Fantasy. Action. Adventure. Watching SPELLFURY is like watching a live recreation of a Dungeons and Dragons game. Evil creatures, bladed weapons and magic abound in the world of Spellfury. The web series follows an elf named Druinia and her gang of adventurers.
“We shoot all the studio stuff (indoors) in Ottawa and all the exteriors are shot around Perth,” says writer and director Travis Gordon. The web series is a volunteer-run production. “We have an extremely hard working team! We have people helping out in different ways from all over Canada and the U.S.A.”
Lets see what Travis can tell us about SPELLFURY…
For those who haven’t seen it yet, what is SPELLFURY and why should they watch it?
SPELLFURY is a web series about a band of misfit adventurers who join together to fight a terrible evil in a fantastical land. The show will be extremely exciting, funny and creative, and shouldn’t be missed! Although I’m a little biased being the writer/director on the show.
Can you tell us more about this “terrible evil” and “fantastic land”?
SPELLFURY is a realm that is made up of many creatures both good and evil and no one is to be trusted. The audience will be introduced to giant man eating spiders, wise cracking fairies, evil demons and blood thirsty forests. Let’s just say Druinia and the gang are going to have their hands full and will be lucky to survive their upcoming episodes.
On top of that there are a countless vicious villains in the world of SPELLFURY, The most dangerous being Kruskull an evil sorcerer with a half-rotted off face who is extremely powerful and is trying to take control over the realm of SPELLFURY and will stop at nothing to do so.
What sparked the idea for this web series?
I’ve had the idea for a while to do a show or movie set in the fantasy setting, I love a lot of movies in the genre (Willow, Lord of the Rings, Labyrinth). I didn’t want the story to take itself too serious though, so I threw in a Whedonesque “Buffy the vampire slayer” feel to it. I want the audience to have fun and enjoy hanging out with the characters.
When did you start work writing the script for Spellfury and how long did it take till you were filming the first episodes?
It had been bouncing around in my head for a quite a while before I put pen to paper. I then plotted out season one and two on recipe cards and bounced the ideas off everyone. I received pretty good feedback and so we shot episodes 1-3 over 2 nights. The audience seemed to like the episodes and we received a good review at wired.com, so we decided to go ahead with producing at least season one and two.
How many episodes can we expect to see?
For us a season is 12 episodes, so there will be 24 episodes (2 seasons) in total, if we can find a way to make money by making episodes we’ll keep the show going.
Julie O’Halloran is the lead character in your series, how did you find her? Has she worked with you before?
Julie is a fantastic actress, her performance in a short (Revelation) we sent to Houston’s Worldfest last year won us a Bronze in Dramatic Shorts. I credit her performance as a vulnerable yet courageous woman in a terrible situation with us winning the award. She also played a crazy wheelchair bound assassin in a film we’re sending out to festivals right now called “Mass Stupidity”. The role was extremely physically demanding and I knew after watching her amazing performance that Julie would be a terrific Druinia. She’s done an incredible job of balancing both the vulnerability and the physicality of her role in Spellfury and I can’t wait to see what she’ll bring to the character next!
Who are the other main characters/actors?
Julie O’Halloran plays Druinia who is the lead actress in SPELLFURY. As the show moves along the audience will be introduced to several new characters who will become regulars on the show.
SPOILER ALERT!
- XORN (played by Ian Quick) is a backstabbing thief that joins the gang.
- ERROYL ( played by Rob Drebitt) is a bumbling cleric that teams up with Druinia in an up-coming episode.
- CASTLE (played by Penu Chalykoff) is a jocky, loud-mouthed knight who Druinia faces off against in an up-coming episode.
- VELURA (played by Debra Ereaut) is a powerful sorceress that owns the local tavern.
- KENDRA (payed by Jennifer Barnes) is a feisty princess that ends up helping Dru and the gang out of a dangerous situation.
Reviews of SPELLFURY
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- Underwire on Wired.com says, “Best part: The blue ogre with bloody eyes is every bit as creepy as Billy Crudup’s “Doctor Manhattan,” made for about .00001 of the cost.”
- Ain’t It Cool News said, “The budget is low and the acting leaves a bit to be desired, but there was a certain backyard filmmaking charm about SPELLFURY that made me smile while watching it.”
- “Mostly I think it is just fun. I think that is what I liked about it,” explains DnD Corner.
- “Perhaps the most remarkable facet of the show so far is the special effects, which have an awkward, ’80s-esque hand-made clumsiness to them that simply adds to the charm…” according to Tube Filter News.
- WoW Fail Blog thinks, “All in all, it is a very good start to a series that has great potential…”
Episode 1 of SPELLFURY
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