NZ's Lonelygirl15 takes another crack at web stardom

THE NEW SOAPS: Video sharing websites like YouTube are luring viewers away from TV and movies. Pictured is a Lonelygirl15 clip, starring New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.

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Two years after she became a YouTube sensation, "Lonelygirl15", New Zealand actress Jessica Lee Rose, has another gig on the internet.

Rose has been cast in a new online series Blood Cell, a thriller directed and written by indie film-maker Eduardo Rodriguez, the Los Angeles Times reports.

A former Mt Maunganui student, Rose became a viral video star at the age of 19, posing as an American teenager known as Bree, or Lonelygirl15, in an online video diary.

Amateur detectives on the internet eventually exposed her as being backed by scriptwriters and producers.

Almost two years after Lonelygirl15, no internet series has yet established a viable, let alone profitable, "webisodic" series.

But Rose, now almost 21, will play a character, Julia, for production company 60Frames Entertainment in a bid to do just that.

She will race against time to save her kidnapped friend from an unseen murderer who will talk to her only via her fancy photo- and video-enabled cellphone.

The horror-thriller will cost less than $US5000 ($NZ6410) an episode to film and will be syndicated by 60Frames to play on a range of social networking sites, including Bebo, Blip.tv, iTunes, MySpace as well as YouTube.

Revenue-sharing deals allow the creators to get a piece of the advertising payments no matter where their shows are watched.

60Frames chief executive Brent Weinstein, whose company has 32 series in active production or postproduction, said Blood Cell will expand the notion of what works online.

"Thrillers can work, dramatic series can work – this is something that we think really can prove that there's an audience out there," he said

The Hollywood Reporter showbusiness website said that a trailer for the 18-episode series has been released on DeadCellDeadFriend.com, but no screening date has been announced.  

- NZPA