We want to thank our friends over at Ruby Sky PI for having us on set this week.  They have a really great production underway full of positive energy and vibrant talent.

Budgets – clearly the most obvious difference is how much have you got to spend – and how is it being spent? One of the biggest challenges for smaller houses is creating web content with a production value that looks like what you see on TV and the big screens, without paying the big TV dollars. This often means stretching your resources, and calling in favours… any indie producer will tell you this is how it gets done, and it is, on the indie scale.  Generally, webseries are likened to indie film/short film productions in scope.  At the big houses, where you can throw petty cash at a problem, have full time hot craft service, diva talent get special treatment, and everyone speaks walkie lingo, it’s a different way of life! On smaller shows like ours, we still have all the same roles to fill and content to create, but the rules and standards for rates and costs suddenly disappear.  Crew rates become negotiable, and some rental houses cut you slack. This sounds great, but is a budgeting nightmare in disguise.  Your crew (ideally) has valuable mastery of certain skills that should not be taken for granted by being paid lesser rates, yet the smaller your overall budget is, the lower the acceptable rates are, but how low is low? There comes a line to cross where you want the best person in the industry for the role, but your options are the best person in the industry who will work for your rate. What do you do? (hint: fast/cheap/good – pick 2) It’s a good thing there’s lots of talent in Toronto, eager to get experience in this exciting world of new media, but hey, people need to live. I guess my point is, we need more media funding, Canada! (Big ups to the IPF, and CMF who have actually done something about that, this year).

Crew – Speaking of valuable crew, good multi-taskers are key on a low budget web series, for the few members of the small sized crew often wear many hats, combine roles, and put in hours like nobody’s business. We take pride in always trying to fit people into a role where they can learn something by exploring a new area of interest, or shadowing an expert.  This often means using a mixed bag of ‘greens’ and pros, which is great because the pros find it exciting to work on something different, and the freshies are eager to gain experience and usually give 200%.   In the TV world on set, everyone is an expert in their role, and it shows.  Entry level jobs like PA’s and department assistants are where you get the keeners, but they’re too busy driving around and running errands to soak up much of the creative, technical, or otherwise interesting aspects of production (it takes a long while to move up/around to the more glamorous roles).

Online Interactivity - The most noticeable change coming with New Media is the use of the internet in the experience of such forms of entertainment.   Now your favourite TV show not only has a website to accompany the property, but its probably got some fun interactive elements to enrich your experience of said show. This could include games, fun facts and quizzes, additional web-exclusive content, webisodes, interviews, behind the scenes info, images, character profiles, blogs, etc.  Along with these new requirements, comes new job roles, terminology, processes, and business plans to make new media entertainment successful.  Now there has to be a team devoted to creating the web content alongside the production, as a connected, yet separate entity, making for a much larger project in scope. Interactive producers consult with the TV creatives to design a site appropriate to the content, webisodes are treated like additional episodes in the production pipeline (just shorter), writers have a wildly different process as their “scripts” take on a new shape. Project managers, coders and designers have their own timeline for the website, but it better be launching in time for the broadcast premiere (always a mad rush)! We have producers and broadcasters thinking like game developers, and site builders trying to figure out revenue models for entertainment properties outside the traditional cable system. It’s all becoming integrated, and still evolving. It’s exciting, but sometimes I get the distinct feeling that we’re just making it all up as we go along…

Funding – Until recently, all associated web content would be handled by the producers/production company (or outsourced), and paid for from the same budget that makes the show, or from the prod-co’s pocket (with no additional resources to spare). It’s not enough to just have a great series idea anymore, now all the major funds in the industry have interactivity as a required component for any television property, and must be worked into the plan from the start.  The most notable is the amalgamation of the Canadian Television Fund, and the Canadian New Media Fund, into the new Canadian Media Fund, which launched April 1, 2010, and are accepting proposals under 2 streams, Convergent (for projects with broadcaster attached, and having an interactive component), and Experimental (for digital media projects of varying forms, with no broadcaster onboard).

Here we are with our funders, the Independent Production Fund.

And of course, our new best friends at the Independent Production Fund, who decided this year that dramatic web series are the way of the future, and worth spending money on (thank you)!  It’s great that government programs are finally catching on to this online movement that has been in the works for years already – meaning, we actually have a chance to acquire some of these funds to prove our ability to produce something of TV value, before landing that much desired broadcaster contract!

