First I’d like to apologize about the two week’s without a #WebSeriesWednesday. After going over a year without missing a beat I was absolutely swamped with production on LAPS the last two weeks. Fortunately I managed to snag Johanny Mota at the last minute to stop by and talk about her show “Internet Affairs” this week.

“Internet Affairs” is a ten episode, high concept series about three female friends and their misadventures in online dating. The show, while obviously it’s own unique take on the subject, is almost exactly what you might expect it to be, given everything you know about it up to this point. Affairs is the “Private Joe” from “Idiocracy” of web series, in that it seems to follow the web series game plan to the letter on just about everything.

  • The single season comedy series is ten episodes ranging in length from three minutes to just under eight minutes.
  • Each episode is essentially centered around one date, or one relationship change.
  • The show is almost entirely single location, filmed in the apartment building of the director with a few scenes in a local park, on a local street, and a couple sequences in a bar – but they make it work with some clever staging.
  • Production was met with the typical challenges that come with no budget projects. The team filmed the ‘Birthday’ episode in the apartment building because they were unable to secure a restaurant. There were also two moments where I noticed poor audio recording, something Johanny attributed to not budgeting for a sound person, and having to essentially teach someone to record sound every shooting day.
  • The show features some talented individuals both in front and behind the camera, while featuring some fun characters and witty writing. I particularly enjoyed the guy who hangs outside the front door of the apartment, spouting out clever, albeit somewhat offensive, pick up lines at every girl who passes by. At the same time ‘Affairs’ suffers from pacing that is not up to par with the best comedies on television or the web.

The overall quality of a show is generally just a function of the amount of time and money put into it, because, as I have learned watching web series, talent is ample but not ubiquitous – and not even a group of the most talented individuals in the world could put together a great show in just a couple of months with zero money. ‘Affairs’ like just about every other series out there, doesn’t have a team of writers polishing every quiet moment in the script, or the ability to spend months and months in post, or access to whatever locations the writers can imagine. Until serious money gets into web series virtually every series is going to face all of these same limitations, or make viewers wonder how the creators were able to blow so much money.

“Internet Affairs” did manage to rise above its peers in one noticeable way though – and this is something I hope more creators begin to take advantage of. The show has a really good sound track. Every episode features one or two songs that add a lot to the production. Often times music becomes more of an afterthought in web series because it is yet another time and money sink. In this case ‘Affairs’ was able to find every one of the artists in the show on Soundcloud and all of them offered up their music for free. I’m sure it took a lot of sifting through, and plenty of email correspondence but I would wager that it was more than worth it.

In the end I enjoyed “Internet Affairs” for the same reasons I enjoy most series I watch. The shows are products of a lot of talent, hard work, and determination with minimal resources. The finished products are deeply personal and emblematic of our modern culture of creativity – warts and all.

You can find Internet Affairs at their official home, http://internetaffairs.tv & connect with the production on twitter @InternetAffair1