Production Begins on 8 Hour Long Episodes From BIG VIDA Entertainment
New York – Robert Rodriguez’s El Rey Network is not sitting on the laurels of their hit show From Dusk Til Dawn which was picked up for a 2nd thirteen episode season only two weeks after its premiere. They have since announced the production of Matador, a intrigue and spy show and now their latest the Cutting Crew. Today El Rey announced the start of production on their new unscripted series Cutting Crew that explores the edgy artistry of a dynamic team of barbers who have made a name for themselves by thinking outside the stylist box. Produced by BIG VIDA Entertainment for El Rey Network, Cutting Crew is comprised of eight, hour-long installments and will premiere fall 2014.
The fast and furious TV network has come out strong with original scripted and now, non-scripted shows, creating a buzz among audiences, while veering off the conventional Hollywood TV blueprint, which also has the industry insiders paying close attention.
Focusing on barbers is already a proven and profitable theme. We are talking about the MGM franchise Barbershop in 2002 ($77 million in box office revenue to date), which starred Ice Cube and introduced Cedric the Entertainer to a mass audience. It also spawned a sequel in 2004 and the Showtime series Barbershop: The Series.
“The goal for Big Vida has been to capture great characters and focus on what other’s might miss. Barbers are the next hip hop artists and we set out to find a “real” group. We just happened to find it in Pennsylvania,” said BIG VIDA Entertainment’s Executive Vice President Flavio Morales. “The shop is genuine and it really captures what the new America looks like”.
Cutting Crew will be taking a look at the “artistry” of the new age barbers, showcasing their masterful motifs that are anything but ordinary. Whether they are executing a simple fade, an elaborate or memorable design, or they are shaving back hair into the shape of a Batman emblem, the passionate team of “scissor-happy” artistes use razors and clippers to get the job done.
While this team is serious about their craft, there is nothing serious about the raucous crew that work for award-winning barber Amit Corso who opened his shop outside of Philadelphia in 2005 (after spending most of his young life tortured by his mother’s DIY haircuts).
Corso’s team of specialists include:
Dré Gonzalez, Amit’s right hand when things get busy and a barber who has been honing his scissory skills for over a decade. The entertainer in the group has a few annoying habits – being tardy for one – and is known for pushing the staff’s buttons whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Alex, a.k.a. “Controversy,” is a loud, outrageous former employee of Amit’s who is looking to get back into his good graces after leaving for a brief stint in Miami.
Gabriel “Gaby” Rivera seems like the quiet one but is actually the resident instigator-he argues for the sake of arguing and using the commotion as a way of getting under the skin of his fellow cutters.
Other members of the team include leading ladies: Destiny “Dessi” Bell, one of Corso’s barbering students starting a new life after serving in the Army; Caroline Winkler, apprenticing at the shop after failing to get along with the girls at cosmetology school: and Bryan Sanchez, a 22-year-old father of three who’s the jokester in the group, and revels in taking part in the high-jinks that keep the team on its toes.
In between the fades and shaves, this band of barbers real live gets caught on camera, bickering, drama, and jokes in hopes of engaging the audience by also showing their personal side.
Cutting Crew is produced by BIG VIDA Entertainment for El Rey Network. Executive Producers are: Sergio Alfaro, Flavio Morales, John Ehrhard and FactoryMade Ventures and El Rey Network co-founders John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa.
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