Surely, every New Media Producer will have their own tales of how this production world of today differs from the one we’ve grown used to, and now each day it becomes increasingly evident that adaptability is one of the greatest assets a producer can have.

Posted by: Scott

The day is here.

It’s weird. We’ve opened out (tiny) office for Tights and Fights: Ashes. We’ve hired key positions. We’ve cast. We’ve signed contracts and got a (for us) large lump o’ cash. As you read a couple of posts ago, we sent a day on a super hero costume road trip.

So why is the table read the thing that makes it feel real?

I guess, being mostly a writer, this is the moment where suddenly it’s not just silly, funny words on a page that made you giggle to yourself, now actual people have to listen to other actual people say them out loud. And it either works or it don’t.

I know I promised a part two to the writing history, and I’m getting to that (this has been a crazy time for me) but I would remiss if I left you with the impression that I wrote this entire series sitting in my basement, or something. By the way, if you’re wondering, I’m using remiss in the sense of, “be an asshole.” And I don’t have a basement.

Nor was I alone on this journey. I named names in the earlier post, but the only reason this show is going to camera is because we surrounded ourselves with people funnier, smarter and prettier than we are. And now they’re gonna dress up in funny super hero costumes and say silly things to the world.

But still. I want it to be funny, and fun, and – perhaps the greatest challenge of all – make sense across more than 180 episodes. It’s scary. I’ve never had to make sense for longer than five minutes at a stretch. One of my biggest fears is that a year from now some YouTuber’s gonna watch the latest episode and post, “Can you explain what’s going on, here?”

This is a massive narrative, with plot threads coming and going like the paths of dogs playing in the dog park. And it’s always been my job to keep track of them on a big picture level. So I do feel a sense of responsibility when it comes to the read through. Some people who will be attending are going to be experiencing the story (at least the first third that will be read this evening) for the first time. I’m proud of the scripts, the writing, the talent involved. And today is the start of the long road of sharing it with the world. I can’t wait slash scared shitless. Which is pretty much normal for me.

The biggest challenge tonight is that all three of us, Courtney, Christopher and I, need to have our heads in the table read, which means that none of us can be making sure things are running smooth behind the scenes. But we’ll try to figure out a way to live tweet the read, so we can share a tiny taste of it with you.

Wish us luck, and watch this space!

Scott

We have big things coming for twitter in the world of Tights and Fights.  Stay tuned for details.

On the way back we stopped into Milton to speak with the super talented Adam Smith of Sword in the Stone Crafts, about the technical needs of the costume.  The conversation that ensued was so enjoyable, as Adam seemed to really get what we were going for and shared Liana’s love of cosplay.  There is some amazing stuff in store for the viewers of the show, but you’ll have to wait to see it on the screen.

All in all, we roughed in most of Evil Trojan Borscht and Major Faultline’s costumes.  The Plumber was never going to be complicated.  So that leaves Leopard Woman and Fantabulous Gal for later this week. And away we go…

Hey!

Busy, busy times for us. I haven’t had to post quite as often as I would like.

But I thought I’d jump on and mention something cool.

Our esteemed colleague Jill Golick’s web series, Ruby Skye, PI, was also funded by the IPF Webseries Pilot program – and they’re going to camera on Monday. That’s Ruby in the picture. (Stop staring at me, Ruby! What are you laughing at!?)

In the meantime, they are rushing all around town getting ready to shoot – and keep on top of their already insanely busy lives. So to make co-ordinating their production much easier, they have decided to hold their production meetings through Twitter.

A bold experiment. As a platform for direct, back-and-forth communication, Twitter presents some challenges. It is hard to keep a conversation on track – the time line of questions and replies get confused, and you could lose a tweet in the stream of updates that floods anyone’s twitter use. But it is fascinating to be able to not only sit in on their plans and discussions, but to jump in and contribute if you have something worthwhile to add.

If you want to check it out, here’s what you should do.

First of all, follow @rubyskepi on twitter. That will keep you up to date on all the goings on.

Secondly, as of press time the Production Meeting Tweet-up is scheduled to start at 4:00 EST this afternoon. Look for the hashtag #rspipdn .

And, while you’re at it, I’m @scottalbert on Twitter. Feel free to follow me too!

Scott

Click here to view the embedded video.

