Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report Goes Mobile

“Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report” Goes Mobile

For fans of Goodnight Burbank, there’s good news. For those of you unfamiliar with Goodnight Burbank, it’s time to check it out. Writer/producer/director and not-so-shabby comedian Hayden Black is back with a spin-off: Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report, a send-up of the Entertainment Tonight/Access Hollywood genre of celebrity worship and bashing.

The new show features the same cast as the original. But there’s something new: Babelgum has stepped in as executive gnbhr31 producer (read: funded the production) for 20 original episodes. In return,the company has exclusive rights to the online episodes for a year–and a three-year exclusive for the mobile rights. With regard to mobile rights, Babelgum has created an iPhone/smartphone app–natch–and three years is a good amount of time to amortize the production and make money on top of it.

Now, to the show. If you’ve followed Black’s work, you’re probably familiar with Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary as well as Goodnight Burbank, This show is just as wacky. Production dictated the content to some degree: Black explains that because they shot all the episodes at the same time, he couldn’t touch on anything too topical. As a result, the series focuses almost exclusively on the Hollywood Report characters themselves and their stories. One female anchor, Kelly Jones (pronounced “ho-nes”) dates singer George Michaels who’s in a gay conversion program. Producer Autumn Stanton is under stress from the job and her alcoholism, and

Trish and Gracious Clit

decides she’d be better off as a man, and begins a trans-gender conversion. Another female anchor, Trish, covers a gay & lesbian rally and ends up accidentally marrying a performance artist named Gracious Clit.

Some of the actors will look familiar: David H. Lawrence (as Frank Warfield) is also series regular on Heroes (Eric Doyle, the Puppeteer), Shulie Cowen (Curb Your Enthusiasm and Samantha Who) and Monica Young (Ghost Whisperers, Criminal Mind) who plays the producer Autumn Stanton. Black says he finds his actors in numerous ways; some even contact him and ask to be in the show.” They’re good scripts and we have a good time,” he says. “And it’s short, not like making a movie.”

These episodes were shot at Digisynd, a packaging, syndication and marketing solution recently acquired by Disney. Digisynd brokered a deal with Babelgum, and provided the set, the set designer and other resources for the production. The show was all gnbhr41 shot in HD.

Black, however, is busy creating his own production resources. He’s converting his two-car garage to a full greenscreen studio, buying lights and other gear. “From here on in, we’ll be shooting the Burbanks right there,” he says. Next up is a project that Black is very enthused about: The Cabonauts, an original sci-fi musical series that will run on the dailymotion platform. The newly converted garage will also feature a mini recording studio where he’ll record the songs for the upcoming series. The Cabonauts will begin shooting in May.

“We’re building business plans and business models to get these things out there and really do something,” says Hayden, who has added a biz dev person and a lawyer to his company. “When it was just me, I was fielding one offer after the next. I couldn’t keep up with the creative. Now there’s a team in place.”

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