IML Midterm Thesis Proposal

John Visclosky
10/18/07
IML 346

IML 346 Midterm Thesis Proposal Outline

I. Creative Merger: Viewing Serialized, Web-Based Storylines as a Creative Avenue Toward Marketing Success

II. Mad-Lib Abstract: “I am exploring web-launched, serialized storylines—otherwise known as webisodes—in order to discover what technical and narrative characteristics they share, so that I can demonstrate the capacity of individuals to use formulaic patterns, manipulations, and conventions to create popular internet-based entertainment.”

III. Description: “Through my thesis project, I’m trying to gain an understanding of web-launched, serialized storylines as both a creative art form, and a marketing tool. Mini, serialized webisodes offer all the advantages of a syndicated television show with few of the drawbacks. They are a creative medium in which you can continually examine and reexamine the stories and interactions of a select number of fictional characters. In other words, webisodes surpass films in their capacity for emotional and creative depth simply by offering the possibility to emotionally probe and explore your characters an infinite number of times rather than once. Unlike a television series however, webisodes are unconstrained by pesky running times (they can be 3-5 minutes rather than 23), and censorship.

Webisodes are also a great medium through which to explore and learn about theories of marketing and promotion. Television shows have the benefit of entire firms solely devoted to promoting their success. With webisodes, you are forced to be your own promoter, and to successfully deal with internet-based advertisers should the serial become widely viewed. It is a wonderful discipline because it is a creative venture steeped very deeply in economic/marketing principles.

Webisodes are an interesting creature. You have to create characters that are entertaining in only five minutes, yet who will have enough creative life to be sustained over a long overall period of time. They have to leave the viewers wanting more, but never unsatisfied. It is a difficult balance to strike, one which poses significant challenges in writing, editing, and performance. I want to discover firsthand, precisely how an artist might go about creating such characters, and such environments.

Yet, I am also determined to discover how a businessman might promote such an endeavor, and how he might sustain it financially through advertising contracts and the like. There can be much creativity not only in art, but in business as well, with webisodes standing firmly as a glaring “case in point.”

In the creation of these webisodes, I want to help my viewers understand how this mode of serialized storytelling is made and popularized. By keeping a firsthand-account-via-blog of the entire creative/fiscal/economic process of creating a webisode series, I will be providing a valuable instruction manual not only for creative artists but for intellectual and technological theorists as well. How are such art forms created? What are their benefits and drawbacks? How are they sustained and popularized? And what does their failure or success mean for the future of film and television as creative/fiscally successful mediums? I have no idea… yet. But, I do intend to find out.”

1. Definition of Project:

a) The webisodes as a whole will comprise a series known as “The Reunion,” and will revolve around the different members of a family who are all meeting for one weekend at an annual family reunion. It will be shot in a faux-documentary style. In other words, the different episodes will be created in such a way that viewers could take them to be an actual record of real people. Each episode will include documentary-style interviews, shaky-hand-held camerawork, and an improvisational script. All successful webisodes share a few common characteristics. They are mostly all comedic, with a quirky, off-color sense of humor. They have archetypical characters such as the normal guy, the stupid person, the annoying one, and, surprisingly enough, the slutty girl. They are all under five minutes in length, and they are jam-packed with jokes. And they all have a main dramatic thread, one single story arc that drives the entire season. As such, I tried to create a story that would include all these elements while elaborating upon them. The main character in “The Reunion,” is Ben, the normal guy who hates his job because he seems to be the only one who notices how stupid all of his coworkers are. There is lots of rather raunchy, off-color humor, and a stupid character as well as the token annoying guy from work, Dave. The main dramatic thread of the entire series will be Ben’s attempted love affair with a girl named Jen, who he sees for the first time in 10 years at the family reunion. As we watch Ben try to win back the girl of his dreams, we will be entertained by various other family members and their individual story arcs.

b) The whole point of this project is to synthesize pre-existing characteristics shared by successful webisode series, and combine them to create a popular story. Webisodes are so interesting because, as wikipedia puts it, they are a “form of new media that characteristically features a dramatic, serial storyline, and where the primary method of viewership is streaming online over the Internet.” Anyone, anywhere, at anytime can watch and get enjoyment from them.

c) Research Methodology:

1)VMIX and the IFC Launch Webisode Series
May 14, 2007 — 06:45 PM PDT — by Kristen Nicole — Share This

VMIX, an interactive social networking company for video content, announces today their new Independent Film Channel (IFC) channel, which will feature the first-ever IFC web series “Getting Away With Murder.”

The IFC channel began airing the webisodes yesterday as part of the network’s “Dot Com Month.” There will be 13 episodes in the series, which is about the double life of Seth Silver who words as an assistant vet technician by day, and moonlights as a killer-for-hire. Those that watch the series online will be able to download music and deleted scenes, as well as sneak peeks into Seth’s diary. VMIX has been raking up its partnerships lately, extending content offerings and broadening distribution networks for premium videos. These deals include the VMIX partnership with Union-Tribune Publishing and DirecTV.