How do you get your audience

• don’t fight google – google clearly states the type of content they want to see, which is basically “relevant high quality and current content which satisfies search queries”. Watch and follow the advice in the State of the Index Addresses, I posted the link in the linkedin group.
• create and regularly post unique content – a challenge for web drama which almost always has a limited release. Think of ways to deliver your content to new audiences over the long term.  This might mean additional content in some form.
• commit to website best practices – avoid blackhat tactics and follow google’s stated best practices because they are carefully constructed to increase user acquisition, retention and engagement by improving the user experience.  These are based on massive analytical analysis.
• provide value rich opportunities – “free” as a concept isn’t a very value rich opportunity.  Yes it brings in viewers, but consider providing a little more.  Perhaps offer a newletter or ebook if the user registers.  Perhaps create a contest with some small simply prize and invite your users to participate.

How do you engage your audience

• understand the segmentation in your audience – your audience isn’t segmented as “male 18-25” or “female 35-50”  its segmented by community, social status, religion, social interest, technological literacy, occupation, geographic location, and countless more.
• bring your content to the segmented community – communities form around internet destinations like niche social networking sites (twitter, flickr, facebook, youtube, myspace, linkedin, etc), blogs, forums, games, chat rooms, bookmarking sites, and many more places on the web today. Also bring your content to as many platforms (on and off line) through a variety of delivery portals.  Bringing select content to a destination creates a personal connection with users of that destination, some of whom will seek out more content on your site.
• leverage web 2.0 offerings to create simple user interactions – offer users an opportunity to influence the outcome of their, and their fellow viewer’s experience. This could be as simple as well moderated comments.  The most powerful web 2.0 video tool available to producers, are the Youtube overlay tools which allow you to choosing what video plays next depending on a response or choose what action a character takes, as well as provide language and disability accessibility through subtitles.  Web 2.0 destinations offer all kinds of Transmedia tools to enhance your stories

How do you expand your audience

• internet partnerships – everyone online is looking for the same things; exposure and revenue.  By exposure I mean traffic to a site or some other piece of content, and revenue from any means possible.  You can easily barter for either by offering the same in return, exposure or a revenue opportunity.
• web and affiliate marketing – there are a number of formalized internet partnerships you can use.  Adwords basically formalized and standardized internet advertising contracts for both parties.  But there are others similar networks that run affiliate marketing programs.  These are places where you can offer a percentage of sale in exchange for exposure.
• email capture and utilization – construct your advertising campaigns to provide multiple marketing opportunities.  Perhaps you have a special episode that you can gate, then open it up to people who simply register.  These are the email addresses of your fans.  Then when you have a new campaign you can contact these fans and perhaps get them to help you market your product. For example, send an email that says “Hey check they new Ruby Sky facebook page and share the show with your friends!”
• platform adaptation – In the grand scheme of things the numbers we are talking about for viewership aren’t very big.  The problem of the internet is that is a very noisy place.  People run to the shelter of restricted content platforms like facebook, iPhones, Android etc.  The reality is that there are thousands of platforms for content, and the smaller platforms provide still very sizable opportunities to build an audience and generate revenue.

Scott has had an office for some time, and its been very useful, but he still needs a place to be writing scripts so we needed to find a place in a part of town we’d actually like to go to and could afford.  We really got lucky with to find a place right down town at The Launch Pad which provides affordable short term offices to indy papers and film makers.  The space boasts  a shared boardroom, kitchen, washrooms, and internet.

So our move-in day is tomorrow, and most of my apartment will be moving in with us.  I have a dual system, dual display audio/video focused computer setup.  That’s all moving, and the desks they are on will go too.  All I’ll be left in the apartment will be a old mac laptop, a LCD monitor and partially broken TV.  Hopefully I can keep up with my online tv habit, although I haven’t tried it.

Its an exciting time for sure.

Full of possibilities!

Christopher, Courtney and I had a big ol’ meeting on Thursday to try to keep on top of all the tasks we have to do between now and launch. Things are busy now, but August is gonna be insane! Hopefully as we get into production and launching things will settle into a rhythm and we won’t be mental juggling 18 things at once.

There are really 3 big things that could still derail the whole project if we don’t figure them out.

One, is the costumes. This being about comic book heroes, the costumes are key elements to almost everything we need to do. Working with our Art Director, Stephanie Avery, we think we may have found the perfect wardrobe person to get our costumes done. (As a quick aside, Stephanie Avery, is a key collaborator who has been our Art Director on every live action shoot we have done.)

