Two words that haunt online video storytellers.
When web television first started to emerge as a viable platform for filmmakers (you know, when new media was still “new”), most creators looked to the web as a distribution model that allowed them to avoid gatekeepers like studios or networks or even festivals, and they didn’t even have to pay an entry or agent’s fee. They posted videos to youtube and funnyordie and figured the viewers would come to them because they were all sorts of awesome and the gatekeepers are just poopyheads. Turns out, web doesn’t work that way either. Urgh…
The web may be democratic in the way Hollywood is not, but it is also interactive, which is why sites like youtube and facebook and twitter imploded, and virtually every generation of breathing humans on this earth uses them, which is more than can be said for most other technology. This is also why the most successful online videomakers all share a common characteristic. They all happen to employ some sort of interactive element.
This is not a flook. The entire purpose of youtube is interactivity. It is a video “sharing” site, where you have the right to upload whatever you feel like, but viewers in turn have the right to immediately tell you what they think, and they don’t even have to do it to your face or with their real name — that is, if you haven’t shut off the auto-commenting option. Tsk, Tsk.
The same can be said of a site like funnyordie. It’s right there in the name. In exchange for free distribution of your video, people get to vote on whether or not your video is funny, and this aint the Neilsen ratings — ANYONE can vote. And by anyone I mean ANYONE, no matter how inebriated, immature or vindictive they may be. WTF.
Now, we all know everybody is trying to figure out how to make a buck in the vast uncharted terrain of web television, so of course that means everybody is studying the ones that do. And the ones that do, the ones that are raking in the big $$$ presently, are the so-called youtubers, that spritely gang of young folk that share their personal rants to the digital world or tell you how to actually use the technology you just charged on your visa. And how are they doing it? By engaging with their audiences directly. But how? By incorporating their viewers into their shows. By chatting with them personally. By even allowing them to affect content.
Note taken.
So, that brings me to this matter of “interactive storytelling,” which is apparently the new black. If the key to successful monetization of online video is in “interactivity,” then how do we make a narrative series interactive? I mean, how can a series be both scripted and interactive?
Lately, there seems to be one way to do that — by asking your fans to decide what happens in the story directly, sometimes in the form of a choose your own adventure, as executed by The Fine Brothers, sometimes in the form of a call to action like how Zimm allowed the viewers to pick whether the lead would be male or female, sometimes by asking viewers to send in their own stories or scripts like In the Motherhood and BlackBoxTV.
All of this is very innovative, and there have been some serious groundbreakers in this regard (including the ones mentioned), but if every web series is suddenly choose your own adventure or call to action style, don’t you think it will get tiring? Not to mention it’s a bit limiting for writers and showrunners, who then lose control over their stories. On the flip side, as a writer, it is important to recognize the media you’re writing for…
So, that brings me back to the question — how do we make a narrative web series interactive? And if we want to employ interactivity in our narrative series, how can we employ it into our storytelling in other and perhaps less literal ways?
I would like to throw out one more example, Odd Job Nation. Whereas the show itself was not interactive, creator Jeremy Redleaf built a world around the show that was. The site Odd Job Nation included lots of interactive options which were separate from the series content that enticed and engaged site visitors, and he could still retain control over the scripted video. This is a technique employed by transmedia producers in Hollywood. Their task is to build an interactive world around the product that embodies the spirit of the original creation. So the storyteller still gets to tell his story and the studio can also monetize it. To which I respond, 
.
Now, what are your thoughts?
Daryn
I’m not sure that every webseries or show needs to be interactive. But, if the show isn’t, then the people who make it should be.
I think the key to making a narrative series interactive is to broaden the world of the series enough that certain characters or elements can branch out and become more interactive without affecting the central story (or production values) of the main show. That seems to be the most practical – and flexible – way to me.
I completely agree with both of the above comments, having completed 2 web series and working on a 3rd. We are constantly trying to balance the whole selling out vs. retaining some dignity, thing. We are now doing a scripted comedy with blog and marketing components that are related to the subject’s demographic (teen girls). I think the whole package will help drive viewers to our sites, and engage them with enough stuff to share or buy or comment and maybe come back.