The Snobby Robot

A Wicked Rank WSW: Gunderson

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:30:00 -0700

On today’s #WebSeriesWednesday I followed the new series Gunderson, a raunchy, R rated pile of fun. Thinking more about it, I’m kind of surprised that youtube has been ok with it, considering their ‘could you show this video to your grandmother’ policy - I would not let my grandma anywhere near this series, and you shouldn’t either… But maybe check it out for yourself.

Gunderson seems to exemplify something of a cultural movement I’ve been noticing in web video. Cheap camcorders, and lots of down time in small towns has led to many young people taking up video production. Series like Gunderson are a semi-scripted, documentary like look into modern youth culture, but loaded with tons of exaggerations.

The show recalls my experiences in college making silly videos about that awkward age where you are too old to be a kid but you still act like one. After watching tons of series online this is perhaps the most common theme, in fact I think you can see it running through some shows previously featured on this blog such as ‘The Big Time Show’ and ‘Midwest Underground.’

Web series like ‘Gunderson’ are emerging in a similar fashion as rap did in the 80’s - where the high cost of music production was taken out of the equation and a whole culture of individuals who had previously been financially locked out of the system began expressing themselves in their own way.

Today web series are becoming a method of expression for a generation of youth who have been hit especially hard by a global financial let down. No money of their own, lots of time on their hands, zero Hollywood connections and a cheap camcorder make for a recipe of creative explosion - or maybe I’m just waxing philosophical like our protagonist Gunderson…

Anyhoo you guys can check out ‘Gunderson’ over on their site http://gunderson.tv - a new episode will be ‘dropping’ this Monday the 4th!

Web Series Wednesday: Hitman 101

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:06:18 -0700

Hitman 101 is an action packed character oriented web series with a lot of production value. The show is probably the most relevant to this blog of all previous shows featured on #WebSeriesWednesday as the series is dramatic and the characters have real depth.

The show drops you right into the middle of the action, with a hitman doin’ his thang. You know, stalking and killing. The episodes take their time building character and revealing just exactly what is going on – you know beyond the stalking and killing. I think that is a really effective storytelling style for the web because it allows the show to hook viewers with the excitement of the action – you know the stalking and killing – and it invites them to stay to learn more about the characters.

I strongly believe that series create fans through interesting and emotive characters. This is challenging on the web because character development is an investment storytellers make in the present in the hopes that it will pay off in the future. Web viewers are literally milliseconds away from closing your window, so you have to catch them right off the bat and hold on to them. By dropping the viewer right into the action and them slowly building character the show hopefully holds the viewers attention and then is able to pay it off at the end.

What I was most impressed with were the production values. Lots of locations, lots of nice shots and nice action sequences. These things take time and money to pull off well so they are impressive for a web production.

I am not sure if the show was created in the hopes of making money or merely putting the teams talent on display, but either way the team put their best foot forward. As I mentioned before, the show used a lot of locations, and they were all well suited to the story. A lot of web productions have clearly redressed the locations they have access to in order to make them look like something they are not. Hitman 101 has a lot of cool locations that you won’t really notice – which is a good thing. The police station looks like a police station, the interrogation room looks as you’d expect, and the filthy trailer looks lived in. This all added to the realism of the production.

If you have not had the chance to see Hitman 101, then you can check it out over at http://badguyfilms.com/hitman101

The $10k Feature: Matt Cici’s ‘Lambent Fuse’

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:06:00 -0700

‘Lambent Fuse’ is an Independent film released onto the festival circuit late last year, selling out the Twin Cities Film Festival and winning Best Dramatic Feature at the Highway 61 Film Festival. I recently had the chance to see the movie and chat with the film’s director Matt Cici. What I was most interested in was finding out how the production team made their limited funds go so far on screen.

What is a $10k feature? I would wager that you guessed it is a film that took $10,000 in cash to make, right? I can already hear my readers screaming ‘but professionally made movies take far more than that!’ So how do you make a quality feature for so little? Well, according to ‘Lambent Fuse’ director and executive producer Matt Cici $10k means $10k in cash plus $90k in favors.

It is a tall order to call in $90k worth of favors in such a short period but here are a few key things that make it possible. First, grow your network & help others that can help you. The film’s production started with a core of just four people, but eventually grew to more than 100. They did this by collaborating with locals enthusiastic about film production, and by planning to give back to the local filmmaking community in general. Exciting projects will draw people to them regardless of the funds available. Make sure your project has that innate ability to draw people into it. This matters both in getting your project made, and in finding an audience.

Still ten thousand bucks will only go so far, and the favors you call in can only get you so much. Eventually you will face some tradeoffs, so make sure you have a great script. You cannot always get the best actors, you cannot always reshoot, and you cannot always just ‘fix it in post.’ The film was 100% Minnesotan – from the actors to the crew to the locations. In some ways this is a trade off that comes with a low budget, but the film has used this fact as something of a marketing ploy – selling out screenings at local film festivals despite facing competition from bigger movies such as ‘Like Crazy.’ Use your constraints to your advantage.

The script was the real strong point of this film, hiding some minor editing issues and a few scenes that the actors did not really sell to me. Having a great script means writing what you know, what is close to you and what you find interesting. For Matt Cici he has been interested in mental illness – going so far as to say that if he were not making movies he would be working somewhere in the field of psychology.

The film’s script focuses on interconnected characters with varying forms of mental illness – some more generally accepted than others. The balancing of these character arcs is really the highlight of the film. It is subtle at first, masquerading as grief and anti social behavior up until it clearly is not. While not commonly seen as a mental illness, obsession can be a very powerful and frightening one. It has been a common theme in films throughout the years, ‘Aguirre: The Wrath of God’ and ‘The Fountain’ being a couple that come to mind. All three films feature a main character so absorbed in the correctness of their actions that they fail to see the destructive path any sane person could see that they are traveling.

