Dan Harmon’s Community: New Media Mentality, Old School Show

Yesterday one of my favorite comedy blogs, Splitsider offered a great post on Dan Harmon‘s ideas on storytelling, and how his ideas and experimentation as co-creator of Channel101 helped inform the fluidity and craft of his new show, Community. It’s a great crash-course in Harmon’s dogma, and how it applies to virtually everything he writes — from early 101 hits like Laser Fart all the way through the densest episodes of Community. I bring this up not only to recommend the article, but to ponder the consequences of new media artists working in traditional hollywood.

In this current, albeit transitional, climate where for many working in new media is still a stepping stone to working in traditional TV and film, how will that inform the way traditional TV is made? We’ve already seen a great influence on the way TV shows are marketed and presented, but what happens when you have artists trained-up in drastically different schools of thought “graduating” to the mainstream big leagues?

Consider that most web writers have re-wired their conception of pacing, story structure, character development, and comic timing to fit into a much shorter window. Dan Harmon managed to cram all his ideas about story structure, masturbating, and what he would do if he had superpowers into one 3 and a half minute short, so why wouldn’t each of his 7 characters get their own arch in a single episode of Community? What’s going to happen when we see writers whose exposition is merely the title of the show, when their show takes place in real time, when it takes place across 5 different platforms, when it’s structured around real world “touch-points”– what happens when writers who are used to innovating, used to owning everything and used to working without any creative restrictions get handed cash and a TV slot? Ask Dan Harmon.

I think he’s on the toilet in this picture. Fitting, as I wanted to work in his sarcastic manifesto on making a shitty Channel 101 show. Also worth the read.

 

Video Journaling Squaresville: Talking to cameras

So I’ve started video journaling about my adventures in Squaresville. Hopefully, you guys can share a bit about yourselves, too. Like I said, I’d rather not look like an asshole.

Newteevee Lives

Newteevee Live was yesterday, and most of us find it hard to slog through tech news about HTML 5 integration on the latest platform blah blah blah, NTVL always keeps things insightful, human, and inspiring. I found this conversation with Blip.TV CEO Mike Hudack especially great, as it distills a lot of the thoughts I’ve had about monetizing scripted content into one, eloquent little video. It’s worth your time if you’re at all interested in the future of independent media.

You Know What’s Cool? A Bajillion Hits

You guys have probably heard of Bajillion hits (.biz) by now, but if you’re not totally jacked into the web-o-sphere like the guru-ninja-strat-master/creator of the site Alex Blagg is, don’t feel too bad, he’s the most cutting edge person of all time. The site, which lampoons social media types, is headed up by Blagg, who’s taken on the personae of the biggest new media douche the world has ever known. We all know someone whose brash bravado and preoccupation with social media buzz overrides his self awareness and social grace, and Blagg has that person in the cross hairs. He’s a cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Cuban, only on elephant viagra.

BH.biz has been all over the “blogosphere” lately, and as hilarious as I think BajillionHits.biz is, I have to admit, sometimes it hits too close to home. Some other bloggers seem eager to jump on his bandwagon, as if pronouncing their awareness of how duplicitous and, well, douchey this industry can be absolves them from embarrassing behavior. The fact is, you have to drop some serious strat to win at the internet. We all want all the hits, and we all need to max out our strat. There are people who really do need Alex’s help, and I go back and forth between laughing with him, and being annoyed at my own similarities to those he’s lampooning.

After all, Blagg has been jacking mondo strat in a serious, legit way for many years now, as a blogger for Best Week Ever, and later for Buzz Media. In order to do satire this accurate, you have to know the material intimately.  Even though Alex is making fun of this industry and basically blogs just like my own, his insight is peircing. Recommendation 7 on this blog post, for instance, bears a disappointing resemblance to my own Squaresville. That’s just one of many horrifying similarities I’ve found between myself and Alex’s over-the-top personae.

