HOMEGIRLS
Homegirls (originally titled and marketed as Stories: Homegirls) is a comedy-drama web series created, written, and executive produced by Juwan Chambers and Albert Christie. The show follows the lives of a group of college girlfriends: Brooke, Simone, Layla, and Alexis. This is the screenwriting debut for Christie and the first series produced for Switch Up Entertainment. It premiered on YouTube at 6:30 pm Thursday, October 4, 2018, ranking in 236 views in the first 24 hours, beating their personal record set by Say Our Names. The episodes were released weekly every Thursday at 6:30 pm.
In 2017, Chambers was inspired to make a web series for his spring thesis after neglecting the doing one for about two years. He began working with co-creator Christie on the concept while on winter break, completing the scripts on January 12, 2018. Casting began subsequently after, auditions only being held for the male characters, as Chambers reached out to his friends with previous acting experience to be the leading ladies. Production began in March 2018 and wrapped in May of 2018.
The web series was planned to be an anthology series similar to American Horror Story, with each season being a self-contained story with a different set of characters so that Chambers and company could explore stories they would adapt for television later in their careers, which is why the original title was Stories: Homegirls, but plans of the continuing the anthology were dropped in 2019. Thus causing the show to be rebranded Homegirls.
An extensive marketing campaign was run for Homegirls, beginning with the teaser trailer premiering in front of the documentary Say Our Names. Released with each episode was also an Inside the Episode special where Chambers and Christie dissected the show. In January 2019, four months after it's release, the pilot episode garnered 1,006 views on Youtube. As of April 2021, the same episode sits above 13,500 views, and the second and third episodes surpassed 2,000 views, and the final 3 episodes are also past 1,000 views, officially making Homegirls the most successful and most-watched Switch Up Entertainment production to date. As of April 2021, the total number of views for the season is over 25,000. Plans to revisit the show after the COVID-19 Pandemic are underway, as well as adapting the web series for television.
