Behind The Scenes: Couch Cases

It’s always cool to find out who’s watching from around the world. During a recent Google search on Couch Cases, we discovered that word is getting out about our little show. On top of being an unsolicited official comedy selection at the Baghdad Film Festival (yes, you read it right!), our web series is being watched and reviewed favorably in the press in Italy and France. C’est très bon!

A word from Patrick and Kathi:

Some of you know that our show Couch Cases has surpassed the 500,000 view mark, and we’ve recently been featured in Tubefilter.tv and USA Today. Thank you for all your support, and we hope you love the show.

As always, go to www.couchcases.com for the latest info.

Here’s the full content of the Tubefilter interview:

We just had an article published about us in Tubefilter News…  

“Take a dysfunctional therapist with no people skills, add her neurotic clients, her wise-cracking best friend, and a host of boytoy hotties, and you’ve got Couch Cases, the new comedy web series from creators Patrick Ortman and Kathi Funston. Following a traditional sitcom aesthetic, Couch Cases previewed to an impressive view count on YouTube in October, but has its official “wide release” on January 15th.”

Read the full article here.

We’ve also been invited to join top-ranking web series on Tubefilter’s Web TV Schedule this week! We’re re-launching Couch Cases on Thursday, January 15th with the hopes of reaching an even wider audience.  A top spot in Tubefilter’s schedule is a very big honor for us. Thanks to Tubefilter for this esteemed recognition! Also, thanks again to our cast and crew for making Couch Cases a quality show that’s getting some much-deserved attention, and, of course, to our fans on the web for all of your support!

About Tubefilter

“Our mission at Tubefilter is simple - to grow the audience of web television. Our news division, Tubefilter News, is the leading authority in episodic web television.

The web is full of great storytelling. As you’ve probably noticed, there are a lot of stories out there, but too often they get lost in the web video shuffle. Tubefilter News helps you discover and keep track of the stories you care about.

We care about quality episodic shows, whether they are studio or independently produced – if they’re good, we’ll help you find them. We follow the shows, their creators, the cast and the people that make these shows come to life.”

Something happened this past week, and we’ve become a “must watch” show on YouTube. Couch Cases has ranked as high as #34 on YouTube, and is one of the Top 100 shows to watch right now.

Amy has a close encounter with a guy at her gym and ends up getting much more than she’s bargained for! Special Guest Stars Cory Norman and James Lui. Watch online at www.couchcases.com.

After a successful launch of the show (hey, we made my dad LOL, and he’s a tough audience!), we are proud to present the second episode of Couch Cases online at www.couchcases.com. We’ve been getting some great feedback online and would love to attract even more viewers.  Please pass our website link (or videos) along to your friends and give them “LOL” as an early Christmas present. ;) 

Two nights ago—after watching the rough cuts of all four episodes of the show with Patrick, throwing around ideas together for the trailer, and letting the ideas simmer for a few days—I had an epiphany. The pictures and words came rushing to me like a flood. I shared my ideas with Patrick and, like the awesome partner he is, he jumped right on board to surf the wave with me. Our trailer was born.

We worked like mad last night to assemble a rough cut, and it looks incredible. (Patrick is a fiend in the editing suite!) We even chose some cool music to set the tone. Come on! Two musicians could never get away with watching a rough cut of anything without a soundtrack playing in the background!

Afterwards, we went out to celebrate with margaritas. We had worked it out together. It’s a beautiful thing to see your story unfold in a totally different way than you originally expected. To me, our trailer is like a fifth episode, only better. We put together a puzzle with pieces of the show and formed a completely new picture.

The process has been really rewarding to us as storytellers, and working together is also lots of fun. Occasionally, we have creative differences, but they’re usually temporary, and in the end, the decisions we make include the best of both of our ideas.

Our goal is to get the trailer online before we leave for SXSW next week. Good luck and see you in Austin! I’m headed back to Texas, baby!!!

