A former Cochranite is making the move from dancer to onscreen villain in the web series Project: Long Night.
“It’s been amazing,” Shawna Hawthorn, 28, said of the experience.
“The show is based around the idea of sometimes people have to cross some moral planes to advance technology,” said series creator Andrew Nagy, a former Airdrie resident.
The series centres around a nanite technology created by the fictional Armistic Technologies. The technology gives people the capability to operate at 110 per cent but has some very nasty side effects and turns users into Bio-Engineered Assault Shock Troop System (B.E.A.S.T.S).
These B.E.A.S.T.S escape quarantine, causing chaos and infecting the population.
Hawthorn, who now lives in Calgary, plays Nymaria, a former ballerina who has become one of the deadly B.E.A.S.T.S. She said the character allows her to draw from her own 25 years of dance experience.
“A lot of her fighting style has dance choreography and dance movement,” Hawthorn said.
Project: Long Night is Hawthorn’s first film role but she has been performing since she was a girl.
She was the overall winner in the 1997 Cochrane Youth Talent Festival, travelled to New York with the Youth Singers of Calgary and has toured all over Canada and Europe singing and dancing.
She said she is enjoying playing Nymaria and her darker personality.
“She’s the only female (B.E.A.S.T.S). She’s kind of twisted and is like a cat. She likes to play with her prey,” Hawthorn said.
Season one, which is currently in production, is being called Season Zero and includes five episodes that are each 30 minutes long. The season focuses on the back-stories of the characters involved and takes place over five years.
Nagy said each episode follows a different character and has overlaps from other characters stories explored throughout the season.
The series has more than 80 people involved in the production including Airdronians Adam Scotten and Devonn Drossel, who are acting in the production.
Nagy said all the cast and crew are working on a volunteer basis and bringing their own equipment to help make the project a success.
He said they hope to complete filming for season one by May and have it edited and online by November. He said he is hoping to air the show on zoweetv.com
Nagy, who lives in Calgary, said all the technology explored in the series is based off of technology that is either currently being developed or is plausible in the near future.
“We’ve obviously taken the technology and made it dark and evil in our world,” he said.
Hawthorn said science fiction is definitely a change for her and comes with a whole new set of rules.
“But at the same time it’s not as structured,” she said. “It kind of gives you more room to play and try different things.”
Nagy said he likes the sci-fi genre because it affords writers many different ways of approaching a huge variety of topics.
“Drama, in my opinion, is the strongest genre out there,” he said. “It’s personal and it draws you in.”
He said the ultimate goal for the series would be to have it continue and be picked up by a television network.
In the meantime, Hawthorn said she is just enjoying the process and loves working with a great cast and crew who have become her friends.
For more information on the series search Project: Long Night on Facebook.
