The Story Lab – Week 6: Web Series and Transmedia
After watching Starting From… Now!, High Maintenance and The Guild, the draw of creating a web series over traditional television, especially when working with a budget constraint, became clear. The episodes can be as long or as short as needs be. High Maintenance is now being developed for HBO and this has come after using six seasons of content to prove there is a market and a strong creative team behind the project for HBO to invest in. I have watched a few web series but my favourite is Jake and Amir. Released on College Humor’s YouTube channel weekly over eight years with videos ranging from 2-5 minutes in length. As a comedy show, a large fan base grew and latched onto running jokes and references as the show cultivated a niche slice of popularity on the web. Being a web series allowed for the creators to write and shoot the show without any studio interference and dictate when they wanted to end the series. Having a show based on the internet led to utilisation of transmedia properties to create jokes stemming from the episodes, such as the creation of the website onealmond.com based on the core conceit of the episode “One Almond”.
Web series storytelling is a more personal experience for smaller audiences to connect with and unlike television programs which reach and involve a large audiences diluting the experience, web series connect with their audiences by existing on a platform they share with the people watching.
Leave a Reply