Obsessions : Day 040

Beyond the thrill of hearing my site's URL mentioned every few weeks, I was lucky enough to have worlds collide privately on a number of occasions. In the first-season episode where Noel was invited to participate in a student gallery show, graphic panels of DAY 001, DAY 011 and DAY 021 from the Day For Night catalogue were enlarged and displayed on the set of Felicity for Noel's personal gallery showing; I also got namedropped in the fourth season when Noel and Sean had to present Noelcrane.com as a web design prototype to a prospective sporting goods client – also named Eric Scott.

Later during the third season, I updated his site independently of the show, in a move to keep it fresh, adding a completely Flash-based navigation, updated CraneFaces, and Noel's online plea-bargain for employment ("Hire Me - pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease"). This web portfolio got Noel the opportunity in Seattle which first, risked separating him from Felicity, then resulted in his inviting her to leave New York (and Ben) for an opportunity as co-curator of the web-arts projects he was to art direct. When the "dot-bomb" ended, and Noel stayed in NYC, he was able to use the site to extend his personal growth while building up his solo design business before the team joined forces and were absorbed into Webb Graphics.

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A quaint irony exists in both the quantity and quality of e-mail flooding the server, from an audience both delighted and disoriented by the site’s in-character approach. Television’s fourth wall had not been broken here.

Of those who made repeat visits, the appearance of a mostly-finished site waiting there for them prompted a few bewildered messages on Noel’s e-mail server.
Who are you? I know you’re not really Noel Crane, so who maintains this site? e-mail me @...

I expected this site to say something like “wow, you really watch tv too closely if you’re actually looking for this website.” ...Are you Scott Foley?”

The majority of mail returning to the site was principally complimentary; some notes written by people also “in character” with Kelvin Hall’s residential policy, a friendly wink to the site’s deadpan promotional nature.

I’m a little computer illiterate. Could you come to room 408 to help me with my browser?...Thanx—- I’m 2 doors down on the left ; )

I think it’s hilarious that there is an actual Noel Crane website! ...This is great.

Noel...could you please update it? It’s not difficult, you know? There *are* weekends.

An early decision was made to keep Noel off-line as webmaster, principally for cost and organizational reasons. After all, who would be Noel every day?

Who would make time to respond to every playful request for advice, or respond to a legitimate cry for help? A qualified therapist? A former resident advisor?
; - ) Noel...himself?

Lacking an obvious solution for this startup concept, an agreement was established with the producers to portray Noel as a real student with a real website, but the catch was that “his e-mail server would be down”; for legal reasons, Noel would be personally out of touch with his fans, due to an unspecified technical problem. This way Noel would keep harassing his Internet Service Provider, hopefully the volumes of mail flooding in might show a way for the online future of Noel.

At time of writing, the issue of who will answer Noel’s e-mail remains unresolved. Noelcrane.com has been added to dozens of fan sites and logged into hundreds of search engine entries from its beginnings as word of mouth.

The site has succeeded in creating synchronous movement between Noel’s web world and its public peer, Felicity, via a website which continues to inform the show’s character and vice-versa.

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)