The film had that sort of creepy, slow motion train wreck feel to it – kind of reminding me of ‘Requiem For A Dream’ but without the real punch to the gut. These characters are generally happy and hopeful but completely mentally incapable of handling adversity. It is scary to ask yourself how you would deal with life giving you a heavy blow. Would you stay strong and battle through it, or would it envelope and consume you?

Filmmakers are constantly facing the problem of limited funds but that does not mean that your team is without resources. Your passion for your project can be infectious if you expose it to the right people. Some things will always be out of your control but if you do your best at the things you can control, at the end you will have something worthwhile – something to be proud of, and that is the case with ‘Lambent Fuse.’ If you are interested in the film you can check it out at their webpage http://lambentfuse.com , or like them on facebook. Check out the trailer below!

Things Don't Always Go According to Plan - And That Can Be a Good Thing

Mon, 21 May 2012 14:51:36 -0700

Things Don't Always Go According to Plan - And That Can Be a Good Thing:

Setting goals & creating a plan is always a must for any production, but it is important to realize when you might have stumbled upon something better. This was the case for Jeff Koenig and his scifi series ‘Drifter.’ The team was crowdfunding for the production of a pilot to pitch to studios, when the studios themselves started calling.

9 Problems With Being an Artist

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:11:05 -0700

9 Problems With Being an Artist:

Being an artist is difficult. It is choosing to take the tough road, but there is a reason to do it. This article is a some what sentimental look into the challenges that go with picking a non-standard career path but more importantly I think it gives people a few more reasons to stick with it.

Web Series Wednesday: Aidan 5

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:51:00 -0700

Today on #WebSeriesWednesday I viewed the green screened scifi web series ‘Aidan 5.’ The show, while entertaining, gives me even more things to discuss regarding production, specifically how to create an immersive universe on a small web budget.

When you think about web series expansive, epic, immersive scifi universes really do not come to mind. That Aidan 5 is able to create such a universe in a greater-than-feature-length series is a testament to the outside the box creative thinking of the shows’ producers.

If you have not yet seen the show, Aidan 5 was filmed entirely on green screen allowing the show to shoot on a single location. I imagine that this allowed them to really cut down on production time and save heavily on those costs.

What is super cool about using the green screen is that it allowed them to fill in the backgrounds with whatever they wanted. For the most part these are hand drawn pencil sketches – and there are tons of them. Making everything black and white saves on what I imagine would have been an exorbitant amount of coloring. Generally the backgrounds are static but since this is video the creators take the opportunity to animate certain aspects of the backgrounds, occasionally allowing them to take center stage as stand-ins for big budget visual effects.

The show has more of a graphic novel or anime feel than ‘Sin City’ did, likely due to budget constraints. That said Aidan 5 is much more ambitious than ‘Sin City’ in my opinion because there are so many scenes where the backgrounds are literally at the center of attention. In ‘Sin City’ the backgrounds tended to be just that – background.

The show is not without its rough edges – the green screening is not always perfect but that can be forgiven considering that I was viewing this on youtube for free – not in theaters or on blu-ray. The show also opts to use just about zero props, I imagine to further increase the speed and decrease the cost of production. In some cases, I felt that this increased the shows style, but at other times I think things like the awkwardness of a drawn in chair or the opening of a clearly animated door took me out of the generally submersive universe. I would wager that the sweet spot for a show of this type is some combination of the two – where the actors interact with real objects with everything else added in. I am not sure if it is better to have an actor sit on a green box, then draw in a chair later, when you can just have them sit in a chair.

All that said, ‘Aidan 5’ is certainly one of the elite web series available for watching today. The production values and artwork alone is worth your time. The story, while not the most original, is exciting and kept me guessing. This method of production, while not the first time I have seen it, is perfect for web productions so I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of this in the future. Hopefully people can find a new take on it, so it does not get too stale as time goes on.

Web Series Wednesday: The Big Time Show

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:23:00 -0700

For #WebSeriesWednesday week two I followed a sketch comedy series called The Big Time Show. The series follows two aspiring entertainers - a musician and an actor, as they move out to LA to stay with a rather shady character named Doctor J.

The show has a very ‘Flight of the Concords’ vib to it – without the added bonus of the characters being from New Zealand. The two shows share a similar ‘quest for success’ theme, where everyone is failing – the only difference being that our characters here are not actually talented. In fact they are really the opposite of talented.

The videos in the series are divided up based on sketches essentially, rather than episodically. I kind of enjoy this method, at least for this type of series. There is not too much in the way of plot - in traditional sketch comedy style - and this means viewers have to be ready for virtually anything in upcoming videos.

This format is perfect for youtube distribution. The videos are short, and centered on just a few very simple, but quality jokes. This makes them easy to digest – and the 40 minutes or so of content just breezed past – I did not even realize the show was about to end, which is great. While watching I found myself occasionally going back and watching certain parts again – the jokes are fast and quality, I had to experience some over again.

For a show that is seemingly improvisational in nature there is a lot of clearly well planned writing that runs through these videos. One of my favorite moments is during a sequence that shows Dave’s three consecutive audition failures. He is told by the director that he is sooo bad that a random bum off the street could do better – cut to a random bum off the street (with a Johnny Appleseed sack on a stick look) absolutely nailing the part.

If you are a fan of sketch comedy you will love The Big Time Show. And with the promise of new videos coming up in August, The Big Time Youtube channel is certainly one to watch.

If you want to be featured on Web Series Wednesday please send me a message!

Money Changes Everything: Where You Will Spend it & How to Solve Problems With More of it

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:14:26 -0700

My name is Kelsey Talton, I am a freelance DP based in Chicago. I’m stopping by to share some experiences gained working in preproduction and crowd funding on my latest project ‘The Last Rider.’ Here I look at several often neglected cost centers associated with production as well as some tips for filling in those budgetary gaps with a successful crowd funding campaign! Happy filming!

