OUR WEEKLY PROCRASTINATION

Screenshot from Episode 3: Jamie.

Screenshot from Episode 3: Jamie.

We have just discovered the mini web series called High Maintenance, created, written and directed by Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair. High Maintenance is the story of the brief encounters of a weed dealer with his clients in New York City. The short stories are funny, sweet, weird, moving, and the characters manage to get you engaged from the very first minute. I did a bit of research (meaning, I googled "High Maintenance Web Series") and I found that from the first season's 13 episodes (each between 5 and 15 minutes long which accounts to approximately 2 hours of procrastination) Katja and Ben got a funding deal with Vimeo to produce season two. Yay!

According to Vulture, the Vimeo deal was the company's first adventure into original programming "Vimeo had already established a service where filmmakers could set a viewing price and take 90 percent of the proceeds; Kerry Trainor, the company’s CEO, says it was just a natural step toward advancing some money to High Maintenance, a show he thinks “shows off everything we think Vimeo is in the world to do.” For Blichfeld and Sinclair, who glued together season one of High Maintenance with their own funds and through favors from friends, it represented an ideal way to keep a good thing going. Vimeo has been an extremely hands-off partner: “That’s the coolest thing about being here,” Sinclair says. “They haven’t even read a single script. They haven’t asked.” Vimeo sounds like the ideal executive producer, right? (Read full article in Vulture. E.T.P. 4)

The awaited second season is due to appear early November in Vimeo, this time it won't be free though, but they hope their fans will be willing to pay a small price to watch and keep a regular stream of income for them to be able to keep producing more episodes. In the meantime, go ahead and have a look at High Maintenance's first season, is meaningful procrastination for a lot of reasons; fresh and solid mini-stories from New York which are always nice to see, a great main character, and because it represents new ways of making stuff, "TV" entertainment being created in an organic way by new independent players. Estimated Time of Procrastination for the first season: 2 hours tops.