For those keeping very careful track of my life (mom, dad), you might know that Leap Year has received a second season. I’m going to blame not updating my blog to that, but it’s mostly that my blog is like a relationship I’ve gotten into that’s moving too fast: I put in a lot of work, then I get overwhelmed and try not to look at it while pretending everything is okay.
But I digress — I’m back, Leap Year is back, and this time around, I’m going to try really, really hard to take you through the process, from pre-production, to production (writing my blog during production? Good luck, me, I say, good luck), to post-production. I figure this will give you (mom, dad) some insight on what it takes to put together an online series.
I’ll keep these blogs short, so you don’t hate reading them and I don’t die writing them.
I’ll give you this chance to leave me any questions you might have about the process. I’d love to hear them and I’ll try to answer them as best I can. Remember, Leap Year is about people starting their own small business — it’s about how hard you have to work, to fight, to bleed for the thing you want to create. It’s very similar to not only my own production company (a small business), but to most of the people who read this blog. The goal, then, is to help and teach through my own experiences in this world.
So, again, question away, and stay tuned for my next blog, coming sooner than this one did, which will talk about the writing process for the show!
Thanks for reading, YuriBaranovskians (it’ll catch on)!
As one of the Executive Board members for the ITV Festival (for whom I also originally wrote this blog, which you can see a duplicate of on their website), one of my responsibilities was to vote on the winners of specific categories. This year, I was one of the EBMs (what we call ourselves when we meet in our underground castle) to vote on this year’s comedies.
I don’t often get to watch a lot of web shows because, unfortunately, I just don’t have enough time between writing, working and meeting in underground castles, so watching 15 or so series in a row was interesting for me.
First of all, there was a lot of good stuff.
Second of all, there was a lot of not-so-good stuff.
The main thing that I noticed is that many creators tend to make the same mistakes. Mistakes we’ve made (and still try hard not to make!) over the many years, and mistakes that, I think, when fixed, really help raise the overall quality of the production.
So, without further ado, my blog titled: Things I Beg Web Series Creators To Please Do and/or Not Do
I’m not great with titles.
Here we go.
1. Please stop… the city montage transitions. This is not a necessary element to your series. We don’t need to see cars driving by and people walking on the street. We especially don’t need to see this 8 times in a 7 minute show. The street montage has been done to death by television for far too long and, if you’ll notice, most series don’t do it anymore. It’s a tired technique and feels slightly off-putting in a new genre. Yes, sometimes it helps a transition, but mostly, it makes your show feel like Dharma and Greg. Stop it, please.
2. Please stop… the drum roll to a scene. You know that moment when a song finishes and the drummer is like, “I’m going to finish up with a groovy beat, man?” And then you put that drum into your show, usually after a particularly enthralling street montage, and then as the drums hit and end, you cut into the action? Stop doing that. It makes your show feel like a 90s sitcoms. I should not feel like I’m watching Saved by the Bell when I’m watching a show in a genre often referred to as “new media.”
3. Please… audition your writers. Audition your writers like you theoretically audition your actors or hire your crew. If you’ve never written before and think, “I have a fantastic idea. I’m going to write a full series because ANYONE can write!” then you’re setting yourself up for potential disaster. Or, at least, a bad series.
Writing is tremendously undervalued in entertainment. I’m not sure how that happened, considering our art was built around brilliant writers (for what is theater, and of course, film, without Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Tony Kushner, Shakespeare and others) but at some point, everyone decided that writing is easy and hey, they’d love to show you the screenplay they just wrote that’s in the trunk of their car and is formatted in Wordpad.
Writing is a craft. Writers take years to perfect it and “perfect it” is a strong word, because I think good writers never stop learning to write. Just like most people who make a show don’t say, “And I will be the director of photography!” when they have no idea how to turn on a camera (yes, I know, some do, but they are wrong), someone who has never written shouldn’t decide he’s going to write an entire series.
As a producer and creator of a series, you should love your show, respect it, and find a voice that can bring it to its maximum potential.
4. Please… get a sound guy. Or a microphone. Or just put a lot of time into your sound. This was our problem when we started Break a Leg, and it’s a major issue in many of the series I saw. The problem with bad sound is that it can completely ruin all the other good elements – acting seems worse, writing seems worse, cinematography seems worse, so on and so forth. I completely understand restrictions, but be aware of those restrictions when you’re shooting. If you don’t have a great mic, don’t shoot outside, don’t shoot in echo-ey buildings, find places that optimize your sound. It really goes a long way into strengthening the look and feel of a show.
