The LA Times and The New York Times have followed up a Silicon Valley blog that revealed Lonelygirl15 Is Brainchild of 3 Filmmakers or The Lonelygirl That Really Wasn't.
According to the NYT:
The masterminds of the Lonelygirl15 videos are Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, Calif., and Miles Beckett, a doctor turned filmmaker. The high quality of the videos caused many users to suspect a script and production crew, but Bree's bedroom scenes were shot in Mr. Flinders's home, in his actual bedroom, typically using nothing more than a Logitech QuickCam, a Web camera that retails for about $150.
Yesterday on Silicon Valley Watcher, Matt Foremski, the 18-year-old son of former Financial Times reporter Tom Foremski, was the first to identify Bree as New Zealand-born actress Jessica Rose.
The New York Times says:
The discovery and the swift and subsequent revelation of other details surrounding the perpetrators of the videos and the fake fan site that accompanied it are bringing to an end one of the Internet's more elaborately constructed mysteries. The fans' disbelief in Lonelygirl15 was not willingly suspended, but rather teased and toyed with. Whether they will embrace the project as a new narrative form, condemn it or simply walk away remains to be seen.
Comment: In one sense, it's good that the Lonelygirl15 spoof was done with minimal equipment, and that anyone could have done it. But it bites the legs off the story, unless (for example) some studio signs them up to turn it into a movie....
