Denver actors ham it up on Internet soap opera

By Eric Beteille Special to The Gazette

DENVER — So this is Denver. A drag queen singing "I’m a Little Teapot." A rich industrialist’s wife taunting houseguests. And a tech company still planning to go public. If these vignettes sound more like soap opera than real life, they are. They’re scenes from "City’s Edge," the first dramatic serial based in Colorado. Cast and crew hail from Colorado , filming at Denver landmarks such as Hotel Monaco and Mercury Café, but the audience comes from a broader geography: the Internet. Episodes are viewed exclusively at the show’s Web site, www. citysedge.tv. "City’s Edge" is from a new breed of Webisodes — serial dramas and comedies circumventing television for direct access to online audiences. Internet directory Yahoo! lists nearly 100 of them, from text-heavy therapy diaries such as "The Couch" to the colorfully animated "Adventures of Edward the Less." Unlike TV soaps, usually broadcast at the same time each day, Webisodes are posted more sporadically — often as cast and crew, largely volunteers, finish new segments. Viewers online needn’t follow a predetermined episode order, either. They can download any segment, any time. "City’s Edge," for example, produces just a couple of hours each year, posting six- to 10-minute segments for free download every couple of weeks. But this Colorado soap is one of the few Webisodes shot on broadcast-quality digital video, suitable for viewing full-screen on computer monitors and, someday, on TV or movie screens. It could happen — the spy spoof movie "Undercover Brother" originated as an animated Web series before being released this summer as a live-action Hollywood film. And "City’s Edge" often pays for talent, which includes veteran stage and commercial actor John Ashton a , regular at Denver’s Avenue Theater, and scriptwriter Edith Weiss a well-known comedienne and playwright. The stories on "City’s Edge" move more quickly and are more entertaining than their TV counterparts, according Bob Berg, the show’s producer. In fact, "City’s Edge" plays more like the youthfully edited MTV soap "Undressed" than the plodding story lines of "Guiding Light" or "Days of Our Lives." "It doesn’t take six months for (leading lady) Lexi to find out she’s interested in someone," Berg explained. "City’s Edge" also takes itself less seriously than a TV soap. One scene features an ignored date who ends up a stumbling drunk. Other scenes are laced with obvious , overplayed double-entendres. Broadcasting online means the series can "punch up the dialogue" and add a "little bit of oddness to the characters " , Berg said. A self-imposed PG-13 rating, based on Motion Picture Association of America guidelines, keeps a rein on racier action and helps align the Web soap with the federal government’s Child Online Protection Act. And the average video segment size of 20 to 30 megabytes means only viewers with high-speed Internet connections — DSL and T-1 lines at work, for example — are most likely to download and watch. Berg estimates "City’s Edge" has about 1,200 regular viewers from 30,000 monthly Web site visitors. For now, he is building the soap’s online audience to sell advertising — short commercials within episodes, online banner ads, perhaps product placements — and permanently avoid charging viewers.