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12-18-2011, 03:14 PM
Tucky Williams didn't see something when she watched TV: her life.
"I didn't see anything about being gay and really enjoying it," the Lexington actress and filmmaker says. "I didn't see a lot of celebratory stuff about what it was like to be a lesbian.
"You see a lot of stuff about people being tortured about it, or they're really boring â tortured or boring. I'm really happy to be gay. My friends are all really happy to be gay. We love it. We go out and have fun, and I think the show reflects that."
"The show" is one that Williams created, Girl/Girl Scene, an online series that has found a niche among viewers like Williams who are looking for something mainstream TV isn't providing right now. It wraps up its first season at midnight Monday, when the eighth episode is scheduled to be posted at Girlgirlscene.com.
Williams writes the show and is the lead character, Evan, the hot, promiscuous center of a group of lesbians living in Lexington. Surrounding Evan are Maxine, the femme fatale whom Evan meets on a movie set; Zoe, Evan's friend who is struggling to recover from a breakup; Trista, Zoe's aggressive ex-girlfriend; Jessie, the 16-year-old just coming out and discovering life as a gay woman; and Elliott, a transgender man.
Each of the first seven episodes is about 45 minutes long, closely resembling cable-TV dramas, a form that often has focused on gay people but never in a way that Williams says she found satisfying.
The University of Kentucky journalism school graduate says the Showtime series Queer as Folk â which ran from 2000 to 2005 and starred Kentucky native Hal Sparks â came closest to representing the life she knew, "but it was about men."
The highest-profile television series that focused on lesbians was The L Word, also on Showtime, but it ended its six-season run in 2009. Williams has mixed feelings about The L Word, set among a group of gay women in Los Angeles.
"They were trying to be very diverse and all-inclusive of the lesbian community, but there were like three characters that were young, in their 20s, going out and having fun," says Williams, who says she's in her 20s. "So I said, let's go out and make a show that's about being in your 20s and being wild."
But making Girl/Girl Scene during the past couple of years has taught Williams that creating a Web series might sound easier than it is. It also has shown her how the serialized format of TV and online series can build a following and foster artistic and administrative growth.
As a project that started with virtually no budget, Girl/Girl Scene has rolled out over a year and a half. Its production values improved notably, particularly in sound and lighting, after it found a financial backer and generated advertising revenue from being on Blip.tv, a site that features independent, original online series. (It's also distributed through TiVo, iTunes, Vizio, Boxee, DivX TV, PopBox, Roku and Samsung, Williams says. Trailers are available on YouTube.)
Williams thinks that Girl/Girl Scene's first season is ending on a high note. The powerful final episode (she divulges no details) sets up a second season, scheduled to begin production early next year, and includes a guest appearance by Abisha Uhl, frontwoman for the all- female Minneapolis indie-rock band Sick of Sarah.
It's safe to say the show has come a long way since its modest beginning.
"It was a labor of love," Williams says at the Starbucks at Plaudit Place, just down the road from WTVQ (Channel 36), where she briefly worked as a meteorologist on Good Morning Kentucky in 2003 and 2004. "I just wrote it, and Nic Brown, the executive producer, said, 'Tucky, write this and make it.' So I did.'"
Before Girl/Girl Scene, Williams had been a B-movie horror scream queen in the films Dead Moon Rising (2007) and Red River (2011). When the show started coming together, she drew on much of Central Kentucky's horror film talent to make it, including director Eric Butts and actors Katie Stewart (who plays sexy Maxine) and Roni Jonah (Trista, the aggressive ex).
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/18/19983...z1gueNr4PU
"I didn't see anything about being gay and really enjoying it," the Lexington actress and filmmaker says. "I didn't see a lot of celebratory stuff about what it was like to be a lesbian.
"You see a lot of stuff about people being tortured about it, or they're really boring â tortured or boring. I'm really happy to be gay. My friends are all really happy to be gay. We love it. We go out and have fun, and I think the show reflects that."