The IFC and VMIX are taking a page from the Prom Queen book, finding the best strategy for moving studio-produced content onto the Internet. They’ve also done one better, presenting perks for viewers, such as the show’s music available for download. This is something I’m surprised to see so little of, considering the career success of such artists that are played in episodes of The O.C. and Grey’s Anatomy. One show that is fully taking advantage of their cult-like following online is Heroes, which has incorporated several interactive features and exclusive on their website.

Another popular webisode series is Afterworld, which is looking to monetize through video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Revver.

2) From tvseriesfinale.com:

Campus Ladies: Oxygen Drops Sitcom

Joan Beamin and Barri Martin, the main characters of Campus Ladies, may have a good time going back to school but their series won't be returning to the Oxygen channel. The sitcom has been cancelled after two seasons.

Campus Ladies followed the exploits of two 40-something women who enrolled in college and tried to fit in with their younger classmates. Much of the show's dialogue was improvised which isn't surprising considering most of the cast are veterans of the respected Groundlings improv group. Guest actors on the series included Jane Kaczmarek , Jason Alexander, Paul Reubens, Fred Willard, Sean Hayes and Maya Randolph.

Ladies was co-produced by Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines and starred Christen Sussin and Carrie Aizley who also co-created the series. The sitcom has run for two seasons and a total of 20 episodes on Oxygen. Its understood that the series was cancelled because season two's ratings were lower than the freshman year's -- likely due in large part to a drastic timeslot switch to 11pm on Tuesdays.

On his website, series co-star Amir Talai is philosophical about the cancellation and says, "We had a surprising number of fans given that Oxygen almost willfully sabotaged the show. But that too is in the past, and we will move on from that as well. Here too, I have made some friendships and connections that will last for a long time. And for fans of the show, you might be happy to know that Derek [Carter] (Mr. Drew) and I are actually very good friends in real life as well, and the cancellation of the show hasn't changed that. And BTW, Campus Ladies is definitely coming out on DVD, but I don't know when." Stay tuned http://technorati.com/tag/Jane
3) From efilmcritic.com:

Red vs. Blue
By Eric Childress

I’ve just finished my second viewing of Red vs. Blue and I can tell that this will be one of those joy-fulfilling excursions that I will share with friends as well as something I can just keep on in the background even when I’m not watching it. Simple to the point that your buddies could have sat down to create it and yet so audacious in its execution that you sense mad geniuses were at work. There’s a simplistic way to describe what it is, but one with so many levels that each proceeding explanation curves your smile a little more. It’s a mighty successful video game film based on a series of webshorts based on a video game. More importantly, Red vs. Blue is animated anarchy on par with one’s enjoyment of shows like South Park and Ren & Stimpy.

Red vs. Blue is not technically a “film” at all, but an edit of the season one internet shorts entitled The Blood Gulch Chronicles. Adapted, so to speak, from the enormously popular xBox game Halo, what this creative clan has done is lift segments of the game imagery and then dub their voices over in a technique they refer to as “machinima.” Unlike the addictively entertaining Most Extreme Elimination Challenge on Spike TV, their scripts are already written. They just need the footage. Chances are you may have called your friend a “team-killing fucktard” while playing Halo. Only you were playing to an audience of one.

RvB is set on a distant planet where two armies (defined by their colors) are fighting for control of two bases. Why either of them should care about domination in the “middle of a boxed canyon” is amongst the several conversations they will have, bored out of their armor, as they await the other side to make a move, a la A Midnight Clear. All the aliens have been killed. What else have they got to do?

The red boys pass the time debating the name of their new ATV (the Warthog) with a commander who shrugs off alternative suggestions as being mythical animals (like the unicorn or the...walrus.) They also wonder why it’s necessary for a spaceship to haul down a giant tank as a weapon. Why not just use the spaceship? The blue guys aren’t much better, picking on their own rookie much like the reds do and being completely inept when it comes time for battle conditions.

This may sound like something more suited for short doses in five-minute downloads but when the 19 episodes are spliced together it works effortlessly. This may be considered nothing more than high-tech geek cinema since jokes directed towards objectives of the actual game (flag capture) and familiarities (weapons, vehicles) will fly right past the casual observer. Don’t despair because the humor isn’t streamlined only for game players. There’s enough pointed military satire and references (2001, Star Wars and even It’s a Wonderful Life) for anyone to laugh consistently throughout. Plus, anybody who can throw in a Voltron joke and make it stick gets my props. OK, I proudly vaunt my geek memoirs.

