Read On: Following a dream is no secret
Anyone who believes there isn’t much television and film production going on in Glendale simply isn’t paying attention. Certainly, ThiaMedia Studios has started to take hold as a permanent fixture in our little town — first with the grass-roots success of the film “Hidden Hills” and now with the forthcoming Web series “99 Percent Gang” that’s due to begin shooting on Aug. 10.
And as of Friday, ThiaMedia Studios LLC is an official SAG-AFTRA Signator. This came as very good news indeed for Cynthia Webster, the producer of “99 Percent Gang” and principal behind the studio that calls a property at San Fernando Road and Wilson Avenue home.
“This means we’re officially under SAG-AFTRA union contract now” Webster exulted.
The latest shoestring project for ThiaMedia is a series — on the Web for the moment but maybe for the regular TV screen one day — that casts a merry band of misfits who form “a political underground financial redistribution engine.” They take from the 1% and give to the 99%.
Webster herself describes it as “Robin Hood meets ‘All in the Family.’” It’s a comedy with a social message, of course, written and directed by Charles Pelletier, produced by Webster, and all shot at ThiaMedia in Glendale.
In the Internet/Web series age, Webster and the gang are concentrating on shooting material as if it were sitcom length and dividing up the actual episodes later. Basically, Webster and co-owner Pelletier can do things however they want, as they’re co-owners of the project and paying for it entirely out of their own pockets.
“We’re basically paying everyone California minimum wage,” Webster said. “No matter the category. We’re calling in favors, asking for stuff for free, seeking a whole bunch of product placement. But we’re a legitimate production with great actors and a great story.”
It happens that Webster herself is something of a great story as well. The first curiosity surfaces when you’re doing a telephone interview with a woman named Cynthia and are met by what sounds to be a male voice on the other end.
A Hollywood cinematographer/director of photography for better than 30 years, Webster was born a male named Brett Webster, but was long plagued by gender dysphoria.
“I was plagued by the holy trinity of sexuality,” she explained. “It wasn’t just the plumbing. It was also ‘What kind of partner do you like?’ and ‘How do you feel about yourself?’ There is nothing worse than keeping secrets and stuffing what you’re feeling back down.”
And so Brett became Cynthia in 1997 and had the reassignment surgery in 2000. She talks about having gone through her “feathered boa stage, my Barbie doll stage” and is now simply comfortable living in her own skin.
“The pendulum has swung back the other way,” she maintained. “I just don’t worry about it anymore. I’m Cynthia. I no longer make a big deal about it, I just live my life. It’s all just hormones. But being who I am now allows me to see life from two different angles, which is always exciting. And I don’t have secrets anymore.”
Maybe the only secret Webster has is the fact that she’s going to soon become a big-time Hollywood (or at least Glendale) producer, and the world doesn’t quite know it yet. After having shot 45 feature films on time and on budget over a successful career, she’s decided that it’s even more fun being the one who gets to organize the dance.
The hope is that the proudly political “99 Percent Gang” ultimately will produce 16 episodes — but that after shooting the first three episodes, it will get picked up by a well-heeled studio.
“My dream ticket,” Webster said, “would be to have Sony Pictures TV call and say ‘We love what you’re doing and we want you on Crackle (Sony’s online original content distributor). I see what we’re doing here, and I think it’s really possible.”
And if you’re going to dream, you might as well dream big.
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RAY RICHMOND has covered Hollywood and the entertainment business since 1984. He can be reached via email at ray@rayrichco.com and Twitter at @MeGoodWriter.