I recently went to a meeting about creating a webisode series that was held by the Australian Writers Guild.  They had special guests informing the audience on how to start a web series and get funding. The panel was made up of the following people:

Mike Cowap, Investment Manager for Screen Australia (Interactive and Multiplatform)
Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell (Bruce)
Trudy Hellier and Maria Theodorakis (Little Acorns)
Michael Shanks and Nicholas Issell (The Wizards of Aus)

They talked about what type of funding is available for web content, the players who are commissioning these platforms and what kind of structure these episodes form.  The writers also talked about there own experience on how they received funding.  They also talked and the future of their shows and the interest they have had from media networks.  It seems like comedy is usually the genre choice for the successful webisodes.  The powers that provide funding usually favour pitches that already have a large following on platforms like YouTube or Facebook.  Media companies  like an idea or story if it already has an audience for it.  It was a good learning process hearing the writers talk about their experiences.  One aspect I admired about some of the writers was that they invested their own time and money to get their stories produced.  It is a tough decision to make whether to invest your own money into a project, especially if you haven’t got much money.  Overall it was an informative event that left me feeling inspired.

A screenshot from ‘The Wizards of Aus’.

The current method of feedback being applied to our writing group has been quite problematic.  There has been a few problems in what content should be edited, who has the final say in the editing process and who decides what is actually in the final draft.  At the moment there seems to be no systemic order on how the final script is delivered.  Everyone has differing opinions on what content should be changed or included.  The management provide feedback and the writers also have their own feedback.  But who do you listen too?  It just seems to be way too confusing on which feedback to incorporate into the script.  The amount of writers in the group is also making an impact on achieving a general consensus.

So I suggested that we have certain roles for each script then rotate them for each episode.  This is a summary of the process we decided to use for future scripts :

• Pitch the ideas and write a simple draft as a group.
• Assign a script writer to write a second draft.
• Feedback would be provided by everyone.
• A script editor would then complete a third draft based on all the feedback.
• Management receive this draft and then give the all clear whether or not it is the final draft.

Hopefully this process makes it less confusing and creates  a better outcome for writing future episodes.

Sketchy Students has been produced and ready to view for the online community.  The groups have incorporated a diverse use of online platforms to try and capture a wider audience for this series.  Applications like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Weebo have been useful tools to spread the word out there.  We have been encouraged to share and like all the aspects of Sketchy Students to help attract more viewers.  But this show isn’t targeted towards my demographic so i’m quite reluctant to share it among my friends on social media.  I also think that the original concept has somehow diverted to what was originally planned.  I am not a real fan of sketch comedy and am finding it a challenge to come up with funny content for the tone of this particular series.

It is a good experience for myself to try and write material that I have limited skill in delivering.  The other members of the group are enthusiastic pitching ideas for the show to each other which makes the process more enjoyable.  But I feel that maybe there are too many writers for a show that only has episodes running for around 2 minutes.  The pilot episode was produced well and had a few funny moments but it isn’t really my thing.  But for me the challenge is to write for this type of audience to the best of my capabilities.

PILOT EPISODE

I decided to join the writers group for the production of Sketchy Students.  I thought that I would be able to contribute better in this group as I have had previous education in screenwriting.  All up there were five of us in this group.  It seems a bit overboard to have five people write four episodes that only last two to three minutes but it will be interesting to see how it goes.  The upside to having this many people on the writing team is that more ideas can be brainstormed in regards to the storyline and the gags.  But it might prove to be quite a strain to figure out how the roles are going to be divided when writing the scripts.  Most television productions usually consist of two to three writers for episodes up to an hour.  So maybe the best way to write the scripts for this series would be to rotate the roles between script writer and script editor.  It will be interesting for the learning process to see whether it can work effectively to have so many writers for a short sketch comedy.  Only the future will tell.

For our 3rd and 4th project our class decided to do a collaboration in making a web series called Sketchy Students.  The format is going to be a cross between sketch comedy and mockumentary about a class in University.  There will be a total of four episodes and it will consist of being between 2 to 3 minutes per episode.  We plan on expanding the show across all social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to try and obtain a larger audience.  Our lecturer Mark Poole reluctantly agreed to perform the role of the teacher.  All the other roles will be done by the students in the class.  After some discussion in class the majority of us decided that it would be best to divide into groups to make this show.  The groups were divided in the following categories.

• Production
• Writing
• Social Media
• Management

The writing group would be in charge of developing the scripts for the show.  The production teams job was to produce the content to screen.  The social media team covered the digital content and cross platform delivery.  The Management team would make sure everything was running on schedule and help manage the process.  Our aim is to learn the process of delivering a show on a cross platform environment.

It is with great relief that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is relaxing the laws on drones that are under 2kg from September 2016.  CASA have changed the laws in regards to using a drone for commercial purposes.  There used to be a lot of red tape to make money from this growing industry.  A pilots certificate and an operators certificate used to be required to make commercial gain from drones under 2 kg.  Sometimes people had to wait up to 6 months for their licences to be approved from CASA due to the backlog of applications.  It was also quite an expensive and confusing process to obtain these licences.  Private CASA approved instructors charge up to $4000 for the licences to legally operate a drone.  Now the new laws will skip these procedures and give drone operators exemption from having to obtain licences for commercial gain.  But only if the drone is under 2kg.  Otherwise the old procedure still applies.

The new laws still require the operator to follow the CASA rules when operating a drone.

• stay away at least 30m from people when operating a drone.
• keep your drone under 120 metres
• not night flying
• you must keep your drone in line of site.
• you must not operate your drone within 5.5km of any airport.

Approval by CASA is required if any of the above rules are going to be breached.  Overall this is a great new law that can also enhance the use of drones in films as well.