Two, office space. Between working with interns, each other, and an ongoing Transmedia writing team, having a dedicated working space for Tights and Fights: Ashes is a must. Just after our meeting  on Thursday we found a place that, while it may be small, would meet our basic needs and come in under our utterly ridiculously small budget for office space.  It seems like a miracle. We’ll know soon if we get it and you, dear reader, will be the first to know!

Three, sponsorship and advertising. Big stumbling block. We’re talking with a few very talent and exciting people, but we honestly aren’t sure about how close we are to nailing this down. This is a tough one because, push come to shove, we could squeak by if we do everything else ourselves. We could even continue to work out of our living rooms and probably deliver all we promised to the IPF. But we’re not just looking to “squeak by” or even deliver our minimum requirements for this one project. We’re looking to use Tights and Fights: Ashes to jumpstart a profitable, on going concern making narrative content in the digital space. And to do that, we need an ad guy (or girl) that knows that world and speaks that language. We can’t do it ourselves with any reasonable expectation of success. And if we want money coming in before Christmas, we need to start now. Like I said, we have some very exciting candidates, but I’ll feel a lot better when someone is actually picking up the phone on our behalf.

On the plus side, so far everything is coming together. We’re getting some enthusiastic responses from our early, informal requests for volunteers and interns. Our lawyer is looking over the contract with the IPF, once that is signed the money starts flowing. The scripts are done (more or less) and we’re going over them with a fine toothed comb. Production plans are being laid out. Web sites are being programed. Oh, and we’re forming a new company for the production.

And speaking of the new company,  the need for one came out of a meeting with our lawyer, Martin Krys, who raised many interesting points but here’s one all producers (big and small) would do well to help in mind; just because a worker is working for you short term (i.e. your entire crew on a film shoot) doesn’t mean the government doesn’t consider them employees. Which means you are on the hook for taxes and benefits,  something that very few producers actual pay,  assuming the worker is being contracted and not employed. The questions that are asked to determine whether a worker is an employee or contract worker are these;

1)      Does the worker have any input into how the task is completed, or are they required to follow your directions to complete it?

2)      Does the worker provide their own “tools” required to complete the job, or are they provided by you?

If the worker has a large amount of latitude in how they complete the task and they provide their own tools required to complete it, they are a contract worker. Otherwise they are employees, even if only employed for a short term, and you gotta pay taxes and benefits.

Please remember that I’m not a lawyer and I only understand this stuff on the broadest possible level, if at all. My point is film crew members are often treated by productions as contract workers,  when legally they are employees, leading to more than one producer being handed a massive tax bill after production has wrapped. Not fun.

Lots to learn, lots to do! Exciting times and no catastrophes yet!

And here’s the thing about writers and pens. You’d think that writers would be all about fancy pens, maybe even pricey pens that have just the right balance and glide across the page. Most writers do use pens to some degree, so you’d think they’d take it seriously. Nope. You’ll always spot a professional writer cause they’ll have the oldest, most worn out, leaky, crumbling shitty plastic pen that they have lost and found about thirty times.

Oh, and they have super dirty keyboards. Seriously. I don’t know a single real writer without a keyboard that looks like it has a nice honey Dijon glaze over the keys. Even as i write this, my attention is drawn to the sticky nature of certain keys on my own keyboard; a wireless one that as been running low on batteries for about 16 days, but I have forgotten once again to bring in batteries sitting at home bought just for that purpose.

All of that is an aside. We’re here to talk Writers’ Room.

A little background for those who need it.

If you know all about Writers Rooms and are super pressed for time (maybe Dancing with the Stars is about to start, who knows what you do with your spare time) you can take your puffed up self down to the next bit. For all the rest of you, I’ll give a little context.

I come from a sketch comedy and TV writing background, both of which tend to involve a lot of collaboration. The way most TV shows are written is through what is known as a Writer’s Room – essentially a big table and a whiteboard. All the show’s writers are jammed in there, and they work their way through each script as a group. Either the showrunner (the writer who is in charge of every aspect of the show) leads the group, or more frequently once the steamroller of production starts up, the showrunner is off doing the million things they need to be doing to get the show on the air and a senior writer runs the room.