Pre-Production:

Pre-production can be an extremely exciting point in the production of a film. It can also be what makes or breaks it. Every production, no matter the size, needs pre-production, whether it be a short film, feature, web series, or TV show. In this specific case it’s a short film. Myself (the cinematographer) and a team of producers, a director, AD, and production designer have been meeting for about 4 months, if not more, for a film we will be shooting in July of this year. This is an extremely critical point in filmmaking; it can take years to get done and you’d still probably not be fully prepared for what happens on set. One of the biggest concerns obviously is the budget. Our fellow moviegoers often have no idea of what goes into the behind the scenes of filmmaking. A lot of it is money.

Where You Will Spend Your Money

Here are some things we’ve been going over as far as the budget goes. Each bulleted item requires budgeting and resource allocation, not to mention someone to look into each one to determine all possible options with associated costs and benefits.

Paying Actors
Transportation Costs
Location Costs
Paying Crew
Meals and Craft Services
Format (film vs digital)
Housing
Production design
Costume
Makeup
Lighting and Grip Costs
Insurance

The list can literally go on and on, but these are a few of our main concerns. From a DP’s perspective I can tell you a lot of things get taken out of my budget for other things. That’s not to say they aren’t vitally important but it still hurts when the numbers keep getting taken away from you. One would think that the DP and production designer should get the majority of the budget because well, that’s what people are going to see, but here’s another perspective. If we can’t pay actors, we have nothing to photograph, if we can’t feed or house our crew, then we have no one to set up lights, and if we don’t have insurance or locations then we have nowhere to shoot. So as painful as it is for me to admit, I understand why certain departments get slighted.

Let’s look at a few of these a bit deeper.

Who can guess what the top three costs on that list might be? It may not be as obvious to someone who hasn’t done this before. The answer: Meals and Craft Services, Housing, and Insurance. We’re not on a million dollar feature and we’re not paying actors 2 mil a pop so let’s get real. Those three things rack up really quickly, especially if you’re on a location shoot. It requires you house all of your crew and feed them 3 meals a day, while also providing snacks and beverages for the in-between.

Let’s take my situation for example. We have about 30 members on our crew and we will be on location for 9 days. 3 Meals a day for 30 people that’s 810 meals for 9 days. Remember the last time you at out? Yeah, multiply that by 810 and you’ve got the general idea. Housing costs are numbers I don’t even like to think about and it’s why I’m not a mathematician. You can go to the cheapest place you can find and save a few bucks but if that place doesn’t have bathrooms or electricity, then your crew and yourself will not be, quite literally, happy campers. After 9 days of exteriors in the woods you would all smell pretty terrible, so having a place to come back to and wash up is a must, and unfortunately free housing is not easy to come by. Especially for 30 people.

Creativity Can Get Cut From Your Budget If You’re Not Careful

Now for the cool stuff; and heartbreaking. Lighting, grip equipment, and format are my forte and my demise. As I said a good portion of the budget is not allotted to me, so I have to really fight for what I need. Let’s take format for example. Originally my director had me convinced that we should shoot on digital because we will be working with Horses. The closest thing I have worked with on set is a dog, a massive 4 legged creature that is 3 times the size of me is much different, especially because we’re not working with trained movie horses. My director has had the opportunity to work with horses on set before and he’s also an equestrian trainer so he has a much better grasp on how horses will act, or not act. We proposed to shoot on the RED camera which is a very powerful machine if used correctly, but initially we were denied by our superiors for fear that the camera would have performance issues in the amount of time we had allotted for filming. A few months after the initial proposal and having shot the trailer for the film, with a horse; I had hopes that maybe we would be able to swing shooting on film. So I spent a good three hours trying to convince my director that it would be do-able. Once I convinced him that it would be possible, the next issue came up. Could we afford it?

So here I am now. I’ve been going back and forth with my director for 3 weeks fighting for super 16 and it’s all coming down to money, the lowest imaginable price I got for my budget was $2200 which is a damn steal for film/transfer/ and developing, but he still doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t believe we’ll have enough money for everything else. I suppose this would be a good point to mention that we have a $10,000 budget - while also trying to raise another $12,000 on indiegogo. To me, and to many in my field, the prospect of not being able to spend 2200 on super 16 baffles me, but that’s part of the business and that’s why I keep fighting. With so many competing interests battling for limited resources its impossible for everyone to get what they want.

Locations

It’s true to form when people say that locations really matter. If you’re setting isn’t right, why would anyone believe it. Something that I like to think about when I’m in pre-production for a project and even on set is the believability. If I believe it and I’m into it, then my audience should be as well. That goes for locations, production design, acting, and photography. If it’s right, you’ll know. You may have an available free location but it needs to work for your film visually and logistically above all else.

We had a massive issue with our locations, which is a common occurrence for film. Not as many people are into filmmaking as you’d think. We attempted to find a central location, which would cover all of our settings for the film, we had a perfect location but it was a national park and they didn’t want horses walking around, so we had to scrap that and go with something else. We’ve now been fortunate enough to find a few farms that have massive acreage and beautiful settings around the same area, so it worked out in the end (so far).

Something to think about when finding and locking locations are, surrounding areas such as food, hospitals, bathrooms, and other general needs stores. If you are in the middle of nowhere and someone gets hurt, it’s on your hands if it takes an hour to get them to the hospital. Another huge aspect to consider is the owner. If you are using private land, business, or homes then you must fully disclose everything you are doing and agree that any damages are not their liability. I’ve been in situations before where the homeowner was not made fully aware of everything we had planned to do and threatened to kick us out on multiple occasions. We were walking on eggshells the whole time and honestly, that is bad mojo for a film set. You can’t afford to do that to your crew or the owner. If you show up on set and it’s shooting day, you need everything to go as smoothly as possible or you could really be in trouble.

