Notes from Steinar’s Lecture

No doubt you all took plenty of notes during Steinar’s talk – you won’t get much better local insight into web series than that!  I’ve put together some notes for review and discussion, firstly in relation to your pitches, then a list of resources that Steinar mentioned.

Pitching:

  • Your pitch needs to then be pitched on by someone else, needs to be memorable
  • You have to love the idea: hone in on the part that you are most passionate about
  • Describe an opening scene; great way to paint the picture of your concep. A succinct description of your characters & plot points can do a lot of the work, you don’t need to read through an episode line for line
  • Why are we going to put so much time and effort into this?
  • Pitch is a performance: you’re in a safe space, so be brave and give it all you’ve got

Notes on the web series form:

Steinar mentioned that Australia is 3rd biggest producer of web series, based on the amount of content entered into the recent LA webfest.  When Melbourne webfest first started, it was the 4th established web series festival in the world at the time, and there are now at least 40.  This has helped foster strong international connections for web series producers,  with the potential for co-production funding between different nations.  There is also a strong local community here in Melbourne, with regular meet-ups at Loop Bar.

On the issues of diversity, Steinar expressed concern that multicultural content may be pushed aside from the mainstream, forming ‘Digital ghettos’ of isolated content.  This is one major issue that funding bodies such as Screen Australia are contending with.  Steinar pointed to the strong ‘anti-TV’ sentiment as a theme of various productions, and made some suggestions about the opportunities this presents for releasing a series: if your series only spans a few episode (say, 5-8) Steinar recommends all at once, keeping people engaged.

Steinar also mentioned that stats suggest episodes are getting longer, not shorter.  Adding to this, a key element of Screen Australia’s  Multiplatform Drama content is that production should involve strong social media components.  Steinar recommended starting your own Youtube channel, and continuously populating this with content on a regular basis.  His number 1 piece of advice about making a web series: JUST DO IT!

People & Examples

  • Some useful names to remeber: Kevin Mountain, iView content manager at ABC & Rick Kolowski, Head of Comedy ABC
  • Airlock: biggest budget Aus digital series, by Enzo Tedeschi (creator of crowdfunded film ‘The Tunnel’)
  • Dario Russo – creator of ‘Danger 5’, said to influenced by Monty Python
  • BedHead web series, made the transition to TV, many preferred the web series, argument for shorter & self-contained episodes
  • The Horizon: gay web series
  • Starting From Now: lesbian drama
  • Her Story: Trans series
  • Michael Shanks: Wizards of Aus. Millions of views on his Youtube channel, wasn’t awarded Fresh Blood funding from ABC, but then acquired significantly more funding from Screen Aus MPD pool.  There are opportunities!
  • Katering show: Gizmodo picked up on an episode then the interest spread from there, think about the communities online that might be interested in yours
  • Oposto do Sexo: 85 episodes!  Importance of quantity
  • Racka Racka: Aus youtube channel, over 3 mil subscribers
  • Commissioned content: Yahoo with Tom Hanks, good case study for ‘commercial’ series

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