7.8 /10 1 Votes
Genre Soap operaWeb series No. of seasons 5 First episode date 4 December 2009 Location Venice | 7.7/10 IMDb Country of origin United States No. of episodes 49 Number of seasons 5 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Created by Crystal ChappellKim Turrisi Starring Crystal ChappellJessica LecciaGalen GeringHillary B. SmithGina TognoniNadia BjorlinLeslie KayDot JonesShawn ChristianMolly BurnettEric MartsolfJudi EvansMichelle N. CarterJordan ClarkeHarrison WhiteMichael SabatinoLiz KeiferAdrienne WilkinsonChristian LeBlancAnnika NoellePatti PeltonAaron HartzlerWesley RamseyTina Sloan Awards Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class – Short Format Daytime Program Similar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Venice the series web series episode 11 season 2
Venice: The Series is a soap opera web series co-produced by and starring American actress Crystal Chappell, and is inspired in part by the "Otalia" storyline on the daytime drama Guiding Light. The series has been streamed on VenicetheSeries.com since December 4, 2009, and is currently in its fifth and final season.
Contents
- Venice the series web series episode 11 season 2
- Venice the series web series season 3 episode 1
- Creation
- Production
- Cast and characters
- Distribution
- Reception and awards
- References
Venice is described by Chappell as "a show about families, and life, and all the simplicity of it, and the turmoil of it. We're going to be following a character named Gina who is a designer, and she is a gay woman."
Venice the series web series season 3 episode 1
Creation
Crystal Chappell played Olivia Spencer on the long-running CBS daytime drama, Guiding Light, from 1999 until the September 18, 2009 network ending. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Daytime Drama for her work as Olivia in 2002 and was nominated again in the same category in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, she earned her first nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actress category and her second in 2010.
In 2009, after Guiding Light was cancelled, Chappell, with help from her writing partner and co-producer Kim Turrisi, decided to create Venice: The Series, based around the popular romance between her character, Olivia Spencer, and co-star Jessica Leccia's character, Natalia Rivera Aitoro, also known by the portmanteau "Otalia". However, for copyright reasons, the names of the two actresses' characters are changed, and there is no official connection to Guiding Light.
Although Chappell's character in the show is an openly gay woman, the show is not a "gay web series" but rather a show that "embodies all kinds of people, with all kinds of issues".
Chappell heavily publicized the series through the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook.
Production
The web series is set in, and filmed in, Venice Beach, California, USA. It is filmed digitally.
Each episode of Season 1 is 6–10 minutes long, while episodes from subsequent seasons run approximately 15 minutes.
Cast and characters
Venice: The Series stars Crystal Chappell as Gina, a designer and a gay woman, and Chappell's love interest from Guiding Light, Jessica Leccia, this time as Ani, Gina's love interest. Some of Chappell's and Leccia's former Guiding Light co-stars also appear in the series, including Tina Sloan, Gina Tognoni as Sami and Jordan Clarke as The Colonel. Other Venice cast members include daytime actress Hillary B. Smith of One Life to Live as Guya, Nadia Bjorlin as Lara, Galen Gering as Owen, Gina's brother, Michelle N. Carter as Michele, Lesli Kay as Tracy, Michael Sabatino, Chappell's husband, as Alan, and Robert Newman as an old boyfriend of Gina's. Other cast members include Shawn Christian, Eric Martsolf and Molly Burnett from Days of Our Lives.
Distribution
The first three seasons were released for free, and are viewable, on the video sharing website YouTube. The fourth season is available on the show's website, and requires a paid subscription.
DVDs of past seasons of the show are also available for sale online at the website.
Reception and awards
In 2011, Venice: The Series won the first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Short Format Daytime, and won again in 2014 for Outstanding New Approaches Drama Series. The series was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Digital Daytime Drama Series in 2017.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alina Adams named the series one of the "4 best soap operas on the web" in 2015.