Undergroundfilm.com Debuts Fictional Election Film
Undergroundfilm.com (www.undergroundfilm.com) debuted a short, comical and satirical film, "The Wacky Adventures of 5 Florida Ballot Counters." The film is believed to be one of the first fictional looks at the unfolding events, according to the Web site. In the spirit of the Web, the film is full of funny moments; such as when one of the ballot counters accidentally uses ballots to line the toilet seat.
"We were delighted to receive such a timely and satirical submission. ‘Ballot Counters' is clearly a case of art not just imitating, but poking fun at life,'' said Adrien Glover, Undergroundfilm.com's executive content editor. Kirk Bowman, who wrote and directed the short, shot the film on a beach in Santa Monica, Ca. just days after the first recounts began, and presents his own take of the inept handling of ballots.
Sympathy for the plight of the exhausted volunteers inspired the short, according to Bowman. "I had seen the picture of one of the ballot counters sitting there on break, surrounded by ballots, (and I thought) what if after all this, they went on vacation -- what would that be like?''Undergroundfilm was launched in November 1999, by Glover and CEO, Mike Kelly. Glover and Kelly have ridden the roller coaster of Web entertainment over the past year, including a stint working with Imagine Entertainment and Dreamworks SKG to develop and design the infrastructure for the Pop.com site.
Kelly states that it is difficult to do business in today's anti-content atmosphere, but the company is planning to streamline all operations to make it through for at least a year and half. In the meantime, the company is exploring many equations within its business model and looking into the idea of inserting commercials before its films.
"You have to ask yourself, how ugly will you make your site?", says Kelly.
Kelly believes that the difficulty with in-stream ads for his business, is that companies which target the Undergroundfilm demographic -- made up of mostly students, self-employed people, and computer technicians -- frequently do not have television commercials on hand to use for the Web.