The room becomes your life. You cease to be an individual and you become part of The Room. Being in The Room is a prize often sought after by aspiring writers. It can be a place of intense, joyful creativity – or a place where good people go to die (or least get bitter and develop an ulcer) depending on what The Room is like. The Room is the all important engine of TV – on many comedy shows the script is literally written line by line by The Room, as very funny people compete to get their joke into the script. On a drama, there’s a lot more thoughtful conversation and silent periods of thought. Either way – it is mentally and emotionally exhausting. And there better be sandwiches – sandwiches are the life blood of any Room. Okay, it doesn’t have to be sandwiches, but you need to feed a Room well.

We did have sandwiches.

Tights and Fights: Captain Euchre (which we sometimes refer to as ‘Season 1′) set the tone to the property, and the good Captain would often tell us stories of his crime fighting colleagues. When we decided that we would do Tights and Fights: Ashes, and it would involve more characters, we had quite a few to draw on. We knew that we were going to hire talented writers/performers to take on each character, and we knew we needed a particular skill set, so we started with going down the list of people we knew and worked with to populate our world. I knew I was going to be the bizarre Evil Trojan Borscht. But who else would join us in this insane voyage?

Scott Watkins had made something of a cameo in Tights and Fights: Captain Euchre as a plumber held hostage. We knew that he was an amazing improviser and he and his writing partner Adam Swimmer are very, very funny. Adam, Scott and I had been working together in various forms for years and so we have a shared sensibility, and we’re all comic book geeks. (Sorry guys, if you were keeping that a secret.) Scott played Dr. Phallus in both incarnations of Jake Moxie, the comedy show that Adam and I wrote and tried to get produced. The animated version was the first time I worked closely with Christopher. All that is to say we knew and trusted Scott and Adam, and the idea of that plumber deciding to be a super hero after being held hostage by Captain Euchre made us laugh.

Next up was Melanie Hunter. She’s a very talented comedian, actor and improviser. Melanie just comes alive when she’s on stage or in front of a camera, and we thought that her comedic persona would be a good fit for the character of Fantabulous Gal. When we told her that we were considering her for the part, she blurted out, “I say fantabulous all the time!” When we started, we didn’t have much more figured out for the character than the name, so all the details and connections between Fantabulous Gal and the other characters is largely all Mel.

When it came time to find the voice of Major Faultline, fate took over. I went to grade school in Ottawa with Conor O’Hegarty, and flash forward 20 years (or so) we reconnected over Facebook. Conor was in the very first sketch I ever did, and I was shocked to discover that he was acting in Toronto. He came in as the Major, and quite frankly, some of the stuff he came up with is by far the laugh-out-loud funniest stuff in the series. All I’ll say is future space monkeys. And, seriously, if that’s not enough for you, make an appointment with your doctor. Conor decided not to appear in the series, so Jeremy Knight will be the Major’s face over the next year.

The last role we needed to fill was Leopard Woman, Major Faultline’s wife. We tossed around a couple of names, but nothing really clicked so we decided to have an audition. We saw a bunch of great actresses, but Chelsea Larkin knocked us off our computer seats when she sent us a character monologue delivered to her webcam of a Bronx Goldilocks. And then she came in and read for us, and she was not only hysterically funny, but she played fast and loose with the script – which is exactly the process we’ll be using when we shoot. From that moment on, Chelsea was our Leopard Woman.

I knew I needed help keeping organized and keeping an eye on the voice of the series as a whole. So I brought in a writer that I had worked with quite a bit  my sketch comedy days, Neil Jones. Neil has a very logical mind, and is a much bigger comic guy than I am. Neil was invaluable; he always focused the discussion by outing (quite often) that we had stopped making sense. He also wasn’t shy in declaring what was funny or not funny, but in a way that you couldn’t help but love him for it. Neil did a pass on each and every script we did, clarifying and adding jokes.

And the guy in charge of keeping us all organized and making sure we had sandwiches was Joel Grossman, our Writers Room intern. Not only did Joel keep us fed, made sure the jokes and ideas being yelled around got written down (cause we were already on to the next one), Joel went through the 6 hours of script and made sure that they were in the correct order to the events that were going on in the story – not as easy as you might think since at any given time the five characters could be off doing entirely separate things that suddenly cross and overlap.

And so, the team was assembled! The Room was waiting. Next post, I’ll pick up and give you a peek into what the actual process was like! I might even have pictures!