? There was more kissing than telling a story in that episode and that's boring. I can watch old GL clips to see them kiss.

While Venice is one of the better looking web shows on the net, it suffer from the same mistake that other weh series make; sound and editing issues, lack of diversity, token black oversexed gay man, and not thinking outside the box. I'm staring to wonder how in touch are these soap stars turned web series creators with pop culture. And, are they more about jumping on the bandwagon than being innovating?

Is the series worth $9.99, not really, I seem much more slicker and clever low-budget films and reality series than Venice. Beside, watching Venice was like watching a hybrid GL/DAYS all-in-one and that's on free tv (DAYS for the most part.)

[ChitHappens]

I know nothing about web series, so I thought the 6 minutes was a teaser. I had no idea it was the entire eppy. Besides, there is only 1 male (not counting Jordan Clarke) on the show, so no, I would not pay $9.99 for this. I've seen the L Word already. All there is to look forward to is women in bed? No thanks!

ANDREA

[AllAboutAngst]

So here is a review that I thought was pretty good and quite fair - agree or disagree?

http://superherolunchbox.blogspot.com/2009/12/and-so-it-begins.html

After months of teasers, anticipation, too much talk about booze and underwear, and a whole lot of hype, Crystal Chappell's Venice premiered last night amidst much fanfare. Fangirls welcomed the first installment with predictable enthusiasm: for so many, Crystal Chappell can do no wrong. Others declared it laughable and a failure. Both the praise and the shaudenfraude are premature and, I suspect, knee-jerk reactions. People who have invested months of of their time, and God-knows-how-much money supporting this project in anticipation of it being the great white hope of the lesbian community were going to declare it a work of brilliance, no matter what. People who decided, long ago, that they were rooting for the project's failure, whether because they dislike Crystal Chappell, hated Otalia, or were turned off by unsavory behavior on Twitter were going to declare Venice the worst show, ever, no matter what.

In my opinion, it's too soon to tell, either way.

Details, details, details

Before I even talk about the episode, itself, there are other details that really do need to be addressed.

First off, Venice is a web series. Why, then, have there been serious problems with the Venice website from day one? And why have these problems never been properly addressed? It was clear, very early on, that a server capable of handling heavy traffic would be needed for this project. The Venice team has supposedly upgraded to a bigger server at least twice, now and yet, on the very day of the show's premiere, www.venicetheseries.com crashed yet again. Last night, the night of the show's premiere? The Venicetheseries.com crashed, forcing most to view the first episode on Youtube.

All of this is irrelevant, anyhow, I guess, because the Venice website, when it was accessible, was a mess. The design is sloppy and illogical, and the site is full of stuff that simply doesn't belong there. Why, for instance, does the Venice website include community forum threads covering such topics as football, how to meet women, and Bad Girls? It's clear there has been absolutely no moderation of the community forums, and no efforts to keep the forum threads focused on Venice. Note to Crystal, Hope and Kimmy: Venicetheweries.com is not a series' website. It's clearly a social networking site for lesbians. (Sorry I can't give a more concise list of irrelevant topics covered in the Venice community forum area; the site is yet again down as I write this, making it impossible for me to get a complete list)

If the Venice website includes lots of irrelevant content, there has also been some very important stuff missing. Up until last night, there was no description of the series, itself. No character profiles. No actor bios. Until two days before the premiere, the specific details of the subscription rate was not made public on the Venice website. In fact, it was through an article in an obscure Israeli magazine that many fans found out about the $9.99 subscription rate. This lack of information until the 11th hour reeks of an unprofessional project.

Much has been made of this subscription scheme. Lots of people are angry about it. While I think $9.99 per season is too steep (there will be several seasons a year, with each season consisting of approximately an hour of actual footage), I think it's perfectly reasonable for the producers of Venice to charge for a subscription to this series. It has to make money somehow, and major sponsorship has either eluded the project or not been sought. The $9.99 rate, IMO, should cover an entire year of Venice. To those who claim they never knew Venice would have a price tag attached to it, I call bullshit: there has been talk of some sort of pricing scheme for this show for months- basically since Crystal Chappell first started talking about the project. The fact that there is a subscription rate is perfectly fair and reasonable - people can choose to subscribe or not subscribe, just as we do with cable television. The fact that the specific details of this subscription scheme were kept under wraps until just a day before Venice premiered? Unprofessional and, IMO, unacceptable. Not the way to treat loyal fans.

The Content

What works

The set-up: Episode one of Venice is short and sweet. It does a decent job of setting things up. For anyone who knows nothing, at all, about the premise the following is made perfectly clear: Gina and Ani used to be either girlfriends or [!@#$%^&*]-buddies. Ani wanted a serious relationship. Gina didn't. It's clearly a dance they've been doing for a while.

Jessica Leccia: Of the three actors featured in episode one, Jessica Leccia looks most comfortable in front of the camera, and is the most natural.

A realistic touch: Unlike the typical morning-after girl on television, CC's Gina wakes up looking as if she really has just woken up - no make-up, morning eyes, less than perfect hair. Refreshing.

