Re: Sex Tapes

I have some thoughts on sex tapes.

It’s, you know, a Tuesday, so yet another “leaked” tape has emerged from the abyss of Hollywood actors on their downtime. The latest is Eric “McSteamy” Dane and his wife Rebecca “Noxema” Gayheart. The couple, along with some former beauty queen girl gone Hollywood madam are running around in their skivvies and bathing together or something. Now, this might surprise some of you out there who are aware of my all-in reputation when it comes to sex, but truly, ENOUGH WITH THE SEX TAPES!

Look, I get it, maybe your career feels stagnant, or the part your playing on a certain show has type cast you in some way that you don’t like so one night, while sitting at home having a few beers you look over at your little shelf of old VHS tapes and you think, ‘Wait a minute! I am incredibly good looking! And I captured myself in all my naked incredibly good-looking glory, having sex with someone else who is incredibly good looking! The public must be informed!’

And thus, the release (better known as ‘the leak’) of the tape occurs.

I love sex as much as anyone (okay, truth be told, I love it more than most), but I no longer videotape it, nor do I have sex with someone who asks to videotape it. And here’s why: if I’m going to take the time to have sex with you, I want you playing to me NOT the cameras. Focus people! Focus! I’m sure that if you’re thinking about how to angle yourself so that it’s the most complimentary to the camera, that you are NOT focusing on my orgasm. So, unless you’re inventing a new move in the bedroom that is to unbelievable without proof, nobody needs to see you humping someone else.

Oh, and by the way, I watched the Dane/Gayheart/Whoever tape and they never even have sex! They’re just drunk or high and naked. And to that I say, BORING! I have things to do.

-Francesca

Holly Directs Holly

Jessica Arinella aka Holly Malone of The In-Betweens of Holly Malone has made her directorial debut! It is rare that the character of Holly doesn't appear in her own series, but today, OTL shot an episode in which Holly is merely spoken of and NEVER seen! Jess took advantage of this scenario and put herself behind the camera instead! So, Holly fans you may not see Holly throughout Intervention Part 1, but never you mind... she's definitely there!

Holly Gets Another Great Review

Web Series Magazine had great things to say about our little web series that could: The In-Betweens of Holly Malone. Be sure to check out the great shout out on their site: webseriesmagazine.blogspot.com.

And as always, watch the show HERE!

The Making of The In-Betweens of Holly Malone

On the Leesh is asked a lot how we make our web series. How long does it take? How big is the crew? Who on the team does what?

In response, we made a little making of video with our Flip camera. Have a look!

Holly's Stake in Belmont

Yesterday OTL shot another episode of The In-Betweens of Holly Malone. As you know, we like to keep Holly current with what's going on locally and internationally. So, with that in mind (and with a suggestion by a Holly fan), we decided to tackle upcoming Belmont Stakes. You horse racing fans will know that Belmont is quickly approaching on June 6th, so we shot this episode just under the wire!

As you can see with the pics... Holly and Dimitri's Belmont date begins very nicely...



They look lovely on race day...


And then after an incident goes a bit awry...


And what the hell happened to Dimitri??



We're launching this episode later today so be sure to check it out at: hollymalone.ontheleesh.com

Holly Malone's Top 5 Burger Joints

Holly Malone spends her time with Dimitri and her friends in NYC. Years in the city lends itself to lists of faves... so, for Holly's first list, she decided to name her top 5 favorite burger joints!

Here they are in no particular order...

BLT Burger

Half King

Five Napkin Burger

Shake Shack

And if you're in Brooklyn...12th Street Bar and Grill

EAT ON!

Holly Shoots the Swine Flu

Yesterday, we headed to Central Park to shoot an episode of our webseries, The In-Betweens of Holly Malone. Of our three comedy webseries (the other two being In the Can and The Sexually), we try to align Holly with current events the most. Granted, we do it through our own Holly-vision (such as having a Barack Obama episode that focuses less on the economy and more on what kinds of sex dreams Holly is having about our newly elected president, or, our episode that addresses the economic downturn by way of having Francesca and Danny discuss the best way to curse someone out). So while, yes, we try to keep our “current events” episodes within the Holly comedic rainbow, we really do try to keep up with the times.



So, what better current event to address within a Holly episode than Swine Flu? Listen, if it’s good enough for the Times, then it’s good enough for Holly. Not only is it current, but, if you’ve ever watched the series, you know that Holly is not exactly a worry-free sort of person. So it goes without saying that a flu epidemic would be foremost in her mind. It also allows us, the writers, actors, producers and directors, to channel our own plague fears for one afternoon. It’s a win-win.



