‘Oh, Inverted World’: When Twentysomething Means Keeping the Moon in the Sky

It’s been a while since I’ve written an article for Tubefilter so for my moment of air during the Holiday Break, I’m choosing to cover one of my current favorite series by a web series creator I feel is an inspiration and should receive a lot more attention than he currently does.

Oh, Inverted World is the newest web series from MovieFilm Productions and created by Amityville, New York-based Terence Krey. I first became aware of Krey when he introduced another series he was involved with, the Norse Mythology-based high-school comedy Rainbow Bridge, to the lonelygirl15 community of which I was a part of in 2008. I became an instant fan, enjoying Krey and his production team’s (including the extremely talented Christian Nilsson, who has been producing web content in conjunction with Krey along with his own works) exploration of the web medium.

Episodes of Rainbow Bridge ranged from 2 1/2 minutes to almost 20 minutes, showing they weren’t afraid to experiment with format. Krey and Nilsson wrote Rainbow Bridge together, showing an affinity for creating characters that while based on an on-the-surface silly premise, were multi-faceted and engaged in complex relationships with one another. Even though one character was constantly in very fake-looking beard and another had a ridiculous lisp (played by Nilsson, coincidentally), the underlying needs and desires leading these characters down their paths made them relatable and great fun to watch.

Krey has been producing short films and putting them on the internet since ’03, so moving into web series was a natural progression for him. Oh, Inverted World, his latest series, is according to him: “an offbeat sci fi dramedy about four twentysomethings that return to their hometown from graduating college, degrees in hand, and absolutely no direction whatsoever. And to make matters worse they soon run into a strange woman who prophesies the moon is going to fall into the earth. And so, they’ve got to deal with that, people turning to dust, getting a job, zombies, where to hang out, time rifts, and just how to deal with their impending future…and/or doom.”

“On the surface, it seems like a sci fi b-movie,” Krey continued. “But in reality it is a tale about that feeling that you go through in your midtwenties. That feeling of being lost, and confused, and not really feeling like you belong anywhere. You spend a majority of your youth working towards a goal, and then, once its over, you’re kind of left with this melancholic feeling of “welp, now what.” And everything in the series relates to that, from the moon falling to the zombies to everything.” We’ve all been there, zombies or not.

Oh, Inverted World has a unique visual style in the fact that it is shown predominantly in black and white, which was chosen even though the series is set in modern-day (the upcoming The Mercury Men is also in black and white but that seems to correspond to the time period in which the series takes place). “The easiest and lamest explanation is that the idea just felt like something in black and white,” explained Krey. “While I don’t want you to feel this way about the characters, the world does feel kind of lonely and colorless. There were also technically aspects to not shooting color, as scenes in black and white are easier to light and color correct, which helped our small and very low-budget shoot much more quickly.”

“Oh, Inverted World is completely DIY filmmaking at its finest,” said Krey. “The budget is entirely out of my own and my co-producers pocket (and trust me, I DONT have deep pockets). We have no financial backing or celebrities to get us money. I wrote the script, found the people, and got it made. I think, especially now with this medium of web series and web content, that is something that should be celebrated, and more and more people should do it.”

Oh, Inverted World will run for 12 episodes, 4 of which are posted already. New episodes are released every Sunday and can be seen on Vimeo or the the show’s website, which also has show promos, posters, and merchandise.

Special thanks to fellow Tubefilter writer Mathieas for his help with the interview for this article.