“It’s idiocy,
but it’s a fun
kind of idiocy.”
Director / Co-writer
Carey Lundin
The WORST Travel Show — a webseries that explores the roads less traveled in touristy hotspots — was awarded April honors for “Best Webisode / New Media” by the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival (HIMPFF).
Hosted by “classically trained travel blogger” Kyle Gatehouse, the show digs through rumors and trivia to uncover facts that guidebooks often ignore.
The trips are generally hilarious, and the results are inevitably interesting.
“Where do the movie stars go to relax?” Gatehouse asks during the introduction of the Dead Celebrities edition. “They go to the sunset strip, maybe. I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
With years of professional acting experience in films like X-Men, Anne of Green Gables, and I’m Not There, his self-deprecating style flows easily.
THE WORST TRAVEL SHOW
“It’s idiocy, but it’s a fun kind of idiocy,” says Carey Lundin, who directs and co-writes every episode. “Kyle is kind of a like a jerk character, but it’s fun to watch a jerk in a town full of people who make their livings being pleasers.”
Lundin, who considers Gatehouse to be “hilarious” and “a joy to work with” in real life, relocated to L.A. from Chicago last April. She arrived with an abundance of filmmaking experience, including the crowd-sourced journalism comedy series, Citizen Kate, and the award-winning documentary, Jens Jensen The Living Green.
The WORST producers were drawn to the skills that she honed while making Citizen Kate, which documented the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections through woman-on-the-street style interviews and commentary on the campaign trails.
“After they had seen what I have done, they said I think you need to be the director and the writer,” she recalls. “I had done this already with Citizen Kate twice. I do a lot of work that is fake character in the real world.”
They also liked the inexperience she had with her new surroundings.
“The story was kind of influenced by my being new to L.A.,” she continues. “There’s a strong element of coming here and wanting to be part of this whole scene, seeking something that is so inaccessible. It was a driving force of the Kyle character.”
The ensuing success, Lundin continues, was made possible by the “incomparable” crew that captured Kyle at his best.
She is especially grateful for the efforts of Producers Chris Masson (WatchMojo), who co-writes the show, acts in the show and is also “hilarious;” Bunnygraph Entertainment’s John Heinsen, the Executive Producer of Citizen Kate, who helped put The WORST in front of a massive Facebook Watch audience; and executive producers Rosie Komadina and Ash Karbasfrooshan, CEO of WatchMojo.
The WORST is distributed by WatchMojo, a Canadian-based video content producer, publisher, and syndicator with over ten billion all-time video views and 17 million subscribers.
WatchMojo is widely recognized for its daily top-ten style videos about music, TV, film, and video games. The company’s recently released titles include Top 3 Shows You Need To Binge This Weekend, Top 10 Best and Worst Simpsons Video Games, and Top 10 Notorious Celebrity Gold Diggers, all of which came out on YouTube in May.
Hooking up with a series like The WORST was something of a new direction for the company, as was the vehicle it chose for distribution.
“Facebook Watch is a new channel, and they commissioned over a hundred shows to start that channel,” explains Lundin. “This is one of them.”
The director, likewise, got to flex some different muscles while making the show.
“It would really be a question of how to make the jokes funnier as we were filming, using camera movement, etc.,” she says. “I can do that all day everyday, because I like telling jokes. It satisfied the Mad Magazine in me.”
CREDITS
Series Directed by
Carey Lundin — (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Series Writing Credits
Kyle Gatehouse — (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Carey Lundin — (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Chris Masson — (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Series Produced by
John Heinsen — producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan — executive producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Rosie Komadina — executive producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Jon Michael Kondrath — producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Lesley Lopez — producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Chris Masson — story producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
John Thomas Schrad — field producer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Series Film Editing by
Peter Frintrup — (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Viktor Metelev — (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Series Sound Department
Leandra Dichirico — sound (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Matt Pacault — sound (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Matt Pacult — sound (2 episodes, 2017)
Series Camera and Electrical Department
Michael Mcclure — camera operator (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Joe Rosenblit — camera operator (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Series Editorial Department
Max Lett — graphics (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Chris Masson — graphics (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Series Other crew
Michelle Carter — marketing coordinator (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Karen Lee Cohen — production assistant (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan — chief executive officer (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Rosie Komadina — general manager (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Joshua Selinger — researcher (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Ryland Swartz — production assistant (5 episodes, 2017-2018)
Send news about your latest projects to Reel Chicago Dan Patton, dan@reelchicago.com.
