Written by Andé Morgan.
Can we talk about this awesome new web series pilot?
It’s called The New Adult, and it’s the brainspawn of Katherine Murray-Satchell (creator and director).
[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsX91lHd5VI” title=”The%20New%20Adult”]
The New Adult is a small slice of life in the post-Aughts (how’s that unpaid internship working out?). Amber Morse plays Amber, a 30-something who, after being kicked out of the family home, is living uncomfortably with her best friend, Jamie (Lauren Augarten), her best friend’s husband, Joe (Daisun Cohn-Williams), and their young child. The pilot opens with Amber passed out in the backyard. Upon waking she goes inside to get breakfast, and what follows is almost seven solid minutes of excellence.
While this is Murray-Satchell’s directorial debut, it doesn’t feel like it. The dialogue is real, snappy, and engaging. The cinematography is flawless, and the editing is on point. The cast exhibits great chemistry. The overall effect is that TNA feels polished.
A minor gripe–occasionally, Morse and Cohn-Williams’ deliveries come across a bit stilted, but only momentarily.
Amber is beautifully unlikable. She’s ungrateful, she smokes, and she curses in front of children. But, thanks to Morse and Murray-Satchell, I feel her, and I want more.
She’s also not the typical female protagonist. She’s Black, and she rocks, literally. This also makes her atypical for a Black protagonist, because, as we all know, Black People Don’t.Like.Rock. (or cosplay). Yeah, that cake is a lie.
Murray-Satchell graciously agreed to an interview to discuss TNA.
Bitch Flicks: When will we see more TNA?
Murray-Satchell: The purpose of making the pilot episode is to use it as a fundraising tool for getting the rest of the episodes made…I have five other episodes written and ready to go, so once the other factors fall into place, I’ll have a better answer for you…I chose for it to be a six-episode season, modeling after the “British Brevity” approach to television production.
Bitch Flicks: How did you get interested in film?
Murray-Satchell: I was a freshman in high school at the Philidelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), majoring in Creative Writing. A friend introduced me to the world of screenwriting and filmmaking…me, not really having any knowledge of making movies (or even seeing it as a viable way for me to express myself creatively). My friend gave me a screenwriting book by Syd Field and I was hooked.
My writing became more visual as the years went on, and I would find ways to con my way into the school’s TV/Film class. I got interested in film because it combined everything that I loved into one neat little package: acting, writing, and music. I started to look at movies and TV differently, seeing how emotion could be portrayed much more quickly with one shot than it could with a paragraph. My desire to open people’s eyes to different cultures and philosophies has always been a part of me, and I saw filmmaking as a way to express that.
My ultimate goal is to be a showrunner…By creating TNA, I became a showrunner in my own right.
Bitch Flicks: Adult-child/failure-to-launch stories are part of the post-2008 zeitgeist. What was your inspiration for TNA?
Murray-Satchell: I’ve actually been working on this show idea for three years, I think. Maybe four. It’s been a while. And since then, so many other failure-to-launch stories have come out that for a while, I felt discouraged in making anything of TNA. It’s inspired by a bunch of people I know, and my own inner demons.
I experienced what most people refer to as a quarter life crisis. Back when I was 25, I had a bit of a meltdown when I just kept thinking “Is this my life now?” I had a full-time job, a daily routine, paying rent, paying bills. And I literally just wanted to drop everything and run away because it just became so mundane and not at all what I pictured adulthood to be like.
Building on that, seeing how my friends from high school and college had changed and evolved, I knew that in some way, we were all lamenting about this whole adult thing. No one prepared us for those feelings of despair and confusion. So, the show is an exploration of the different types of adults out there. And it’ll pose the question of what defines being an adult, and what this modern grown-up looks like.
Bitch Flicks: What distinguishes TNA from similar series?
Murray-Satchell: The New Adult will set itself apart from other stories by focusing on the female perspective. While, yes, there are a handful of woman-children in fictional media right now, Amber’s character adds to this mosaic. Most of the things out there really go for the slapstick when it comes to adult-child characters, putting them in situations where they then showcase how immature and silly they are. TNA is a dark kind of funny. It’s a character study on a woman stubbornly going through this adulthood transition.
