Web series review: 'Roomies' & 'The Neighbors' from Tello

"Just good friends..."

Available: http://www.onemorelesbian.com/tello/webseries/roomies/; Roomies is available via subscription, but The Neighbors is free
Date: 2013

Published earlier this year by Tello, Roomies is the web series comedy that offers laughs a-plenty encased in slick production. There are characters you'll recognise brought out in their comic best. In particular, standing out is Julie Goldman's portryal of the recently heartbroken Sam who allows herself to become embroiled in a case of fake relationship to secure a great place to live whilst reconnecting with her "straight" best friend.

Full of dramatic and comedic irony, secrets and secret crushes, and the annoyingly hot over-sexed girls next door - and a mixture of physical and dialogue comedy - this series offers great escapism and good laughs. The attention to detail is also worth a note - check out the posters outside The Parlour - and gives this series the feel of real professionalism as well as content that's been made specifically for our community. 

This first series was put together in record time as Brandy and Julie were hot off the set of their reality series Gay Street Therapy. Christin Mell, director and producer of Roomies and The Neighbors says it al came together with great success due to "Magic!  This might sound crazy but everything just worked.  It was very fast but everything hit at the right time and we knew this was meant to be."

Well magic and fantastic production team, "we have quality writing and quality productions because I have an amazing team.  The Finks (Jessica and Julie) are amazing writers and we have a great crew who enjoys working with us and who we trust.  When you have a team like that you trust them and know that quality content is expected no matter how quickly things come together".

It was not a difficult transition moving from unscripted to scripted series for Howard and Goldman. Howard says "We have both done scripted content many times before, but we had never done it together, so we had absolutely no idea what to expect.  For me, I thought I would be intimidated because Julie is so funny and she's an incredible comedic actress with TONS of sketch experience for her TV Show (Big Gay Sketch Show on LOGO).  But, the Finks wrote such a tight script with tons of great character development, that it actually just all felt organic and fell into place.  As a director, Christin allowed us to improv and have fun with each scene, and we really took advantage of that.  Julie and I were so thankful to get to experience a working environment like Curb Your Enthusiasm or a Christopher Guest film.  The story was there and the characters were there, and in that framework, we were really free to add things and improv when we wanted to.

The bonus spin-off The Neighbors was not planned initially. It came about following casting, and there were two actors who weren't quite right for roles, but who Mell and The Finks felt that they could write something for directly. Mell says "We always love trying to do something for free and so we came up with The Neighbors.  I'm not really sure who had the idea we just built off of each other.  I really loved the idea of these fun and funny neighbors.  We were able to work the shots into the schedule so we shot The Neighbors when we shot Roomies."

Mell also announced that there will be a season 2.  She said "We want to continue to develop this.  It is being written right now and we hope to go into production in early 2014." Something to look out for, for sure!

You can votes for Roomies as best Web series in the Ultimate Planet Awards, until 30 November here http://bit.ly/UltAwards

By Katie