Radiance Ep.12 | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Science Fiction Drama Web Series

4 Swirlies

“What if we’re the only ones left?”

These episodes of the horror survival web series Radiance are so short and so good that I find myself with the same thing to say; I’m always surprised by how much tension, story and surprise they pack in in less than two minutes.

This episode has two scenes. In the first, the small band of survivors have a moral dilemma to make, one of the most fundamental decisions a human can make in a survival situation. Should we kill someone else we think is sick or dying to save ourselves?

In the second were lulled into a false sense of calm, before an almost single frame shocker that makes us wonder: is this where it turns to a zombie story?

From YouTube Description:

Ten friends in Los Angeles experience an unusual event together- and try to survive.
Starring:
Brian Gattas
Jade Gordon
Tom Lenk
Chad Lindsey
Alisa Mcronald
Sam Pancake
Jack Plotnick
Christos Prevezanos
Chris Shea
Doug Stockstill
and
Rachel Stolte

Written and directed by Jim Hansen

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Radiance Ep.11 | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Science Fiction Drama Web Series

4 Swirlies

“I’m going to say this slow. And I’m going to say this once.”

Wow. How much tension can you put in one minute and thirty nine seconds? Clearly a lot.

You can feel the panic spreading as they start to take drastic measures to protect themselves from something they don’t understand.

Radiance is one of those shows that breaks the rules and makes it work. It just goes to show you that everything anyone says to you about how things are supposed to be done is bullshit, even the stuff I say. It is all opinion, and what works for one show may not work for another show.

And then there’s the fact that just a great story - like Radiance - makes everything else null and void.

I saw a thread somewhere the other day where someone was struggling to figure out what sort of web series they wanted to make. Is there a formula? Something that works for the large audience of the internet? There was quite a bit of discussion, but here’s what I think - tell a story, and everything else springs from there. If you’re looking for a formula, or something else to tell you what story to tell, I think what you’re saying is that you’re making a web series for the wrong reasons. You’re making a web series to either make a bunch of money or get famous. Either way, you’ll probably be disappointed. Look at Radiance - a great little web series with a great story, and it is clear that the whole series has been seen by less than 350 people in a year of it being posted. (Part 17 only has 280 some views, at the time we’re going to press on this article.) That’s not great numbers, but it is about average for many, many web series as far as I can tell. And I would say even big web series fans haven’t heard of it. It certainly can’t have made much profit for those who made it. Would you call this show a failure?

From YouTube Description:

Ten friends in Los Angeles experience an unusual event together- and try to survive.
Starring:
Brian Gattas
Jade Gordon
Tom Lenk
Chad Lindsey
Alisa Mcronald
Sam Pancake
Jack Plotnick
Christos Prevezanos
Chris Shea
Doug Stockstill
and
Rachel Stolte

Written and directed by Jim Hansen

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Tyranny Ep.16 “The Great Collapse” | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Sci-Fi Web Series

4 Swirlies

NOTE: This video probably won’t play on non-flash devices. Click here if you don’t see a video above.

“There is no profit in peace, only in war.”

The web series Tyranny has moved from YouTube to Koldcast. And I know Koldcast is trying to do their thing and pay the bills, just like everyone else… but I don’t like thier site or their player. There, I said it. Sorry guys. But that’s just me. I like how they are supporting web series, but I find their technology clumsy and hard to use. And, like other ad serving platforms, I hate that I have to watch the ad over in order to rewatch the video to pick up on some detail or other.

Okay, on with the show.

This episode of Tyranny had me confused. I mean, holy crap does it look great. Creator/director/star John Beck Hoffman really pushes the visual envelope, and while having the one visual effect for 11 minutes is a little… intense, there’s creative and artistic reasons for it. And there’s some other things going on with the editing that I really love. As always, the production is incredible.

Now, I’m going to try to talk about the story without giving way too much in terms of spoilers. I was so lost at the start that I double checked to see if I had skipped an episode. Yes, when we get to the end it is all explained, but I think that you have to be careful going into an episode in which your audience (at least I was) spending much of the time trying to connect the dots from the previous episode to this one, instead of just soaking in the story. This is a serialized show, with an evolving narrative, so I found myself trying to fit together what had come before and what was going on now. It made it very difficult to enjoy the story, at it meant that a large chunk of the second half of the episode was Daniel explaining things. This was a sort of bridge episode, keeping the audience up to date, but in the end not at all, really. More of a political/conspiracy theory rant.

