If you're thinking of producing a web series -- and who isn't these days? -- you've got a lot of work ahead of you.
I find it useful to slot the producer's tasks into five major areas:
1. Production
Everything from pitch to post. Come up with an idea, write it, cast it, shoot it, edit it, add music, titles and effects and output the sucker in a web friendly format. Do it all again for the rest of the episodes in the series. This alone will kill you but it's only one of five. Did I mention make it good?
2. Financing
Oops. You can't actually get through the first task if you haven't figured out where the money is going to come from to pay for it. You'll need a budget that includes the costs associated with production and whatever you're spending on promotion and distribution. Conventional wisdom puts average web series' costs around $10,000 an episode, obviously you can do it for a lot more and probably a lot less -- but that's going to cost you in quality and probably viewership as well. Multiply by the number of episodes you want to do and you're in the ball park for how much you need to raise. There aren't a lot of places to look for the money so you're going to have to be creative.
3. Distribution
You got your money, shot the show, now it's time to get it onto the web. Where are you going to put it? Are you building a site of your own? Making it exclusively available on a single site like Blip for example? Or distributing it far and wide to every video sharing site around? Whatever you choose, you'll need to know how to upload it. Then you'll have to tag it and make sure you are showing the screenshots you want. Oh yeah, you'll need some metrics on who is viewing it -- if you're planning to make it all the way to Task 5 Monetizing.
4. Publicizing
Otherwise known as driving traffic. Go ahead, write that press release and send it out. But you better know who is covering the web series beat and my friend, there aren't too many. Tell your friends, tell your family, email everyone you've ever known. And then get to work. There is a tons of bloggage on stirring up traffic and you better start reading. You're going to have to try all of it and then some.
5. Monetizing
Yay, money. Oh wait, there is no business model for web series yet. So, huh, another tough one. There are a few ways to go: subscription, advertising, product integration, rev-sharing sites like MetaCafe or all of the above.
Go get some rest. You're going to need it because producing a web series is an uphill battle. On the other hand, I have a feeling it is going to be creatively satisfying and maybe, eventually, lucrative. So let's give it a shot. Over the coming months, I'll be blogging about your five tasks in more detail.
