Late Night in the Bedroom: Season FINALE

“Part of understanding an artist’s work is knowing them as a person.”

A giddy Joshua Barndt, producer of talk show series Late Night in the Bedroom, days before celebrating the twelfth episode and season finale of the web-based programme he co-founded in late 2009.

“A key part of the show is understanding the artist behind the work. Getting to know them as people, and allowing their personalities to be a part of the experience really helps to engage the audience.”

After a conversation with actor and fellow classmate Carey Wass, the website was launched as a way of “giving artists the opportunity to tell the stories behind their work.” Says Josh.

Designed and aimed at exposing regional artists to a community of like-minded individuals, Josh admits “not everybody goes to galleries, or goes to dance shows, or goes to the theater” and “it can be hard to get people out sometimes, art shows can be shocking and intimidating for a lot of people.”

Evolving out of a 4 ½ room apartment on College Street, Carey and Josh grew weary of filming with “people crammed everywhere” and with gained momentum after airing the first three episodes, the audience was moved into a larger and more comfortable studio to record the show.

Always live, every episode of the “Inside the Actors Studio” meets “Buzz Tv” web series, blends the Artist Exposé with community-based promotions.  As a group of independent artists working on this project together, they’ve garnered recognition around the globe as an online Toronto based television series.

“We’re connecting with artists everywhere. The web provides a context where we don’t need radio and television for entertainment purposes anymore and people can tune in when they have the time to. This way, we’re reaching a whole different audience.”

After graduating from Concordia University in Montreal with a degree in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts, Josh returned to Toronto and has worked and ‘struggled’ as a painter, installation artist and collective member of the late Whippersnapper Gallery (the upper level Corso Italia doors closed forever this week).

“The only time we re-coop costs is at the bar,” says Josh. But a recent grant from the Ontario Arts Council has “helped us start to pay some artist fees and production costs. In the end though, we’re really not looking to make any money off of it.”

The season finale will be filmed at the Toronto Underground Cinema on Wednesday August 4th at 7pm. Featured interviews include Jack Dylan, Nicholas Di Genova and Dan Bergeron. With musical performances by Montreal’s Asian/Aboriginal fusion group Yamantaka/Sonic Titan and Toronto based rock band Forest City Lovers. Tickets are $5 and available at Soundscapes.