Fans and Independent Producers Enter the Television Fray

The World Wide Web has leveled the playing field. The creative individual with a vision no longer has to move to Hollywood, hope for a break and rise through the ranks in order to realize that vision. The ease of video streaming and the dropping cost of technology means that anyone with a digital camera and a story to tell can produce and film their own television show no matter where they are, from Pittsburgh’s Something to Be Desired to LA’s The Guild. The rise of blogging and podcasting, meanwhile, offers fans both the ability to analyze and comment on a television show, as well as get better insights and differing viewpoints. New Media has changed our understanding of what television is, and alterna-tv.com is a firm believer, as well as supporter, of these changes.

—alterna-tv.com

 

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Webseries Review

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the long-awaited webseries creation from Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon, siblings Jed and Zack, and Jed’s fiancé Maurissa Tancharoen, finally hit the Internet last week in a limited release. The initial Act I, first available on Tuesday, July 15th, quickly crashed after 200,000 eager viewers-per-hour flooded the website’s servers. Simultaneously released on iTunes, Dr. Horrible likewise became the top TV download in a relatively short time, and media outlets from USA Today to Variety dubbed the three-part web “mini-series” a monumental event in the short history of Internet video. While the show is no longer available online—with the exception of iTunes—a DVD release is promised, and Whedon has hinted at the possibility of midnight screenings in theaters, similar to how the musical episode of Buffy recently stormed across the nation before legal considerations shut it down.

The webseries—which Whedon describes as “the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to”—stars Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion (who worked with Whedon on Firefly as well as its big-screen adaptation, Serenity) as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day (potential slayer Vi in Buffy) as Penny. While a musical in style—and both entertaining and comic in nature—Dr. Horrible is actually more detailed and depth-oriented than one might expect; each of the characters evoke a naïve innocence, while the narrative itself explores what happens when that innocence both fades and eventually shatters.

JULY 21, 2008 (READ MORE)

Television Writers Take Their Talents to the World Wide Web

When the strike by the Writers Guild of America began last November, many observers wondered if the slew of unemployed scribes would lead to an onslaught of original web content. Compensation for online product was one of the major issues the strike centered around after all, and the idea of writers embarking onto Internet terrain was not out of the question; the Divided Hollywood blog even reported on December 17th that the WGA was considering launching StrikeTV the following month, a website featuring new, original web video created by the union’s members. While at least two workshops were held for interested writers in the Los Angeles area—as well as various blurbs appearing on entertainment websites like TV Squad announcing the project—nothing ever materialized. When the strike ended, it was assumed the plans had died with it.

As it turns out, such assumptions were premature: StrikeTV officially launched on July 4th with a “coming soon” video clip spotlighting the over forty webseries exclusively produced by Los Angeles-area union members. “Basically, StrikeTV is original content created by Hollywood professionals,” Peter Hyoguchi, a WGA member and conceiver of the project, told Variety. “The content we have ranges from comedy, drama, sci-fi, horror, game shows, soap operas to family films and animation... this is an opportunity for Hollywood professionals to experience and try something new with a very low risk factor.”

JULY 7, 2008 (READ MORE)

EQAL Takes lonelygirl15 Creators from YouTube to CBS

KateModern, the British offshoot of interactive online drama lonelygirl15, will conclude its storyline on June 28, 2008, after two season spread over twelve months and fifty million video views. While not quite the success of its ongoing predecessor, the series still established itself as a significant pioneer in the online video evolution, while likewise establishing creators Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders and Greg Goodfried as top pioneers of the budding industry.

Intrigued by the rise of the Internet as a social forum, Beckett came up with the idea in 2006 of using networking websites like MySpace and YouTube for narrative purposes. He teamed up with Flinders and Goodfried shortly thereafter and the three developed an interactive dramatic series about a group of teenagers fighting against a mysterious secret society called “The Order.” Compared by Beckett to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, lonelygirl15 (LG15 for short) features a scripted style that has “a little bit of comedic element, teen angst and romance, and sci-fi drama.” Combined with interactive devices like forums and chat rooms that allow fans to directly communicate with the characters, as well as “live events” where fans can even meet them, lonelygirl15 became a pop culture phenomenon.

JUNE 16, 2008 (READ MORE)

The Guild Webseries Review

Cyd Sherman’s life is complicated. “It’s Friday night and still jobless,” she tells her webvlog. “Haven’t left the house in a week. My therapist broke up with me.” She then pauses for a moment before adding with a shrug, “Oh, yeah, there’s a gnome warlock in my living room, sleeping on my couch.” Thus begins the first episode of the online webseries The Guild, which recently concluded its ten-episode first season. Created and written by actress Felicia Day—who also plays the aforementioned Cyd, aka Codex—this award-winning series follows a group of World-of-Warcraft-style online gamers who suddenly find themselves forced to face real-world obstacles when Codex’s life takes a screwball-comedy turn for the worse.

Day, who admits to having had a two-year addiction to World of Warcraft, originally wrote the script as a television pilot, but when told that the plot was too “niche,” turned it into a webseries instead with the assistance of fellow producers Jane Selle Morgan and Kim Evey. “I decided to write something to show the world that gamers weren’t just guys in their twenties who lived in their mom’s basement,” she told WoW Insider last August. “That cliché has become so annoying. I love doing comedy and I wanted to write something that didn’t make fun of gamers but was funny to gamers and non-gamers alike.”

MAY 26, 2008 (READ MORE)

Dunder Mifflin Embraces the Technology of Podcasting

Michael Scott (Steve Carell), general manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company on the Emmy Award-winning The Office, is not a fan of technology. In the Season Four episode “Dunder Mifflin Infinity,” for example, former temp-turned-regional-manager Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak) launches a new company website in order to give customers easier online ordering ability. “New ideas are fine, but they are also illegal,” Scott said at the time. He later tried to embrace technology by following his GPS map system, but misinterpreted a direction and ended up driving his car into a lake. “In the end, life and business are about human connections,” he commented afterwards. “And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake. And to me the choice is easy.”

Ironically enough, new technology has played an instrumental role in the success of the NBC comedy. In her book, The Television Will Be Revolutionized, author Amanda Lotz mentions that when the network added episodes of The Office to iTunes, not only did the then marginally-successful show become the most downloaded television program on the site, its broadcast viewership actually increased. In addition to this technologically-savvy online fanbase, The Office also has two of the more popular fan-produced podcasts covering television: The Office Alliance Podcast and That's What She Said. It appears that computers are about “human connections” after all.

APRIL 28, 2008 (READ MORE)

ADDITIONAL ALTERNA-TV.COM NEW MEDIA ARTICLES:

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager Webseries Review Review of the eight-episode webseries created by Madison, Wisconsin, residents Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda that chronicles the adventures of Darth Vader’s younger brother, Chad (April 21, 2008).

Dr. Horrible Conjures Up Internet Buzz Article exploring the latest project by Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon, and the Internet buzz surrounding the upcoming Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog webseries (April 14, 2008).

Lost Fertile Ground for the World of Podcasting Article exploring the ABC drama Lost and podcasting while spotlighting The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack and LOSTCasts (February 4, 2008).

An Interview with Online Producers Felicia Day and Justin Kownacki The creators of The Guild and Something to Be Desired discuss the current WGA strike and the future of the webseries (December 24, 2007).

The Online Webseries: Cure for the Writers Strike Blues? Article discussing the webseries in general, and shows like Chad Vader, The Guild, quarterlife and Something to Be Desired specifically, while examining how the WGA strike could benefit them (November 12, 2007).

Blogs by Television Writers Offer Insights Into Creative Process Guide to the various web sites and blogs by television writers from shows as diverse as Brothers & Sisters, The Closer, CSI: Miami and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (October 8, 2007).

How to Create a Sustainable Web Series: The PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 Session Justin Kownacki, the creative force behind Something to Be Desired, discusses the webseries as part of PodCamp Pittsburgh 2, held in August 2007 (October 1, 2007).

The Future of Internet TV: An Interview with Chris Brogan The co-founder of PodCamp talks about how Internet television will evolve over the next few years (September 10, 2007).