Mesh Flinders
Mesh Flinders (born 1979) [1] is a screenwriter best known for creating the groundbreaking lonelygirl15 video series which received international attention during the summer months of 2006.
Flinders grew up along the California coast north of San Francisco, and attended St. Vincent's high school in Petaluma, CA. He graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles.,[2] While there Flinders wrote about an alter-ego, the home schooled girl who would eventually become Bree, and told fireside tales about her as a camp counselor in Maine.[3]
Flinder's first film was called "In the Time of My Undoing," [4] which won the 2003 Occidental College student film award.[5]
Flinders' short film "Pond" is about a high school age girl (not unlike the later character Bree on lonelygirl15) who gets left behind on a museum field trip and meets the ghost of the museum's famous architect. Together they solve the mystery of his confinement, freeing the architect from his museum purgatory, and helping Ana find something to care about.[5] The Pond screenplay won the Panavision Young Writer's award in 2004.[6][7] "Pond" was premiered at the 2006 New York Short Film Festival,[8] and was an official selection in many other film festivals including the 2007 Sacramento Film Festival [9] and 2006 Spokane International Film Festival.[10]
In early 2006, Flinders was working as an assistant in the entertainment industry and maker of short films [11] when he met Beckett at a karaoke bar birthday party. Beckett had the idea to tell a story about a videoblogger on YouTube, and Flinders had the perfect character.[12] The duo quickly set about planning, writing scripts and held a casting call.[13] Around the time the series began, Flinders and Beckett contacted Greg Goodfried for legal advice.[3] The three eventually became known as The Creators.[14]
Bree's bedroom in the lonelygirl15 series was in fact Flinders' apartment. Most of the girlie accessories in the room were purchased at Target and thrift stores.[3][15]
After Lonelygirl15 was revealed as fictional, Flinders, Beckett, and Goodfried founded Telegraph Ave. Productions to develop other web series and to support "online buzz" for movies and TV shows.[16]
Flinders has hosted a number of new media related talks, including ones in June 2007 for The Hollywood and Games Summit [17] and in September 2007 for the Flash Point Academy.[7]
Flinders wrote, edited, and/or directed more than 200 episodes of LG15 before leaving the production at the end of 2007 to work exclusively on film projects.[18] Telegraph Ave. Productions subsequently became EQAL in mid-2008.[19]
Flinders currently lives in Brooklyn [20] where he recently completed a short film, "Further Ln." [21] which premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival in April, 2010.
In 2013, it was announced in Filmmaker Magazine that Flinders' first film God of Rain and Thunder was selected for IFP's Emerging Storytellers program[22] at Lincoln Center in September 2013 and will be produced by Neda Armian (Armian Pictures.)
References
- ^ "Mesh Flinders on LGPedia".
- ^ Faught, Andy (October 5, 2006). "Alumnus is Behind "lonelygirl15"". Occidential College.
- ^ a b c Davis, Joshua (2006-12). "The Secret World of Lonelygirl". Retrieved 2009-09-04.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Golden, Dane (September 20, 2006). "Co-creator of 'lonelygirl15' hails from Petaluma". Petaluma Argus-Courier.
- ^ a b http://meshflinders.com/Films.html. Retrieved 2009-09-04.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Text "Mesh Flinders - Film" ignored (help) - ^ . SPIKE. Dec. 29, 2006 http://www.spike.com/video/pond/2809625cmpnid=717&pt=sr&refsite=8875#.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ a b "mesh flinders - fiw october 2007". Flashpoint - The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences.
- ^ "New York Short Film Festival - 2006 Awards".
- ^ Sacramento Film Festival Website (Dec. 18, 2006), Accessed 2009-09-04]
- ^ A foreign escape, Spokane7.com (Feb. 2, 2006), Accessed 2009-09-04
- ^ Rushfield, Richard (September 13, 2006). "Lonelygirl15 Video Blog Is Brainchild of 3 Filmmakers - Abstract". LA Times.
- ^ Gentile, Gary (September 12, 2006). "Creators Confess to Lonelygirl15 Mystery". San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press).
- ^ Rushfield, Richard (September 13, 2006). "Lonelygirl15 Video Blog Is Brainchild of 3 Filmmakers". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Atkinson, Kent (September 13, 2006). "Lonelygirl15 revealed as 19-year-old NZ actress". New Zealand Herald.
- ^ Flinders, Mesh. (Interview). Interviewed by Bill Weir http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3KXqyRoQwU.
{{cite interview}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Unknown parameter|callsign=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|city=ignored (|location=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|program=ignored (help) - ^ Lonelygirl15 Creators Woo Mad Ave, Launch Production Co., Clickz.com (Dec. 1, 2006), accessed 2009-09-04
- ^ "The Second Annual Hollywood and Games Summit - Speakers".
- ^ Flinders, Mesh. "mesh's blog: Moving on..."
- ^ "EQAL, Inc.: Private Company Information".
- ^ http://meshflinders.com/Bio.html.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help); Text "Mesh Flinders - Bio" ignored (help) - ^ "Wunderlust Pictures".
- ^ http://filmmakermagazine.com/74943-ifp-announces-2013-independent-film-week-selected-projects/