5. Please… get a funny editor. If you’re doing comedy, you need a funny writer, you need funny actors, and, equally as important (and sometimes more important) you need a funny editor. Many-a joke is not only fixed but made in the editing booth. An editor editing comedy must have impeccable timing, they must know how long to wait for each beat, they must know when to cut out to a wide because it’s funnier, and, most importantly, they need to know what’s not funny so they can chop it out of there.
Having a funny editor is almost as important as having a funny writer – so when you’re hiring one, make sure you see their comedy reel. A slam-bam-sexy-reel might be pretty, but it doesn’t mean he can make you laugh.
6. Please stop… with the long opening intro. I get you want to introduce all of your actors. I think that’s great. I’m a huge proponent of giving everyone due credit. But, can you do it quickly? Unless you’ve got big name actors that will make us go, “ooh, really?” your intro should quickly explain the story in 15-30 seconds (less, less, less is the mantra) and go on to the far more important part of your story – which… is your story.
7. Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, cut. Writers, cut your scenes, editors, cut them too. Web shows already have the unfortunate problem of being forced to be short (for some strange reason), it doesn’t help when you have a 6 minute scene in a 7 minute episode that takes place in the same location.
In a screenplay, a scene should be no longer than 3-5 pages. Sometimes, sometimes you can push it to 7, if it’s climactic or you’re Quentin Tarantino and think that every scene should be 25 minutes long and then everyone should die at the end.
A screenplay, though, is 90-120 pages long. A web show is, at its best, 10 pages long. Create movement, create a sense of story, don’t stick us into one location and make the same joke over and over again.
A very wise man once told me to know when to kill my babies. I’m pretty sure he was talking about my dialogue and not my future babies, and its good advice.
Much like a good joke, a good comedic scene is told fast, hits hard, and moves on before you can stop smiling.
—-
…and those are the things that I noticed. By all means, don’t feel like you have to listen to me – in the end, I’m another douchebag making stuff and while we’ve had success, it doesn’t mean that you have to listen to anything I say. But I have been doing this for a good while now and, having made all of these mistakes myself, I feel like I have at least some kind of advice to offer.
But again, I’m still some guy on the Internet.
What’s more important is that the work is ever growing and ever getting better, and I applaud every single person who picked up a camera and took the step to make something.
I very much applaud the effort; I think you should all be proud of yourselves. But I think you should be proud of yourselves for a minute or two, and then I think you should watch your project and say, “How do I make this better?” and do that, infinitely, until you’re dead or have gone insane.
It’s that time again! Episode 9, “Kind of a Genius” is out and it guest stars one of my favorite people and improvisers, Mr. Dustin Toshiyuki as Glenn Cheeky.
Also, Guy Kawasaki himself guest stars.
What I’m saying is, it’s a really good episode.
So, without further ado, the video:
…and now, fun facts!
1. There are TWO references to Break a Leg in the first scene. The first one is a large wooden sign behind the armoire, that reads, “SWAMBLER CITY.” This is the name for an old abandoned cowboy town set that was used in the fake, in-world Break a Leg show, “Swamblers.” It’s also one of my favorite set pieces we’ve ever made.
The second reference is a little more blatant. Glenn Cheeky’s shirt reads, “Mint?” Dustin Toshiyuki’s character in Break a Leg was named, “Mint” with an ongoing joke of people questioning him every time he introduced himself. It went like this:
“I’m Mint.”
“Mint?”
“…like the ice cream.”
Or…
“…like the condition…”
Or..
“…like… the mint..?” (with a cut-away of the San Francisco Mint).
Just a little “thank you and keep watching our stuff” for our Break a Leg fans!
2. Glenn Cheeky is in part based on David Karp (founder of Tumblr) and in part on other very young, very successful business people. Dustin, of course, brought his own very unique and hilarious twist on it.
3. Bryn’s headphones have two skulls drawn on them. The drawings are done by one of the Producers and our editor, Dashiell Reinhardt, and is a little homage to one of my (and his) favorite games, Monkey Island. The skull vaguely looks like “Murray” the evil talking skull.
Furthermore, much of Bryn’s costume was made by Kristen Gallup of KrakenWhip Designs (www.etsy.com/shop/krakenwhip). Our wardrobe stylist, Daniela DiIorio found Kristen and she was great in giving Bryn’s goth look a much more unique, personal touch. All of the jewelry is Kristen’s too, my favorite necklace the one in this episode, which is a metal heart with a spike hanging next to it.
