Interview: Taryn O’Neill

After a network boom, sci-fi seems to be suffering again as programs disappear or become corrupted.  However, the web is starting to fill in the gaps left by the networks with series made by geeks for geeks; series like Dr. Horrible, The Guild, and most recently, the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, After Judgment.  After Judgment producer, actor and writer Taryn O’Neill talks to Pink Raygun about the series, the future of television, and being a geek.

PRG: How did you get involved with After Judgment?

Taryn OʼNeill: The creator of the series, Michael Davies, and I had been co-writing a sci-fi/fantasy TV project together.  While we were working on that, Mike asked if he could send me something heʼd already written and reconfigured for a web platform, suggesting that maybe we could shoot that as opposed to doing a trailer for this TV series because it had become much too big.  What he sent me was the first forty episodes of After Judgment.

That day I researched everyone I know in the business who was connected with the digital world, web content, web series.  About a month and a half later we started pre-production and casting.  Mike and I wanted to shoot the first seven episodes and we were going to do it on our own.  Then we just went and shot it.  The first seven episodes were about eight minutes long each, but we cut them down to make sixteen episodes.

PRG: How has the reception been since it premiered online?

TO: Itʼs been really good. It didnʼt have a huge explosion of numbers right off the bat, but the numbers keep growing by word of mouth. Weʼre taking our time with it and weʼre happy with the response that weʼve been getting.  We didnʼt have any big publicity machine behind the show, partly because we canʼt afford it. Weʼre kind of like the Little Engine that Could!  After Judgment relaunched three weeks ago on a site called Koldcast.tv that we did a deal with independently.  Koldcast is a huge supporter of the show and After Judgment is itʼs premiere sci-fi show on the site right now. People also seem to really love the the Before Judgment mythology videos, which weʼre still shooting. We have about ten more that weʼll shoot over the next three or four months, then weʼll start the next episode of After Judgment in January.  At that point our site and Koldcast will be caught up and weʼll be releasing a new episode every week.

Iʼm a huge fan of Felicia Day and what she was able to accomplish with writing, producing and appearing in her show, The Guild.  Felicia did something that she was really passionate about and has been successful with it. Iʼm passionate about sci-fi/ fantasy storytelling, which is a genre that Iʼve always liked. I was a huge Buffy fan, and also a fan of The X-Files.  My partner is more about Battlestar, Star Trek and Star Wars, so we sort of balance each other out in that way.

We already have a new series that weʼre writing right now that weʼre going to try to take to sponsors before shooting. We also have some other projects that weʼre working on, but they all have that sci-fi/ fantasy spin to them.

PRG: When did you start getting into the sci-fi/fantasy/geek thing? Is that something that was a part of you even as a kid?

TO: Yeah.  I think so.  I donʼt think it was cool for a girl to be into that sort of stuff. I was a figure skater, and I was definitely a geek when it came to academics in school. I was always the smart kid, and itʼs not fun to always be the smart kid.  An appreciation and a curiosity about the unknown struck me at an early age and I gravitated toward movies like ET and anything that had a sort of supernatural or science fiction element to it. I was that kid who would lay on the lawn and look up at the stars and try to figure out the planetary system and the universe and our place in it and have many panic attacks over that!

I really donʼt think it was until I started getting into the Buffy world that I realized that people would look at me strangely and say, “You watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”  and Iʼd say, “Well, yes I do. Donʼt you?”  When I found out they didnʼt, I started thinking that maybe I was a little different.  Embracing that came later in life.  I always loved The X- Files, but that was a little more mainstream.

PRG: The X-Files helped make it more socially acceptable to be into that sort of thing.

TO: Growing up, I loved Forever Knight and V and Buck Rogers. Bionic Woman was my favorite when I was a kid.

PRG: So, you liked Forever Knight. Did you like Moonlight when that was on last season?

TO: I loved it!  I was very very sad when it was canceled! I understood why, but I was still like, “Please, Joel Silver, you have so much power in the industry! Please donʼt let them cancel it!”

PRG: I was really disappointed about Moonlight, too.  It really could have been a great show.

TO: Oh, and he [Alex OʼLoughlin] was fantastic and their chemistry was great.

