‘Camera Obscura’, A Year Later, Ready For Its Close-Up

Web series producers are coming to know the waiting game is part of the game. We’re not talking the Darrelle Revis style holdouts (yet), but it does mean not always taking the first distribution offer that comes along. Without a mechanism in place to adequately promote—and monetize—a web series, waiting for the best deal can be the smarter move to recoup those non-trivial production costs.

When a deal with another distributor for the series fell through last fall MWG Entertainment was left in a position of releasing this well-hyped series on their own, or putting it up on the digital shelf in hopes of scoring a better option. They chose the latter.

We were a part of their respectable PR push that included exclusive clips, teaser trailers and on-set photos of writer-director Drew Daywalt and his team crafting up some impressively gruesome effects. But then Halloween, the show’s target launch date, came and went and it left us wondering just what exactly happened to Camera Obscura?

Now, a year later, Camera Obscura is prime to launch exclusively on Dailymotion on October 1st. (See trailer below) The 20-episode horror-thriller centers around a young woman who “discovers her deceased grandfather was a demon hunter and now his quest to save humanity is hers to finish.” New episodes will release (week)daily for four consecutive weeks throughout October.

As part of the launch, horror site DreadCentral.com is teaming up with Dailymotion on a halloween costume contest where fans cans submit videos that show off their scary Halloween costumes with a $1,000 cash prize going to the top vote getter.

Speaking of web series that have been holding out for an ample paid distribution deal, Christopher Preksta’s The Mercury Men still has yet to bow online. Latest rumors circling around however are that the retro-sci-fi web series has in fact scored a distro deal with a studio that will be announced soon.