4. Dustin, Daniela and I have acted together since college. Dustin and I have been best friends since high school and the three of us performed in my very first one-act play, Courting 101 (now that it’s published, they’re even listed as “original cast” in the script book). I love acting with those two and I love writing for them — their timing is impeccable and even though we shot this well into the night, they still kept nailing every line.
5. The music in the second Glenn Cheeky scene is an old Finnish song called Ieva’s Polka.
This was a really popular Internet meme for a while and was also the intro song of Break a Leg. After Break a Leg got a bit bigger and we sold it to FOX Italy, we had our resident musicians (Vlad and Monica, as well as the great Hugo Martin and his crazy talented brother, Angus) recreate the song in their style.
So, this is the third Break a Leg reference in the episode. Why so many in this one? Because when you’ve got a genius improviser in Dustin Toshiyuki, who was one of the more beloved characters in Break a Leg, starring in this episode, you just have to throw in some extra references for the fans…
6. We knew that at some point, we were going to be filming with Guy Kawasaki. The thing we didn’t know was when. He is, after all, KIND of a busy guy.
We had finished shooting on, I think, a Tuesday, and got the call that Guy was available to film… on Wednesday. The thing is, the scene scheduled the next day (the one with Kim and Drew) had to be shot on Wednesday, as Kim was leaving to go back to LA (remember, we shot this in SF). Our challenge was: how do we get Guy into a scene with Jack and Scarlett, when the scene is actually supposed to take place in a park (or street – somewhere public).
I ran home after the shoot and re-wrote the scene to be what it is today. Credit our exhausted actors who had to re-memorize, and credit Guy for being absolutely amazing in letting us shoot at his house (which is beautiful and is littered with hockey pucks, which I love. There was also a train running behind it, and I’m going to just assume it was Guy’s personal train). Guy pretty much wore that smile during the entire shoot and was just obviously having a ton of fun filming with us.
The Jackie Chan line is Guy improvising, by the way, so once he’s done with this whole ruling the business world thing, he’s going to take over film.
7. The shot of the soccer ball flying over my shoulder and breaking the vase was an insert (shot a few days after the rest of the scene) and was not only my last scene, but also the last scene of the entire show.
8. I love the scene with Rachel and I in bed because I think it feels very… honest. Which is surprising, considering moments before Rachel said I wasn’t hip (and I politely reminded her that I did, in fact, know who Wale the Rapper was) which continues to hurt me, even now. My other favorite Rachel moment is the mysterious Minnesota accent that comes in on her last ‘adventure” line. Rachel is not, in fact, from Minnesota., but every single take had that accent, so we went with it because maybe RACHEL isn’t from Minnesota, but Lisa obviously is.
9. I really like the music in this episode. That’s it. Just sayin’.
10. Again, because we forgot to mention them in the credits like absolute jerks, I want to point out the fact that Ieva’s Polka (credits song and second scene with Glenn) was made by Vlad and Monica Baranovsky along with Hugo Martin and Angus Martin.
I remember watching when they recorded that, and it was a little magical seeing four incredibly talented musicians play like 10 different instruments to create their own version of an old Finnish song. Things like that make me love my job.
Hugo, by the way, has his own website where he makes a song a day. If you’re a web creator looking for some fantastic music, Hugo’s here for you.
That’s it! One more episode left! This is the time you guys should all start commenting and begging for Season 2!
I didn’t get a chance to do this for the other episodes, and maybe I’ll still, eventually, retroactively go back and do it, but for now I’ll try and do it for the final three.
First thing’s first, the episode:
And now, fun facts:
1. Julie and Drew have great chemistry and were visibly having a blast in their lawyer scenes. It was one of those scenes that, as you’re watching, you don’t want them to stop because you’re enjoying watching the thing too much. Julie was, as I mentioned in my previous blog, fantastic to work with. Very pro, very funny, and just fun to work with.
2. The lawyer’s name is Josiah Lanning. Josiah is a nod to Josiah Bartlett – the President in the West Wing, a series that inspires our writing heavily, especially in Leap Year. Lanning is, funny enough, Drew’s last name, which inspires us when we’re writing late at night and can’t think of a good last name for a character.
