The medium of a Web Series

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Denialorcoped

Well-known member
I made a post a month or so ago about making a web series. I am working on a script but I don't have the budget for a film, so I wanted to make it into an ambitious web series first in hopes to attract investors to eventually make a feature.

The thing is I've been doing research on other web series and the all kinda suck. Most web series that are successful is really stupid humor that people email and post on facebooks for a quick cheap laugh. I fear the internet audience has too short an attention span for the dark comedy I want to make. What do you guys think????
 
I hope not because I'm fundraising a pilot for a dark comedy/horror web series right now. I think to hold the audiences attention for a longer format non-comedy web series you are going to have to bring pretty high production values to bear. I am budgeting in the $3K range per 12 minute episode. Past experience has shown me I should be able to make that $3K look like $20K (Union camera operator working for slave wages, union Grip working for free, 20 years experience makeup artist working for $75 a day, etc...). You basically need to be knocking on the door of cable TV quality production values, acting, writing, etc...
 
That's a valid point; but I have seen some pretty high budget web series fail, and some low-budget ones be very successful. At the end of the day I will prob end up going the web-series route since I figure to make a film I would need a minimum of $50k; But it just disheartens me cause I honestly cannot think of 3 web series I enjoy watching. I would really like to work in a medium I have a greater appreciation for...
 
I'm doing it because there is at least a sliver of hope of profit (only a sliver, but that's better than nothing). Short films have virtually no chance of profit and I have no interest in attempting a feature for less than about $100K.

Like anything else you have to identify an audience, direct the content at them, and market to them.
 
I don't watch ANY web series. It's just a medium you can potentially monetize either by selling it as exclusive content or by trying to survive on Ad revenues. The goal (for me) is just "self supporting". To make enough off each episode to fund the next one.
 
I dont watch any web-series either really....when I used to have a full time office job I watchd Wainey Days and some other mydamnchannel.com stuff in addition to VICE videos while I was eating lunch though. However I doubt I would PAY for any web series...I mean maybe I'd pay five bucks a month if they make it easy to do, but more than likely I would not want to have to join yet another site to login to watch videos. I'd likely just move over to a blog or some other time waster during my lunch break.

I'm not sure how a web series could support itself without having stars/names attached.
 
I do have a B- grade Horror film actor. Not much star power but a little.

It's a long shot for sure.
Shop the pilot to the few websites that buy exclusive content, if that fails...
Hope it becomes a "hit" and generates enough hits to support itself with ad revenue, if that fails...
Hope it does have a core audience of several thousand, some percentage of which love it enough to cough up $5 in order to see the next episode made.
 
Well you might get lucky...the horror genre has some pretty rabid fans, so hopefully your star will give you a bit of a boost. If you want to surely make it work, just throw a couple grand at Bruce Campbell and have him show his face in an episode or two for 20 seconds :)

But good luck, getting it on a website that buys content seems to be the best revenue stream.

If that doesn't work maybe you can give away the first couple episodes for free and see if people will buy in after....of course once people get something for free they may not want to pay for it, but it can work with genre fans.
 
I also have a friend who funded his newest feature by getting people to sponsor scenes. He would literally get money from someone saying that all of it would go to whichever random scene. They would shoot scenes piecemeal for months, and then once they had a bit of the film together they were able to show it off and get the rest funded for a month long shoot. it also made the original donors happy since they could see exactly where their money went.

So if you think outside the box, anything can be done.
 
I definitely wouldn't make people pay to see my series. I would post it on youtube. Ultimate goal would be to attract investor(s) to make it into a feature.
 
NOT watching web series is a really bad idea. You can't compete in a medium you haven't even bothered to look at, unless you happen to have an incredible amount of luck. Comedy works better than drama on the internet, and even dark comedy has an audience. You've just got to dig deeper and find your fanbase. Generally speaking, if you have any connection to a pre-existing fanbase, you stand a much better chance of "going somewhere" with your series than if you start from scratch.

