The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is an ongoing supernatural horror web series that is currently broadcast on YouTube.
The series was created by Paige McKenzie, Nick Hagen, and Mercedes Rose, and is produced by Coat Tale Productions.
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl quickly rose in popularity and between December 2010 to October 2011 the show received more than 4.3 million total hits.
[2] She stars in the series along with her mother Mercedes Rose, Maxwell Arnold, Seth Renne, and Adrienne Vogel.
Sunshine receives a photograph of a man and a girl, both with bags over their heads, along with a note reading: "They are watching you."
She finds an address that her mother was keeping from her, and, believing it might be her father's new home, she visits the place only to learn that it is a frightening abandoned house.
Victoria tells Sunshine that Nolan is an awaken - a person that had a Near Death Experience and after that has paranormal abilities such as Astral projection.
This film shows a girl being sacrificed by a strange man and a woman Sunshine recognizes as Victoria.
The paranormal activity in the house is getting worse, and in one video Uncle Tommy spit up that compost again and was bleeding from his face.
For Sunshine's high school graduation, her mother decides to take her to a "haunted" cabin in the woods.
Sunshine and her mom Kat have moved to a different house, but they are still experiencing paranormal phenomena; voices coming from the ventilation system and kitchen drawers opening by themselves.
In the third part Sunshine and Nolan visit the haunted recording and sound editing studio of Marc, where they experience very strange and frightening phenomena.
In this section, Sunshine Girl posts videos of paranormal activity that have been sent by fans or that she has found on the internet.
The Investigation of The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (included in season #5) is a video uploaded on 5/16/12 which is 14:15 long (filmed on March 10, 2012).
In December 2010 Hagen approached actress Mercedes Rose with the idea to create a paranormal web-based show, as he noted that the word "ghost" was a common search term.
Hagen noted that he had to use specific keywords that would allow for the best search-engine optimization, which made it easier for users to find and enable them to have "100,000 views within weeks" without having to actively promote the channel.
[4] In 2013 McKenzie took part in a scholarship competition in Seventeen magazine, where she ran under her real name and mentioned The Haunting of Sunshine Girl.
[9] This contest attracted the attention of a literary agent, who helped finalize a deal with the Weinstein Company to produce a book and television series based on The Haunting of Sunshine Girl.
Sunshine Girl just posts videos about her visiting a pumpkin farm, a shop in Portland or showing her posters to the audience.
[10] Uncle Tommy's YouTube Confessions is the first spin-off based on a supporting character of "The Haunting of Sunshine Girl".
It is an interactive series in which the audience sends secret confessions via comment or email to "Uncle Tommy," which he and friends might then read on the show.
[11] The film would follow Sunshine and other series characters as they search for black-eyed children, an urban legend surrounding supernatural creatures.
The Kickstarter campaign met its goals, but Mercedes Rose later stated that the majority of the funding came from friends, family, and members of their film community.
[14] In November 2013 McKenzie launched an Indiegogo project to fund a second feature film, then temporarily titled Alone, and the campaign raised $2,480.
Starring Rhyan Schwartz as Adam, Paige McKenzie as Ella, Dan Considine as Charles, and Maria Olsen as Mrs. Black.
In 2014 the Weinstein Co. announced that they had closed a multiplatform deal to adapt The Haunting of Sunshine Girl into a young adult novel and film franchise.
[17] On March 24, 2015 The Haunting of Sunshine Girl was released in hardback, e-book, and audiobook via Weinstein Books, and follows the same plot as the web series's first story arc.
[19][20][21][22] On March 1, 2016, the sequel to The Haunting of Sunshine Girl was released titled The Awakening of Sunshine Girl in hardback, e-book, and audiobook via Weinstein Books, and like its predecessor had many praises for the scary plot and deep character development and criticism for the lack originality based on other supernatural young adult novels.
In March 2015 McKenzie announced that there were plans for the Weinstein Co. to adapt The Haunting of Sunshine Girl into either a feature film or television show, along with a novel.
[23] The following month McKenzie issued a press release stating that it had been decided that they would progress with a television show rather than a film, as they felt that "TV would be an easier transition.