3. The photo over Drew’s shoulder, of a colorful Thailand street, is not only really, really cool, but was taken by our DP, Justin Morrison. It’s also hanging upstairs in the main character’s office (seen when Olivia is having her breakdown) – because, apparently, in the Leap Year world, that photo of Thailand is a must-have decoration.
4. The scene with Jack and Bryn is a location we used once before in Break a Leg. It is Chase Cougar’s house. Furthermore, there’s a jacket hanging behind Drew – this is the jacket he wore into “battle” in Break a Leg as Jimmy Scotch (watch the video of him not only sewing the jacket, but talking to Daniela (Olivia) in this completely insane Break a Leg, “Conversation”: Hatman)
5. More than anything else in the world, our actors hated speed-talking through the video conferencing platform line. They all eventually got it, but not after they gave Vlad and I scornful looks.
6. Episode 7 is written by Vlad, Episode 8 is written by me – we split the two therapist episodes. Can’t tell the style difference? Sometimes we can’t either.
7. Wilson (Derek) is afraid of heights and that balcony is as rickety as it looks. The fall is a good 8-9 stories on to the hard, ground floor of an almost comically dark, noir-like alley. He was a trooper and powered through – though, if I had to guess, I’d say his character’s frustrations are motivated directly by his personal desire ot not want to plummet to his death.
8. My favorite scene of Rachel’s (Lisa) is the one with her and Drew. It’s short, but it’s got that fast back and forth banter and they both nail every comedic beat. Also, I enjoy the comedic affect of Rachel being 3 feet tall and Drew being like, 18 feet tall.
9. Yes, we actually were Wii Bowling. And yes, I’m pretty sure I totally killed Rachel in it.
You know that thing that people do online? Which is start a blog, write actively in it, then completely stop? I did that thing. But, I kind of have a good reason, aside for laziness (though that’s a strong one). The reason is that, since February, I’ve been working non-stop on LEAP YEAR.
And now, now I’m going to tell you all about it. See? Aren’t I good blogger now?
Sponsored by Hiscox Insurance, LEAP YEAR is a branded series about five people starting their own, individual start-ups. There’s also a contest. And there’s also a baby.
I was going to do a thing where I was going to write about every episode, but the fact is that I missed the first couple of weeks because we were busy, and then I was behind, so I kept pushing it forward, and now it’s too late to do my master plan. So… damn.
What I’ll do instead, though, is tell you some fun facts that from the last 6 episodes and hope to spur you to go watch them, rewatch them, share them with your friends, and then to comment all over them like some kind of crazy person.
Here we go! In no particular order:
1. Craig Bierko was amazing to work with. Watching him rehearse was a joy. He tried to squeeze every ounce of juice out of every single line. As he was rehearsing, he’d ad-lib something, taste it, try it out, and if it was particularly tasty, ask me to have some. After that, I’m pretty sure that Vlad and I, as writers, made a rule to always, always taste Craig Bierko’s cookies. And I mean that in every weird way that it sounds.
He nailed every line, every joke. It was like an acting clinic watching him perform. After he did the first take, we called cut and everyone stood there for a second, letting his genius sink in. That’s with a page of dialogue. It’s unfair how talented he is.
I only hope that our charm and Chinese food lured him into further projects.
2. The majority of Leap Year was shot in San Francisco. Why? Because at the time, most of our team was in SF, and because filming in San Francisco is amazingly cheaper. We don’t need permits as cops never really care or even ask why we’re filming. Also, most locations don’t charge — they’re just thrilled to be part of film.
To give it the NYC look, as that’s where it takes place, we took a week to shoot a few exteriors (and interiors) in New York City.
3. Drew Lanning (Jack), Alexis Boozer (Bryn), Daniela DiIorio (Olivia) and I have acted together for over 6 years. Our crew has worked together for roughly the same amount of time. Wilson Cleveland (Derek, EP, creator of the series and the main man behind this crazy thing) said it best when he said we operate more like a theater company than anything else. I love that. Only the web show world and being ridiculously famous (Judd Apatow) lets you do things like that.
Plus, they’re all really talented, so that’s a big plus.
4. My brother and co-writer Vlad wrote, performed and recorded all the music with his wife, Monica Baranovsky. You can check out their stuff at: http://www.vladandmonica.com — and yes, you CAN hire them! My brother is also Bryn’s creepy, staring date in the party scene at the end of Episode 1 (my brother’s creepy acting face is renowned) and Monica is the girl who comes up to Olivia and Jack in the sushi restaurant, asking them to rate the food.
