Cheap, Accessible and Out of Control: Web Series
by Doniphan Blair
Fred, portrayed by Nebraskan actor Lucas Cruikshank, and produced by his cousins Jon and Katie Smet, debuted in 2005. By 2009, "Fred" had almost a half a billion views and over a million YouTube subscribers, making it the first YouTube Web series hit.Tory Stanton and Scott McCabe, a couple of kids just out of the Berkeley School of Digital Filmmaking, have gone and done the obvious - they made a Web series with "no fake mustaches," according to McCabe (see http://www.copynpastry.com).
"It's pretty good for a stupid comedy," retorted their old dean, Patrick Kriwanek, although he did support the production, which is directed by an older alum, Joel K. Pincosy. Light on the pocket but heavy on production values and puns, starting with its graphic design-y name, "Copy & Pastry" stands significantly taller than Kriwanek's critique would suggest among the current crop of Web series.
With series all the rage across cable and broadcast, you'd think Web series would rule - perhaps even do for the 2000s what serialized magazines stories did for the 1800s. Web series can be made cheap; they hit you where you live (at the computer); they come in bite size 'sodes (often under ten minutes), and they are easily watchable (particularly at work). But, except for "quarterlife," "Trapped in the Closet," and a couple of others, few Web series have made it out of the Web ghetto. Why?
The Web is simply not that great, according to Marshall Herskovitz, who is the creator of "quarterlife," as well as the hit broadcast show, "thirtysomething," and the critically-acclaimed "My So-Called Life," mysteriously cancelled by NBC after one season. Herskovitz went to the Web to escape television feudalism - lords above, peons below - but found it wanting.
"Social networks are spectral worlds where 'friends' aren't friends," Google is "cold," and YouTube is a "carnival... and freak show," Herskovitz told "Slate" (2/2008). So he set out to do a Web series that "takes an emotional look at the dynamics of relationships and the storms of our inner lives." "quarterlife" debuted on MySpace in February 2008 to some acclaim but NBC botched its transition to broadcast. Nevertheless, the show survives on the Web, as a program as well as an arty, heartfelt social networking site.
With almost all television series now on the Web - albeit often a week to a month late, save for "South Park," which counts down the minutes to show time - the trick is going viral. This is the Webian term for the magic of self-distribution, which can pole vault a show far beyond TV numbers - see Susan Boyle, the middle-aged church volunteer from "Britain's Got Talent," who went viral last April. It's the difference between 400 hits - the random noise of a billion monkeys typing URLs - and 4,000,000 hits, when people forward you to their so-called friends.
Aside from "quarterlife," most Web series are decidedly low brow (unless you count the plethora of YouTube clips of good-looking female philosophy professors expounding on existentialism - but those are "how-to" not drama). "Fred," for example, the most watched Web series of last fall's "season," got up to 23 million hits monthly, and over 451 million video views since its launch in 2205. It's a one-man show, literally. Fred Figglehorn is a six-year-old, who uses his mom's camera to post videos to YouTube, but is played by the now-17-year-old actor Lucas Cruikshank. He is given a child-like appearance by speeding-up the film, which raises the pitch of his voice. With constant close-ups on Fred and NO cutaways (part of the joke, hysterical, let me tell you - not!), they capture every grimace and high pitched squeal.
This is no indication of prevailing tastes, however. Last year, "Fred" was overtaken by the cute and talented Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi and their YouTube channel, Nigahiga, where they do humorous skits, act sexy and perform some spectacular break dancing. The Obama of Web series, in that they're Hawaiian, young and hip, their big hit is "How to be Emo," a low tech, funny and ultimately endearing piece. But Web series vary widely: "Private," a slick "Gossip Girl" knock-off delivered in digestable six minute bites, is also very popular.
MySpace, the king of the social networks before Facebook, is doing OK with "Roommates." Debuted in 2007, its follows four women who are - you guessed it - roomies, which provides ample excuse to bust in on each other dressing. But here's the twist: they live in LA and are on a reality show - talk about self-referential! The first series launched exclusively by MySpace, "Roommates" barely broke the million viewer mark, less then half the eyeballs of an average bad television show.
Fortunately, another series of the same name is funnier, realer and rawer. Set in plebeian Gatlenberg, Tennesse, it stars a bunch of misfits and people of color who toss off racial humor, non-humor humor and the odd activity with equal aplomb. The acting is lackluster and the lighting is nonexistent - a quality it shares with "Fred" - but it has what the Web implies: edge.
Last year's top "grossing" Web series included "The Onion," which knocks off cable news as viciously as it did newspapers; "The Station," a standard situational comedy, and "The Guild," about a shy girl in an "We Live in Public" world," with only her over acting and genitalia jokes to cover her show's prod-value nakedness.
