Joining
the nerd herd

Howie Pun and Jonathan Starr go online
with the Web series Geeks Underground

DORK DREAMS: Starr and Pun

by MATTHEW HAYS

It didn’t take long for Howie Pun and Jonathan Starr to get in touch with their inner geeks. The two met while studying communications last year at Concordia, and realized they had several interests in common. They spent a lot of time online, they liked comedy and both were surrounded by social circles of geeks.

And they were also struck by the mediocrity of so much of the online content. “Spending hours surfing the Web for videos can get tiresome when there’s hardly any good content to look for,” says Starr. “My initial inspiration came from watching other Web series over the net, such as We Need Girlfriends and The Guild. I basically saw these as Web series and felt that the net could use more of them.”

Pun says that another local Web series, Take Me Back, also proved inspiring. “That show was being released while we were in pre-production. They were just two guys and a camera, and we thought, ‘If they can do it, why can’t we?’”

Thus Pun and Starr hatched the pilot for Geeks Underground, an eight-part Web series that will unravel one episode per month (see it at geeksunderground.com). The nutty comedy features an ensemble of nerdy characters navigating their way through their often fraught friendships. Pun and Starr have done well with their limited resources—if the budget is obviously low, it acts in their favour, and the entire affair is buoyed by keen writing and sharp performances.

“My friends and I would spend our time playing games and watching movies in basements and living rooms,” recalls Starr. “Naturally I wanted to do something with that world. It’s not a mirror image of my friends, but that’s where the idea was sparked. We decided to add a maniacal computer and a few girls into the mix.”

And for all of the bad news about a media recession (or depression) and the difficulties in getting a foot in the door of one of the major broadcasters, Pun says going online made perfect sense in terms of self-distribution. “Since Google rules the world, broadcasting Geeks Underground on the Internet is probably the quickest way to reach people, most of whom are already surfing. And seeing other locally produced Web series like Take Me Back able to get their shows online with very modest budgets, it has given us even more confidence to join the club.”