Crowd-funding:

The easiest way to ease budgetary issues is by increasing your budget! For most of us we don’t have easy access to large sums of money so, like may of you, we are turning to crowd funding. Crowd funding is a great way to get people excited about your project while turning them into paying supports to help fill those budgetary gaps! We launched our indiegogo only days ago but we’ve been getting ready for it for about two months. Collecting pictures, information, and shooting a trailer were all things we had to do before we could go live with the site. These things all increase your projects chances of finding backers. You can’t just create a snazzy title and put a little info about yourself and say “pretty please with a cherry on top can you give me everything in your pocket?” and call that a crowd-funding site worth supporting. I know because I’ve tried, and failed.

I elected to do it differently this time - I made sure that we had pictures of the prospective areas we would be shooting on location, we made a trailer that gets your attention and we’re in the process of filming informational videos that connect you directly with the filmmakers.

Focus on Gaining A Lot of Backers - Not Just Total Dollars

There are so many things that go into a successful crowd-funding experience that many people over look. IndieGoGo and Kickstarter both have machines that calculate the amount of activity your page is getting. So, the amount of views on the site, the amount of sharing, and most importantly the amount of backers are things that will get you to the top. It doesn’t matter if your goal is to raise 12,000 or 500 if you have 35 backers who donated 5 bucks, you have a better chance of getting featured on their front page then say if you have 6 backers that each gave $100. It has nothing to do with the amount of money you’re receiving, what’s important is the amount of people supporting you. If you have a solid amount of people behind you, you are more prone to succeed because you have a ton of people that believe in the project; kickstarter and indiegogo see that.

Keep People In The Loop

Something else that helps make your project more appealing are updates. Before you launch you should have a list of things you’re going to release to the public. You can, of course, add to the list as more things about the production are finalized. Posting behind the scenes pictures of location scouts, camera prep, inspirations, and updates about how the film is coming along are major influences to people giving you their pocket change. You must also be relentless in getting the word out. It’s okay to ask for help, it’s something that you should get used to, especially in film.

If you’re interested in checking out the project I’ve been speaking of, check out our indiegogo page here: http://www.indiegogo.com/lastrider?c=home

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at kelseytalton@gmail.com or visit my tumblr http://kelsography.tumblr.com/

Web Series Cost Breakdowns: Three Case Studies

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:12:00 -0700

Web Series Cost Breakdowns: Three Case Studies:

Break down the costs associated with making your web series. This blog from the IAWTv looks at three productions and where all of their money went. There are some good tips in here for keeping production costs low, as well as some consideration for the different types of trade offs that come with going lower budget.

Web Series Wednesday: Mermates!

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:51:00 -0700

For the first ever #WebSeriesWednesday I viewed Mermates, a show about a man who gets kicked out by his girlfriend (for watching a season ahead of her in Breaking Bad – big time no no) and ends up moving in with an everted Mermaid (mer-man?) - human on the outside, fish on the inside.

This six part series is about as fresh as today’s catch at the ocean side fish market. The production absorbs you in its all encompassing seafaring theme – from the olde timey music (Featuring Shirley Temple and Sherman & Nash) to the constant fishy references. Outside of my initial comparison to the 80’s Tom Hanks film ‘Splash’ this web series swam at me with tons of originality. I think that is the real allure of web based productions – a show like this is unlike anything you will see on tv.

The really clever aspects of the show relate to its ability to look at common human issues through the gills of a mermaid. From relationships, to eating, to traveling, to communicating, or even just breathing – the life of a mermaid is just different. These moments create a lot of the plot lines of the show and lead to a surprising amount of clever jokes.

The banter is the real allure here. I never realized just how much sea themed innuendo was possible – likely because I never even thought to think about it. I am thinking this realization must have been what led to the creation of this series. When the mermaid’s ‘gilfriend’ calls the Roomate a ‘Jacques Cousteau’ – a man who is ‘interested’ in fish – and then a handful of other playful nicknames, I realized the shows’ creators were mining an ocean of untapped seafaring puns.

Cruising in at about 25 minutes over 6 episodes the show lets the joke play about as long as it should. It never drags on too long and it does not get the chance to go stale. From my perspective ‘Mermates’ is about as good of a web series as anyone’s. You can check the show out over on http://mermatestheseries.com/ and I’ve embedded the first episode below.

‘One Warm Night’ & the Secret to Marketing Your Web Series

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:59:51 -0700

So you have a great idea, you wrote your script, you found a few friends to help you out and you went out and made a web series. Now you are wondering, how do I find an audience? Here I look at the upcoming web series ‘One Warm Night’ to find out how they have built up an audience prior to the shows release.

About the series, Steven G. Lowe & why you are expecting a magic bullet answer

Writer, producer, director Steven G. Lowe has a big budget movie in production, he’s written a book on acting – ‘The Actors Room 50 Original Monologues & Tips for Success’ - and he is the glue that holds the upcoming web series ‘One Warm Night’ together. For many it would be of little surprise to learn that the show is generating a lot of good buzz around it – finishing up a successful kickstarter campaign recently and becoming an editors’ pick on webserieschannel.com, even having an upcoming red carpet premiere event. Obviously he knows the magic bullet for success, he has all those Hollywood connections and a bank rolled P&A budget right? What may come as a surprise is that ‘One Warm Night’ was formed as a way for a group of young, generally unknown, actors from his renowned acting class known as ‘The Actors Room’ to learn how to work behind the scenes and market a production on their own. Now while these actors are not A-listers many of them have a lot of experience under their belts. Most notably being Justin Lee, known for his role on ‘Arrested Development.’ The series also includes Sean Michael Afable (‘Akeelah and the Bee,’ & ‘The Scorpion King’) – who some of you may know through a role he had on BlackBoxTV - and Jared Hernandez, from ‘Disney365’ as a co-host with Selena Gomez, an international Coca-Cola commercial and more recently a national ESPN commercial. There is a lot of young experience but no one with enough pull to get this project up and running completely on their own. There was no magic bullet, the actors’ own efforts and teamwork has them to this point, even helping themselves get that red carpet premiere.

