About
Tempting Fates is a black comedy in 40 x 5 minute segments posted Monday to Friday at www.temptingfates.com. It is also broadcast on the student channel Freewire (Channel 106) and on www.littlehousetv.com. There are four storylines based around each of the four main characters and the series can also be viewed as four one hour episodes.
It is also interactive – you can become a friend of the show, blog with the characters, play the games and pick up clues from Triamazikamno at www.tri-inc.com.
Created by Frank Prendergast, Tempting Fates was devised and developed by Frank and Sarah Olley. It was written by Frank, Sarah and Jason Arnopp. Sarah produced, Frank directed and Charlie Gauvain was executive producer for Red Eye Pictures, the drama production arm of Eye Film and Television.
Tempting Fates was made as part of a training scheme. It is essentially a series about students, for a student audience, with the majority of the production team and cast made up of post graduate students. The writing process involved workshops with the MA Scriptwriting Course at the UEA.
Most of the filming was done by the actors themselves using mini HDV cameras and scenes were choreographed by the director and then filmed as single continuous takes. Each of the four main protagonists had their own camera so the only time scenes were edited was when a camera point-of-view changed.
Actors talk to camera and sometimes pass the camera between them during a shot. The cameras are an integral part of each scene as the storyline demands that the characters film all their experiences for the ‘entertainment of the gods’. For students and professionals alike, it was a first attempt at low-cost online drama.
We think we did alright!
