The web is rife with buddy comedy. Clark and Michael, Jake and Amir, Derek and Simon, and We Need Girlfriends all combine awkward showbiz, workplace or romantic hi jinks and an angst-ridden, but free-spirited backdrop of young adult life. What’s missing is a female perspective.
Aside from a few exceptions, and unless you’re a practicing mother, the internet doesn’t have too many web series or video-centric destination sites for the ladies. Jennifer Cron and Melissa Hunter are doing their part to help the underrepresented sex get some play.
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Friends and Theatre Majors at Northwestern University, the two Los Angeles natives moved back to Hollywood after graduation to begin the capricious stage of adulthood known as post-collegiate life. Jennifer and Melissa hit the audition circuit, but quickly became frustrated by the traditional roles offered to women and the scarcity of roles offered to women their age. At the same time, the single twenty-somethings were racking up some pretty ridiculous stories from the trenches of LA’s dating scene.
With an ever-increasing supply of palatable material, and without programming geared towards girls like them, Jennifer and Melissa decided to make their own.
Under the banner of Unattached Productions, Let’s Get Laid is a young woman’s Sex and the City, with a focus on the realistic aspirations of paying bills instead of Jimmy Choos, and replete with dialogue that makes guys go “Woah! Is that what girls really talk like?!?!?”
I recently caught up with Jenn and Melissa to ask them about the genesis of the show, how they’ve attracted so much buzz with just a trailer online, and how difficult it is to navigate the online world when many of the major players (like Comedy.com, Funny or Die, Break, and Metacafe) all skew decidedly male.
Tilzy.TV: What’s Let’s Get Laid about?
Melissa Hunter: It’s about the dating misadventures of Jenn and Melissa, trying to get laid in LA.
Jennifer Cron: Well, we started the show because we recently graduated form college. Well, by recent we mean two years ago, but we like to say recent because it makes us feel better.
We were dealing with post-college life and everything that involves, like newfound independence, dealing with your rent…one of the characters lives at home and has an overbearing mom. All of the random things that encompass a non-stable life after college. And amidst it all we were having ridiculous dating stories. We decided that we wanted to write about it because there’s a lack of female content out there, especially that involves girls talking about sex the way our show does.
We got together and started writing the first four episodes. They’re each about five to seven-minutes and we wrote them all last January. We raised about $9,000 by sending out letters on forged Northwestern University stationary to everyone we knew and asking for every favor we could.
Melissa: So then we found a director who was a Northwestern grad and got together a crew. They were all young and everyone just wanted to help out and do something and collaborate.
Tilzy.TV: Had you done anything like this at Northwestern?
Melissa: No, we were Theatre majors. This is our first hand at producing for film.
Jenn: We never produced anything or did anything technical, so it was an interesting experience as the creators hiring people, not knowing what positions we needed to hire, what equipment we needed to use, so we ended up teaching ourselves.
Melissa: Yeah, we learned a lot by doing.
Tilzy.TV: So how’d the show develop such a big audience?
Melissa: We filmed the first four episodes and as we were finishing editing, which was taking a lot of time because we didn’t have a lot of money, we cut together this trailer and released it last summer. We sent it out everywhere. Totally guerrilla marketing style. It got several thousand hits and in the span of a week or two people started reaching out to us. Within a month or so, we were taking meetings with agents, distributors, and producers.
Tilzy.TV: Was your plan from the get-go to just release the trailer and see what happens?
Melissa: No. Initially we just wanted to put out a trailer so our friends would know why we disappeared from the face of the earth.
Jenn: We planned on putting out the episodes once they were done, but by that time we had gotten so many meetings and potential deals that we couldn’t put it out on the internet, because why would someone pay for it when they can get it online for free? So, we held off. We had a pending deal with an international distribution company and they flew us out to New York. But we found out after the New Years that they had to temporarily put it on hold.After that, we were kinda in limbo, and we’re now figuring out what our next step is. We’re starting to take meetings again.
In the meantime, since we’ve held off on these episodes for so long, we have three, short, raunchy, cute teasers we’re going to release in the coming weeks.