It also should be noted, that this was our first Holly episode that was completely improvised. Alicia, who served as the director, offered up the circumstances and then the actors ran with it. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy our take on the flu of the swine.

Holly is Cheating On Us!

Okay, so not exactly Holly, but the actress who plays Holly, Jessica Arinella, appeared in the hit web series, The Retributioners.

Check out the episode:

The Retributioners - Episode 9: Revenge of the JAPS - watch more funny videos

Episode 17 - Watch it Now!

Episode 17: The Garden of Earthly Delights
It's the night of the party. Is Holly's decoy up to the task?

The In-Betweens of Holly Malone - Episode 16

Episode 16: Pretty Is As Pretty Does

Watch Episode 15

The Decoy
Holly's got a plan, and it involves a hot man.

Episode 14 - Watch is now!

Episode 14: Intermission Mission
Holly tries to find out more about Dimitri over red wine and puppets...

Watch Episode 13 HERE!

Episode 13: Promise Sneakers
llen pays Holly a visit at work and asks a favor...

Special Invite for "The Sexually" and "The In-Betweens of Holly Malone"

I got a pretty interesting email this morning from a whole other continent! No, I'm not referring to an email from Nigeria in which I'm told I'm the last living beneficiary for like, a ga-billion dollars, this was an actual REAL offer. A representative from The Portable Film Festival located in Melbourne, Australia asked us if the could include both The Sexually and The In-Betweens of Holly Malone in their festival! They said they just happened to come upon them and loved them both!

The Australians love us! Awesome!

Check out this fest at: www.portablefilmfestival.com.

And, as always, check out our three webseries at:

www.thesexually.com

hollymalone.ontheleesh.com

inthecan.ontheleesh.com

Watch Episode 12!

Episode 12: Open House, Insert Foot
Francesca schools Holly on how to handle men... and real estate.

Watch Episode 11 of Holly

Episode 11: May the Force be With You or Without You
Holly makes a discovery in Dimitri's closet.

2 Holly Episodes Headed to Computer Screens Near You!

Yesterday OTL, along with Holly Malone stars: Jessica Arinella, Brian Patacca and Julie Tortorici shot 2 more episodes of our flagship webseries: The In-Betweens of Holly Malone.



Both episodes were written by Phil Kain and were directed by our own Alicia Arinella.



Be on the lookout for these two funny epi's in the next few weeks!

Watch Episode 10

EPISODE 10: EX MARKS HER SPOT
Holly runs his ex past Dimitri

What Constitutes A Season

Since Webseries are still very much like the Wild West, they don't necessarily follow the same models that are displayed by television shows. This brings up a very interesting question: How do you differentiate between seasons?


For In the Can, the answer is simple. We write each season - with a finite number of episodes in blocks. Because of this, we know what we want to happen in any given Season: there is a very clear through line. Since we have the hopes that In the Can will have a life as a half hour show, we break each season down and call it an episode. This "episode" is then made up of parts. When those parts are strung together you have a season. For instance - Season 1 (Episode One) is made up of 7 episodes (or parts). Got it? Wow, it seems much more confusing now that I've written it.

Watch it at: inthecan.ontheleesh.com





For The Sexually, we have a similar game plan. We know the outline of a season and then Jeff writes the episodes and we throw in a bunch of improved sketches. The sketches came out of need to create content while competing with busy schedules. Out of necessity, these created a great place for the boys to really stretch out their characters and provide us with a lot of backstory that we no longer need to jam into a three minute episode. Even though this was our master plan, our story lines have changed as the series has developed. We didn't conceive of the park episodes until we realized we needed a through line. Since we started filming the improved interviews, and the boys brought such intricicacies to their characters, Jeff needed to weave it all together. Thus the park scenes. So...breaking down the sexually so far has been a bit tougher. I look at Season 1 as the Lawyer office episodes and the Central Park episodes. Season 2 are the interviews. Moving forward we have a more clear cut idea of the next couple of seasons - Season 3 brings the boys to therapy. We will still feature both improv and scripted episodes, but they will have a central focus behind them.


Watch it at: www.thesexually.com

This brings us to The In-Betweens of Holly Malone. When we started Holly, we had a lot to learn. She was our flagship show, and we were still getting our feet wet on creating the language of a webseries. The first season of Holly - episodes 1 through 17 have a clear over arching story line. As we progressed, we realized that fast and funny was best and that our audience was willing to overlook certain expositional plot points in exchange for funny jokes. We also learned to keep the episodes current. Now we have jokes about the Oscars, politics and the economy. Right now we're still in Season 2 of Holly, but this season could go on indefinitely. Since we haven't delineated the idea of what marks a season in Holly, we're likely to just keep creating and not worrying about seasons.