East Bay Web Series Scott McCabe, right, and Tory Stanton, have cobbled together an impressive series out of a few thousand, good writing and a few twenty-something comedians, see http://www.copynpastry.com photo courtesy Copy & Pastry"Blue Movies," a story with even more over-the-top sex - it's set in a porn studio, after all - seems to be the only legitimate, ie actual series-like show, with legs of late. Indeed, it approaches the free form innovation and aggression that we have come to expect of a good Web series like "The Burg," which Herskovitz himself lauded. "The Burg" follows a bevy of hipper-than-thou Brooklynites and their self-effacing/egocentric passive-aggressive ways.
Probably the most important series to grace the Web's first decade was "Trapped in the Closet," a "hip-hopera" by rap star R. Kelly. Released episodically to radio stations in 2005, it covers a wild one-night stand that blossomed into an ever-increasing drama of affairs, homosexuality (edgy for the black community) and finally murder. After six webisodes, six on DVD, and ten more aired on the Independent Film Channel in 2007, "Trapped" disappeared. Despite Kelly's claims of more on the way - and better then ever - nothing yet. Web series are harder then they look, evidently.
Stanton and McCabe, who did "Copy & Pastry," make it look easy, however. Of course, it undoubtedly took a lot of work, by both them and their associates (they have a production company, Two Trick Pony, which does film and theater projects). Costing some $2500, it was financed "from redeemed bottle deposits" (probably a joke, but you never know), reselling old props to buy new ones, and the generosity of crew and cast. The latter features some 35 uniformly-able actors, who are friends from school or the Berkeley comedy scene, cast through Theatre Bay Area or artistic directors, like Melissa Hillman at Berkeley's Impact Theatre.
For inspiration, "Monty Python is still king," McCabe says, but he likes "Stella" and "Arrested Development," among others, and Web series like "Break A Leg," done in San Francisco, and "Clark and Michael." "It was the title that more or less inspired the show. We started riffing off it to create character backgrounds. Tory's character quits his job at a copy store and my character wants to be a pastry chef. Together, you have 'Copy & Pastry.'"
As for the notorious problem of monetizing the Web, "I'm afraid we're still feeling our way," admitted McCabe. "We haven't put any advertisements up yet, though we may. A deal to sell the show outright would be well-received at this point but a more realistic goal is to find a sponsor for either the season or for each episode." Alas, the Web is a tough mistress.
According to Herskovitz: "There are millions of Web sites out there - chances are you can name fewer than 20. Plus, watching scripted content on the Internet is just not yet everyone's idea of fun. Even the Internet 'masterpiece' 'Roommates' - which, as near as I can tell, is about pretty young girls in bikinis washing cars - never got much above 1 million views. Criticized for being outperformed by this cultural milestone, I whined, 'How can I compete with breasts?'" (Although the breasts, on my viewings, were augmented by some pretty pithy bitch fights).
As for tips on the best way to make a Web series, McCabe suggests staying out of insular worlds, like a single apartment (although that's contradicted by "Fred" which doesn't leave one guy's face, let alone his apartment).
"It is a trap, I think, of low- and no- budget filmmaking. One of the things that we wanted to do was get the show out of the house, expand the fictional universe. Part-in-parcel with this, though, are the logistical complications of location shooting and a larger cast. One of the things that helped us was shooting in two phases. We wrote and shot episodes one to three first, and then cut them together to see which story lines played best. Then we took a month off to write and pre-produce the last four episodes. This method was validated by the difference in quality, both narratively and technically, of the back half of the season."
"Another tip," McCabe told me, "Would be to treat casting seriously. There's a temptation to cast friends, both as featured players and as extras. We were fortunate to have a large number of very talented actors take part in 'Copy & Pastry,' to the series great credit."
Since a great actor can make a phone book interesting, casting directly follows writing in importance, as in most filmmaking. While the director focuses on the talent - the actor delivering the written material, in Web series, the most important second position is the producer in charge of driving traffic to the site, which should be built and beta tested before the show's debut, which Two Trick failed to do. "We have learned the hard way, I'm afraid," confessed the ever-personable McCabe.
"One of the best things about making this show," he said, "Had to be gathering all these immensely talented people and spending several months working and problem-solving with them. It can be intense at times. Going through it with people whose company you enjoy is not only a luxury but a necessity. It was eye-opening to see just how much we could accomplish with fairly limited resources."
As for my question about the worst thing about making "Copy and Pastry," "I'd have to say it was probably the sheer amount of time Tory spent in his underwear," McCabe joked.