Melissa: We want to get some more hype going on about the project without releasing everything we’ve worked on, so that we can hopefully connect with somebody to get it distributed.
Tilzy.TV: So there was immediate interest after you released the trailer?
Jenn: That was the surprising thing. We were suprised of how many pepole came to us. We just put it on Facebook and created a group and put it on YouTube. We sent out an e-mail to our friends and family and people really just started coming to us. It was cool to have people want to meet with us and reaching out to us when that’s the first thing we’ve ever done.
Tilzy.TV: Why do you think there was such a positive response to the show?
Melissa: I think because it’s a point of view that isn’t seen a lot and it’s a little more edgy than a lot of the stuff that’s out there, especially for women. There’s Sex and the City, which is a great show, but it’s different in that it’s kind of a fantasy world. It’s also 35 to 40 year-old women, when this is just about two girls who are just out of college and can’t get it together.
It’s raunchy, too.
Jenn: It definitely pushes the envelope with female content. I don’t think that for our audience there has been a show that has girls talking about sex in a raunchy way, yet it isn’t unnecessary raunchiness.
It’s relatable. It appeals to a wide audience, but girls really get it. They’re like, “Oh my god! This is exactly like how my friends and I talk. We’re not looking for husbands. We’re looking for boyfriends. We’re looking for one-night stands. This is our dating/sex life.” And they relate to it. And guys are like, “Oh my god! Girls actually talk like that?!? Let me take notes!”
We’ve had random guys even asking us for advice, thinking of as these sex/dating/girl experts.
It’s liberating for us to put out something and say it’s okay for girls to talk about sex like this.
Melissa: Yeah. We’re predators and not prey. Err…maybe a little bit of both.
Tilzy.TV: Is Let’s Get Laid a response to anything in particular?
Melissa: Well, we’re actors and when we initially started writing it we had been auditioning for a bunch of stuff. All the roles out there for women were not interesting, or compelling or relatable, and there’s nothing for women our age.
Obviously Sex in the City was an inspiration. We also found some buddy comedies online, like Clark and Michael and We Need Girlfriends, and realized there weren’t any for women.
Jenn: In general, the web content out there is male-dominated. All of the people we’ve been meeting with, all the people who run all the web companies are men. They’re all choosing all these male-centered shows. So we want to be the first big female one.
Tilzy.TV: Where’s the project at now?
Melissa: Well we have the four episodes finished and we have six more written. Ideally it’d be great if we had a season of 10 to release.
We’re going a bunch of different routes withour agent. Obviously it’s a hard market to be selling anything but we’re going to brands themselves and targeting sponsors that would be a good fit. The Gap isn’t going to want to sponsor Let’s Get Laid, but Smirnoff or Trojan might. There are also some apparel lines and beauty lines that are a little edgier that we’re trying to go to.
In terms of online distribution channels, it’s hard to find ones that are more focused on female content. Blogs geared towards women, like Jezebel, are really thriving, so there’s definitely an audience for this type of content. It’s just a matter of finding a video host or distribution partner that targets that audience.
Tilzy.TV: Is there any talk about bringing Let’s Get Laid to television?
Jenn: We’re getting the epsiodes done, but we’re also working on a pilot script. I think it could easily translate to television.
Tilzy.TV: Anything you would recommend for first-time web series creators?
Jenn: You need a budget for post. We really didn’t budget anything for post so it took the editor six months to finish.
Melissa: Otherwise, you learn along the way. You make little mistakes here and there and we certainly have, but overall we didn’t know anything about producing or raising money, but it’s key to not be intimidated by the process. You can be resourceful and figure it out.
Jenn: Also, never underestimate the power of charm to get good deals. We would go into locations with a sweet face and tell them that we have a low budget and we’re young and passionate. It’s amazing what we got for free.
And make everyone feel they’re really part of the project. Don’t make it seem like it’s just your project, because then no one else will have a vested interest in it. Be sure to develop relationships with people you like to work with.
Watch the trailers and keep abreast with Jenn and Melissa’s web series at LetsGetLaid.tv .
