Hypable speaks with Benny Fine, one half of the dynamic duo behind breakout web series MyMusic and the viral YouTube React series.
At Hypable we are big fans of MyMusic, and are excited to announce that we will be featuring the show in a series of profiles on the MyMusic team. Our interview with Benny Fine (pictured left, with brother Rafi) kicks off this series.
MyMusic is a web series sitcom that is a mix of 30 Rock, The Office and Parks and Recreation – if they were set in a music production office.
The show was created by The Fine Brothers, and stars Grace Helbig, Adam Busch, Jack Douglass and Toby Turner. MyMusic season 2 has also seen the introduction of new cast member Lee Newton.
Hypable: How much of each characters was developed around these specific actors, or were the basics in place before casting?
Benny Fine: None actually. We had the show scripted and knew who these characters were, and found actors that fit the roles. Once they were cast, some re-writes were made and the characters have evolved since then, but everything was laid out prior to casting.
Do you have a long game for ‘MyMusic’, or are you working on a season by season basis?
We have big ideas in the long game, but as is the nature of even TV shows, you just don’t know what you’ll be able to do in that much time to plan in a massive way. We know where we’d like things to head though, and hope to see it through.
Despite your huge success on YouTube (or perhaps because of it), do you have any plans to move the show to TV?
Yes, definitely. It’s a big goal for our company to be transmedia, with shows both on TV and on the web. Whether it’s MyMusic that gets that chance or another series, we think there is exciting synergy to be tapped into with our large audience supporting us on television.
Take us through the creation and maintaining of the transmedia elements – who operates the various social media accounts?
It’s a team effort between ourselves, the writing staff, and the actors have access as well if they ever want to dive in. The game plan was set into motion during the script phase, and we modify and come up with new concepts weekly at our “MyMusic Universe Meeting”.
How much of the extra shows, like ‘The Mosh’, ‘Gaming with Metal’ and ‘Tumblr Tuesday’ is scripted, or are they improvised by the actors?
There’s a healthy combination of scripted and improvisation. The Podcast though is fully off the cuff.
You seem to love spoilers – what was your favourite thing to film on season 2?
Though we have an entire series on our channel all about spoiling things, we won’t spoil here! I’d say generally my favorite scenes are when the entire cast are together in one scene. Whenever that happens it’s a great time.
What is the biggest challenge you face with ‘MyMusic’?
Creating a TV size project with TV size production values on nothing close to a TV size budget. And we’re making five shows a week on that same, small budget. We understand how to do that, but it’s very difficult.
What musical stereotypes do you each fit?
We’re a bit of Metal and a bit of Indie. Metal’s hair style was based off of Rafi’s hair in high school which was all spiked up like the Nu-Metal fan he was. I’m known to be quite the music elitist, but making MyMusic has softened my tendencies to do that and I’m much more open to music genres now.
You currently have kids, teens, elders and YouTubers reacting to viral videos – do you plans to branch out into another demographic?
We definitely have ideas for more elements of the React format, stay tuned!
With regards to your other projects – what else can we expect from you coming up?
We’re pretty crazy with the production around MyMusic Season 2 but we’ve got roughly a dozen other projects in different stages of development and early production. We’re also working on a 2 part interactive game that we’ll be announcing soon!