Well, I am pleased as punch to report that we have officially wrapped Season 1 of Couch Cases (save a few exterior shots). After almost 4 months of production (including a couple of hiatuses over the holidays), we are ”in the can” as they say in the biz (silly Hollywood slang!). We had a fun shoot yesterday with Heather and Amy at the Fotune Teller’s getting a reading. The psychic’s room was definitely the most fun set to dress. Patrick got us this cool neon sign from Nights of Neon in Van Nuys, which made the whole room come to life. Well, that and the cool lighting design we worked on together… and the neat props we got from a gracious friend and her mother. It all came together so beautifully in what I hope will be one of the most entertaining and funny scenes of the whole series. Marina was great as the fortune teller, and Sabrina as always as Heather– we definitely had a lot of fun!! 

Although I will miss our cast and crew, I am excited to start editing everything together. It’s 2008, a new year, and time for a new phase of our adventure. We’ll be starting on post-production pretty soon, and then we’re headed to SXSW in March to start promoting the show. I’m really excited… it’s my first time at the SXSW film festival, plus my brother and sister live in Austin, so it’ll be fun to hang out with them.   

Happy New Year to everyone! Check back for more updates and pictures from our last shoot date.  

Yesterday, we cast the last two roles for season 1, and I feel great about our choices. I’m excited about making the phone calls today to the deserving actresses. We’ve been lucky enough to work with some really great actors who are not only good at what they do, but understand the importance of collaboration in a small budget production like ours. The cast and crew who have shown such gracious attitudes and professionalism are just the folks we want to work with again in the future. 

Tomorrow, we have our last shoot date before Thanksgiving. After that, only 3 more to go. We’re moving right along, and I have to say, as we’ve started assembling the rough cuts, I’m getting more and more excited about Couch Cases. I realize that with Patrick’s magic in post, our story is not gonna just come alive…it’s gonna sing, my friends!

Another thing that has really got me going is seeing everyone’s IMDb credits growing. If there’s one thing professionals in this business have to be thankful about, it’s that! (I know I am!) Not to mention the interview Patrick had with USA Today the other day. Press already?? That’s pretty freakin’ exciting for a project that’s still in production! And the cool thing is, our show is designed for the Web, and that’s exactly what got us the interview. The reporter at USA Today found Patrick on a networking website, and from there, she did all her research online (Patrick has a few websites) and ultimately ended up here. How cool is that!? Can’t wait to see what ends up in print!

I’m in a very thankful mood today. Yes, it might be the time of year, but more importantly, I’m thankful that I found a wonderful partner with whom I got to dream up a funny and endearing story… and now we get to breathe life into it! As a self-proclaimed veteran sitcom watcher, it’s really a dream come true for me! I know Patrick and our core team are also thankful to be part of Couch Cases, and for that, I know it’s gonna be big.

We went shopping for props last week for the flashback scenes in one of our episodes, and I immediately fell in love with the task at hand. My favorite stop was the fish store, Underwater Depot in Sherman Oaks. We had to get a fish bowl, and I knew exactly what I wanted for the scene… a little bowl with round ends and flat sides, complete with electric blue rocks and a little green plant. I knew it would pop on camera, and let’s face it… everything in the 80s was neon, so the brighter the rocks, the better!

We grew up with a 30 gallon fish tank in our house, so I have a lot of memories of fish watching. I remember my mom taking my brother and sister and me to the fish store when we were young. We would cruise the aisles looking at all the bright colors, and when we found the ones we liked, we’d watch the fish man scoop them up so we could take them home with us. We had black mollies, kissing garamis, tetras, neons, clown fish, and a sucker fish named Vax. You had to let them sit in the water inside the plastic bag for a while to let them get acclimated to the tank and the other fish. When the fishies were ready, Mom would let us untie the bag and pour the fish gently into the tank.

Needless to say, I got a little excited when cruising through the fish store the other day. I felt like a kid again, and I was so excited to re-create some of my childhood memories for a wonderfully heartwarming and funny scene. I am very happy with the results I’ve seen in the production stills and dailies. The fishbowl pops! It’s totally 80s!