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With only one season of seven seven-minute episodes, the web series Gifted Corporation has won several awards at international festivals and has a large number of online followers, especially in the US.  This series, created by Basques Rose of Dolls and Oliver Mend, was conceived and recorded in Bilbao, and its authors are already working on a second season. 

Bilbao, Bizkaia.   The web series Gifted Corporation debuted on social media nearly a year ago and has already toured the international festival circuit, where it has been awarded 15 prizes, and enjoys internet followers from several countries, especially in the US.  To the extent that it has caught the attention of North American studies.  Its creators, Oliver Mend and Rose of Dolls, have just returned from the US where they had spent several months studying new projects.

“The truth is that the series has been focused on the foreigner.  That is why we film I English in it is situated in the US,” Oliver Mend, Co-Director told EuskalKultura.com.  The seven episodes that are 7 minutes long keep the spectator in constant intrigue, while getting to know a series of characters with strange powers. 

First Season Trailer

The first season was filmed in Bilbao with a minimal budget and a team of 100 people who worked together to put together 49 minutes of action and mystery.  Nevertheless, Mend makes it clear that the project has a lot of work behind it.  “Rose and I studied Fine Arts, and we have done video clips and shorts.  She started to get interested in web series, and in May of 2013, we started working seriously on Gifted Corporation.  Until February of 2014, we were still devising the series, thinking how to do it.  And so once we started filming and editing it all went very quickly.”

The actors in the series are mainly locals, with some non-natives but who live in Bizkaia.  Their accents are very different but they have been very well received.  “The subject of accents is noticed more here than abroad.  In the US, for example, there are many Latinos and they don’t mind,” Mend says. “Sometimes we had to choose between someone who would speak perfect English, but who may not act as well, or vice versa.  We finally found a balance.”

The creators are now working on a second season that will have 14 episodes that are 14-minutes long.  “The script has been written almost from the beginning.  “We are going to maximize everything: more minutes, more action, with characters that the audience wants, the best-loved.”

While waiting for the next season to follow the mystery that is Gifted anyone wishing to watch season one can do so here: www.giftedcorporation.com.