New biker comedy series ‘The Clandestine’ has begun filming in Belfast with YouTube star and actress Milana Vayntrub playing the lead role.
Vayntrub stars as the female lead who forms a secret outlaw motorcycle club with a group of geeks in Belfast. Billed as ‘Sons of Anarchy’ meets ‘The Office’, the thirteen-part webseries promises to bring both bikes and belly-aches to Belfast with 13 five-minute episodes.
The series, set in Belfast and the surrounding countryside, will delve into the subculture of bikers in Northern Ireland.
Belfast-native Kieran Doherty (Just For Laughs, Secret Fortune) wrote the script, with Joseph Campo of Video Hacker producing and directing. Darryl Collins of Banjax is the executive producer. A number of Irish bands have contributed to the soundtrack.
Producer Campo initially sought funding through crowd funding website Kickstarter. This online campaign resulted in the project gaining international recognition, with ‘Sons of Anarchy’ creator Kurt Sutter, who brought season two of his FX show to Belfast to film, tweeting “I pledged a dollar” and a YouTube sales development manager declaring the show was “fascinating”.
‘The Clandestine’ has since received funding from Northern Ireland Screen supported by Invest NI and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund.
Campo said: “’The Clandestine’ grew out of our video production work for Gingerparts.com (a motorcycle shop which is sponsoring the webseries). My executive producer, Darryl Collins, and I learnt a lot about motorcycle subculture in Ireland from Nick and thought it would make a hilarious comedy series for the web. Shooting in and around Belfast lets us capture the black humour that seems to be bred in to people from Northern Ireland.”
Two episodes have already been completed and can be seen on www.TheClandestine.tv.
Richard Williams, CEO of Northern Ireland Screen, acknowledged the importance of investing in the webseries: “The digital content arena is an increasing and potentially high-growth area; Northern Ireland Screen has embraced digital content within its overall strategy and we are actively looking for value projects to develop and fund.
“We are delighted to see the emergence of new companies such as Video Hacker who are establishing a meaningful presence in Northern Ireland and working together with Northern Ireland talent to produce exciting new content.”