Be dedicated, engaged & have a dedicated, engaged team

For many web series a few dedicated friends is all it takes to get your show made, but a web series is your baby and you know how they say ‘it takes a village’ to raise a child. Thus is the case with ‘One Warm Night,’ which has about thirty or so people working on the team. For these hard workers the show is not merely a job but an end unto itself, with all of them putting in their blood sweat and tears – pulling all the favors they can, and most importantly working towards a common goal. These people are all engaged in the project, and every one of them has a stake in its ultimate success. It is one thing to hire someone to do a job, but if you can get others as excited to work on your project as you are creating it then your team can become unstoppable. Moving beyond a handful of friends and becoming a real, full sized team is vital to your success. No one is talented enough to make something worth watching completely on their own. If your idea is interesting, you should have no problem finding a team of people who want to make your vision a reality.

Be fearless. Get in the trenches & find everyone who might be interested in your series.

Get over your fears and trepidations – do not question whether something is worth your effort, if it is a good idea find a way to do it. When a new product is released one of the core aspects of marketing is making sure that the people you think are going to be interested in your product know about it. For a summer blockbuster, this means spamming the hell out of television stations with commercials, putting up billboards every few blocks and getting your actors on The Tonight Show. As a web production ‘One Warm Night’ does not have the budget for that, but that does not mean they did not look for most cost efficient methods for getting the word out. The show has a facebook page, a teaser on Youtube, a twitter account, an upcoming website hub and a tumblr – where I discovered the series. They have even gone so far as to cold call people about their show – something that has helped them to grab sponsors for the series. Whether you are looking for viewers or sponsors one of the best things you can do is simply tell everyone about it. You need to get in the trenches, get out of your comfort zone and find literally everyone who may be interested in your show.

Follow through – team meetings each week

Having a plan and sticking to it is also important. Each week the ‘OWN’ team meets to discuss the plan going forward and to make sure things are going smoothly. They have discussed the plan to death, wrote it down page after page and constantly evaluated and grew it. There is no secret to success here, rather it is simply asking questions, coming up with solutions and following through – aka hard work. Simply sitting back, uploading your video and hoping people find it will not work. Over the life of a video on YouTube the average number of viewers will be around 500 – anything more than that is due to hard work, and getting the word out.

A little luck

It also does not hurt to have a few lucky breaks here and there. For example, the team made a deal with blip.tv recently. The deal came after Kent from “Ask A Ninja”, who is the Content Partnership Manager for Blip, saw the ninja on the logo for ‘One Warm Night.’ While some may see that as a stroke of luck, it never would have happened had the team not gone the extra mile to create such a cool logo and taken the time to spread the word.

The key take away I hope you all get from the tale of ‘One Warm Night’ is that there is no magic bullet, or a secret to success. The answer is simple, be an evangelist, make other people evangelists, and go and bust your ass to get the word out to everyone. Many of you are new at this and you have your own fears but you need to get over them. For all of those working on ‘One Warm Night’ the journey the marketing process has taken them on has been one of the most rewarding of their lives.

Be sure to check out ‘One Warm Night’ on their official facebook page, and for those of you with a tumblr, follow them here. You can find them on Twitter @onewarmnight and you can view the teaser trailer below. Fans can also look forward to the launch of their hub site, which should tie everything together. Be sure to watch it for some good laughs.

Web Series Wednesday!

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:15:00 -0700

Introducing #WebSeriesWednesday where every Wednesday at noon pacific time I will view a full season web series and live tweet my thoughts over on Twitter. You can follow along by following @SnobbyRobot. Afterwards I’ll be uploading a more detailed article to the blog. I’m opened to suggestions about which shows are featured so please give me some!! What do you guys want me to watch?

Crowdfunding: Sweet Swag vs Crap

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:39:36 -0700

Crowdfunding: Sweet Swag vs Crap:

A detailed look into one projects plan for kickstarter rewards. If you are planning a campaign at any point than this article is highly recommended.

Telling Stories for the Web: 5 Emotionally Affecting Shorts

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:29:00 -0700

This blog originally appeared over on flixlist.com, a site aggregating some of the best in freely available video online. Here I take a look at some great short films and dissect how they were able to engage an audience under all of the constraints that come with the web.

For years screenwriters and filmmakers have understood what it takes to tell compelling stories for the big screen or television. There is a generally accepted timeframe for stories, and the pacing has been drilled into us over the years. We all know of the certain milestones stories have to reach on their way to their ultimate conclusion near the two hour mark. These traditional formats have lent artists a lot of luxury in terms of telling stories because they have forced audiences into participating. At the theater we go out for the specific purpose of seeing a movie. On television we settle on one channel at a time. All of these methods also include a specific destination – a unique time and place of viewing – be it your seat at the movie theater, or your sofa in your living room at 9 o’clock. Film and television has always been something of a means of relaxation. But what of the web?

The web is ever evolving. When I first experienced the internet back in the 90’s it was more akin to a text based radio, except you had to sit at your desk to participate – and you couldn’t talk on the phone at the same time. People communicated over likeminded subjects in a format that seemed not all too different from talk radio call in shows. But today the internet is so much more. It is permeating our lives in every way. The web is not just in our computers, it is in our phones, in our televisions, in the air. It is accessible virtually anywhere at any time. In effect the web has removed all limitations previously imposed on television and film – but those constraints did serve a purpose. Today’s storytellers have the monumental challenge of capturing the attention of an audience that may never be seated comfortably in a sofa, who have 18 windows opened, or who believe they have the rest of their lives to get around to watching your video.