5. The Leap Year office was an amazing location. We were thrilled to rent it. So thrilled, that we didn’t realize how echo-ey it was until after we got in there before shooting. What, did we politely ask ourselves, the hell were we going to do? Moving blankets! SO MANY MOVING BLANKETS! We hung up wires from one end to the other and covered the ceiling with moving blankets. Furthermore, Dustin Toshiyuki, our sound man extraordinaire, got covers for the lav mics that specifically kill echo. It was a lifesavior and we managed to still get great sound and use the great set. If you want to know what those covers are called, let me know, I’ll have Dustin tell you.
6. We were ravaged by the plague during shooting. First, Justin (DP, Producer, and “Chase Cougar” in Episode 3) got sick a week before shooting. He was okay after a couple of days. But then we started shooting and it hit Daniela — she got better after a day. Then Drew Lanning got it. Then Dustin and I got it simultaneously and we got a delightful three day fever. After that, it really became the plague. It became bronchitis in Hillary Bergmann, our production manager, it literally infected all of Alexis Boozer’s face, and it stole Wilson Cleveland’s voice. Mark Gantt came to shoot for three days and left with it, bringing it back to LA where it killed 17,000 people (just a guess).
It was Satan.
We had to keep shooting, of course, because well — the show must go on and we had a schedule to maintain. I have to applaud the resilience of the cast and crew because, man, we kept it going and everyone was still great. Looking back through my feverish haze, I’m amazed at how phenomenal everyone kept being while carrying the seed of Lucifer in their bodies.
7. Hiscox is one of the best clients we’ve ever worked with. They wanted a good show. That was our main direction. We want a good show. Through production, through post, they have never, ever done anything that would hurt the quality of the series. If every client was like this, and every brand this daring, we’d be seeing a lot more well-funded, high-quality web series. It’s very cool to see them take the… oh god, I have to do it, it’s happening… take the leap.
8. Yes, that’s Alexis playing both characters in episode 6. We didn’t realize how good of a job Sarah Ashton (make-up) and Daniela DiIorio (also the wardrobe stylist) did with Alexis when we shot the episode. Furthermore, Alexis had to go and be crazy good and the result is that a surprising amount of people don’t realize that’s Bryn talking to Bryn. Also, a lot of people actually think she has a crush on me. She’s a really good actress.
9. There are multiple Break a Leg references throughout the episodes. The most notable? Chase Cougar in Episode 3. Break a Leg, for people who don’t know, was our first project and what got us to where we are. We love that show more than we love puppies and kittens wrestling one another.
10. Julie Warner was great as well. A professional, and just a blast to work with. Hopefully she comes around again!
11. Due to some schedule changes, we lost the original office location in the scene with Julie (today’s episode), so we had to scramble to find another spot. The location we had was a basement in a Yoga studio and had pretty much nothing in there. We also had around 3 hours to make it look good. Realizing the small room had no real good walls and felt claustrophobic, we came up with the smartest thing we’ve ever come up with in our entire lives: that “window” behind Julie? It’s the door to the room. Add some curtains, some lights, and voila — the office came alive. It’s now one of my favorite locations. Out of restrictions, genius is borne. Someone said that, probably, right?
12. Editing is done by the great Dashiell Reinhardt — also one of the Producers. Also, the guy with the beautiful girl-ish hair-do in the bathroom scene in Episode 2. He also did the special effects, intro, etc. Justin, who I mentioned earlier, is responsible for the look of the series as our DP. They’re stupid good. It makes me angry.
Let me finish this gushy blog up with a final gushy comment. I’m very proud of this show — I’m most proud of the cast and crew who despite crazy weather conditions, long hours and evil flu’s managed to create a really great product. I love you all and other really nice things.
That’s it for now! If you guys have any questions about anything, feel free to ask and I’ll follow this blog up with another one! Tune in to today’s episode (Episode 7), “Corporate Cupid” guest starring Julie Warner.
Thanks all! Hope you enjoy! Watch the show on Hulu or on the website and for the love of God, comment and tell us what you think!
So, you know how I keep mentioning that we’re trying to make a new show, and something about Mark Gantt, and things like that?
Well, now I have an explanation!
The show is called LoveMakers — it’s written by Vlad and I, and starring Mark Gantt (Bannen Way), and half the Break a Leg actors – Alexis Boozer, Daniela DiIorio, Drew Lanning, Flynn Kelleher and myself.