It seems that Web series are an interesting hybrid of film school and epic television, since you have to shoot for going viral, if you ever hope to monetize it, but can learn-as-you-go when no one is watching. The ever-critical pilot should be five to ten minutes long, and stand alone as well as setup the serialized show. Of course, if you hope to go viral, you have to pull out all the stops, like "Fred" or "Nigahiga," but if you err on the side of professionalism, like "Copy & Pastry," it could be a scene from a feature. Sure, there's yet to be a crossover hit from the Web to television or film, and, if anyone could do it, it would have been Herskovitz or Kelly, but Web series have only been with us for five or so years - hence, anything can still happen! Posted on Mar 01, 2010 - 01:41 PM
by Doniphan Blair
Fred, portrayed by Nebraskan actor Lucas Cruikshank, and produced by his cousins Jon and Katie Smet, debuted in 2005. By 2009, "Fred" had almost a half a billion views and over a million YouTube subscribers, making it the first YouTube Web series hit."It's pretty good for a stupid comedy," retorted their old dean, Patrick Kriwanek, although he did support the production, which is directed by an older alum, Joel K. Pincosy. Light on the pocket but heavy on production values and puns, starting with its graphic design-y name, "Copy & Pastry" stands significantly taller than Kriwanek's critique would suggest among the current crop of Web series.
With series all the rage across cable and broadcast, you'd think Web series would rule - perhaps even do for the 2000s what serialized magazines stories did for the 1800s. Web series can be made cheap; they hit you where you live (at the computer); they come in bite size 'sodes (often under ten minutes), and they are easily watchable (particularly at work). But, except for "quarterlife," "Trapped in the Closet," and a couple of others, few Web series have made it out of the Web ghetto. Why?
The Web is simply not that great, according to Marshall Herskovitz, who is the creator of "quarterlife," as well as the hit broadcast show, "thirtysomething," and the critically-acclaimed "My So-Called Life," mysteriously cancelled by NBC after one season. Herskovitz went to the Web to escape television feudalism - lords above, peons below - but found it wanting.
"Social networks are spectral worlds where 'friends' aren't friends," Google is "cold," and YouTube is a "carnival... and freak show," Herskovitz told "Slate" (2/2008). So he set out to do a Web series that "takes an emotional look at the dynamics of relationships and the storms of our inner lives." "quarterlife" debuted on MySpace in February 2008 to some acclaim but NBC botched its transition to broadcast. Nevertheless, the show survives on the Web, as a program as well as an arty, heartfelt social networking site.
With almost all television series now on the Web - albeit often a week to a month late, save for "South Park," which counts down the minutes to show time - the trick is going viral. This is the Webian term for the magic of self-distribution, which can pole vault a show far beyond TV numbers - see Susan Boyle, the middle-aged church volunteer from "Britain's Got Talent," who went viral last April. It's the difference between 400 hits - the random noise of a billion monkeys typing URLs - and 4,000,000 hits, when people forward you to their so-called friends.
Aside from "quarterlife," most Web series are decidedly low brow (unless you count the plethora of YouTube clips of good-looking female philosophy professors expounding on existentialism - but those are "how-to" not drama). "Fred," for example, the most watched Web series of last fall's "season," got up to 23 million hits monthly, and over 451 million video views since its launch in 2205. It's a one-man show, literally. Fred Figglehorn is a six-year-old, who uses his mom's camera to post videos to YouTube, but is played by the now-17-year-old actor Lucas Cruikshank. He is given a child-like appearance by speeding-up the film, which raises the pitch of his voice. With constant close-ups on Fred and NO cutaways (part of the joke, hysterical, let me tell you - not!), they capture every grimace and high pitched squeal.
This is no indication of prevailing tastes, however. Last year, "Fred" was overtaken by the cute and talented Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi and their YouTube channel, Nigahiga, where they do humorous skits, act sexy and perform some spectacular break dancing. The Obama of Web series, in that they're Hawaiian, young and hip, their big hit is "How to be Emo," a low tech, funny and ultimately endearing piece. But Web series vary widely: "Private," a slick "Gossip Girl" knock-off delivered in digestable six minute bites, is also very popular.
MySpace, the king of the social networks before Facebook, is doing OK with "Roommates." Debuted in 2007, its follows four women who are - you guessed it - roomies, which provides ample excuse to bust in on each other dressing. But here's the twist: they live in LA and are on a reality show - talk about self-referential! The first series launched exclusively by MySpace, "Roommates" barely broke the million viewer mark, less then half the eyeballs of an average bad television show.
Fortunately, another series of the same name is funnier, realer and rawer. Set in plebeian Gatlenberg, Tennesse, it stars a bunch of misfits and people of color who toss off racial humor, non-humor humor and the odd activity with equal aplomb. The acting is lackluster and the lighting is nonexistent - a quality it shares with "Fred" - but it has what the Web implies: edge.
Last year's top "grossing" Web series included "The Onion," which knocks off cable news as viciously as it did newspapers; "The Station," a standard situational comedy, and "The Guild," about a shy girl in an "We Live in Public" world," with only her over acting and genitalia jokes to cover her show's prod-value nakedness.
