Indie Spotlight: ‘Spring Street’ Sings A Complex, Beautiful Tune

We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now. Read previous installments here.

Last year, we shared the Kickstarter campaign for Spring Street, a series set in the world of classical music. Spring Street creator and star David Beck said that his show would be a genre-blending ride filled with a diverse cast, and we can now see how he has followed through on that promise. Spring Street is here, and it is an eye-catching, complex show driven by its patient cinematography and round characters.

In Spring Street, Beck (who is the founder of New York-based nonprofit organization The Great Griffon) portrays Christopher, a somewhat cranky piano teacher whose life changes dramatically when his grandmother dies, his pregnant sister shows up at his door, and he gains a mysterious new student. Over its nine episodes, Spring Street slowly unfolds its characters while playing them against one another with carefully-written dialogue.

In the premiere, we meet Christopher and see him at work:

Spring Street is a steadily paced, thoughtful show, and diving into it requires careful attention, but it rewards faithful viewers with a well-composed, artful experience. In other words, the show is a lot like the classical music it uses as its soundtrack: Give it time to piece itself together, and it will impress you. All of its episodes are available on The Great Griffon’s YouTube channel.

OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT

• Gazelle. This send-up of the celebrity-driven side of the cosmetics industry just began its second season.
• Arun Considers. An actor delivers inner monologues on everything from heroin to porn.
• Modern Aliens. This series jokingly ties the Trump presidency to extraterrestrial life.

Got a series you’d like to see featured in the Indie Spotlight? Be sure to contact us here. For best coverage, please include a full episode in your e-mail.