Butterfly - Matti McLean

Posted by Steve on 7 September 2010 | 0 Comments

Tell us about your sci-fi web series.

Butterfly is the story of a man trapped in a world that he hates who find out that he might not actually be a part of that world. The story is designed around the character of Michael, who works a dead end job with no future, has a girlfriend who cares nothing for him, and a boss who wants nothing more then to kill him herself. Everything changes when Michael is confronted at work by a strange man who warns him that he is not who he thinks he is. Unaware of the danger he could be in, Michael begins to question his world and the people around him and makes steps to discover who he once was.

Where did the idea/concept for your web series come from?

As a writer/actor, I'm a firm believer that the more stuff you do for yourself, the better. I've never been one to sit around and do nothing, or to wait until a job comes around before I do something. Everyone constantly complains about the fact that there are no jobs around, but very few people are actually willing to go out and do something about it.

My concept came from the idea of "What can we do with this?" I had access to a cast and a camcorder ; plus I had a lot of time on my hands. I've always had a love of science fiction, so I decided that perhaps I should play to my strengths and write a sci-fi series. I knew we'd have problems with doing a traditional sci-fi show, so we tried to do something that wasn't traditionally "science fiction-y." This is where the challenge came in. We decided that we would create a sci-fi web-series without aliens, other planets, and most importantly, no special effects. With no fancy graphics for our show to hide behind, we knew that our writing would have to be top notch, and so we wrote Butterfly in a way where the science fiction elements would be equal parts mystery and comedy. As a result, I believe we have created a series that is unique, interesting, and above all, fun.

Name some of your sci-fi influences. Any favorite movies, TV shows, novels?

Growing up I loved to read and watch science fiction. I remember being addicted to the Animorph series and watching shows like Star Trek; The Next Generation. Movies such as Titan AE and shows like X-Files also helped to spur my love of the strange and unknown. My biggest influence has to be the works of Joss Whedon. Buffy and Firefly crafted a new dialogue that I think defined humorous comedic writing with a science fiction flair. What I really loved about those shows though, was the fact that the script always came first, and the special effects were used to enhance the script as opposed to hide average writing behind flashy gimmicks and graphics. Other influences include X-Men and Justice League (I've always loved super powers and think every human should have them); anime's such as Card Captors and Invader Zim; books like 1984, V for Vendetta, and Watchmen; and games like Jet Grind Radio. (Not really science fiction, but pretty close!)

Tell us about the technical production of your show. What camera & equipment did you use? Editing software & hardware? For visual effects, etc?

Our camera is a very basic Sony HD camera, and for sound recording, we bought an old Sony microphone. It works for what it is! To edit, I use iMovie on my Mac. Unfortunately my Mac can't play the newer version, so I use an external hard drive to boot up the new copy on a borrowed computer. (Saving up for my own computer though! Hopefully before the episodes begin to expand in length.) It's not the best set up, but it works and it allows me to edit some things.

Can you tell us any interesting facts or trivia about your show? Any funny stories?

The set for the show's coffee shop and many of our prison scenes have also been used in the upcoming Dark Rising: The Savage Tale of Summer Vale TV show. Within the next month the first few chapters of a novel based around the Butterfly universe will be released by Maggie Moor. It will be made available on the Butterfly website. The show uses a lot of music by video game reviewer Rebecca Mayes, whose songs can be heard on the Escapist Magazine site. Butterfly is also constantly trying to encourage the arts by featuring independent music, clip shows, paintings, and drawings on our website. Any creations that have been inspired by Butterfly are encouraged and we will gladly feature them on the website.

Butterfly can be found online, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Butterfly - SciFinal Page

More from behind the scenes from Butterfly below:

Kortni Bennett is XIII.

Morgan Bedard and Stevie Lyons.

Heather Ballentine as Sandy.

Matti McLean is happy!