"The show" is one that Williams created, Girl/Girl Scene, an online series that has found a niche among viewers like Williams who are looking for something mainstream TV isn't providing right now. It wraps up its first season at midnight Monday, when the eighth episode is scheduled to be posted at Girlgirlscene.com.
Williams writes the show and is the lead character, Evan, the hot, promiscuous center of a group of lesbians living in Lexington. Surrounding Evan are Maxine, the femme fatale whom Evan meets on a movie set; Zoe, Evan's friend who is struggling to recover from a breakup; Trista, Zoe's aggressive ex-girlfriend; Jessie, the 16-year-old just coming out and discovering life as a gay woman; and Elliott, a transgender man.
Each of the first seven episodes is about 45 minutes long, closely resembling cable-TV dramas, a form that often has focused on gay people but never in a way that Williams says she found satisfying.
The University of Kentucky journalism school graduate says the Showtime series Queer as Folk â which ran from 2000 to 2005 and starred Kentucky native Hal Sparks â came closest to representing the life she knew, "but it was about men."
The highest-profile television series that focused on lesbians was The L Word, also on Showtime, but it ended its six-season run in 2009. Williams has mixed feelings about The L Word, set among a group of gay women in Los Angeles.
"They were trying to be very diverse and all-inclusive of the lesbian community, but there were like three characters that were young, in their 20s, going out and having fun," says Williams, who says she's in her 20s. "So I said, let's go out and make a show that's about being in your 20s and being wild."
But making Girl/Girl Scene during the past couple of years has taught Williams that creating a Web series might sound easier than it is. It also has shown her how the serialized format of TV and online series can build a following and foster artistic and administrative growth.
As a project that started with virtually no budget, Girl/Girl Scene has rolled out over a year and a half. Its production values improved notably, particularly in sound and lighting, after it found a financial backer and generated advertising revenue from being on Blip.tv, a site that features independent, original online series. (It's also distributed through TiVo, iTunes, Vizio, Boxee, DivX TV, PopBox, Roku and Samsung, Williams says. Trailers are available on YouTube.)
Williams thinks that Girl/Girl Scene's first season is ending on a high note. The powerful final episode (she divulges no details) sets up a second season, scheduled to begin production early next year, and includes a guest appearance by Abisha Uhl, frontwoman for the all- female Minneapolis indie-rock band Sick of Sarah.
It's safe to say the show has come a long way since its modest beginning.
"It was a labor of love," Williams says at the Starbucks at Plaudit Place, just down the road from WTVQ (Channel 36), where she briefly worked as a meteorologist on Good Morning Kentucky in 2003 and 2004. "I just wrote it, and Nic Brown, the executive producer, said, 'Tucky, write this and make it.' So I did.'"
Before Girl/Girl Scene, Williams had been a B-movie horror scream queen in the films Dead Moon Rising (2007) and Red River (2011). When the show started coming together, she drew on much of Central Kentucky's horror film talent to make it, including director Eric Butts and actors Katie Stewart (who plays sexy Maxine) and Roni Jonah (Trista, the aggressive ex).
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/18/19983...z1gueNr4PU
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12-18-2011, 03:15 PM
[Image: http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2011/12...uSt.79.jpg]
Roni Jonah, left, and Williams have two of the show's major roles.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/18/19983...z1guefmcDH
Roni Jonah, left, and Williams have two of the show's major roles.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/18/19983...z1guefmcDH
12-18-2011, 03:15 PM
[Image: http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2011/12...uSt.79.jpg]
Tucky Williams, top, plays Evan and Katie Stewart is Maxine, Evan's new love interest, in Girl/Girl Scene, a Web-based series
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/18/19983...z1guemdzJD
Tucky Williams, top, plays Evan and Katie Stewart is Maxine, Evan's new love interest, in Girl/Girl Scene, a Web-based series
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/12/18/19983...z1guemdzJD
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