In 2008 Michelle Osorio and I wrote what would become the first two episodes in a four-part series called “Boomer’s Day Off”, a Left 4 Dead parody webseries that looked at the lives of the Special Infected from the game. It started off as a silly joke between the two of us – What if the Boomer had to call in sick? – and before I’d fully realized what was happening we were sat in a Mexican fast food restaurant with her Macbook working on a script.
The first episode went up in January of 2009, with the last going up in March of the same year. Since then the first episode has been viewed nearly 1.9 million times, the entire series has been shown at several conventions across the US, and now Boomer’s Day Off is listed on the IMDb.
It gets surprisingly plot-heavy for what is ostensibly a series of funny web videos. I’m not sure if that happened on purpose, but we ran with the idea for the last episode. The ending in particular is especially important – it was never about Oscar and Sheila’s relationship. They didn’t have one. Oscar was infatuated with Sheila, and Sheila used that to her advantage, but there was never any chance of the two of them becoming an item, and as we began writing episodes three and four it dawned on us that the true core of the story was Oscar and Todd’s friendship.
It’s probably the most successful thing I’ve ever worked on, and it’s something I’m incredibly proud of. Since Boomer’s Michelle and I have talked about working on other projects but it just hasn’t happened yet. Maybe in 2012, if we’re lucky.