PRG: That reminds me of something I read on your blog. You said the vampire is the modern day Mr. Darcy.  I love that!

TO: Thank you!  When I blog itʼs sort of stream of consciousness, writing from an inner monologue.  Maybe itʼs just the innate romantic in me, but I realize that those characters like Mr. Darcy are the ones that Iʼm always drawn to. And in modern day society, they have to be vampires because they wouldnʼt be human.  A man like that wouldnʼt exist.

PRG: I wan to follow up on something you said earlier.  You would tell people that you were into Buffy and got the weird looks in response.

TO: Like I had a different set of chromosomes or something.  I was an economics major, after college I worked in the business side, and I kept hearing that I could possibly make it as head of a studio. But it seemed counter-intuitive to people around me that someone who supposedly was intelligent would like something so fluffy, frivolous, and fantastic as Buffy.

PRG: Do you find that that attitude has changed in recent years?

TO: It has.  Iʼm finally able to embrace and establish my uniqueness and who I am as a storyteller, actor and a writer.  I think everyone in Hollywood aspires to be a brand.  Youʼre basically putting yourself out there as a commodity to be consumed.  Itʼs nice for me to sort of be a walking contradiction.  I think now people respond to the fact that Iʼm doing something Iʼm passionate about, they respond to authenticity.  Thatʼs what Iʼm trying to be: authentic in my work.

PRG: On you blog you touch upon the authenticity of geek.  You say that you feel like to be really geek worthy you have to give up your fashion blogs for comics.

TO: I think the geek world right now is growing, but Iʼm not a big gamer.  I canʼt recite every line of Firefly.  It may be the insecure actor coming across with those thoughts that loving sci-fi and fantasy isnʼt enough to be a true geek. I guess Iʼm just sort of a new brand of it.

PRG: I think itʼs a growing brand of geek.  I canʼt recite every line, and Iʼm not a gamer either. Iʼm kind of interested in World of Warcraft, but really donʼt want it taking over my life.

TO: Thatʼs the thing! I have a hugely addictive personality.  I picked up Twilight and read it for the first time a couple weeks ago and I have been sucked into this world for two weeks!  My husband is like, “Please. Put the book down. Youʼve read it already.”  But, I want to read it again!  Another girlfriend of mine, sheʼs a producer on TikiBarTV, and sheʼs seen it three times. Weʼre intelligent people. Why are we sucked into this teen vampire drama?  But, we just are.  So, with that addictive personality, I canʼt have another addiction!

PRG: How do you meld those two sides of yourself – the geek side and the fabulous, Balenciaga bag carrying side?

TO: Fashion is another way of storytelling to me. Itʼs like playing a character. I used to be insecure about being fabulous in that Carrie Bradshaw way, but now I just embrace feeling good about myself. If I can go out and wearing a fun outfit will help gain some  more exposure for the show and awareness of Mike and I as content providers, then Iʼll go for it.

PRG: Going back to After Judgment, is this your first time working as a producer?

TO: It is.  I remember working for a producer and one of the things he did in that role was have great ideas and convince people to help him with them.  Being a producer on After Judgment is similar.  Itʼs being a co-collaborator, co-conspirator with Mike in figuring out how to get this done.

PRG: Looking at the TV landscape, it seems to be in a time of great transition as far as how we watch and how itʼs delivered.  Do you see web television, like your webseries, as the future of the industry?

TO: I do.  I think that webshows are really going to be TV incubators, diluting some of the risk for the networks.  The pilot system may be dead in the water in two years. I donʼt think the studio system can continue supporting ordering thirty pilots, shooting fifteen of them and then picking four based on a one hour episode of a potential series. It just doesnʼt make business sense.

The web is going to be an interesting world because youʼre going to have fully produced webshows, but will the length and story arc be the same as broadcast television? People donʼt digest webcontent the same way they digest television content. It will be interesting. Itʼs sort of like the wild wild west out there right now. You just have to hold on tight, protect your content, and the cream will rise to the top.

Episodes of After Judgment can be seen at afterjugment.com or at Koldcast.tv.  Also check out the companion series, Before Judgement, and Taryn O’Neill’s blog.

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Interview conducted by Lisa Fary

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