My intent is to make it real enough to see her torn apart by this whole situation, but funny and absurd enough to keep the auidience wondering how she’s going to dig herself out of this mess. Additionally, making Amber a woman of color gives an alternative representation of the black female–she’s not “ratchet,” the strong single mother, or some stoic professional… there’s a massive gray area that has hardly been tapped (kudos to Mara Brock Akil and Issa Rae for bringing them out), and I’d like to introduce that person to the public.
Bitch Flicks: Tell us more about Amber Morse.
Murray-Satchell: Amber [the character] is a tough pill to swallow when she’s first introduced. She’s deeply flawed, honest, charming when she needs to be, rude, and comes off as a bit of a rebel.
Amber Morse is a super talented woman who could relate to the background of the character. The character was a very specific kind of personality, and casting was extremely tough. She nailed the audition, and I knew that she could add the charming but rough-around-the-edges vibe to the character…I feel like her screen presence is so commanding that she’d be able to carry the show, and I believe in her ability to take the character to the depths that she’ll inevitably have to go to as the story develops.
Bitch Flicks: There’s a distinct lack of female (or WOC or POC, for that matter) directors in the Hollywood system. As Lexi Alexander and others have noted, this may be because Hollywood is less willing to give female directors opportunities, rather than because there are few women who want to be directors. What are your thoughts?
Murray-Satchell: There’s a lack of female and POC directors in the Hollywood system because newcomers don’t see enough of them already present, and they feel that the opportunities are not there, which discourages them from pursuing it…I don’t think of myself as a Black female filmmaker. I like to think of myself as a filmmaker who happens to be a Black female. But I’m not blind. I feel like there are a lot of women who want to be in a more creative filmmaking role like directing but feel like they can’t, or won’t be given the chance. Or maybe they feel like they don’t have what it takes to be a director, or that people won’t take them seriously. It’s a shame, really. With filmmaking tools being more accessible now, anyone can make a movie.
Bitch Flicks: Does the web series format give women and POC an opportunity to be heard that is absent in the traditional system?
Murray-Satchell: Absolutely. So many up-and-coming filmmakers who are women and people of color have been recognized because of how they used the web series format–and the internet in general–to their advantage. The obvious example is Issa Rae, who created a web series to not only showcase her talent, but to give viewers a refreshing take on the modern African American experience. For me, I’m using it as a platform for showing what I’m capable of as a showrunner. By creating a series outside of the Hollywood system, it allows me the flexibility to experiment, to make mistakes, to look at this format as a microcosm for the bigger television industry.
Women and people of color definitely have an opportunity to get their voices heard more easily with a web series… it’s just a matter of getting the audience’s attention.
Bitch Flicks: Who are your cinema and television heroes?
Murray-Satchell: Joss Whedon initially comes to mind. When I really started to break down television series, I loved what he did with the characters on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of course as a teenager, you go into the show for the glamour of the vampire saga, but as an adult, I can appreciate it for so much more. I loved the flexibility of television writing and development that could introduce a character, build them up, knock them down, build them up again, change how we as the audience feels about them… it was incredibly influential in my decision to pursue series development and showrunning.
As a cinematographer, one of my heroes was Emmannuel Lubezki. I took a lot of notes watching his work, and I was so glad that he finally got an Oscar in recognition of his work. He’s one of the great DPs who “paints” with the light, and thinking about it in those terms made me approach cinematography in a completely different way.
Bitch Flicks: What are you watching?
Murray-Satchell: I’m a television junkie…I’m watching The Walking Dead, True Detective, Breaking Bad, Scandal, Revenge (the guiltiest of pleasures, but hey), Kroll Show, Bob’s Burgers. Movie-wise, the last few things I watched were Friends With Kids and It’s A Disaster. Netflix streaming is an evil, evil goddess and I love it.
Follow Katherine Murray-Satchell on Twitter @KatStreet1
Also on Bitch Flicks: Flat3 is the Little Web-Series You Have Been Looking For
Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about culture, race, politics, and LGBTQ issues. Follow them @andemorgan.