ONLINE DATING, ONLINE SHOW
Web series explores the single life
While she was busy online dating, Brianne Nord- Stewart couldn’t help but think her first dates were great fodder for her budding film career.
According to the online dating site eHarmony, a quarter of all Canadians aged 18 to 34 have tried online dating. But it was NordStewart who turned her multitude of mismatches into a web series.
The series, called The Dangers of Online Dating, is set to go online Nov. 23. The nine episodes, each around five minutes long, will be released on a weekly basis.
“When I first started thinking about writing the show it really seemed like every date I was going on was an episode — a selfcontained episode,” Vancouver’s Nord- Stewart said.
Like the time the guy who did his homework ( sort of ) and showed up to a first date with seemingly thoughtful gifts for Nord- Stewart.
“One of the gifts was a CD of an artist I liked but he hadn’t checked the CD case, he bought it from a yard sale or something, and there may not have been a CD even in the case. I think it was an empty CD case,” Nord- Stewart said. “There was a ’ zine, an artists’ magazine, and then a book on The Matrix the movie because, since I was a filmmaker, I must love The Matrix.”
That guy’s one- date status was later sealed when he got “weird” on voicemail.
Nord- Stewart, whose resume includes music videos, features and shorts, says even in the five short years since shooting the first half of the series ( the latter was shot this past spring) the online universe has changed big time.
“It’s been very interesting that it used to be this very taboo thing you don’t tell anyone about and now its just, ‘ Oh yeah we’re getting married and we met on Tinder,’” said Nord- Stewart, who as an early online dating adopter used Vancouver- based Plenty of Fish. That service today boasts close to 100 million users.
So were there really plenty of fish on Plenty of Fish?
Nord- Stewart says yes, as often she found herself on three first dates a week. But you know there’s that old quality versus quantity thing. It seems there are plenty of people ( 53 per cent of online daters, according to eHarmony) who are not that truthful when it comes to their personal profiles. The most common fibs are found in the realm of height, weight, age and jobs.
There’s always this unknown, roll- of- the- dice factor that figures into online dating and delivers great moments for a funny series about online dating.
At the centre of The Dangers of Online Dating is Paula ( Paula Burrows) a nurse in the sexual health field. Nord- Stewart’s older sister, Alisha, is also in that field.
“I was definitely thinking about my sister being a ( sexual health) nurse and her profession and what I was going through online dating,” Nord- Stewart said. “I thought it was a really good conflict to have someone who stares at chlamydia all day try and go out and have nonmonogamous, non- committed sex. Putting your biggest fear up against your current desire and the two of them just clash.”
Yes, that conflict should give you some idea of the tone of the series. You root for Paula but you also want to see her squirm a bit.
Burrows and Nord- Stewart met years ago on the set of a music video. The pair hit it off and became pals — the kind of pals that share things.
“I definitely got to enjoy her stories of online dating,” said Kamloops- raised Burrows about living vicariously through Nord- Stewart.
The character Paula has a couple close friends who encouraged her to put herself out there. They help with profiles and offer up friendly pushes out the door. Paula easily could have ended up as a desperate urbanite toiling by day and trying too hard by night, but the NordStewart- penned stories avoid the sad sack singleton yarn.
“It’s a girl living in the big city who has this urban family of friends around her but who desperately wants and needs a soulmate. But she doesn’t want to sacrifice any of her rules,” said Burrows of her on screen persona. “Being a sexual health nurse, she really is careful about STI’s and that’s something that comes up. She wants an intimate relationship and the joys of that and she wants to make sure it’s safe. I think she has had trouble dating. She hasn’t done very well. We see her being frustrated a lot of the time and not meeting the one, but that’s the joy of the show, getting to meet all the strange fellas she dates.”
Nord- Stewart’s end game is to marry The Dangers of Online Dating to a TV network, but she took it to the web first because of access and affordability — two big reasons you can’t swing an iPhone charger without hitting someone who has made a web series. Nord- Stewart also produced the 2016 web series Young and Reckless.