Right now, this is our baby, our passion project. We’re furiously (with great force and anger) pitching it to multiple places and feel great about it. Right now, the site is up and it has the promo as well as the basic pitch behind it.
We hope you like it! Check it out and tell us what you think! Also, most importantly, pass it on to EVERYONE!
You know President Obama is affecting job growth when he personally, and almost overnight, gets you a two week, cross-country web series.
That’s right, we’re on the road again with 7-11 and Slurpees on the Slurpee Unity Tour 2010. The idea is this: A few days ago, President Obama suggested that he would meet with Majority Leader Boehner — working off of a previous joke Obama made about Republicans standing on the sidelines and drinking slurpees — a reporter asked Obama if this would be a “Slurpee Summit.” To which he replied. “A Slurpee Summit. Yeah, I like that.”
And so did 7-11. Offering to cater the November 18th meeting between Obama and Boehner with their new Purple for the People slurpee.
Where do we come in? I think it’s telling that the web series genre is growing when a highly-publicized campaign of this level hires a production company that specializes in creating branded content online to put a face on the entire thing. Our job is, as it was with the 7-11 Road Trip Rally, to shoot, edit, and release daily episodes of our host, Mike McLendon, as he travels from Dallas to DC, delivering slurpees, doing crazy things for unity (like riding a merman horse to deliver a slurpee to the Governor of Missouri), and spreading unity across the country.
We’re on the road for two weeks, and, we hope, it will all culminate with us delivering the slurpee to President Obama and Republican Majority Leader Boehner for their November 18th meeting — their Slurpee Summit.
So far, I kind of feel like we’re on a campaign trail, but it’s been fun, intense and is only going to get crazier. If you guys want to support us, you can go to the Facebook page for the campaign: www.facebook.com/slurpee and also keep up with our YouTube page for not only the episodes but behind-the-scenes footage of the tour too (it’s going to go across all video sites shortly — not just YouTube).
As many of you know, we’ve been working with Evan Gotlib and the rest of the Blip.tv team to create branded campaigns for the many companies that Blip works with. The 711 Road Trip was a part of that, as were other gigs I have posted in the past.
The most recent job was for Reebok Zig Tech shoes, starring, if you watched Break a Leg, Mr. Dustin Toshiyuki (Mint) himself. Also, you get an extra cookie if you guess who the voiceover at the end is, as it’s another Break a Leg cast member.
Below are the first two videos of the campaign — next week, I’ll share the next two. Just to let you know roughly how the process went: Reebok had a specific idea in mind (trying to get the most out of your workout), we wrote the scripts, they approved the scripts, we shot the videos and voila — you should be seeing them play on various Blip.tv videos for the next little while.
This, as the title properly said, is how we make our money.
Anyway, without further ado…
…and…
Let me know what you think! If there’s any interest, I’ll relate how we did the various effects (if there’s a LOT of interest, I’ll get Dashiell, one of the Producers of HLG and our Head Editor/VFX guy to explain it).
As some of you may know, a couple of months ago our production company produced the 7-Eleven Road Trip — a reality series that followed two teams, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast, as they traveled across the country, ate at 7-Elevens’, and did various challenges along the way, eventually ending up at the INDY 500.
When we got the gig, it was our intent to not make the same awful type of reality series’ that are prevalent nowadays — we wanted to make this show in our quirky, fun and theoretically smart style. Luckily, we had the extreme fortune of working with 7-Eleven and their ad agency, TracyLocke — both of which understood that the Internet does not necessarily function like traditional media and that funny, quirky comedy sells in this space like some kind of delicious, quirky hotcake. They gave us almost full creative power to do everything from having our host, Drew give them each a cardboard cutout of himself to having Mr. Peanut destroy their picnic and steal their stuff.
Thanks to this, thanks to Blip.tv and thanks to all the guys and gals at 7-Eleven and TracyLocke, the series was a huge success. Not only in the numbers and the results (that you’ll see in the video case study I’m about to post below) but also because I think it’s one of the first series of this size and scope that was really open to the creativity and innovation available in online video.
Let that be a lesson to you other brands and agencies!
Another lesson is to hire us.
A third lesson is to also pay us a lot of money after you hire us.
