A few weeks ago, I received a message from a filmmaker who I dearly respect. She told me she finished the first season of Docket 32357 and she believed it was a game changer. She recently finished her own web series and she grew increasingly frustrated with the medium. After watching Docket she expressed to me that her faith in the format was rekindled. I bring up this story not as a pat on the back, although it is always great to read such words, but because it gets to the heart of why Docket 32357 was made in the first place. When Eljon and I made the short film version, we did it because we loved the characters. They were vulnerable. They were alone. They were human. That humanity is what grasped our audience. Our supporters saw themselves on the screen. They clamored for more of the story and it forced us to create the web series. This is a project that was truly created solely for the people and in some ways by the people. It wouldn’t have existed if they didn’t demand it. As a filmmaker, that is the very definition of success.
Our goal for the first season of the web series was to create a quality story and make it easily accessible for our audience. Now one of our primary goals is to become a standard for dramatic narrative storytelling on the web series platform. We want Docket to be a recognizable brand a la High Maintenance, Awkward Black Girl and Black and Sexy Tv that is synonymous with high quality content in a burgeoning medium that will soon be the primary source of audience consumption. I have unwavering faith that our second season can do that. The intent of the second season is to have a larger scope, more intimate storylines and more dynamic, complex characters than the first season. Simply put, we are looking to outdo ourselves. The exciting part in all of this is that we have an established audience that is expecting all of this from us.
I also take great pride in the diversity that we have not only in front of the camera, but behind it. I feel a responsibility to the tell the stories of people who fall outside of the mainstream. It means a great deal to present the complexity and humanity of characters and communities that do not get as much exposure to an audience as they should. It is also imperative that my collaborators are diverse as well. Our screenwriter is a black woman. Our producers are a Jewish woman, a black woman and a black man. Our crew is from varied walks of life. These experiences and backgrounds make the story well rounded. It enhances the narrative we see on screen. I am very proud of that.
We consider Docket 32357 the people’s web series and we are eager to expand its scope and impact.
-Randy Wilkins, Director