At the end of the day (which never happens occurs for Blagg — he’s a 25/8 machine of productivity) his edge betrays the truest insecurities of the web industry. If we’re all trying to grab the same eyeballs, then better strat is the answer to our prayers. Hiring a person who knows better than we do is the panacea to making a burgeoning industry flourish. We all want to believe the “experts” out there, because they represent the possibility that what we’re trying to achieve is attainable. And though Blagg is teasing us about our insatiable scramble for traffic, I can’t help but wonder how much he cares about the big hits himself. I’m embarrassed to admit that I do.

The Producer’s Dilemma

The closer you get to finishing a project, the more eager you are to show it to the world. Certainly, we’re getting really close on locking picture Squaresville, and it’s made me really anxious to get the show out into the world.

When you work in distribution, you see this sort of eagerness in other creators all the time. We’ve toiled on our show for so long, and the internet is so immediate, why not just through a few episodes up now? “We’ll whet the appetite of our “fans” ( really, more like your cast, crew, and parents) and then get the next batch up even faster”. And how do you build an audience for a show no one has seen?

Just wait. Make a roll out plan that makes sense for your show. Shop it around. Weigh your options.

Figure out other ways to generate interest in your show: blog, post photos, run a facebook campaign — be creative. And don’t stress about pre-awareness too much. Just finish your show, and stick to your strategy, and you’ll have plenty of time to build buzz, and release your show right.

*This advice is for me as much as it is for you. I want to release this show yesterday.

The 10 Goals I Made For My New Web Series

Since I first announced Squaresville, we’ve shot our pilot run, begun post production, and ramped up our social media efforts. As awareness grows, people have been asking: so what is your show about? As I was looking through old notes and to do lists, compiling a fleshed out “about” page to answer that question, I came across one of the most important Squaresville documents I have:  the document outlining the ten goals/principles, that I knew I needed to follow to make this the show I want it to be.

I thought it’d be fun to post the list here. Now you can hold me to these tenets when the show comes out.

The Ten Most Important Things About Squaresville:

1. It’s effortlessly cool and fun.
2. You care about it. You watch it over and over. It is not disposable. It sticks with you.
3. You fall in love with each performer.
4. You don’t have to be a kid or an adult to love it.
5. The design, cinematography & web experience are one, interwoven, seamless, visceral experience.
6. I love making it. My crew loves making it. My cast loves making it.
7. The moments are real and true. This is a show about human beings.
8. It’s simultaneously romantic and goofy.
9. It’s short, sweet and concise.
10. You love it the most.

Squaresville: You love it the most

I recommend making a list like this at the onset of any meaningful endeavor. It kept me focused and grounded when production got gnarly.

What do you do to make sure your projects turn out the way you want them to?

Cross posted on SquaresvilleSeries.com, Squaresville’s official site.

Actors: How To Book That Web Series

I think we all dream of being the type of casting director that’s open and imaginative enough to find that diamond in the rough. We want to believe we have the vision to recognize the next star when they walk through the door (or at least, the next web star). Maybe it’s just my naiveté, but my mentality about casting is the last bit of “you can break the system” thinking I’ve managed to cling to.  But here’s the deal, for as much as we all want to keep an open mind and be creative in the casting room, we don’t have the time or resources to dilly dally. During yesterday’s session I kept thinking a few things to myself over and over. Things I wish I could’ve told all the talented young hopefuls that came in.

So I reached out to two friends of mine, Stephanie Thorpe and Jenni Powell, experts who I knew had a thing or two to say about casting…

The New First Step – Enlisting A Site Producer

I had my first official, face to face Squaresville meeting a week ago. It wasn’t with my DP, any other producers, financiers, or cast – it was with my site producer. A good bit of my day job is spent producing web pages, and we’re all becoming increasingly aware of how important a great site is. The fact is, though, if you’re trying to produce and direct a show at the same time, adding site producer to your resume just doesn’t make sense. Though we’re working very closely together, I’m going to be immensely relieved that the site is going to be someone else’s responsibility.