And now, the results of the 7-Eleven Road Trip in a fancy-shmancy video:
So, if you’re wondering (which you may absolutely not be) why I’ve been seemingly absent from the world of bloggery, it’s because we’ve been busy putting together a new show called the 7-11 Road Trip Rally. The show is an online reality series that will have two teams of two race across the country from opposite coasts to the INDY 500 while doing challenges along the way and surviving on nothing but 7-Eleven food. Videos will be released daily (except on weekends) starting May 10th.
No, this isn’t like anything we’ve done before. And no, this won’t be like any reality show you’ve ever seen — and I don’t say that in that grand sort of way that means it’s going to change your life. I say that in that — we were hired to impart our own style into this show, which means that it’s going to be funny, smart and absolutely nothing like anything MTV has done.
The press release is below. The official trip starts on the 10th, but we’ll have goofy audition videos up every day until then. Oh, did I forget to mention, Break a Leg fans, that our very own Drew Lanning (Jimmy Scotch) is the host? Oh, yes he is and he’s almost as hilarious as he is in Break a Leg.
Watch, support, enjoy! Thanks! I’ll actually try and update often from the road and tell you how it’s going. Should be interesting.
7-Eleven® And Blip.tv Join Forces To Create The Branded Series ’7-Eleven Road Trip Rally’
World’s largest convenience retailer launches web-based reality series following two teams as they traverse the country, competing in daily challenges at local 7-Eleven stores
New York, NY (PRWEB) May 3, 2010 — Next-generation television network blip.tv and 7-Eleven, Inc., today announced the launch of 7-Eleven Road Trip Rally, a web-based reality series produced by blip.tv that will follow two teams as they drive across the country, purchasing all of their daily needs including food and gasoline exclusively at 7-Eleven® convenience stores and culminating at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 28. New episodes of their adventures and challenges will air daily on 711RoadTrip.com, while 7-Eleven and partners, including Dr. Pepper, Planter’s, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer and Nestlé Pure Life, will promote the show through their own websites.
“The show provides a great opportunity to use the enthusiasm around auto racing and reality TV to reach fans and appeal to new customers on the web,” said Rita Bargerhuff, 7-Eleven’s chief marketing officer. “We knew the best way to get our point across would be through video. We’ve had great success with social media, so a web series made perfect sense. Blip.tv truly understands the distributed web and they’ve been invaluable throughout the development of this program.”
Customers and racing fans can follow each team’s progress, daily challenge competitions, and the comedic drama of a cross-country road trip not only on 711roadtrip.com, but also through 7-Eleven’s presence on Facebook and Twitter. Viewers will also be able to keep track of each team as all tweets will be geo-tagged and shared on an interactive map at 711RoadTrip.com.
Blip.tv will distribute the show to partner sites and platforms including iTunes, Yahoo! and AOL Video, TiVo, Sony Bravia, Verizon FiOS and the Roku Digital Video Player. The show’s final challenge will take place at Indy, where drivers Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick from Andretti Autosport will announce the winners.
“7-Eleven is a brand that understands where its customers live and how to connect with them in an impactful way,” said Evan Gotlib, blip.tv’s vice president of advertising sales. “We have always been and will continue to remain focused on supporting and promoting quality, original web shows, and 7-Eleven Road Trip Rally is an exciting addition to the blip.tv lineup.”
San Francisco’s Happy Little Guillotine (HLG) Films is working with blip.tv and 7-Eleven to produce, film and edit all of the episodes airing on 7-Eleven Road Trip Rally. “It’s incredibly energizing to work with companies like 7-Eleven and blip.tv on this project,” said Yuri Baranovsky, one of the founders of HLG Films. “We’re independent show creators at HLG, first and foremost, and both companies allowed us to impart our expertise and our vision while working to create a great series. To me, this is the future of media; it’s branded content with purpose and high-entertainment value that will really draw in viewers.”
More than 44,000 independent show creators (from scripted sitcoms and dramas to news magazines and how-to shows) visit the blip.tv show creator dashboard every day to review their statistics, engage with their communities of viewers, tweak settings and release new episodes. Together these shows serve more than 85 million video views a month. Eighty-five percent of those video views are paired with targeted, direct-sold advertising from brands like PepsiCo, Chevrolet, Samsung, AT&T, Samsung and Scion.
For those keeping very careful track of my life (mom, dad), you might know that Leap Year has received a second season. I’m going to blame not updating my blog to that, but it’s mostly that my blog is like a relationship I’ve gotten into that’s moving too fast: I put in a lot of work, then I get overwhelmed and try not to look at it while pretending everything is okay.
