“The New Twenties” & “Punanny Diaries” (Web Series)

By Tambay, on June 18th, 2010

The web is the new frontier, as we’ve already mentioned on this blog. The production and distribution of content has been effectively democratized… for better and for worse, as content creators (including filmmakers) are aggressively taking advantage, as I believe they should. And the web series is just one of many products to emerge from those exploits.

We’ve already featured a few black web series on this blog. I’m learning that there are indeed quite a lot of them actually. It makes it difficult, and even daunting to weed through the bunch, and isolate the gems. And I admit I haven’t had the time to really do that, although it’s been on my calendar. Those I feature on this blog are usually sent to me by the creators. I guess that’s what you have to do if you want attention – instead of waiting to be found, let us know you exist. Aymar Jean Christian’s blog is probably a good place to start if you’re interested in finding out what’s out there, with regards to black web series specifically.

I received emails earlier in the month from the creators of the web series titles in the header – The New Twenties, created by Tracy Taylor, and The Punanny Diaries, created by a group of AFI grads (Phill Branch, Lisa Robinson, Sunny Fuller, Yolanda Buggs, and Shawnte McCall) and HBCU friends.

The New Twenties recently aired on television as part of the New York Television Festival’s NYTVF spotlight show, and may actually end up as its own TV series; also, it’ll screen at Writer’s Guild West as part of their first Web Series Showcase June 30th.

I haven’t watched enough of either series to fully form an opinion of them, but I just wanted to get them up here for the rest of you to check out, as I’ve been sitting on them for a bit. I embedded trailers for both series below. If after watching them you are intrigued enough to want to watch full episodes of each, here are links you’ll need to know: first to watch episodes of The New Twenties, CLICK HERE. I believe the series is up to episode 6 currently; and for The Punanny Diaries, which also looks to be at episode 6, CLICK HERE.

Afterward, be sure to let the rest of us (and the creators) know what you think; constructive feedback is a good thing!

Here are trailers for both; first, The New Twenties:

And here’s the trailer for The Punanny Diaries: