Posted by Yuri Baranovsky on Oct 14, 2009 in
entertainment industry,
web series 
Pioneers? Or just amazingly good looking people? You decide.
Sometimes, the true pioneers aren’t the creators but the people in power who decide to take a chance.
Sometimes, someone decides to roll the dice — and these aren’t regular dice, they’re special, fate-changing golden dice — and do something against the norm. They do it because they like the high risk, high return investment. They do it because the word “no” is the coal that fuels their internal, “I told you so” fire. They do it because like Antonio Banderas in a Robert Rodriguez film, they’re so badass that they snort risk for breakfast.
That’s what we need from you, network people. We need you to start snorting risk.
Look, I get you. I do. I understand that the way things have been done — and I’m speaking specifically about television – have been done for a long while now and are proven to work. I also understand that in a time when the economy is doing a tap dance on a rickety bridge over a river of very hungry sharks, it’s not exactly fun to try out new steps. I even have admitted publicly to absolutely loving many of the products you put out.
But here’s the thing — no matter how you cut it, TV isn’t doing great and, despite the ra-ra of the loud happy voices, the web series genre isn’t either.
Thing is, though, we — the web series people — have an advantage over you TV guys. Namely: we’re a large demographic, we’re ever evolving and we’re just getting started. My little-over-year old niece walks like a drunk holding two teddy bears in her hug-ready arms — but soon, she’ll be able to run and destroy just about everything in my brother’s house. That’s the web series. We fall over backwards more often than we’d like but give us a little bit more time and our stumbles will turn into running that’ll turn into the winning goal of our junior soccer league that… I’ve lost the metaphor.
My point is, we’re growing and we’ll do amazing things yet.
The problem with TV, however, is that you’re stuck in your ways and you refuse to change them. Right now, to get a show on TV, a writer needs to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop. You’ll hire “proven commodities” to run your shows even if those “proven commodities” aren’t talented. ‘Cause boy, those failed TV credits must surely mean they know something.
So you hire them because you’re afraid to take a risk and because, in the end, you’re one big college drama club — working, laughing and sleeping with one another all over Hollywood. Bringing anyone new is like tearing out teeth with your bare hands and it’s made you smash head first into the wall of the changing medium.
So, again — TV is hurting right now and the web series needs a helping hand to give it a boost up.
And here’s how we shake things up.
We need you, network people, to take a chance, take a chance, take a chance, chance, chance. Look, I am fully aware that most web show creators are terrible. I love my colleagues and I think there are plenty of shows that are good, but many of them — most of them — couldn’t hold a light up to a TV show in quality… you know it, we know it, and even people yelling angrily at me from their Tumblr accounts (see, Barrett Garise? I’m nothing if not loyal!) know it — and yet, the solution to both of our problem is you, network person.
Because, here’s the thing. Amongst the awful — and it’s not just web shows, every art has its large group of awful, otherwise it wouldn’t be art — amongst the awful there are brilliant people, talented people who could do fantastic things if you backed them. And I’m saying actually backed them, not, “here’s a few thousand dollars, let’s see if you can make this web show popular without us helping you at all” — I’m saying, actual support, budget, talent, art direction, whatever — back them, help them, create a show that’ll strike a chord with audiences (think It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and you’ll be endlessly rewarded.
See, as creators, we get interactivity. We get entertainment. We get technology. We get what audiences want. We have our metaphoric hand on the metaphoric pumping heart that bangs out the beat of the metaphoric pulse of society. We know what people want — we need the tools to give it to them.
Don’t treat us like lower class citizens. Don’t think we’re useless and don’t you dare ignore this little genre of ours. It’s growing, it’s getting bigger and we’re innovating the hell out of entertainment. So, give us your hand — not to pull us out of the water but to work with us. To help us so that we can help you.
You can save the web series and we can save TV.
I think it’s a fair deal.
My email is yuribaranovsky@gmail.com — let’s start there.
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Blog originally written for the Web Series Network — great source for web series-related news!
Tags: ABC, CBS, entertainment, FOX, FX, HBO, IFC, NBC, Showtime, TBS, tv, web series
Posted by Yuri Baranovsky on Oct 6, 2009 in
entertainment industry,
web series
Oh, people of the web, why must we fight?
I say, let’s fix the web series genre, you say it ain’t broke, I say prove it, and you say, no it is YOU who are bitter!
Barrett Garese — an ex-agent and full time welder (I don’t know what he actually does now, but I’m pretty sure its welding) and a few employees at Blip.tv have waxed dismissive over my “Let’s Save The Web Series” blog of yestermonth.
I didn’t want to respond too actively or I’d start feeling like I was wildly dueling anyone who came my way. But, I figure the idea was to open up the debate about the industry. Luckily, my blog, to some extent, did — so I thank you all for your commitment to share your thoughts and I’ll lend a hand to row this little boat onward.
So, here we go, row, row, row:
Mr. Garese focused primarily on my “minor leagues” argument. I retracted it in my other blog: Waxing Websodic: Everything is Fine, Nothing is Working — but I’ll reiterate it again: you’re absolutely right, Barrett. That was a flawed argument and I take it back — web shouldn’t aim to be minor leagues, web should aim to be the highest quality possible.
Now that that’s settled, I have a request.
What I ask of you, nay, anyone who reads my blog and yells arguments loudly into this large, democratic space, is this — read and understand my actual points.
Which are:
1. The web series in its current inception is dying.
If it isn’t, then somebody please, please throw us a lifesaver because we’re drownin’ baby and our branded entertainment commercials ain’t paying the bills or massaging the creative arteries.
2. We have to throw around ideas to help evolve the genre. Is it evolving? Sort of, kind of, slowly, I guess. Will it continue to evolve? Of course. Is it failing miserably right now? Yes.
Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. Listen to creators before parading our victories — we’re struggling and the pigtail-twirling-awe of online entertainment is hurting us. We need open dialogue and ideas to push us to the next step and force one another to do something amazing. Every time people plug their ears and shout “everything is fine!” it hurts us. If it was succeeding, we’d all be living off of it (by we I mean more than 10-15 people).
That said, Barrett, my favorite welding ex-agent, I feel like we’re repeating each other’s points.
Barrett says: “We’re still “filming radio” by making short TV shows and short films because no one’s yet developed the genres of web video which will stand apart from film and television, and define the medium in the coming decades.“ While my original post makes suggestions on how to move out of this “filming radio” stage (not in those exact words, of course, but out of its current inception) and asks for others to make their own suggestions on how to evolve the medium.
Okay, sure, I said it with more anger and less gentle fondling of the genre’s privates but still — it’s all there.
So, despite your month cool down hiatus on answering my original post, we are not so different, you and I, Barret. We are not so different at all.
Oh, and, while I’m row, row, rowing:
I appreciate the comments from Mike Hudack, Eric Mortenson and the other Blip.tv guys. The word “visionary” shouldn’t be tossed around lightly, and if that’s the mantle they’ve given me, I’ll wear it to the very best of my mantle-wearing abilities. So, thank you guys. Really. I honestly think that Blip.tv is one of the only companies who is actually doing what I’m preaching.
I am not, however, bitter disappointed. Break a Leg has been amazing to us and our recent network deal should be, ideally, a huge help in our next project. That’s not it at all.
What I am is irritated at the, “everything is okay” mindset of this community. I think it’s backwards thinking, I think it’s masturbatory, and I think it slows down the evolution of this genre. We’re set in our ways because to each other, we’re just the neatest things ever — but the majority of web shows are still poorly written, acted and directed. The very best web show online completely pales in the face of any number of great TV shows — and if we want to be taken seriously, that can’t be true. Budget or no budget.
The reason for me writing the original article was to get people thinking. To get people to drop “everything is okay” and start thinking, “okay, how do we keep getting better?” It was a call to arms. A demand to break the status quo, a shout to call on artists to continue pushing this art’s boundaries instead of patting one another on the back and politely asking if they’d like another handjob.
Barrett leaves off saying that to save web video, I (though I assume he means we… or maybe he means me) need to create something that no one has ever experienced. You’ve got the right idea, Barrett. I couldn’t agree with you more –let’s stop saying everything is swell and let’s start thinking up some new, groundbreaking projects, hey?
Hell, that’s what we’re doing. In fact, we’re right in the middle of trying to scrounge up funding for a new show made with a new model that, we hope, will blow everyone’s mind.
Want to help?
Until then, let’s keep row, row, rowing.
We’re still “filming radio” by making short TV shows and short films because no one’s yet developed the genres of web video which will stand apart from film and television, and define the medium in the coming decades
Tags: barrett garese, blip.tv, online entertainment, web series
Posted by Yuri Baranovsky on Sep 3, 2009 in
web series A couple of days ago I posted an article on my blog (a blogticle?) about the “death of the web series genre as we know it.”
There were some great comments and one, especially, caught my eye because, well, it was on the front page of NewTeeVee (I’m exaggerating, of course, they only have one page — but such is the curse of the blogticle) written by one Liz Shannon Miller.
I had my point, she had her counter-point, so now I have to have a counter-counter-point.
Let me start by quoting Liz’s premise:
“To be blunt, it sounds like Baranovsky doesn’t get out much. If he did, he’d be in touch with the new generation of web series creators, who are playing with their cameras, trying new things and making new deals.”
I’m on Twitter, I’m on Facebook, I’m on MySpace, and I even have Friendster. I might even possibly have a LiveJournal account somewhere. I take a daily stroll through the Internet and breathe that sweet, electronicky air. So, I’m pretty sure I get out. Or get out in the way Liz says I don’t.
Though, it is true that I haven’t left my house in forty-three weeks.
Liz is celebrating the idea of what web series, as a genre, offers. She’s celebrating that people are going out there and creating content — I think that’s phenomenal, but it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about creating successful content — successful monetarily and artistically.
There are a whole lot of people in this business who are struggling right now. As an example: Two friends of mine are signed with CAA, did a show for WB and manage to get into meetings with big studios — I can vouch for their talent and wit, and I judge them not against other web shows but against top-notch professional talent.
Right now, they’re thinking about moving back to New York because they’re having trouble finding any work in LA. These are established creators with talent oozing out of their bloodshot, tired eyes. They have more connections than most people and I think they’d be hard-pressed to share Liz’s enthusiasm about the business.
Liz’s entire post is a prime example of everything I’ve had a problem with in my original blogticle (it sounds like candy, doesn’t it?):
Niche is good. Is it? What about thinking of a way to cater to mainstream? I’m glad that Mormons will have something to watch and there will always be niche creators for niche markets — that’s all well and good. But, I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that the majority of creators don’t want to be niche. I’m going to say that a lot of us are filmmakers who want our work to be seen not by large Mormon populations but by everyone.
The idea that the only way to succeed is by going to a small but loud market (i.e., the Guild and gamers) feels a lot like giving up to me.
You haven’t heard of it, so you don’t know what’s out there. Liz makes a point to name 10 indie web shows that she believes are great and that I haven’t heard of. Why haven’t I heard of them? Is it because I’m not a good enough web series detective or is it because it’s damn near impossible to wrap your brain around the millions of shows that are now out there? And more importantly — is it my problem, or is that the problem of the people covering the web series genre?
Drew Lanning wrote that this whole medium is one big circle jerk — I can’t help but agree. If those 10 quality indie shows are being watched only by hardcore web series fans, then they’re going to have a helluva time dropping that “indie” label.
Why hasn’t NewTeeVee, Tubefilter or Tilzy created a, say, Top 20 web series list? It can be changed monthly — and if a show–even with only two viewers–is shot, acted and written better than the Guild, then it should be on top. It shouldn’t be about numbers or what’s popular, but quality. Quality as compared to TV, not to “Fred.” It’s a simple idea, but at least it gives us a cohesive place to look for top shows. It also gives smaller shows something to work for (getting on the list).
I’m a creator — I badly need your help. I need people like you, journalists who know this business, to help me reach people who aren’t on the circle jerk email list.
Web Series shouldn’t aim to be the minor leagues of TV. You know, I fully agree. That was a false argument on my part and went against my main premise — that I want web series to match TV in quality and not give passes to people who don’t at least try. So, you’re absolutely right.
That said, I think it’s insulting to say…
Everything is Fine. It really, really isn’t. Your examples just prove that it isn’t. I’m not saying no one succeeds — but the people you list mostly either, A. succeeded a long time ago when the genre was new and the pickin’s were slim, or B. built a brand over a wealth of time and only now managed to push through (Dan Harmon, CollegeHumor, etc).
Were you aware that, currently, to get an advertiser to advertise on your show, you generally have to either, A. have a celebrity, or B. be established and popular? A ain’t easy and B is the hardest it has ever been.
Companies are tired of losing money, see? No one wants to invest in anything that isn’t proven to succeed — and we just aren’t succeeding. Yet.
It’s frustrating for creators to hear those covering the genre wax heroic on how everything is going great and we’re just getting started. If you admit that the 10 shows you listed will not find a large audience, how can you call that success? How can you possibly use that as defense that nothing needs changing? Do you understand what these creators go through to make these shows? Do you understand that that sentence you wrote is the absolute last thing they want to hear… especially from someone who is supposed to be championing them?
In the end, we’re all on the same team — I just think that the team needs to change its strategy or it’s going to keep losing. Yes, we win a few games here and there, but there ain’t no way we’re bringing home a trophy.
Every great artist needs to be pushed down and criticized. Every genre needs failure to succeed. Every medium needs to grow and get better instead of ignore the problems and keep blindly moving ahead. We need to push one another, demand change, expect nothing less than a large, mainstream following for every high-quality show.
Right now, it’s impossible. So, how do we change that?
Posted by Yuri Baranovsky on Sep 2, 2009 in
web series The web series genre, as we know it, is dying.
There, I said it.
I know that The Guild just got an article written about it in the Wall Street Journal and I know I just announced that Break a Leg got a network deal — but, as a whole, the web series genre is laying in its hospital bed and watching its life ebb quietly away. It lays there and it remembers what once was — it remembers the fetal kicking of The Burg, it remembers the crowning head of Break a Leg, and it remembers the bursting forth of LonelyGirl15 out of its vagina.
And now it stares listlessly into space as the nurses give it a periodic injection of The Guild, Season 3 or a short-lived, celebrity-laden web series that prolongs its life by just a few more months.
The web series is dying, but I’m hopeful.
Do you know why I’m hopeful?
Because I’ve periodically, in articles, blogs and to drunk people around me, muttered bitterly about the fact that the genre just isn’t working. We as a community have often celebrated the wrong successes (oh, wow, “Fred” the high-pitched talking 16 year old got a network deal?! There is a chance for high-quality content to succeed after all! Write more about it, NewTeeVee! Everyone must know of his genius!) and stopped short of fostering the talent that could’ve pushed us forward.
In general, we’ve treated one another as star performers in the Special Olympics — yay, you made a video! You’re so good! Instead of critically judging one another, we’ve set the bar so incredibly low that a show with a few marginal actors and one or two laughs is sheer genius. We also, as I wrote in my article from a year ago, celebrated the low-budget show — the show with non-actors, non-writers, non-filmmakers — as if we were talentless hippie San Francisco artists desperately hoping to be artists in our failure to do art (sorry, San Francisco hippies — you’re not all like that, but I live here, I’ve been to art shows and plays — it’s not pretty).
I’m hopeful because it seems to me that we’ve finally dropped the act and now just think that the whole damn genre is failing. But that’s okay. Bitterness passes and I desperately hope that it will open into a debate, an open forum where we can think of ideas to recreate prior successes and build something much bigger, much more potent than anything we had before.
That said — I’ve decided to start the discussion that will, because I’m eternally optimistic, change entertainment. Okay? Okay.
So, here are four of my own suggestions to remake the web series genre:
1. Let’s stop bashing TV and figure out a way to work with networks. The fact is, unless it’s a network-funded show, very few web shows can compete with TV shows, and I’m talking about in everything — writing, visuals, acting and so on. Network TV is hurting though, and aside from maybe the Colbert Report, none of them really know how to utilize the web to increase viewership. Not only that, but most of them refuse to even think outside the box to attempt new media-style marketing.
My solution? We need to get to a place where web shows are like the minor leagues to TV’s major leagues.
We need network people to step up and start working with prominent web creators and people in the space. People like Quincy Smith from CBS Interactive (who I hear is quitting the network… fantastic) have the power to, say, create a site that would specifically focus on finding the best of the best web shows and both shop them to networks while helping them gain a following.
People like Felicia Day, Kent Nichols, the Big Fantastic guys and hell, even me and my crew, can work together to create and help others create content that isn’t good for the web but just good.
2. Tilzy.tv, Tubefilter.tv and NewTeeVee.com should not only review shows and throw them into their ever-growing mammoth collection of web series but also focus on finding the cream of the crop. As journalists, it’s their job to find the little nuggets of gold — shows that perhaps no one is watching — and not only review them, but champion them. The Guild, Dr. Horrible, any show with a celebrity — these will always get constant write-ups. And I can’t complain, because that’s mostly the same thing with Break a Leg, the Burg, and the other bigger shows — but I have yet to see them really push a show I’ve never heard of to the mass public.
Tim Goodman of the SF Chronicle was a huge supporter of Arrested Development and one of the reasons that helped them continue production. Yes, it’s the SF Chronicle — but I know the guys at Tilzy, Tubefilter and NewTeeVee — all are extremely talented journalists and I think if they tried hard, they could really help propel shows forward.
3. The Streamys were a genius way to give the genre credibility. On this next go around, it has to get bigger, better, flashier. It has to feel professional. Every joke has to hit — Lisa Kudrow, while brilliant, should not out-perform every presenter by messing up on the teleprompter. It should be a show that not only YouTube-dwellers want to watch, but people who’ve never watched a web show in their life would want to watch. The Streamys have so much potential that if we all work together and nail it, it could be a huge help to the entire genre.
4. I’m fully embracing branded entertainment. What I don’t understand is how bigger companies haven’t picked out a high-quality show, funded a season and asked them to, say, create a few shorts that both advertise their show and the product. Then what you end up having is a running internet show and ready-to-air commercials that can have the whole, “See more at: www.blahblah.tv” slate at the end. $100,000 isn’t that much money for someone like Proctor & Gamble — but it can create them a full web series and a buncha TV commercials. It would also drive traffic to the site and market itself circularly.
How is this not happening yet? How many Burger King burgers does David Penn have to eat?
Right now, the web series is dying — and maybe, just maybe, we can replace some of its limbs with bionic body parts and help create a super hero.
These are just some of my ideas — they could all potentially be awful and bankrupt the entire world (who knows these days?!) — so, let’s hear yours and let’s fix this damn thing.