Create Your Own TV Series for the Internet-2nd edition. Ross Brown
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want me and you know it.” How in the world did Marina ever find the word pulchritudinous, I wonder?
SO WHERE’S THE DRAMA?
Good question. Although there is no law saying that all Internet TV series must be comedies or reality series, most fall into one of those two categories. The reason, I suspect, is that drama is a much trickier proposition when the average length of an episode is only 3 to 5 minutes. It’s difficult to build the elements crucial to drama, like suspense, tension, and character arc, in that restricted amount of time. In theory, you can just take a longer drama, like a 1-hour network drama series or a feature-length thriller, and break it into smaller parts. But the reality is, it’s a huge challenge to re-establish dramatic elements and the heightened emotions that drama demands for every episode. It would a bit like having to stop your car every block or two, turn off the engine, then pop the hood and break out the jumper cables to get it going again. The journey takes more effort than it’s worth.
That said, there have been some successful (that is, well done and critically acclaimed) short-form dramas on the Net, like Quarterlife or Anyone but Me, both of which featured episodes closer to 8 minutes in length. There have also been some noteworthy examples of high budget dramas like H+, Sanctuary, and The Bannen Way, which were made for the Web but were also designed, if the episodes were edited together consecutively, as feature films or miniseries. If drama is your thing, or you have a premise for a drama in mind that you think can really work on the Internet, have at it. But be aware of the challenges of sustaining audience involvement. One way to address this issue is to shoot lots of episodes before posting any —at least six. That way, the audience can get hooked on the premise, characters, and story lines by watching an entire season, instead of watching the pilot, being intrigued, but having to wait another month for Episode 2, then another month for Episode 3, and so on.
YOU NEED A KILLER TITLE
Although it is technically not part of the premise of your series, coming up with a killer title is just as important to the success of your web series as devising a solid premise. Your title is the first thing that gets a potential viewer to either click through and view or click away and move on. Your goal is a title that both tells and sells — in other words, a title that both clearly communicates what your series is about and makes the audience say, “Yes, I want to see that.” Remember, the Internet video revolution means potential viewers have literally millions of video entertainment products to choose from. Your title has to grab their attention and make web video surfers stop, click, and check it out.
For my money, here are some strong titles that tell me what the show will be about before I even see it and make me want to sample an episode or two:
Each of these titles gives me a pretty good idea what the show might be about and hints at the type of humor the show will have — the hook that gets me to check it out. A title can also be effective if it’s not exactly clear but is so bizarre that it makes people want to click through just to see what the heck it is. Although it turned out to be a series I didn’t care for, Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show was certainly a compelling enough title that I had to click through and see what it was all about. The Ninety Year-Old Hooker, on the other hand, is a title for a nonexistent show that, though perfectly clear, may not be the right bait to lure predominantly young Internet video audiences.
FOR TEACHERS
Students can benefit from two types of premise assignments: analytical and creative. The analytical work can provide context and illumination in preparation for the students’ own creative work.
For the analytical assignment, they can write a short analysis of two or three web series and why their premise is effective, or why it isn’t. As in the previous chapter, the key to success in this assignment is specificity. A simple thumbs up or thumbs down is useless. What is of value is developing the students’ ability to critically examine the inner architecture of the video series they see on the Web.
For the creative, they can pitch a premise for an original web series that they will write a pilot script for later in the semester. I usually ask my students to come in with two series ideas, one fully developed, the other less so. Fully developed means they can explain the premise, define the main series characters, and give a sense of the tone, style, and type of stories the series will present.
I require my students to write the idea down on paper and also be prepared to pitch it orally. The verbal pitch is the standard method of television and film, and so even shy writers must learn a bit of salesmanship and some oral presentation skills if they are to succeed in this world. But requiring them to put their pitch on paper as well forces them to examine it more closely than if they just wing it with a verbal pitch, one they might cook up 3 minutes before class if they aren’t required to put something on paper as well.
3 CREATING COMPELLING CHARACTERS
Your title may be the tempting appetizer that lures viewers into sampling your series, but your characters are the primary ingredient that keeps them coming back for meal after meal. Quick, name some of the most memorable network TV series of all time. Here’s my off-the-top-of-my-head list:
The first two have the main character’s name right in the title of the show. Why? Because that character is the main reason people watched the series week after week. In fact, people usually referred to these two landmark series simply by the character’s name, as in “Did you see the Lucy where she works in the chocolate factory?”
What about the next two? No character names in those titles. Still, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say All in the Family? Archie Bunker, of course. Yes, the series had brilliant writing and embraced groundbreaking, provocative subject matter like impotence, menopause, and racism. But it was the phenomenal popularity of Archie Bunker (and Edith, the Meathead, and Archie’s “little girl,” Gloria) that was the primary driver of the series’ long-lasting popularity.
Same goes for Happy Days, the nostalgic half-hour comedy about suburban middle-class life in the 1950s. Ask anyone to say the first thing that comes to mind when you mention the show Happy Days, I’d lay odds that 95 out of 100 people would instantly say it’s the Fonz, and then 80 of those 95 would pretend to comb back their ducktail hairstyle and say, “Ayyyyy!” just like the Fonz. Ironically, the Fonz wasn’t supposed to be the star of Happy Days. In the pilot, he was a minor character who had half a dozen lines. But the audience loved the Fonz, as played by Henry Winkler, and the Fonz launched Happy Days to the top of the ratings heap. How powerful a character was the Fonz? In the months after the show aired an episode where he got a library card for the first time, over a million