I still liked the episode. I mean… seriously – did they really go to Egypt to shoot it? Cause it really freakin’ looks like they did. Besides how well put together this series is, and as I mentioned last time, Tyranny really sets the standards for what it doable in a web series format. This isn’t an urban apartment or guys in steampunk costumes running through the woods. This is going to Egypt (or doing a truly excellent job of making it look like we went to Egypt) street protest scenes, explosions, fight scenes, street chases… I know most of that stuff was in the last couple of episodes, but still. The scope of this series is kinda shocking. Sure, there’s other series, like Broken Toy, that have lots of action and fighting and special effects, but they still feel small in scope – even a little claustrophobic.

From YouTube Description:

Picking up right where we left off on episode 15 – Just as Daniel was catching up with the stranger that was following him, he gets knocked on the head and is left laying at the bottom of a staircase, unconscious. Now he awakens to find himself blindfolded, interrogated and tortured by a foreign man with a oddly familiar voice.

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Radiance Ep.10 | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Science Fiction Drama Web Series

5 Swirlies

“You’re dying, we’re not dying!”

Another suspenseful episode of the creepy “what if” web series, Radiance.

As the body count rises, We are finally left with few enough characters that I can tell who is who while only watching a single minute a week.

You know, I was talking to someone recently about one minute long web series, and I mentioned this one as a great example of what you can do in short episodes. But then I remembered Prom Queen. Remember Prom Queen? It wasn’t a show that we covered, I think it was just before we first started The Watch List many moons and lifetimes ago. Prom Queen was Michael Eisner, of Disney fame. He started a giant company, Vuguru, and this was his attempt to make a big web series splash. A series told in one minute episodes.

I try not to be cruel or reductive when I write these reviews, but in so many words, Prom Queen sucked. It’s been a while since I have seen it, so I won’t get into it’s many shortcomings here, but essentially it didn’t tell stories in one minute intervals, it showed a minute of a scene, and then the next episode was another minute. It wasn’t engaging and it was annoying because everything had the same rhythm, every minute, exactly, the episode ended.

Radiance succeeds where Prom Queen failed, in my opinion, in having most of the episodes feel like they had some sort of narrative arc for them, and by letting each episode find its own length in order to break up the rhythm of the short episodes.

Prom Queen cost a lot to make, maybe even a million or more. Radiance, it would appear, was done for fun. Neither made a profit. But I hope that you would agree with me that Radiance is the better show, and a role model for those looking to make very short episodes.

From YouTube Description:

Ten friends in Los Angeles experience an unusual event together- and try to survive.
Starring:
Brian Gattas
Jade Gordon
Tom Lenk
Chad Lindsey
Alisa Mcronald
Sam Pancake
Jack Plotnick
Christos Prevezanos
Chris Shea
Doug Stockstill
and
Rachel Stolte

Written and directed by Jim Hansen

- If you like what we do, please subscribe! You’ll get every web series episode sent right to your inbox! -

More from the web series Radiance

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Tyranny Ep.15 “Who’s Chasing Whom?” | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Sci-Fi Web Series

5 Swirlies

“I feel and see these guys inside my head telling me to do things I don’t want to do.”

Here’s a crazy new episode from conspiracy thriller web series Tyranny.

This episode goes from being a very realistic, domestic argument on the streets (don’t you hate that?) to a tense, action movie, Bourne Identity surveillance scene to a raw, intense foot chase, with a coincidental encounter with the FBI thrown in.

Sometimes, in the past, I haven’t been exactly sure about where this series was, what genre it was trying to be. After this episode, I don’t have to wonder anymore - Daniel’s not crazy. He is being followed and watched.

Both the conversation and the chase scene were beautifully shot. The sound work in the conversational scene is very crisp, so much so, in fact, that I suspect that the original location sound wasn’t useable and what we’re hearing is all ADR and Foley.

The chase scene is shot in such tight close ups, that it starts to feel like an experimental film. I think it is shot with an extreme fish eye lens, with some shots feeling like they are mounted on the body of the actor as they run. Both scenes must have taken for-freakin-ever to shot and to post. And there’s a shot that goes past some cops looking like they’re about to do a serious take down - was that just taken as they drove past some cops?

This episode, for all of its excitement, is short on story but that’s okay. It certainly makes up for it by being giant is scope. There’s a massive protests, helicopters, aerial shots… all of it (I’m assuming) done on a shoestring budget. It just goes to show you the short of thing that web series are capable of; so much for two people sitting in a room talking.

From YouTube Description:

The much anticipated EP: 15 of TYRANNY the web series.
It’s September of the year 2000 and Daniel and Isabelle get caught in a pre-election protest filled with police, which erupts into a chaotic foot chase.

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Space Hospital S02E07 “The Egg and I” | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Sci-Fi Comedy Web Series

4 Swirlies

“Barbara, however, is a patient, and should not be relaxing.”

Trippy.

To be clear - this cliffhanger episode of the science fiction comedy web series Space Hospital is NOT the season finale. I guess it is the mid-season hiatus. More episodes are coming down the pipeline.

