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The making of Mattress: An introduction

Writer's picture: SL EastwoodSL Eastwood

A look into the production of an indie webseries about love and connection…

glasses on a notebook
Image by Carolyn Christine on Unsplash

About 8 years ago, right after reading Lena Dunham’s memoir, a line she’d written got me cogitating on a story idea. I noodled it around for a few years, wrote a short script, had a failed attempt at making a short film out of it, retooled it as a potential webseries before I eventually shelved it. As much as that pained me.


It’s one of those ideas that I’ve dusted off every few years, held it up to the light, but not really known how to make a go of it. Until one day a frequent collaborator of mine, Rehman Ahmed, who recently set up a production company, was scratching around for some new scripts to produce and asked me if I had anything in my portfolio.


I have a massive backlog of scripts so I sent him a few things and he liked the idea of producing, Mattress. After that we began working on the script for the first episode, which he shot a few months later and the rest is – as they say – history.


The making of Mattress: A series

Since Obsidian Elephant is all about reporting back from the muddy trenches of the creative industry, I thought I’d use this series as an opportunity to give you some perspective into what goes into making an independent series.


I’m not sure at this point how many articles I’ll put into this series, but I’ll try to focus on aspects that will be most informative to any of you looking to helm your own indie productions (or write for them like I did).


This whole production process has been a lot of fun, I’ve been working with some really cool, passionate people who have been really excited about the potential of this series and where it can take us. Now that I’ve hopefully whet your whistle a little bit, I’d love to tell you a little bit more about the series we’re working on…


More about Mattress

Mattress is a bittersweet romantic comedy following the life of Maisy, a young woman who is seeking connection but at the same time runs from it. Troubled by a tumultuous relationship with her sister, mostly regarding their ailing father, Maisy embarks on a new relationship with Craig, a charming guy who doesn’t realise he’s a bit of a player.


As she tries to hide her shady second life from the people she’s closest to, Maisy is targeted by Craig’s unlucky-in-love best friend, Simon, who is determined to find out what she’s hiding. Although his aim is to break the couple apart, due to jealously, his obsession will bring everyone’s life crashing down around them.


Where we are now

As of date of publishing, we are in the finishing stages of the first episode title “Sweet Talkers”, which we shot around November of last year. I have already published an article about some of our editing process, talking about the different performance styles of two of our lead actors.



I’m so proud of what we’ve produced, from the actors we’ve cast, the crew we assembled, and the finished project. Despite it being an almost no budget production, what we’ve pulled off is incredible. I’m so grateful to the team, especially my collaborators In The House Media, who have been incredible all the way through this process.


If you’re looking for a team to produce your script, definitely check them out.


The future of the series

We’re a little bit up in the air with this series, as where reconsidering the format. Based on test audiences, we think it has potential for a feature film, so we’re looking at funding options and our first episode may become a proof of concept for this.


That’s the thing about indie production, you can feel your way through the process, which is what makes it so fun. I will update you as this blog series progresses…


 
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