Starting a episodic comedy on the web, any tips?

Yardsale

Yardsale

Well-known member
A friend and I received a small grant to write 10 five minute comedy shorts, which will be episodic. The grant isn't very big though, should we push to keep all rights to it so that it could maybe be pitched later as a pilot or possibly even a feature? The whole youtube boom is still making this very new, but online delivery of media is becoming a very quick reality. What are my choices? What should I be on the lookout for? Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! :dankk2:

p.s. anyone that has tips on sitcom writing are also greatly appreciated!
 
I'm not real sure about your legal issues (although I wouldn't call it a grant if they want the rights to end product, but I really don't know what I'm talking about there). However, just in the writing part, I'd try to stick to the structure of the traditional sitcom; i.e., cold open, etc. Obviously things will be very abbrieviated by doing this and you might be able to toss out a couple of so-called musts. I just think too many people throw out story structure when they have to write something so short. At least have an arc, even if you can't do the regular structure. Shoot, I've learned to create an arc for 30-second TV commercials (though admittedly light on character development :-)) so you shouldn't have a problem with five minutes.
 
Yeah since it's episodic, we're making sure to have some sort of story arc to encompass it all. There is a clear goal from start to finish, which is good for bookending it and necessary if we have to wrap it up in a concrete 10 episodes.

BTW, hello fellow ad creative! I'm an art director :)
 
Write plotlines for your entire first season. Include at the very least a one line synopsis for each episode other than your pilot. This will help keep you knowing where you are going.
 
Arson said:
Write plotlines for your entire first season. Include at the very least a one line synopsis for each episode other than your pilot. This will help keep you knowing where you are going.
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Yeah we're on top of that, it keeps us consistent and on track with our story arc. :beer:
 
hey i recognize you from the giant robot forums. anyway, if it's for the web, shorter the better. if you could get it shorter than 5 minutes i think that would be good. 3 minutes would be ideal. that length is also good in case you can get it distributed on cell phones. as for rights, yeah keep as many as you can. giving them nonexclusive rights would be ideal. keep dvd rights. mobile rights if you can. i don't know if festival rights would be a concern for episodic content. good luck.
 
kiyong said:
hey i recognize you from the giant robot forums. anyway, if it's for the web, shorter the better. if you could get it shorter than 5 minutes i think that would be good. 3 minutes would be ideal. that length is also good in case you can get it distributed on cell phones. as for rights, yeah keep as many as you can. giving them nonexclusive rights would be ideal. keep dvd rights. mobile rights if you can. i don't know if festival rights would be a concern for episodic content. good luck.
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Hey fellow GR buddy! Well, the contract we're shooting for calls for 5 minute episodes so we're writing in that structure. Personally, I'd rather see 10 minute webisodes, but what can you do.
 
congrats on getting someone to pay you to make shorts! how did you go about getting that deal? what rights do they want? what kind of production timeline do you have?
 
kiyong said:
congrats on getting someone to pay you to make shorts! how did you go about getting that deal? what rights do they want? what kind of production timeline do you have?
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We had a friend who is directly involved in making decisions on which projects to greenlight, etc.

Doesn't guarantee we'll get the deal, but at least we have a shot and plan to do our best with our pitch :)

As for production timeline, we are hoping to have the pilot shot and edited by the middle of this month and there has been writing well into episode 3 already.
 
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