I’ve talked a lot about this series, which leaves me with very little to say. I love it - it just makes me happy. Nurse Barbara gets a lot of screen time, which is great. Her reaction to the egg, part connection and part revulsion, is spot on. The android valet looks awesome. The nun’s prayer is hilarious. I love the props and the set dressings. The openning shot, the way they worked in the title, is a lot of fun.

I have to say, the sequence with Lindsey, the half android, was confusing to me - but I don’t really remember the events in the first season that led to her creation in the first place. Maybe I missed an episode? I remember the bionic tennis player…

This is a funny episode, more plotty than gaggy, and it moves pretty fast. It adds some surprising twists to the Space Hospital story - not to missed if you’re a fan of the show!

From YouTube Description:

Re: Giant Easter Egg, minus Easter…

Space Hospital gets religion in the form of a sexy nun and her cyborg valet, just as Nurse Barbara battles depression over her recent maternal disaster. Meanwhile, Yeoman Long ponders the true meaning of her death, resurrection and return to the hospital and the unsettling secrets hidden deep in her own programming.

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Radiance Ep.9 | A Webseries Review on The Watch List

A Science Fiction Drama Web Series

5 Swirlies

“Guys, I saw something.”

Oh no! After the discovery of yet another pair of bodies, the housemates get a clue about what they’re dealing with… and what might happen next.

A nice, tense little episode. The web series Radiance has very short episodes in a serialized format, and it is one of the few series that manages to keep the atmosphere tense in just about every one. There’s a total of 19 parts, which means we’re only at the halfway point.

From YouTube Description:

Ten friends in Los Angeles experience an unusual event together- and try to survive.
Starring:
Brian Gattas
Jade Gordon
Tom Lenk
Chad Lindsey
Alisa Mcronald
Sam Pancake
Jack Plotnick
Christos Prevezanos
Chris Shea
Doug Stockstill
and
Rachel Stolte

Written and directed by Jim Hansen

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More from the web series Radiance

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Tyranny Ep.14 “Out of Ideas” | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Sci-Fi Web Series

5 Swirlies

“It’s my dream.”

Whoa.

This web series always leaves my mind whirling. This one even more so.

To say much about what happens would be to spoil it for you. Rest assured that the way it is presented is nothing short of brilliance, so that when the final twist comes - well, I didn’t see it coming.

Tyranny is back on its thriller A game, after so many episodes that were more… moody and character driven than out and out thrillers. Which only serves to give this episode that much more punch.

The camera work is gorgeous - the choice of colours and tint for the exteriors is amazing. Even the simple shot of a tape being put in a handicam is beautiful, with rich colours and a full contrast range. (That’s my camera geek side coming out.) The sound is great, the tense music is exactly what the scene needs.

In short, wow.

From YouTube Description:

episode 14 of Tyranny the Web Series-
“Out of Ideas”
Daniel has been frustratingly conducting sensory deprivation experiments in his loft, failing to make any headway into revealing anything hidden deep within his subconscious. He is ready to give up when a mysterious man, Dr. Ethan Chambers, enters center stage.

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Radiance Ep.8 | A Webseries Review on The Watch List

A Science Fiction Drama Web Series

5 Swirlies

“I wanna die on a full stomach.”

Whoa. Suddenly, a lot happens in this minute and a half episode.

More mystery. More deaths. A new character. Probably if you have been following this show, you’ve been intrigued enough to finish watch the rest on your own. If this is your first time coming across this series, this isn’t a bad entry point.

From YouTube Description:

Ten friends in Los Angeles experience an unusual event together- and try to survive.
Starring:
Brian Gattas
Jade Gordon
Tom Lenk
Chad Lindsey
Alisa Mcronald
Sam Pancake
Jack Plotnick
Christos Prevezanos
Chris Shea
Doug Stockstill
and
Rachel Stolte

Written and directed by Jim Hansen

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More from the web series Radiance

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Tyranny Ep.13 “Y2K” | A Webseries Review on The Watch List

A Sci-Fi Web Series

4 Swirlies

“The love of money is the root of all tyranny.”

This is one of those episodes that leaves you with a real sense of… huh.

Huh. It’s not exactly a cliffhanger, but it did leave me wondering what would happen next. There’s a weird effect at the end, but we know that the world doesn’t end, cause we have seen scenes from the future. It’s a sweet episode, that feels like we’re taking a breather before the fit hits the shan.

From YouTube Description:

Episode 13 of Tyranny the Web Series:
“Y2K”
As the clock ticks down to the end of the millennium, Daniel realizes he must know for certain whether Isabelle can accept not only his eccentric view on life, but his possible hallucinations.

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