Josh Schwartz's 'Rockville' -- live bands, not sexist
TCA -- Josh Schwartz gets a tricky question right out of the gate for the panel of his TheWB.com online-only series "Rockville," about the goings-on in a music club that features performances by indie rock bands. A reporter says she couldn't quite get into the show because "these seemingly empowered women are pining after rock stars and that bothered me a little."
Schwartz's comic timing is quick off-the-cuff: "Because that's never happened before," he says, with perfect Seth Cohen-sarcasm.
He then adds, seriously: "They're finding themselves as adults they're in that transitional phase ... when you're in your twenties music, and people who make the music, seem like The Man ... If you've seen any of my other work, you know the geek ends up getting the girl."
The series will debut March 17 with four episodes (each about four-minutes each) then will switch to about two or three new episodes each week until the show ends. Unlike on "The OC," visiting bands actually perform live when taping the show.
Q: If episode is only four minutes, and somebody performs a song, then where the rest of the song?
"The band performance might be 15-20 seconds," he says, adding that viewers will be able to watch the entire music performance separately online as part of the site. The production is also considering a DVD version.
Q: But what if the CW and other networks get the idea that you're willing to work and produce a project for so much less than the cost of a regular television show?
A: "The people at Warner Bros. will ensure that doesn't happen."
Asked after the panel if the show could, if successful, become a TV series, Schwartz says he wouldn't rule it out, but notes "Rockville" was designed with single-set and narrow storyline focus appropriate for a low-budget series with a short running time.
"If we were going to do that, it would have to be re-conceived," he says.
"I don't know this is the final result, that we're going to make five-minute episodes of things," Schwartz adds of the series' next-generation format. "But that's what makes this exciting."
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