Tucked away in an alley of downtown LA, behind two intimidating buildings with “American Apparel” emblazoned on their sides, Central City Studio is hidden away behind a factory facade with a gigantic crane parked in front of it. If I hadn’t known I was looking for a production and recognized what I knew to be a grip truck parked near the crane, I wouldn’t even be aware there was a fully-functioning hospital set located within the building.
Here they were filming Asylum, the new project of Streamy Award-nominated director, Scott Brown. His first series, Blue Movies has now amassed over 2.5 million views and for his follow-up, he’s tackling a dramatic dark mystery created by Dan Williams. Williams and Brown were follow USC students, Williams produced Brown’s first short film. Tubefilter had a chance to visit the final day of shooting, a planned 14 hour day with a well-oiled crew that was unfortunately treated off to a rocky start.
“There’s a pretty crazy story about what happened to us”, explained Brown. “We had a lot of preparation done. A month in advance we had scouted a location. We had this awesome hospital in Pasadena, they actually shot the 9th season of Scrubs there. We get the crew and they show up on Friday, we’re going to shoot Saturday. So literally 12 hours before we’re going to go to picture they arrive there and they are shooting another show … It turns out that 3 weeks ago, the owner we had the agreement with, who we had paid and everything, sold the place and didn’t tell us. But the producers really kicked butt and got us new places. We started shooting at Santa Clarita Studios, which is a full-service soundstage. Then we went to a place called Linda Vista and shot there two days. And now we’re finishing out here, on this set. We had to add a line about remodeling because we have two very distinct types of architecture in this building.”
Shooting on the RED One, the show boasts high production values and a script riddled with LOST-esque twists and turns. In fact, as Brown explains, the show has a lot of “blank meets blank” potential: “Imagine that House meets The X-Files. It’s about a hospital for the criminally insane but there is a sci-fi, paranormal twist to it. Basically, without giving too much away, you’ve got these patients that come in every episode who have a psychological condition that has resulted in them committing a criminal act. And in between, just like on House, the doctors are working on it and there is that doctor drama. Only our doctor drama has this paranormal, sci-fi edge to it. … It’s if Lost had doctors in it and they were trying to cure people.”
The show is working with a pretty quick turnaround time, with the plan to have the first episode completed in time for submission to the New York Television Festival. They are shooting 6 episodes to start with and then comes the search to find the series a home. I asked Brown about how we garnered funding for the shoot. “We reached out to people our age but who maybe didn’t pursue filmmaking,” said Brown. “So investors who are adventurous, who love the script, who want to be part of a production. We had a few people who were brave enough to give us our initial budget.”
The show features no known actors, a conscious decision by the production to keep a feeling of the asylum being an anonymous place. Actors were only told details of their characters they absolutely needed to know and were encouraged to try to figure out the mysteries for themselves as the shoot went on. “I think I was stunned when I got to watch some of the dailies at first because they were so magnificent,” exclaimed actress Rhobye Wyatt, who plays Dr. Tabitha Lewis on the series. “The color, clarity, production value is really high. Out of the few things I have done, it’s probably one of the more professional things I’ve done in terms of web series.”
“I don’t see how anyone could watch it and not be intrigued by it,” she concluded.
Photos courtesy of Jenni Powell
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Sophomore? This kid has a lot of shorts under his belt. So when he shoots his first feature, is he demoted back to a Freshman? lol. This blog today almost looks like a writing sample for a Hollywood Reporter interview. Sophomore? Really?
Why can’t we view these web endeavors as indie pilot attempts? A farm league for future showrunners, if you will. I mean, if this is so intriguing, why would they rush it to some silly TV festival? Why not monetize it? Or if it really is so intriguing as they say, why don’t they just submit it to a network as a finished pilot? What kind of business is this when a creator makes a pilot and then has to beat around bush at TV festivals to get noticed?
Just to clarify, I only used the term “Sophomore” to indicate this is Scott Brown’s second web series in which he has had a directing capacity. It was not meant to be dismissive of his level of talent, which having watched and loved Blue Movies and watched him work with his actors on set, he has a ton of.
Actually yes if he does shoot a first feature he demoted to freshman as it will be his first. A feature requires a different set of disciplines that go only be acquired by…actually doing a first feature.
This is an early puff piece on a show that hasn’t been out yet.
It might be good. It might not be good series.
Blue Movies was essential a very tame conventional love story/fish out of water story using the porn world as a back drop without the sex/tragedy/edginess of the porn world actually in it.
It was porn without the sex. It was okay. You liked it because it was shot with good sound, a nice camera and was in focus.
Lets see how this turns out before declaring his genius to the hills over a season and some shorts.
I have had the honor of working with Scott Brown numerous times, on many different projects, and I just have to say, we have only seen a fraction of what he is capable of. He is truly a genius. There is no challenge you can set before him that he will not make into something great.
I have seen the trailer for Asylum and it is going to be a huge hit when it comes out. It really looks as though they spared no expense in making this thing. The light and sound are perfect, while the cinematography is captivating. They had the best of everything in every department and it shows.
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