-JMT
 
Denialorcoped said:
I definitely wouldn't make people pay to see my series. I would post it on youtube. Ultimate goal would be to attract investor(s) to make it into a feature.
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I would love to be able to do that, but at $3K plus an episode, just not possible.

For me this is a path to be able to generate content without me having to fund it. I'm in about $10K on three short films and just can't afford to keep doing that.
 
Check out placevine: http://www.placevine.com/

There are a couple of companies that match films with brands in the hope they will sponsor your project.

Also - webseries - what's to say? It's true that quick hit comedy is a better look for getting signed, but there are quite a few projects that have gotten picked up off the web. It's totally hit or miss, and no exact science. Really it comes down to can you hit your target audience with good content. A mix of social networking, good PR from fan boy sites, and a unique hook that draws the audience in.

Lots of web series, even though really good , are just short films someone shot and cut up and put online and arguably, something we have seen before, done a lot better. There are tons of tendrils too about knowing the right people ahead of time sometimes to get picked up somewhere.

If you like the script, go for it. Better to move ahead with a piece you believe in and get it in the can and shop it around than sit around and do nothing but eating meat and cutting your toenails.
 
I view mine as a "series" the "web" part is incidental to what I'm trying to do.
I think you pretty much HAVE to aim it at a core audience. In my case it's H.P. Lovecraft fans.
 
I'm not sure the reasoning, why would yo think that a web series would attract investors for your feature film???

(totally side note, noone can take $3k and make it look like $20k - 3k is scraped together one day of shooting while $20k is well funded 2 days - though the opposite is possible and done pretty much everyday)
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
I'm not sure the reasoning, why would yo think that a web series would attract investors for your feature film???

(totally side note, noone can take $3k and make it look like $20k - 3k is scraped together one day of shooting while $20k is well funded 2 days - though the opposite is possible and done pretty much everyday)
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A lot of professionals working at fractions of their day rate or even for free based my relationship with them. For me $3K is three days of shooting. $750 to $1000 a day DP working for $100 a day and $500 plus kit fee Makeup artist working for $75 and not charging kit goes a LONG way. In addition I own or can borrow what I need lighting wise as well as the majority of the grip gear. I have learned a little money can go a long way. No money is hard to work with, but a little money can be leveraged pretty well if you work at it.
 
Very easy to prove me wrong: show me a $3k production that looks like 20k.

But the above aside, i'm still curious about your reasoning why you would think that web series will get you investors?
 
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I can't because I've never had that much money for something this short (12 minutes).

Here's 12 minutes made for $2K, $900 of which was the motel location. I think I could pretty easily sell that I spent $8K to $10K on this. Though it was first DSLR shoot so a few shots we wish we had a do over on.
http://vimeo.com/38129130
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
But the above aside, i'm still curious about your reasoning why you would think that web series will get you investors?
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I don't expect someone to give me $5 mil to make a feature; But if the web series gets a fanbase it would definitely help is raising money for a feature. At very least it would make for a much more successful Kickstarter Campaign. Just look at The Angry Video Game Nerd. He raised $200k from fans to make his film.

There's also was a web series called "We Need Girlfriends" that got picked up by CBS. If it gets popular, investors will see a value in it.
 
Denialorcoped said:
There's also was a web series called "We Need Girlfriends" that got picked up by CBS. If it gets popular, investors will see a value in it.
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The series was then picked up for possible development for a television version of We Need Girlfriends for Sony Pictures and CBS, to be executive produced by Darren Star, Dennis Erdman and Clark Peterson. [SUP][2][/SUP]The project was eventually canceled.[SUP][3]



it was a good look, but project cancelled and never went anywhere, also things my father says was just a twitter feed and now its a show and the guy is now a DGA writer with producer credit. Both of those got lucky looks from producers and jump started that. Its both a good example and a really bad example.
[/SUP]
 
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