What It’s Like

As frustrating and destructive as the strike has been, a few good things have come out of it.  One is the opportunity to spend time with a lot of other writers on the picket lines and at Strike HQ.  Another is the way it has forced writers to think outside the network/studio box and catch up with the fast-developing opportunities on the internet.  The net has been a huge factor in the PR war, and in organizing and informing people about the strike.  Now a group of writers is developing Strike TV - an online “channel” featuring original work by professional writers, directors, actors, etc.  Not more videos about the strike, but TV and movie-style entertainment.  Which I think needs a better name than “Strike TV.”  It’s actually a fundraiser for the WGA Foundation Industry Support Fund - that is, assuming they can get some advertising and raise some cash.

I went to an interesting seminar at the WGA Theater about this project, which also included a lot more info about the economics of entertainment on the net.   Ian Deitchman, one of the Strike TV organizers, compared the current state of internet programming with the earliest stages of film.  One of the most popular, early silent shorts was “Man Sneezing.”  And what’s one of the biggest videos on YouTube?  “Baby Panda Sneezing.”  This is when the storytellers come in with things like plot and characters to turn a novelty into a viable, and ultimately profitable, form of entertainment.

Another speaker, Peter Hyoguchi (called “The Gooch” of course), talked about the two biggest obstacles a writer has traditionally needed to overcome to get his or her work seen.  The first is production, which is very expensive, and these days, dominated by studios.  The second is distribution, which is even more expensive, and dominated by studios and networks.  Then came the digital camera, which has now become affordable enough to make production accessible to pretty much anyone.  And there’s the internet, which has reduced the cost of distribution to exactly zero.  Suddenly, we’re not so dependent on the big money boys anymore.

Next there was a panel discussion.  My favorite panelist was Kent Nichols, one of the writer/creators of “Ask a Ninja,” a really funny site.   He and his writing partner, Douglas Sarine, had written a feature script about ninjas living in Orange County, but couldn’t sell it or afford to make it themselves.  So they wondered: what can we afford?  Which turned out to be the two of them with a digital camera and a laptop, making five minute shorts featuring a ninja character from their script answering questions from viewers, initially friends and family.  No real set, no budget to speak of.  They posted on iTunes, which made them a featured video, and viewership exploded.  They now get millions of hits per month.  They have advertisers galore, sell ninja merchandise, and make six figures a month from the site.  All this in about two years.

The panel also discussed what kind of programming seems to work best on the net.  Short films and podcasts, especially something with an easily graspable high-concept like “Ask a Ninja,” are not only popular, but easier to produce than hour long or even half-hour, TV-like episodes.  You also need an idea which can generate multiple episodes - much like a TV series.  One great short won’t be enough to attract advertising bucks - you need to bring viewers back repeatedly, and create a recognizable “brand.”

Then we got wonky with Ken Hayes, who gave a powerpoint presentation about monetizing the internet.  He began by dispelling the notion that “content is king,” a bold move in a room full of writers.  On the internet, traffic is king.  It’s all about the eyeballs.  Which, if you think about it, is true for TV as well - the content is essentially bait to lure viewers into watching the commercials.  On the net, advertisers pay in a variety of ways: per click on the site, per click on the ad banner, per visit to their own site via the referring site, etc.  How do you hook up with these advertisers?  If a site becomes really popular, they’ll probably find you.  There are also companies which act as agents to sell advertising for you: “Ask a Ninja” has a link to theirs, Federated Media.  Ken Hayes has a blog you should check out for more details on the business stuff - it also links to the presentation he gave us.

So what exactly should a writer do with this information?  For the moment, the answer seems to be: become a hyphenate.  I recently read a book about D.W. Griffith, which described how he made his films.  He was the writer/director/producer.  The actors would contribute some ideas and dialogue, then help build the sets, and even work with the editors if D.W. was too busy.  Basically, there was no “writer,” whose sole function was to generate scripts.  That seems to be the case in internet programming as well, at least for now.  If you write something, you may also need to buy or borrow a digital camera and produce it yourself.   More work?  Yes.  Money out of your own pocket?  Yes.  But the upside is, you will own your own product.  That’s another big goal of Strike TV - keeping the copyright in the hands of the creators, rather than the studio financiers.

Of course, you don’t have to go the video route.  Plenty of sites are completely text-based - including, obviously, this one.   I could, theoretically, sell advertising space on my site as well.  There are also sites which attract a lot of traffic, and advertising, simply by trolling other sites and gathering links on a particular topic, or for a particular audience.  Apparently, this is called “scraping,” and if you’re an original content producer, it’s just a fact of life that your work will get scraped for someone else’s benefit.  Kent Nichols, the Ninja guy, didn’t seem to find this a problem, however, since it ultimately directs more traffic to the original site as well.

In an earlier post, I recommended branching out into other media, such as the internet, and including this work on your resume.  Brandon responded with a question, which I apologize for neglecting until now.  He wondered if he should mention his video blog on his resume.  If it’s something he’s only shown to friends and family, I’d say “no.”  Post the vlog on someplace like YouTube.  If it attracts substantial traffic, then it becomes more impressive to a potential employer, and is worth putting on a resume.  I honestly don’t know much about how the net is perceived by execs and showrunners, but anything that demonstrates your ability to pull in readers/viewers can’t be a bad thing.