So why am I going to talk about ‘Emotionally Affecting Shorts?’ Well, if there is one thing the new media audience can all probably agree upon it is the need for content to be distributed in bite sized pieces. With so many options and so many avenues for social discovery videos need to be created without barriers to entry. This is an insane challenge for storytellers because it defies all of the rules for great storytelling in older mediums – yet people make it work. I found all of these shorts to strike some sort of chord with me emotionally, which I believe to be at the core of successful storytelling. So let me tell you how they did it.

More by Mark Osborne http://vimeo.com/988244

No dialogue, no actors, and little in the way of color - ‘More’ is a testament to the power of simplicity and a singular focus. That singular focus is an idea and that idea is at the core of all of us – our clay protagonist included. The story is bland visually for the purpose of making the really important stuff stand out. I can’t think of a better example of telling such an effective story in such a short period of time and the key to this one was communicating a universal theme through visual symbols that we are familiar with culturally. The use of color to show happiness, the search for happiness through creation, and the use of light to visually represent the soul or the heart.

Validaton by Kurt Kuenne http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

‘Validation’ makes me laugh, lifts my confidence and above all else it makes me smile :-) This short does owe some of its success to its 16 minute length and use of a three act structure BUT the reason it has been viewed over six million times on youtube is because ‘Validation’ is all about making people happy. I find myself constantly sharing this with people because I know it will make them happy too. It is a simple idea, executed perfectly, which evokes real emotion from its audience.

BlinkyTM by Ruairi Robinson http://vimeo.com/21216091

Traditional storytelling can still work on the web, and Blinky is a solid example of that. The story is simple for sure, but the production values are high and the acting is quite good. Of course the budget for this short is not particularly sustainable financially – at least not with the current state of the web. Still Blinky goes to show that sometimes all you have to do to tell a good story, is tell a good story and not worry too much about perceived limitations.

Netherland Dwarf by Aquarius Films http://vimeo.com/32720505

This story is probably not for everyone but I find that it is a solid attempt at picking out a target audience and delivering the goods. This short is designed for those who identify with growing up with divorce and how small things can keep us going – such as a pet, or even the idea of a pet. Here we have a short that is using the emotions prebuilt in its audience to create something for which the story alone does not have time.

A story For Tomorrow by Gnarly Bay Productions http://vimeo.com/36519586

This is probably the most ‘web ready’ short on the list because it forgoes the attempt at telling a story with characters and simply focuses on a deeply human theme. The video is a about living life to its fullest and there is just something about nature that makes the viewer reflect inward, searching for something meaning full and real. The visual style and color is full of life – I now need to get off my ass and go on a trip to some beautiful place.

After going through this list I think all of these films share something in common, and that is an emphasis on theme. I have written before about the importance of focusing first on theme and developing the story from there, but then I was speaking more about writing in general. The more a story is impacted by restrictions the more important it becomes to simplify and return to those core human traits and emotions. I believe that in the long run the truly successful web storytellers will be the ones who focus on just that.

YouTube adds pay-per-view to live streaming

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:52:58 -0700

YouTube adds pay-per-view to live streaming:

YouTube now has the ability for select users to create an monetize live events similar to pay per view or ustream. Users can charge viewers for access or control how ads are displayed. This feature is not available to everyone but theoretically everyone is going to be able to access it at some point.

Short-Form vs. Long-Form: Does Video Length Impact Virality?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:06:51 -0700

Short-Form vs. Long-Form: Does Video Length Impact Virality? :

This blog backs up what I have been suggesting regarding video length. The key is to make engaging content that catches the viewer right off the bat, not to worry about making your videos short.

10 Film & Media Moments That Made Me Cry

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:43:26 -0700

Deep beneath this rugged, snobby exterior lives a gentile, emotional, nuggety core ripe with feelings. Feelings and other icky things like love, and empathy – you know those types of things that lead to tears that run down your face and ~~ruin your makeup~~ make you look sunburned. Although rare, there is the occasional moment in a film, or a show, or even a game where something about the story is written so perfectly that I connect with it deep within said nuggety core – and the tears flow. Here I will examine those moments, and train you to force me to connect with my female side more often. Oh ya, and spoilers!

Benjamin Button

Benny Button is one of those movies that has a deeply ingrained theme stretching the entire length of the movie. From beginning to end this film is attempting to drive home a specific idea. While I think the intention of screenwriter Eric Roth was to give an uplifting perspective on a rather distressing subject I could not help but come away with the thought that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button connects the viewer with one of the most tragic aspects of life here on earth. The moment that really got me was at the very end, when the water begins to wash over the clock. While the whole film had worked to say the same thing the visual symbol of nature destroying time itself forced me to accept that everything is temporary, that life is but a transient existence and that ultimately there is no escape. While I believe we all understand that idea, it is another thing to see it personified in every aspect of a characters life over the course of nearly three hours.

Metal Gear Solid 3

Some may doubt the power of videogames, but anyone who does obviously never played the third Metal Gear Solid game. The story features a hell of a powerful twist and arguably the most artistically amazing boss battle of all time. Snake, tasked with a top secret, super critical mission, must assassinate his mentor – The Boss, a woman who has been like a mother to him. Along the way he begins to fall in love with a beautiful spy who is helping him to accomplish his mission. The game culminates with Snake battling The Boss in a field of flowers, with the girl waiting to get away with him in a nearby plane. The way the game forces you to pull the trigger and end The Boss’ life is an experience film alone cannot match. Where the story finally overflows is in the closing cinematic, where Snake sits alone in a cabin listening to a tape left for him. This is the one item on the list I cannot bring myself to spoil. It is just too good, and attempting to describe it does not do it justice… Just go look it up on youtube if you are lame and refuse to play it – I’m sorry I get a tad angry when emotional :’-(

The Wrestler

I am a sucker for familial drama’s – a genre my own writing tends towards – and The Wrestler is one of the all time bests. Mickey Rourke makes the character of ‘The Ram’ come to life in ways few actors ever have. There is something insanely authentic about The Ram’s scene with his daughter where he asks for one more chance at being a good father. The recognition of his failings and the honest desire to be better is powerful. Watching Randy and seeing how badly he wants to reconnect, to be given a second chance and to know that he is physically incapable of following through is like watching a brutal slow motion train wreck where director Darren Aronofski has given you a personal connection with every passenger inside.

