It did not take long to film the psychological thriller CELL in Smithville last October and now those who want to watch the finished product will be able to do so next week.

Lovable Varmint Productions director Mark Gardner said it took only two weeks to film the Indie Web series that will be available for viewing Wednesday, Feb. 3 and consists of 13 episodes.

“Due to tight schedules and even tighter budgets, we worked at a very crazy pace and had a lot of stuff going on,” he said.

Gardner said the 30-member production company filmed exclusively in the former Family Dollar Store on Smithville’s Main Street. He said it took the crew about a week before filming to build the set, which is still up.

“We came and visited Smithville before production and just thought it was a great town,” Gardner said. “Everyone was so supportive and willing to work with us, even with significant budget considerations.”

He said that because LVP is so new, they only had about three actors on the set of CELL for the majority of the time.

“It (CELL) is basically about a man in jail fighting against what is going on around him,” Gardner said.

CELL will launch its very first episode on the Web through an online distribution deal with Koldcast.TV.

Koldcast.TV streams full-screen, high-definition Web video to viewers in over 138 countries.

Gardner said that each episode lasts about six to 10 minutes and will air at the same time once a week for close to four months.

“The airtime has not been decided as of yet, but it will probably be during the evening,” Gardner said.

According to Gardner, viewers can watch an episode of CELL at any time on a few different Web sites once it originally airs. Those Web sites include www.Koldcast.tv, www.cellwebseries.com and www.lovablevarmint.com, where they can click on links.

“Because of the changes taking place on the Internet, as well as the fact that we are an independent production company, we thought doing a Web series would be a good move,” Gardner said. “The Web provides wide exposure and costs a minimal amount of money to use.”

So far, Gardner said that people’s interest in CELL has been tremendous.

“The response has been great,” he said. “This may sound modest, but we have about 1,400 fans on Facebook already.”

According to Gardner, CELL has drawn a number of fans from California to West Virginia.

He said that he would like to receive enough positive response to be able to do a second season and maybe even get a network deal.