STEPHANIE K. SMITH
screenwriter/producer
New Frontiers
Iris Expanding, FTVS, Fox Digital, The CW
The year was 2006. I was a young aspiring creator and Hearst was looking for a new media property for Cosmpolitan. YouTube was in its early stages and Lonely Girl 15 hadn't yet begun to air. The term transmedia didn't yet exist. But they told me to think big.
This brand-supported, organically-integrated, cross-platform series was the result. (Click the above -- or the Iris Expanding logo -- for transmedia property overview.)
I wound up selling Iris Expanding to Fox Television Studios, who funded the adjacent sizzle reel, which I wrote, produced and edited myself on a shoestring. We then sold the series to The CW, who promptly nixed all the new media components, hired me to write a premise pilot and actually wound up ordering the script to pilot presentation (which I was lucky enough to EP and edit).
Then, they killed their comedy division.
While the experience was all a huge compliment to my voice as a writer, it was always the concept -- a truly organic integration of media from a story perspective -- that interested me most. This is the way I think and these cross-platform projects are the kinds of ideas I'd love to be working on.
Woven Digital/Woven Studios (UPROXX)
High volume, branded content creation (ideation, scripting, etc.) for clients including the following:
Stephanie Says
National Lampoon: The Zaz Report
A satirical column offering non-soliticed advice to celebrities of all stripes, Stephanie Says ran for two years on National Lampoon's The Zaz Report and included appearances on Lampoon Radio with Nadine Rajabi. Sadly, the column ended in 2009 and all of my favorites -- from Dear Katherine Heigl (wherein I advised the then-maligned star how to be more likable by engaging in a public struggle to quit smoking), to Dear Jennifer Aniston (in which I proposed getting the ultimate revenge on The Jolie-Pitts by seducing then-candidate Obama), to Dear Juno (when I advised the fictional character played by Ellen Page that she should really take her pregnancy at age 16 more seriously), are lost forever in the annals of the internet's deleted files...
Except Dear Tom Brady, which I still had attached to an ancient email.
Enjoy!
Dear David Duchovny
Strike TV
Two days after I became a full-fledged, voting member of the Writers Guild of America, we went on strike. And so it was that the pre-cursor to Stephanie Says was born. Not advice, but a comedic/satiric chronicle of one newly professional writer's time on the line, Dear David Duchovny was exactly what it sounds like... and got enough attention that X-Files fans began sending treats to the picket line.
Mood Swings
The Cradle/Giggle.com
My blog (originally titled Pregnant Pause) was acquired by now-defunct, Webby-Award winning site, The Cradle, shortly before it was bought by giggle.com. There, Pregnant Pause ran in the "Cradle Chatter" (sponsored blog) section, as Mood Swings.