The Fountain / Requiem For A Dream / Anything that Darren Aronofsky does apparently

After writing about The Wrestler I could not help but think of a couple of other insanely powerful moments in two other Aronofsky films. While I specifically want to discuss ‘The Fountain,’ ‘Requiem’ is just about the biggest kick in the nuts ever put to film and deserves mention too. I am specifically referring to the additional scene near the end where Jared Letto’s character calls Jennifer Connelly’s character on the phone, which is like the worlds harshest break up scene of all time. The two characters are now thousands of miles apart physically, and both on the verge of a self-destruction only the other can save them from. All she wants is for him to come home, all he wants is to go home to her. He promises he is on his way – he will be there soon, he’s coming as fast as he can. But he has no way to get to her, he can never leave, he likely will never see her again and he knows it. The scene with Ellen Burstyn where Jared Letto tells her that he bought her a tv is also one of the greatest scenes in movie history. Now that’s a scene that forced a generation of adults to go and visit their parents.

The Fountain is a love it or hate it movie apparently and I think a lot of that has to do with the life experiences you have going into the film. The subject of the film is death; specifically how much we struggle to come to terms with death being a fundamental aspect of life. Ultimately, the movie is one of the all time most uplifting depiction of death ever put to the screen and Tommy’s journey towards that realization is powerful. Tommy fights to save his dying wife for years only to discover a cure moments after her death. The cure enables him to live forever – an existence he spends trying to find a way to bring her back. His journey to her, be it literal or allegorical, impresses upon him the idea that only through death can one reach immortality, that only through dying can life find meaning and that only through death can he ever be with her again. His embracing death in the presence of his long dead wife is raw emotion on display. The moment recalled another great scifi film ‘Solaris’ which has a similar moment where George Clooney’s character is told “maybe there is a place we can be together, but it’s not on Earth, and it’s not on this ship.” I think there is just something touching about characters being able to face their ultimate fears through faith alone.

Battlestar Galactica

So maybe when you spend years and years with certain characters you become super invested in their lives – as if they were real people. This is the true strength of shows on television and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ is just one example. While the show is generally dark there are these few moments of light that pour through at certain stages. Contrasted with the darkness these glimmers of hope become so much stronger and so much more tragic. The most glaring moment is the ‘missing year’ spent on New Caprica and the beginning of the Baltar presidency. This was the sole period of hope on the show and this was best shown through the relationship of Bill Adama and Laura Roslin, specifically in Laura’s plan to lay down the burdens that had been placed on her shoulders, build a cabin and live near a lake. These are the hopes and dreams of a couple that they allow themselves to live in for just a brief moment, knowing deep down that they will never be realized, yet they hope for it still. While this moment is sad in and of itself it did not really hit me until the very end of the very last episode, where Adama takes Laura off in the raptor and they start scouting out a place to build that cabin. The voice over that Bill gives at the end and the crane shot of him sitting at the top of a hill, next to her grave, telling her that he finally finished the cabin is enough to make me tear up again even as I write this. These are just absolutely fantastic characters.

I’ve Loved You So Long

While I would not describe “I’ve Loved You So Long” as an amazing or ridiculously powerful film it really hit home in a few places, particularly one specific scene that is so perfectly understated that it just blows me away. The basic set up is that a woman – played by Kristin Scott Thomas – has just been released from prison after having spent ten years behind bars for murdering her young child. As a result her family has disowned her, with the exception of her young sister, now married with her own family, who takes her in. The scene in question is where her sister decides to take her along on a visit to see their mother who lives in a home for elderly people suffering with dementia. She is hesitant to go, considering that her mother had disowned her long ago and they had not spoken since. Her sister informs her that it does not matter because their mom no longer knows who anyone is. She sees her own daughter as a paid caretaker and is constantly berating her. When the two walk into her room their mother greets the younger sister as she would greet a nurse who had not be responding to her constant paging. The brilliance in the scene is when Kristin Scott Thomas’ character is left alone with her mother. Rather than yell and scream she becomes calm, she recognizes her daughter, and rather than shunning her for the things she had done as an adult she asks her what took her so long coming home from school. She has forgotten everything – everything except for her core instinct to love and worry for her daughter. The tragedy of her illness becomes a miracle allowing for a brief moment of reconciliation that otherwise would never be possible. This is a scene that gets me every time and is likely the most powerful on the list.

Honorable Mention

Honorable mention goes to these films that made my cry as a child. It was not a fair fight, as my hormonal defense mechanisms had not developed yet – still why fight fair?

The Land Before Time

For parents, children’s films are often times seen as babysitters for their kids – a way to make sure their child is not getting into any trouble while the ‘grown ups’ can have their ‘grown up time’ in the other room. For my parents and myself ‘The Land Before Time’ was that movie, and why not choose this film? I mean it has cute little cuddly baby dinosaurs and it is animated with pretty colors! Never mind that the story is about the end of the fricken world! How could my parents ever suspect that I – as a child – might identify with the humanized baby dinosaur protagonist? The untimely death of Littlefoot’s mother and the prospects of trying to survive in a world that is literally collapsing around them is the stuff nightmares are made of. If the world could end for poor unsuspecting Littlefoot then maybe it could end for me too. The Land Before Time was enough to get my parents in from the other room to find out if I was OK… I wasn’t.