In fact, it takes precedence for me to give everyone listed on the credits their props. Writer/director Burnie Burns along with Geoff Fink, Gus Sorola, Randall Glass, Matt Hullum, who also provided voicework alongside Yomary Cruz, Dan Godwin, Joel Heyman, Jason Saldana and Kathleen Zuelch have all given us something to laugh out for years to come and they’re just getting started. Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles ends with a cliffhanger that is liable to send people rushing to www.redvsblue.com to check out the beginning of season two. RvB joins the emerging revolution of filmmakers to use the internet to share their ingenuity with millions and its time to take further notice. HomestarRunner.com is a weekly venture in my home. RvB will now certainly be as well. Although maybe I’ll wait until Season Two is complete since the first one was so much fun watching in its entirety.

d) Delivery Format: The webisodes will be posted and presented on a website designed to offer loads of supplemental material. In addition to a 5-minute episode, each new posting will come complete with deleted scenes, outtakes, a copy of the original script, production stills, director’s commentary, and a short video segment detailing the creative process behind each individual episode. I will additionally be keeping a blog to detail the process of creating “The Reunion.”

2. This project covers the creation of a webisode series from every angle of the creative process, providing an inside view of what it is like to create such content. It must be realized in multimedia simply because of the amount of supplemental material required to augment each episode. There have to be additional videos, written materials, and photographs, all of which must be incorporated within a website as a way of structuring and delineating them. The viewer should not only be entertained, but also come away with an understanding of the amount and type of work that goes into the creation of such a series. They should also have a rudimentary understanding of the archetypical devices that come together to create a successful webisode series. Additionally, what makes this project so academically valuable is it’s ability to instruct on not only the creative process, but also the degree of diversification that goes into successful marketing enterprises.

3. By detailing the creation of a webisode series from inception to completion, this project not only creates a forum for future research on the topic, but also promotes discussion concerning the double-edged sword that is the compromise between creativity and marketability. By examining and appropriating techniques used in successful webisode series, it will additionally help to annotate and criticize pre-existing works of art already circulating on the Internet. Because of its eventual placement on the web, it will be useful in not only teaching students at USC, but interested viewers anywhere around the globe.

IV. Timeline
11/1/07 – Have first webisode, “Ben,” edited and ready, including all supplementary materials (original script, director’s commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes, production stills, and making-of video)
11/30/07 – Have web site venue selected and prepared
12/31/07 – Have second webisode created, along with all supplementary materials
2/28/08 – Have third webisode edited, polished, and ready to go, including all supplementary materials
3/1/08 – Post first webisode on YouTube, along with outtakes
3/15/098 – Advertise webisode series through connections on social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace
3/30/08 – Post second webisode on YouTube, including outtakes
4/20/08 – Create fourth webisode
5/30/08 – Launch website with first two videos and all corresponding supplementary materials included
6/30/08 – Have third video and all supplementary materials posted
7/30/08 – Shoot and edit fifth and sixth episodes
8/30/08 – Post fourth segment and all supplementary materials
9/15/08 – Post fifth episode and all supplementary materials
9/30/08 – Shoot seventh episode, and post sixth webisode, along with any supplementary items
10/15/08 – Post seventh episode and supplementary materials
10/30/08 – Shoot and post eighth episode
11/15/08 – Shoot and post ninth episode
12/1/08 – Shoot and post tenth and final(?) episode of the season

V. Budget: The first episode cost roughly $50 dollars to produce, so the total production budget should be somewhere around $500 dollars. Depending on the cost of website production and upkeep, the total budget could oscillate anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars. Even with grants however, I’m not prepared to pay upwards of $2,000.

VI. Confirmed advisors: Since we have not as of yet received the letter to provide to our advisors, I have none confirmed. However, a prospective IML advisor would be Steve Anderson. And prospective advisors from the film school include Robert Ballo, Kenny Hall, and David Maquiling.

VII. Presentation and Distribution Plans: As stated, I plan to initially release the series on YouTube while simultaneously promoting it on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. After this, I plan to post the whole series on a personal website with an accompanying blog that will be advertised on the site. After the conclusion of the first season of “The Reunion,” depending on budget concerns and viewer interest, I will make the entire series available on DVD. I’m also planning to compile the separate episodes into a feature-length film and send that off to different film festivals.

VIII. Production Resources and Required Hardware: I will require website writing software, word programs, Final Cut Pro, a DV camera, DV tapes, actors, producers, cameramen, props, and DVDs.

IX. Prior related work: I have over 20 short films under my belt, including two that won awards at the Montgomery County Media Festival back in high school. I also have an extensive writing background, having written hundreds of poems, dozens of short stories, 12 screenplays, and one (albeit short) novel.

X. Research Bibliography: http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8857&reviewer=198
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/red_vs_blue/
http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/home.php
http://www.tvseriesfinale.com/2007/05/campus_ladies_oxygen_sitcom_dropped.php
http://www.machinima.com/film/view&id=275
http://mashable.com/2007/05/14/vmix-ifc/
http://www.vmix.com/ifctv
http://www.tilzy.tv/GettingAwayWithMurder
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=42833
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33337
http://www.oxygen.com/campusladies/
http://www.tv.com/campus-ladies/show/35733/summary.html