East Bay Web Series Scott McCabe, right, and Tory Stanton, have cobbled together an impressive series out of a few thousand, good writing and a few twenty-something comedians, see http://www.copynpastry.com photo courtesy Copy & PastryProbably the most important series to grace the Web's first decade was "Trapped in the Closet," a "hip-hopera" by rap star R. Kelly. Released episodically to radio stations in 2005, it covers a wild one-night stand that blossomed into an ever-increasing drama of affairs, homosexuality (edgy for the black community) and finally murder. After six webisodes, six on DVD, and ten more aired on the Independent Film Channel in 2007, "Trapped" disappeared. Despite Kelly's claims of more on the way - and better then ever - nothing yet. Web series are harder then they look, evidently.
Stanton and McCabe, who did "Copy & Pastry," make it look easy, however. Of course, it undoubtedly took a lot of work, by both them and their associates (they have a production company, Two Trick Pony, which does film and theater projects). Costing some $2500, it was financed "from redeemed bottle deposits" (probably a joke, but you never know), reselling old props to buy new ones, and the generosity of crew and cast. The latter features some 35 uniformly-able actors, who are friends from school or the Berkeley comedy scene, cast through Theatre Bay Area or artistic directors, like Melissa Hillman at Berkeley's Impact Theatre.
For inspiration, "Monty Python is still king," McCabe says, but he likes "Stella" and "Arrested Development," among others, and Web series like "Break A Leg," done in San Francisco, and "Clark and Michael." "It was the title that more or less inspired the show. We started riffing off it to create character backgrounds. Tory's character quits his job at a copy store and my character wants to be a pastry chef. Together, you have 'Copy & Pastry.'"
As for the notorious problem of monetizing the Web, "I'm afraid we're still feeling our way," admitted McCabe. "We haven't put any advertisements up yet, though we may. A deal to sell the show outright would be well-received at this point but a more realistic goal is to find a sponsor for either the season or for each episode." Alas, the Web is a tough mistress.
According to Herskovitz: "There are millions of Web sites out there - chances are you can name fewer than 20. Plus, watching scripted content on the Internet is just not yet everyone's idea of fun. Even the Internet 'masterpiece' 'Roommates' - which, as near as I can tell, is about pretty young girls in bikinis washing cars - never got much above 1 million views. Criticized for being outperformed by this cultural milestone, I whined, 'How can I compete with breasts?'" (Although the breasts, on my viewings, were augmented by some pretty pithy bitch fights).
As for tips on the best way to make a Web series, McCabe suggests staying out of insular worlds, like a single apartment (although that's contradicted by "Fred" which doesn't leave one guy's face, let alone his apartment).
"It is a trap, I think, of low- and no- budget filmmaking. One of the things that we wanted to do was get the show out of the house, expand the fictional universe. Part-in-parcel with this, though, are the logistical complications of location shooting and a larger cast. One of the things that helped us was shooting in two phases. We wrote and shot episodes one to three first, and then cut them together to see which story lines played best. Then we took a month off to write and pre-produce the last four episodes. This method was validated by the difference in quality, both narratively and technically, of the back half of the season."
"Another tip," McCabe told me, "Would be to treat casting seriously. There's a temptation to cast friends, both as featured players and as extras. We were fortunate to have a large number of very talented actors take part in 'Copy & Pastry,' to the series great credit."
Since a great actor can make a phone book interesting, casting directly follows writing in importance, as in most filmmaking. While the director focuses on the talent - the actor delivering the written material, in Web series, the most important second position is the producer in charge of driving traffic to the site, which should be built and beta tested before the show's debut, which Two Trick failed to do. "We have learned the hard way, I'm afraid," confessed the ever-personable McCabe.
"One of the best things about making this show," he said, "Had to be gathering all these immensely talented people and spending several months working and problem-solving with them. It can be intense at times. Going through it with people whose company you enjoy is not only a luxury but a necessity. It was eye-opening to see just how much we could accomplish with fairly limited resources."
As for my question about the worst thing about making "Copy and Pastry," "I'd have to say it was probably the sheer amount of time Tory spent in his underwear," McCabe joked.
It seems that Web series are an interesting hybrid of film school and epic television, since you have to shoot for going viral, if you ever hope to monetize it, but can learn-as-you-go when no one is watching. The ever-critical pilot should be five to ten minutes long, and stand alone as well as setup the serialized show. Of course, if you hope to go viral, you have to pull out all the stops, like "Fred" or "Nigahiga," but if you err on the side of professionalism, like "Copy & Pastry," it could be a scene from a feature. Sure, there's yet to be a crossover hit from the Web to television or film, and, if anyone could do it, it would have been Herskovitz or Kelly, but Web series have only been with us for five or so years - hence, anything can still happen! Posted on Mar 01, 2010 - 01:41 PM