What doesn't work

Cringe-worthy Cliches: The initial shot, panning across a floor littered with Gina and Ani's discarded clothing must have been set up and filmed by Captain Obvious. I guess some people think this shot is sexy or enticing. I think it's just an example of lazy film-making. It's a cliche that has been used to death on both daytime and nighttime television. It's a shot that we really never need to see, again.

Lack of realism: I understand that this isn't a porn film, but why are two women who we are to believe stripped off in a fit of passion, leaving their clothing strewn all over the floor, in a mad rush to have sex waking up with clothing on? Lesbians have sex with tank tops and panties on? Really?

The dialogue: I know a lot of fangirls loved the morning-after talk, but if you stop and actually think about it, it doesn't make sense. The conversation these two women have in bed about Ani having returned to town? It's a conversation they would have had the night before, not the morning after. Again, it's a cliche of bad television and filmmaking: awkward use of dialogue to recap. The most annoying thing about this is that it could have easily been avoided - dialogue that provided a smooth recap would be easy enough to write. Instead of Gina and Ani having a conversation that they obviously would have had the minute they ran into one another at the bar, why not just refer to such a conversation for the audience's sake? Gina: I cant believe you've been in town for days and never thought to call me. Good thing I ran into you, or I never would have known you were back.

Also, if there were ever a phrase that should be banned from television and the movies, it's this one: "I can't do this. We've been down this road so many times."

Note to Kimmy: If this is the great, amazing writing we've been hearing about for so long, you're in trouble.

The soundtrack: I've noticed that even some of the most ardent fangirls are making some noise about how annoying the soundtrack is. I don't like the song but, even if I did, it's too loud and it overpowers the action and the dialogue. Hopefully the complaints about this will be taken seriously by the Venice team, because the music is really over-the-top. Use it as a theme song, and tone it down for background music. No one is watching this to hear that droning voice. They're watching to see and hear the actors act and the story unfold.

Believability factor: Sorry, but I just wasn't feeling it between Gina and Ani. Where Olivia and Natalia had mad chemistry, for some odd reason the same actors playing other characters just didn't take me there and believe them as a couple. Maybe it's because the bed scene felt more like an obligatory bit of girl-on-girl action for all the Otalia fans who got ripped off than anything else. I didn't find it believable or sexy. I didn't feel as if I was watching two characters who'd just had sex and wanted to have more sex with one another; I felt I was watching two actors who were awkwardly pretending they'd just had sex.

The Future of Venice

Who can say? It's much too soon to say where this show will end up going. The fans who have decided Venice is the second coming of Christ are jumping the gun. So, however, are critics who have already written the project off.

Of all the things that I found wrong with the Venice premiere, not one thing is beyond fixing. Fans of the wonderful, edgy Santa Barbara may remember that the first few months of that innovative soap were virtually unwatchable. Knots Landing, possibly the best nighttime serial drama, ever, limped its way through the first season or two before hitting its stride.

On the other hand, these are the days when few projects of this kind get very long to catch on and find their way. It's not unusual for television shows to be cancelled after just two or three episodes, if they don't deliver viewers. This hardly seems fair. Can Venice survive to see a second season? I'm pretty sure it can. Will it be any good? That remains to be seen.

[marceline]

I agree wholeheartedly with most of it. I'm beyond thrilled to see someone address the website issues. If you're going to do a web series the web should get as much attention as the series.

I saw next to nothing of GL's Otalia so I have no problem looking at Venice with fresh eyes. I actually saw chemistry between Gina and Ani but chemistry, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. As for why open with the couple in bed, don't most movies open with either a sex scene or a murder? They had six minutes. Were we supposed to watch them do pilates?

It'll be interesting to watch over the next few years if certain standards develop for web series. Standards for length, frequency, subscription or will it remain open season?

[Meldus]

Comparing Venice with other web soaps isn't fair. It's obvious that CC created a show to follow up on Otalia's success even if they aren't the same couple. I am sure if the actors that played Zack/Kendall (AMC) or Reva/Josh (GL) or Sonny/Breanda (GH) or John/Evangeline (OLTL) created web soaps, they would be popular too especially if some serious sex scenes were thrown in.

The benefits to the producers of both Gotham and Venice in particular is that they have a very large fan base. Also, most people aren't familiar with web soaps or web series, so they may not be aware that there are at least a hundred or web series out there that are very innovative, diverse, well written and many cases well acted and don't cost anything.

[Vee]

Oh, you caught their names? It seems in the websoap "must have" hierarchy, identification is near the bottom of the list, about ten rungs below "crappy unsigned folk rock band theme song". These websoaps are all following an Ellen Wheeler production model of music, visuals and style over storytelling, and that's why they don't work - especially because the visuals aren't that great.

[AllAboutAngst]

Well I only know their names because I've been keeping up with info about the series, I'm not sure if either characters name is actually said during the episode. I'm going to subscribe and watch the first season because I can afford it and I'm interested in seeing if these webseries will actually work as "the future of soaps." Thus far I'm skeptical and the 6 minute episodes is something that I will definitely have to get used to.