Early on I realized that the show’s social and interactive elements were going to be too big for the web solutions I’ve had before. Though in many ways I’m approaching Squaresville’s story as primarily a passive, traditional experience, it’s a much bigger project than I’ve tackled before. Sure, I could try and do all this junk myself, but with all the pointing and talking and lifting I tend to do on shoot days, I knew I wouldn’t have the mindshare to make sure everything gets done the way it needs to.

Here’s what my wed producer will be doing while I’m off pointing cameras and shouting action:

- Conceptualizing site structure and wire frames with me

- Sourcing and hiring a web designer (e-mail me up if you’re interested in helping out)

- Coordinating with our web developer to wire up the back end

- Mapping out the social media and marketing strategy for the series with me (and then executing it with me)

- Coordinating with the set photographer to grab both on set and publicity photos of each cast member while they’re together and in costume.

- Shooting behind the scenes set footage

- Shooting behind the scenes interview footage for multiple behind the scenes vignettes (both pre-planned and improvised)

You’ll notice that most of these tasks are limited pre-production and actual production. Once all the assets are gathered, tagged, uploaded and implemented, the web producer’s job is far from done, but most of the heavy lifting will be taken care of. At that point we’ll reassess what it is the Producer is getting out of the gig (it’s that old money vs. time thing). At that point, we’ll see whether it makes more sense for me to take things over or not.

As the medium grows (or should I say, as I grow up in this medium), the specialty aspects of a showsite are going to grow ever more complex. I hope that in the near future, just directing a URL to your show’s youtube channel doesn’t cut it anymore. Moreover, I hope that we find the cash and resources for our filmmakers to specialize more. Yes, I could  write the show, produce it, shoot it, and then build it’s web-site  (I know many of my uber-talented peers do) but I’d rather leave the coding to the pro’s and try and become a better filmmaker and producer.

What about you? I know there a ton of great shows that use out-of-the-box templates that look and work great. Is a specialty site necessary? Is it over kill?

Web Series Rising

I’ve played this whole thing pretty close to my chest, but it wont be too long before I’m asking people for help, so I might as well finally announce that I’m in pre-production on a new series, and I’m calling it Squaresville. Briefly; it’s a quirky coming of age story about two young nerd-girls struggling to follow their dreams in a town of people who’ve settled prematurely.

That’s plenty for now.

For the immediate term, I’ll be blogging more from the perspective of a second term web creator. Certainly there are a number of great blogs that track the production of a first time series creator, but not too many of us are blogging about our second spin. What did I learn on Mountain Man, Engaged and at Atom? What mistakes did we make last time, and what am I repeating? How do you transfer corporate experience into the independent world? It should be fun, informative, and probably too self indulgent (this is my blog, right?). So stay tuned.

Undercover Hits The Mark

Have you guys seen A.V. Club’s Undercover series? I think it’s probably the best example of branded content I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty obsessed with it right now. As the video states, AV club invites touring bands to cover seminal songs in their studio. Great bands sing great songs, and Budweiser pays to be associated with an awesome project. It’s simple, clean and perfect.

Thankfully, Budweiser had the wisdom to keep themselves out of these videos, trading instead, for a mega-branded site to host them. Sure, the site itself SCREAMS Budweiser, but the videos are pristine. Though it would have been tempting to slap a Budweiser logo on the wall in the background, these videos get to be themselves. As a result, Bud benefits from untouched, effortless videos, and so I forgive them all the branding elsewhere.

I  really hope we see more series like this one and more brands with this sort of forward thinking. Though brand integration can be a great revenue stream for independent content creators, there’s real value in regular old brand association. Too often, series become encumbered by all the branding a sponsor brings to the table; not so here. It would have been easy to have each band chug a Bud during each interview, but I appreciate that the brand had the presence of mind to recognize that integrating their product into the videos would’ve made the series lose credibility. The power of these clips is in their simplicity, and I’m genuinely entertained and grateful for a series like this.