Screening videos on the internet is nothing new, but as far as scripted liner content goes, this form of entertainment is (not so) slowly but surely moving online, and so am I.  Over the last 10 years I’ve been fortunate enough to have developed production experience in a wide scope of formats; music videos, commercials, corporate video, indie features & short films, live-action TV, and animation.  Over the last 5 years I’ve been immersed mostly in animation for television, at various Toronto production companies and have received the bulk of my on-the-job training in this medium.  One may think – with a background in TV animation, how does that lend itself well to producing live action short form digital media for the web? I found myself wondering the same thing, and yet here I am exploring just that.  Here’s a brief study of the similarities and differences I’ve found.

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.