[Vee]

My thing is this: When the genre was being created, on radio, didn't Irna and co. manage to make serials out of episodes that were, what, five minutes? Eight? Then ten to fifteen on TV? And GL lasted a good seventysomething years from that. They managed to create layered characters, families, people the audience identified with, understood, cared for and followed with a running time that was just as tight as this. And how did they do it on so slim a timeframe? Through, I think, some of the basic tenets of storytelling: Identification, exposition (which is not a dirty word if you know how to write it), characterization, and by pacing the story in a way that allowed that development. These websoaps don't do that, maybe because they fear someone won't watch. Why? What do you have to lose? Ratings?

The reason I liked Gotham slightly better than Venice is that in half the running time, it still managed to attempt to put something across for Michael Park's character in terms of exposition and character setup, through the narrative device with his phone. We now have at least some vague idea of who he is and what he's about, and I can go from there. Venice didn't bother; the gamble from the beginning obviously was, we don't need to explain who these women really are, the audience is all Otalias anyway, let's just hit the sack and talk about our relationship. How am I going to care about your relationship if the people aren't established? These two are not really Olivia and Natalia; I'm not going to pretend they are to make the writers' job easier. Fact is these websoaps, if they want to get serious, need to have at least five minutes per episode, and if you're going to be under ten minutes, I think you need to put out an episode at least twice a week. And if you do that, you then need to make sure that, at least for the first couple months of introduction, the episodes themselves only have one or two scenes maximum. Long enough scenes to introduce and setup your characters and relationships as people. I will lay my money down that any websoap that had dared to start with a simple three to five minute episode showing a whole family preparing for the day and living and talking together, showing their nuances, would've had a more solid investment from fans - at least from me - than this "our AD is moonlighting from his day job on The Hills" nonsense.

[quartermainefan]

You are talking about a time when radio and then televison was a novelty and it was enough half the time just to hear a voice and see a face. What was good television in 1954 is rarely good television in 2009. The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy sure...but then go check out the island of forgotten sitcoms populated by shows we will never even hear of because they have been forgotten. 6 minute clips of people just staring and each other ponderously so we can add our own drama and pretend this is what we saw does not make for good viewing. And I said a couple of topics back that web series have a big problem with their amateurish camera work. Is a web series a visual medium or not? What is interesting about flat lighting, awkward closeups and sloppy framing? That's why I am all for the idea of the $9.99 fee, because this show needs a budget.

[Vee]

No, what I'm talking about is when they had no choice but to write and write and write for characters to build them up; they couldn't rely on montage or jump cutting or music to carry the day. They had a limited time and they had little budget so they banked on people and story. I am not proposing we go back to Papa Bauer beating around the bush about Bert's flighty ways for six months while the Boraxo finishes its wash cycle, but the fact is these websoaps also have very limited time and budget, so what should they be doing with it? Building characters, and then, stories. That's the same thing the old soaps did. You can change the delivery system, perhaps, or the methods or the style, but given the spartan conditions, the goal remains the same. Or it should. Instead, these websoaps opt for more montage, more shitty folk rock, more Ellen Wheeler. That is "6 minutes of people staring at each other ponderously," waiting for us to fill in the details.

[baller]

SOD Online actually had a good review of it, in so much as they were actually honest about it and didn't kiss the ass of CC the whole time---which I think was a first.

The whole thing was exactly what I thought it would be, and exactly what CC said they were not doing---Otalia 2.0 Which is fine because the big purple mass drank it up and blindly handed over credit cards and that's the target audience. I'll be shocked if this goes past one season, because I think the charging shoots them in the foot as it pretty much cuts off anyone who hasn't had the grape kool aid.

Had I not known GG was playing her brother, I would have been lost too.

[AlteredStates]

Actually, I thought the premiere did an excellent job of establishing that CC and JL's Venice characters are nothing like their GL characters. Olivia and Natalia were a committed but (thanks to network censorship) non-intimate couple. Gina and Ani are exes and occasional f**k buddies. As the series unfolds, they become romantically involved with other characters.

At a time when web series are struggling to find sustainable business models, Venice is in the enviable position of having a built-in audience. There's no question that the Venice team is catering to the Otalia fanbase, and calculating that it will buy them at least a few seasons via the subscription model. Given the size and enthusiasm of that fanbase, I think it's a reasonable calculation.

With its focus on lesbian characters, Venice (like The L Word) is not the kind of show that attracts a mainstream audience. Only time will tell if their business model is viable, but I think they're smart to focus on cultivating their niche audience.

[Vee]

The only difference between the characters that I saw is that one could kiss on camera.

For $9.99 a pop they need to come to my house, perform the show live, and have a male castmember (agreed upon upfront) stay the night.

[AllAboutAngst]

Sigh, so Crystal Chappell made the announcement that there won't be a new episode tomorrow. They're going to post a new teaser and some behind the scenes stuff but they need to fix the website before they post another episode. She also said that there will be a new castmember for the second season - its either Jeff Branson or Tom Pelphrey.