Meet Beckinfield, a YouTube Show With 4,000 Actors [PICS]
The make-believe town of Beckinfield is the setting for the Mad Libs-style show of the same name, which uses crowd-sourced amateur actors from all over the world who create the show’s story by posting videos.
Writers outline the plot and email a “town happenings” newsletter to actors each week. Each actor tells a small piece of the story in their video, adding their own flair. Related segments are linked together to create a kind of webisode that will be unique to every viewer depending on which videos they watch.
Beckinfield is a production of online network Theatrics.com. Friday, at Macworld, director Jonathan Frakes (Riker of Star Trek fame) presented the winner of Theatrics’ “Ultimate Online Audition Contest,” with $10,000 and a vacation to Hollywood, Calif. Entrants selected one of six characters and showcased their acting chops in videos posted to the site.
Billed as “mass participation television,” Beckinfield is like a soap opera where anyone can be an actor. Three minute recaps are posted once-per-week on theatrics.com and pick-up where the previous week’s plot line left-off.
Here’s the confusing part: There is no one weekly episode. Actors submit their videos to the site, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. In theory, this lets every viewer creates their own experience. A short summary video is posted the following week.
It makes more sense when you consider that Beckinfield was originally created as a tool for actors’ character development. (...)
