Sven: It's about a guy who puts his life on the Internet. He's a "wannabe" filmmaker returning from Los Angeles to find himself riding his parent's couch. He doesn't want to work at Wal-Mart, so instead he has nothing better to do than to broadcast his live onto the web. His hometown in Pennsylvania suddenly becomes a "global village" with worldwide attention.

Q: So that leads into the next question, which is how do you tie this movie into the Internet?

Sven: At www.hollywoodpa.com we are doing the exact same thing. Gordy puts his life on the Internet, and we are putting our movie set and the making of our film on the web for people to see. They can interact with the cast and crew and experience the struggles of independent filmmaking.

Q: Why?

Sven: To get exposure and to find an audience for our film. We are basically telling a story on the Internet with potential for the Internet users to get involved. We invite our audience to visit our movie set and to tap into the filmmaking experience.

Q: What do you have on the website? What are people going to see when they log on?

Sven: We created a web site that visually translates the filming process. We are planning to stream live from our location in Pennsylvania. A live web stream is a small moving image with sound. In addition we have background information, interviews and documentaries on all aspects of filmmaking. We are going to have different crewmembers wear a tiny spy-camera to see the production from different point of views. We also want to give our audience the opportunity to exchange messages with the cast and crew.

Q: Are you going to be live all the time?

Sven: Unfortunately our live stream cannot be live the whole time because of the technical and financial limitations we work under. So we have prepared a time schedule with daily live broadcasts. We do plan to have a live webcam on at all times (a still picture refreshing every 60 seconds without sound).

Q: Who is JenniCam and what is she doing on Hollywood, PA?

Sven: Jennifer Ringley is a girl who started broadcasting from her apartment about three years ago. Her site Jennicam.org has drawn controversy, because of the voyeuristic sub tone to it, but we truly feel that JenniCam is a about showing all aspect of someone's life, doesn't matter whether she is reading a book for two hours or getting ready for bed. In essence that's what our main character Gordy has in common with her. So we were pleased to hear that she would consider hosting a couple of days of our web stream and also play a little cameo in the film. Jennifer Ringley is a webcam pioneer and we want to recognize her as such. The second reason, we are so happy about her being involved is of course that her web-site draws 5 million hits per day, and we would like to benefit from that kind of exposure to quickly build up traffic on our site.

Q: What about other interest?

Sven: We have USA Films supporting us, but there is no signed distribution deal or funding coming from them. Other participating companies are MICROSOFT (sponsoring our encoding team), IBEAM (a satellite broadcaster with unlimited bandwidth), SCOUR.COM, (a portal with 60 million page views/months). Also, local companies like PA WIRELESS and STREAMEDIA PRODUCTIONS help us tremendously to get this off the ground for no money.

Q: Do you think people will come back to your web-site on a daily basis?

Sven: We will find out shortly. We are passionate about our ideas and trying to do something with nothing. That could be interesting on its own. But I think the main reason why people will come back is because we give them an opportunity to hang out on a real movie set. I think that is a dream that everyone has at least once. Our film set just happens to be somewhere in cyberspace and our audience has a backstage pass to it.

Q: It seems also as though this is a good time for independent filmmaking. People are more receptive.

Sven: Well, I could say that it's always a good time for independent filmmaking if you have a good story. However, the reality is, there is never a good time to make an independent feature. It's always a pain, because you have to worry about the wrong things and waste your time with money issues. I must say though one of the great things about THE BLAIR WITHC PROJECT is that it demonstrates one more time that the audience is willing to see films with less production value as long as they are emotionally involved in the story and the characters.

Q: Last question, how does the crew feel about being watched? Most of them are used to being on the backside of the camera.

Sven: Well I know that our cinematographer hates it. He does not like to be on camera at all, but there are other people who just love it. I'm sure we will get the shy ones and those that are going to be very interactive with the camera. But after a few days it will feel so normal that every one will just be themselves. And we won't let the camera interfere with the filming process. On the other hand if there is a hefty discussion or even a creative fight on set, we won't stop the camera. We want to show people that this is part of filmmaking as well.