Caper - Mike Sizemore

Caper was a nine-part award-winning web show, originally for YouTube, that later aired on Hulu.

It was an idea that I’d been chewing over for a while and was intended as a comic book – a group of second-tier superheroes struggling to pay the rent try their hand at being bad guys – I’d fleshed out a few characters and had the bones of a decent story but at the time was mostly focussed on work in LA. I was staying with my friend, Amy Berg, (who has made a lot of TV) and mentioned the idea of down on their luck idiots with super powers trying to pull a caper… As luck would have it this was on the same day that Felica Day had mentioned her company, Geek & Sundry, were about to start working on a series of web shows and were looking for ideas. A day or so later we pitched it to Felicia who loved it and we had a green light.

Amy’s background in TV meant we approached our (pretty low budget) show as if it was a broadcast show and we did everything properly (and expensively) in order to do it right. We banged out the scripts fuelled by dark rum and darker coffee and began the casting process. That’s where we really stuck gold with Abby Miller (Justified), Beth Riesgraf (Leverage), Hartley Sawyer (The Flash) and Harry Shum, Jr. (Glee). Our supporting cast were also incredible: Colin Ferguson (Eureka!), Robert Craighead (Return of the Living Dead), James Callis (Battlestar Galactica), Helen Slater (Supergirl), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Ricco Ross (Aliens), Joel Gretsch (The 4400) and Aldis Hodge (Straight Outta Compton). The music was composed by Emmy winner Joseph LoDuca (The Evil Dead). Our director was Donald Murphy who usually worked with the Coen Brothers and Clint Eastwood.

Crazy, right?

My long suffering, but always game for something new, pal Dave and his brother Pete took on the artistic weight of bringing the ‘action’ sequences to life via comic-book style cut scenes. I was on set for most of the shoot and had an absolute blast and learned a lot. Like a lot. Caper was released in 2014 to enthusiastic reviews and won a number of awards (full list at the bottom of the page). The damn thing even got nominated by the Writers Guild of America. Pretty good going for an idea that I was planning to be a 24 page one-off.

A decade on and it’s a little clunky in parts and you can see where we really stretched our budget here and there, but overall it still stands up and I’m incredibly proud of it and all the amazing talented people that worked on it. It’s probably the one thing I’ve written that has the most heart and to see that brought to life was an amazing experience.

You can watch the entire series here: