Produced by Austin, TX-based Lovable Varmint Productions, CELL is the brainchild of writer/director Mark Gardner. The film was shot entirely in Austin and Smithville, Texas, a tiny town about 40 minutes outside the city. In true indie fashion, the majority of the series takes place in one location, built out of an old Dollar Store, and the majority of props and tools used to build the set were donated by local businesses. The crew was made up of volunteers just wanting to be a part of it, some even having to be turned away simply because there wasn’t enough food for everyone.
I talked to Gardner about the indie spirit of this production, beginning with how the idea for CELL first came about. “I came up with a framework of a show that would have minimal cast and minimal locations”, said Gardner. “Great. Good start. Then what? Well that’s when story rears its ugly head. Not only did the show need to have simple locations and cast, it needed a great story. That was what was most important. So I came up with the idea of CELL. Within the framework I’d established, I started writing a series about finding yourself and what it means to be an individual. At least that was the goal. It may have ended up being about the latest craze in fashion or apple oatmeal. We’ll see how it fleshes out in the edit.”
From what we hear, the actors were so dedicated to the project that they would sometimes sleep on set. One of the actors even brought a camera on set overnight and cut his own “Unofficial” trailer (below), which interestingly actually has more views than the Official trailer.
Gardner is already looking ahead for his series. “There’s an entire mythology that exists that we’re going to expand on in Season 2”, he reveals. “In fact we are in the process of hiding some easter eggs around the interwebs for some intrepid viewers to stumble upon that just might start to give some hints about the conspiracy and mystery that is all over the place in the show.” We can also expect to eventually expand out from the cell itself. “By the last episode… let’s just say our “world” gets blown wide open.”
CELL is set to premiere Tuesday, January 12, 2010. To keep up-to-date on the progress of the series, visit their production blog or visit the shows Facebook page
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