Watch it here: hollymalone.ontheleesh.com


However, these theories could all go out the window as each series develops!


In other news, we've been tossing around ideas to combine all three series into an "On the Leesh Webseries Special." We don't have a plot line yet, but our idea is that all the characters would meet and interact. Imagine Holly up against Johnnie or Juice with Phillipa...

Stay Tuned!

Growing Pains: A Web Story

A few years ago we developed the website that you see when you visit www.ontheleesh.com. We were still small at that point - smaller than we are now. We had just one web series under our belt, and only a few episodes at that. We had only completed five short films, and we hadn't begun to span into the realm of instructional videos at all. As we've grown and continued to develop our products, we have pushed our website to the brink.

We are redesigning! We have hired a wonderful programmer, Noah Diamond. He has started to reformat the website piece by piece. Our first goal has been to create a web page for each of our web series that reflects the tone and feel of that show. Noah started with The In-Betweens of Holly Malone, and has since taken on In the Can.

Our next hurdle is our third web series, The Sexually, and then we need to create a more in-depth page for clients to look at for information about our corporate/instructional video services.

After this work is completed, our goal is to reformat the whole website. It's going to be about a six month process. So please check back periodically for new updates.

Lovey-Dovey-Gushy-Wushy

Episode 9

Holly and Dimitri have a date and a montage...

Things I've Learned About, Producing for the Web

When we first started producing The In-Betweens of Holly Malone, in 2005, web-series were such uncharted territory, they didn't even have a real name yet. We were calling them nano-series. There were a few serial based programs on the web, but mostly the web was a place where you'd look for one-off entertainment involving people falling down, exploding mentos or the like. We've learned a lot of things over the past few years, and I wanted to share some information for those who are interested in starting their own series.

1. Get in and get out.
When watching programs on the web, people have a very short attention span. Think music video. People will generally give you about 3 minutes of their time before they click off. Now what's strange is people are more willing to watch four three minute episodes than one twelve minute video. I can't tell you why this happens, as I am not a scientist, but this is what we've learned time and again. Three minutes is a magic number.

2. Comedy plays better than drama.
To this day, I've only seen a couple of dramatic web-series. Typically, people seek out comedic content on the internet. Perhaps it's not such a leap from looking up a funny video on youtube, to watching a serialized story. This may change over the next few years, but for now, aim for comedy.

3. People are willing to forgive more on the internet.
Production value is a key factor that you should always have in mind. If something sounds like it's down a very hollow tunnel, or it's not in focus, people won't be interested. However, the type of camera that you use is not as important. People are used to watching videos posted by flip cameras on blogs, so you don't need the highest state of the art HD camera that George Lucas will be using to film his next Star Wars saga. Use what you can get your hands on, and make sure it's produced well. Story tends to outweigh production design.

4. Consistency is important.
For anything to gain a following, you need to maintain a consistent posting schedule. We try to post every other week, but if you are able to post weekly, that's ideal. Just don't post weekly for four weeks and then have nothing for three weeks and start posting again. It is better to post every other week and not have a lag in between. Also, plan on having at least three months of content - though six is ideal. You need time to build a following. You don't want to start to get interest and then have nothing left to post.

This means that when working on web content, you are likely to be working on it for a long time. Which brings me to my last point.

5. Make sure you have fun
Since this content is something you're likely to live with for at least 3 months, but closer to 6, make sure you pick material that you like to work on. Work with people who you have a good time with, and keep a clear perspective on the whole process. As it stands right now, you're not likely to make a lot of money working on a web-series. There are definite benefits, but getting labelled the next Bill Gates isn't one of them.

Episode 8: Maybe He Went Away

Episode 8: Maybe He Went Away
Date. Wait for phone to ring. Rinse. Repeat.

Check Out Episode 7

Episode 7: The Matt Coleman
Holly doesn't play games. She uses them as tools for dating advancement.

OTL's Webseries on Tivo

On the Leesh is proud to announce that, through a partnership with Koldcast (www.koldcast.tv) our three webseries: The In-Betweens of Holly Malone, In the Can and The Sexually, will be available on Tivos!

We'd like to thank Koldcast for allowing our shows to be a part of this amazing deal!

If you have Tivo, be sure to check them out!

Holly Malone featured on blip.tv!

Check it out!! We're on the homepage baby!

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Episode 6: Stall Stall (Part 2)

Holly goes on a date so bad... she needed two episodes to finish it.

Click To Play