Web series have always been a format I resort to when I want something different from the mainstream. Whether that be more diverse characters, or less bureaucratic productions with greater audience connectivity and community or simply to support ‘the little guy’. Web series have been that format, usually residing on YouTube or Vimeo – they are forced to cater to the format and platform that they adhere to. Short form episodes, I’m sure, were a necessity due to small budgets or limited time, allowing for punchier, to the point episodes rather than the infamous filler episodes that infect television or films that run twenty minutes too long. An interesting observation that we made in the Good Form: Comedy Web Series studio was that comedy seems to be the go to genres for most web series creators, probably as drama is expensive and time consuming to produce and also that there just isn’t a market out there for it. A five minute drama just wouldn’t work as in an episode there isn’t enough time to develop and cover story beats in that time that would work as continual episodes. If one is going to create such a short dramatic episode they may as well produce a 10-15 minute short film.

I remember a quote from a reading in Jeremy’s studio that said in reference to the digital market and the internet that “it’s a wild west out there”. This is completely true – a web series has access to a wider audience, but with that comes competition.  Even if you produce an extremely funny show there is a chance it’ll be swallowed in the swathe of cat videos and YouTube ‘vloggers’.  This may be disheartening for some and it is, at times, to me as I have put many a video that I felt was good, but went nowhere on YouTube, but isn’t it amazing to have that option? To click upload and have potential access to millions, no billions of people. We don’t have to follow the Hollywood or old school film production etiquette of trying to get our food in the door through dumb luck. Some of us are able to make it, although perhaps this is from even dumber luck, maybe this is just an even bigger version of that old school version of trying to ‘make it’, with even more players.

I look at some of my favourite shows like Broad City that came from a couple of two minute episodes on YouTube where the two girls just got themselves into silly situations or the Web Series Camilla which has already made three seasons and is wrapping up the show with a partially crowdfunded feature film; and when I see these shows I feel like I would rather be in this version of things, than the exclusivity of the ‘old school’ method of making it.