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Low budget drama premieres on Southern Cross ELEVEN

A 23 year old writer / producer will see his first TV drama go to air this Sunday night on Southern Cross ELEVEN.

It’s not often a new local drama premieres on a regional network, but this Sunday night Space_ will premiere on Southern Cross multichannel ELEVEN.

The low-budget drama is the creation of 23 year old writer / producer Billy Betts and friend Mark Alexander, who serves as director. Both are graduates of Wagga’s TV Production course and work in Southern Cross TEN’s Programming department in Canberra.

Space_ is described as a drama about four friends, Dani, Amy, Bree and Steph. The one-off episode sees Amy break-up with her boyfriend after months of fighting. Her friends want to take her mind off the break-up so they convince her to go out on the town in Canberra.

Betts says he made the drama in order to get a TV credit, shooting on the weekends using Canon 550d DSLRs, with 2 camera operators and 1 boom guy.

“After focusing on screenwriting for many years, I decided to write to my means and focus on a concept that could be done with little money,” he says.

“I write girls better than guys so I came up with a story about four girls who live in a share house together. I used talking heads as a running commentary from the characters.

“One of the girls goes through a break-up and her friends have to band together. I sent casting calls to lecturers at ANU and UC and we had about 8 girls audition for the 4 roles. We shot at several venues around Canberra and the community was very welcoming.

“I am a quiet, ideas, writing, producing type while Mark is very much a loud, confident director type so we work well as a team,” he says.

“It was all great fun and we will work together in the future.”

Space_ stars Claudia Vannithone, Alicia-Louise Gall, Lucy Lovegrove and Codie Searle but will only be seen on ELEVEN in regional areas from 10pm this Sunday, ahead of a new Wilfred episode.

“The Australian industry is great and just recently there has been some quality drama and entertainment across FTA,” says Betts.

“My goal is to write and produce TV on a day to day basis.”

facebook.com/SpaceACT

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb7eSnL6qAE[/youtube]

7 Responses

  1. @KFed – Since it’s only on SCTEN “[I] am, fortunately, in a SCTEN area”.
    Meaning……I will be able to see it. It’s not on TEN/11.
    Oh, and we do get music videos on Sunday morning in place of The Bolt Report. Another bonus.

  2. This is great to hear. Kudos to Southern Cross Ten for giving aspiring young TV creatives a platform. I hope they continue to support local productions in the future.

  3. “will only be seen on ELEVEN in regional areas”. Hello, Channel TEN?
    David Mott?
    You need some half-hours?
    No, Sarah Murdoch’s not in it.
    Quite inexpensive.
    Won’t be beaten by SBS.
    Hey, drama points too.

  4. Looking forward to seeing it, and am, fortunately, in a SCTEN area.
    Be interesting to see how it compareds to the stuff produced by the “mainstream” producers with crews of thousands.
    Congrats already, just for getting it on air.

  5. Gone are the old days when you needed a pretty expensive betacam camera to deliver a broadcast quality picture and the huge expense of hiring an edit suite. These days you can pick up one of these canons for a few thousand dollars, get a beautiful picture and edit on your home computer. There is lots of great stuff out there on you tube that go unnoticed by commercial TV. I wish this show well. Something for us regional viewers to have a look at

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