Filmmakers Seth Mendelson and Joe Baron say that what inspired them to make their web series Take Me Back was something that didn't even exist.
"It sounds weird, but it's true," explains Mendelson. "We were really appalled at how bad everything on the web seemed. The series were all really uninspired and cheap. No one had put any thought into them."
Mendelson and Baron met on the student film-fest circuit, where they each took the Kodak Grand Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2000 and 2001, respectively.
Just over a year ago, they kicked around a few ideas for a series that would play out on the web -- and they knew they wanted one thing to come through. "We really wanted it to be different," says Mendelson.
And different it is. Take Me Back, a 10-part series posted weekly online, tells the tale of Al, a man with a mundane life who is kidnapped and held in a junk-filled attic. There, he must try to figure out the mystery of why he was kidnapped, and who that man is who looks just like him and has taken over his former life. It's as odd as it sounds, but its quirky appeal has led bloggers to praise it, evoking comparisons to Lost, The Twilight Zone and even David Lynch. There is even a link to the series from the Los Angeles Times website.
The first seven-minute episode of Take Me Back was posted on April 7, with the final one coming June 10.
"We've had some incredible feedback," says Baron, who notes that the series was cheap to produce, with an approximate budget of $10,000. "We'd like to think the real money is in the creativity." The duo is grateful to the National Film Board, which helped with sound mixing. A true pop-and-pop operation, Baron shot the series, while Mendelson stars in the lead.
"To us it's just great that Take Me Back has received some attention," says Mendelson. "It was important for us to show that you could do a web series on a low budget with a lot of ideas packed into it."
- Matthew Hays