Bambi

You all know this one already. You probably were all crying along with me. I think I just figured out the key to making me cry. All you have to do is kill the mother. Wow. I think I’ll do that in every story I write from now on. Watch out mothers.

The Bridge to Terabithia

Not that recent cgi infused film put out by Buena Vista a few years back. I’m talking about some weird, low budget production that I saw in first grade, or some time forever ago. It might be the Canadian version listed on IMDb, but everyone there says that the film sucked, and all I remember is that it made me cry. I was ducking down in my desk in the back after finding out that the girl – aka the poor boys only friend – went splat on some rocks after trying to cross the bridge. I really think children’s films emotionally destroyed my generation. Haha

Ok, hopefully you made it this far, and hopefully you are not crying like I was. I really recommend checking out every item on this list and experiencing them for yourself. One thing I think you will discover is that all of these stories built up authentic characters. Without authentic characters the audience will not care about all the terrible, traumatic things that happen to them. Hopefully this article and these stories can help you to write better, more emotionally engaging tales. At the very least you should have learned that if you are searching for a way to make the audience feel bad you can always kill the mother.

How To Make Your Web Series Profitable

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:46:00 -0700

For the time being web series are attempting to survive through a traditional ad supported model but the niche nature of the content is likely to change that. Can web based programming thrive under a paid model? A handful of startups think so.

Ad supported content has seemingly been the basis of virtually every original web based business model since the invention of the internet by Al Gore some time before the 2000 election. Somewhere along the line people got the idea that everything on the internet was supposed to be free. I would chalk this up to the newness of the medium, and people’s inherent hesitance to trust giving out credit card information over the net.

The ad based model is about making incremental revenue off of every single user. In order to succeed it requires a large user base. As we saw with the dot com bust early this century, sites that were incapable of getting users to dole out real cash for services were unable to survive. This model works for sites like youtube and facebook which are platforms driving massive amounts of user generated (free) content. These companies are looking to convert each average user into a few dollars of ad revenue per year – and think of the amount of time people spend on these sites. This works for large broadcast networks like NBC, and CBS – for which there are only a handful nationwide. For shows on these networks budgets are typically in the $50,000 to $100,000 range – per minute.

While even very popular sites, with plenty of users, like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – two sites focused on professionally created content have been forced to put up paywalls to turn ad supported customers into paying customers – who also still view ads. This is similar to cable tv in that people pay to access it and yet they still view ads. In the cable model, it is vital for channels to get on the basic subscription tier in order to ensure that there are enough eyeballs to support the channel through advertisements.

The ad model focuses on maximizing viewers (ad views) and limiting cost. Television networks have to work within the constraint of timeslots and showing one thing at a time, where as a site like youtube offers a virtually unlimited amount of available programming at all times of the day. This means that there are fewer shows created for television, and in turn these shows receive a much larger viewing audience. A television network can spread its budget across a handful of shows, knowing that they can only offer one thing at a time. Youtube on the other hand has to divide its advertising revenues among all of its videos.

Subscription models, on the other hand, are about turning a percentage of customers / potential customers into significant revenue drivers. As time has gone on people have become more willing to entrust sites with their credit card information – even if it has been shown not to be the best idea.

The best examples of this are HBO and Netflix. These are similar to being premium versions of broadcast networks and youtube. HBO divides its budget among a handful of shows where as Netflix has an immense catalogue of shows and movies available for roughly the same cost per month. Up until recently, Netflix was simply a secondary revenue stream for the shows available on the platform as it alone is not capable of providing the revenue per show that a channel like HBO can – at least not without dramatically increasing its prices

The noticeable trend is that as content becomes more niche it moves from an ad model to an increasingly premium model. As time moves forward, the internet seems to show us that the only sites capable of surviving off of an ad model are platforms for content created either very cheaply, without expectation of financial return, or under unrealistic expectations. This is likely because the internet has become an inherently niche medium – with virtually infinite availability.

New site JTS.tv – Just The Story TV – has created a platform for previously established web series to be peddled to fans for a small monthly fee. They seem to understand the fallibility of an ad based system and are banking on a cable style ‘strength in numbers’ programming method. Web series are an insanely niche market right now, and they are being swamped with new offerings by many producers not entirely interested in financial return. This market likely has far too much competition for shows to survive off of ads alone, but there may be enough hardcore fans willing to dole out real money to watch specific shows.

JTS is not the only site charging viewers real money to watch web series. Another online network, tello films, has embraced an underserved niche market and put their content behind a paywall. The channel looks for partners in content creation and shares revenue with them. So far the model has been profitable – something I doubt would be possible under an ad based model.

In most cases it is not going to be about the amount of viewers you can get but rather how much money you can get out of each viewer. The real question for JTS.tv, tello films and other web series creators is whether or not they can provide enough quality to get people to pay money to watch. Looking at HBO and Netflix as examples they are at a huge disadvantage from a price / quality standpoint but that may not matter if web series creators can find the sweet spot for production quality and cost. Producing content cheaply is vital (watchmojo content is produced for roughly $100 per minute) but ultimately creating something unique and providing content that is unavailable anywhere else might be the real key.

The Future Of Content: Content Is The Future

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:35:35 -0700

The Future Of Content: Content Is The Future:

A long look at various ins and outs of video content creation and distribution. I think the key take away from here is that the more rules we put on online video the more it becomes clear that there are no rules. Success in the online arena will come from those who are doing something different.

YouTube Takes New Video Sales Model to Market

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:39:00 -0700

YouTube Takes New Video Sales Model to Market:

This article takes a look at the new advertising model Youtube is using to sponsor its recently added premium content. It reminds me a bit of a traditional record deal, and it’s apparently designed to appeal to advertisers more used to buying tv spots.