"Bree" is no more.
In the "season finale" of the Web series "Lonelygirl15," which was broadcast in a well-publicized event on Friday on the MySpaceTV platform, the cute teenage protagonist met her death at the hands of a religious cult's sacrifice. A dramatic, soap-opera worthy exit indeed--especially considering that Lonelygirl15's videos were mundane enough at first to fool scores of viewers into thinking they were the real Webcam diaries of a flesh-and-blood teenager.
Lonelygirl15 was exposed as an actress last September, but the video series continued and grew increasingly elaborate. Leading lady Jessica Rose, 20, has since gone on to several movie roles and a regular spot on the ABC Family Channel sitcom Greek, but had continued to play Bree in the meantime.
The video series was occasionally maligned for being cheesy and melodramatic, but at the same time, the production team's tactics--guerrilla filming style, use of multiple platforms and social-networking sites, and interaction with a highly engaged viewer community--was also hailed as an influential step in the evolution of Internet video fiction. Unfortunately for the team behind Lonelygirl15, it may be somewhat telling that most people seem to have learned about Bree's death from blog posts on Monday--it didn't exactly create an online uproar outside of the series' loyal viewer community (some of whom refer to it as "Lonelycrack" on the official Web site). But even though Bree's out, it's apparently not the end of Lonelygirl. A British spinoff, "KateModern," has already started, and there's a chance that future Lonelygirls may appear as well. The final episode, after all, alluded to more young girls being pursued by the same cult. We've e-mailed representatives from the series' small production company and will update this post if they comment.
Fake Steve Jobs unmasked, and now this? What a weekend.
UPDATE (7:34 PM PT): A correction was made to this post. Greek is on ABC Family, not the Disney Channel.
(Credit:
LG15)
My, my, Lonelygirl15 sure has come a long way. Not so long ago, everyone thought the too-cute videoblogger was, well, a too-cute videoblogger. Then some online video fans with a shocking amount of time on their hands deduced that she was likely an actress in a staged series of video episodes. (They were right.) Now, leading lady "Bree" (played by Jessica Rose) has gone all professional on us--the new MySpaceTV video portal will be hosting Lonelygirl15's season finale.
Season finale?
On Friday, MySpaceTV--which launched in June and has been rolling out content deals ever since--will broadcast the final episode of the "first season" of Lonelygirl15. But it's a little more complicated than that: the "12 in 12" finale will be shown in 12 segments, each one broadcast on the hour starting at 8 AM ET. Lonelygirl15 episodes have been uploaded to the Lonelygirl15 MySpace page since the series' early days, but this is the first time that they'll be available only on the portal. Lonelygirl, after all, is one of YouTube's biggest stars too.
This announcement of an "exclusive" Web video broadcast may be a sign of things to come, an indicator that perhaps we should be thinking about online video hubs as networks rather than just platforms. Perhaps we'll soon be saying, "Oh, it's on MySpaceTV" or "You can catch it on YouTube" instead of talking about whether a program is on NBC or Fox.
The popular "LonelyGirl15" Web serial is breaking new ground in ongoing efforts to monetize video content by signing a unique deal with the Neutrogena skin care company. In a step beyond product placement, Lonelygirl15 episodes this summer will actually feature a branded character--a Neutrogena scientist, according to the Associated Press and other sources.
Some bloggers are impressed by the partnership, which they view as a creative way to pay the bills and help keep the show alive.
Others, however, view it as the ultimate sellout. But the show is likely to overcome such Web community disappointment. It started as a video blog by a home-schooled 16-year-old named "Bree." Nine months ago, however, Bree was outed as an actress in a scripted Internet video project.
Blog community response:
"While we long ago exposed the Lonelygirl15 phenomenon as the work of professionals and not a 16-year old in her bedroom, the latest twist in the Web drama takes selling out to a whole new level."
--Mashable
"The jury is out on whether this is a good move or not for either party (although I'm sure LG15's creators like getting paid). What I do know is that it will create a bit of buzz and I think it is an interesting experiment to reach out the viewers/fans of LG15. I'm not sold on the way they are doing by (re: introducing a character in the way they described) but we'll have to wait and see if it takes or not."
--The Client Side
"There's a whole slew of questions that this brings up. Could short films start finding funding this way, with characters rather than a carefully-placed product? Would they even want to? I think it's fairly easy these days to ignore what product your favorite star is indulging in, but where's the limit on characters? We always hear about how studios step in and mess up a character to try to make it more tantalizing to the public (and how that fails), so I can only imagine the possibilities if product companies get in on the development."
--Cinematical
"Well, it's good to see a Web video show making some money with sponsors. Congratulations."
--Jason Rosenberg
Jessica Rose as 'Bree' in the 'Lonelygirl15' video blog
(Credit: Lonelygirl15.com)It seems like
It's also been recently announced that production has recently wrapped on Rose's "first major theatrical role," in a movie called Perfect Sport that's slated to be released (in one capacity or another) this fall. It doesn't look particularly "major," though; it's created by a year-old production company called Building Block Pictures, and it has a cast of unknowns and near-unknowns. Not exactly a big break for 'Lonelygirl15,' it seems.
However, according to a release from Building Block Pictures, Jessica Rose's role is of a girl who joins her high school's wrestling team. That might make the movie worth seeing.
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