Here's the second part of my interview with Mary Feuer, creator of With the Angels:

Q.What do you think are the essential components of a web series? Is there an ideal number of characters, a type of story or genre that works best? An episodic format you use?

A.I don't want to get into dictating to anyone how they should or shouldn't do this. My suggestion is always that people do a lot of homework: watch a lot of shows on the web - not stuff related to mainstream TV and not babies or animals or car crashes, but actual storytelling - and see what they think works.

I personally would not make a web episode longer than 8 minutes unless I knew the audience was already phenomenally invested. That said, lots of people have done it successfully. The Lonelygirl15 people, who are doing The Resistance now, can get away with it, because their viewers are always dying for more.

I think my show has way too many characters, though I love them all. If I had less people's stories to tell, I wouldn't have had to do 4 episodes a week, which would have made my life a lot easier. If you're going to do a web show, think about what kind of time you're willing to commit beforehand: it should dictate the scale. I didn't do that, and as a result my ass is really dragging.

Q.Give us some idea about how your production works. What's your team like? Do you have a story department? How big is your staff? What's your shooting schedule like? Is the whole series in the can? Do you shoot weekly? Monthly? How many episodes do you shoot in a month?

A.Our crew is Neil, our DP, Albert, our editor, who is usually there at the shoot, and me. We have occasionally had a PA, but not too often. And I now have an Associate Producer, Jenni Powell, who's incredibly helpful, especially with the day-to-day non-shoot stuff. That's the most grueling part, surprisingly. We generally shot 8 episodes every 2 to 3 weeks all summer, and each block took about 3 days. We have 5 of 36 episodes left to shoot at this point. We didn't plan to be so far ahead, but StrikeTV took longer to launch than we thought. The shoots are very, very mellow. I've been on huge movies, and I didn't want this to feel even remotely like that, or like some low rent version of that. It's a new aesthetic, it should be a new shoot vibe. I think we've pulled that off.

Jonathan and I were the story department initially - we batted around ideas for several weeks. I wrote about 95 percent of the scripts for the main series, I guess, but Jonathan and Werner wrote all the episodes on our character Trey Alan Gordon's blog. There are 35 or so episodes there, in addition to the main series. So they've created sort of a show within a show. Trey is played by my brother, by the way. Sean Vincent Biggins. He's a great actor.

Q.Where's the money? What's the economic model behind the series?

A.I'll let you know when I figure that out! The shoots are financed out of my incredibly shallow pockets, and everyone involved is deferring pay for the moment. After a somewhat intense experience with an integration sponsor early on, I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth. When that deal fell through, I decided to forego advertising on the show for now: I have found that the internet audience, and my core audience in particular, is kind of resistant to advertising. My thought is to build an audience, then bring them with us to the next stage of the show. We do have financing for a second season, a completely new revenue model that's very exciting, but I can't discuss it yet. I can't even think about season 2 - I'm so wiped out from season 1.

I did just today decide to put YouTube's inline ads on episodes once they're a few weeks old, but then I saw the ads and wasn't sure they were really right for the show. So I'm rethinking even that. I'm pretty protective of Taffy and her pals, so it's hard to let just anything pop up on that screen.

Q.When you're goofing off on the internet, what do you do? What sites do you spend your time on? What do you watch on TV? What films do you like? What do you read? What web series do you watch?

A.I don't have a lot of goofing off time online - I spend so much time on there working that I need to get away from the computer to go SCUBA diving or running or to walk my dogs. But when I do play online, I usually spend my time on SCUBA sites like Valleyscuba. On TV, I am a "Shield" fanatic. "6 Feet Under" may have been my favorite show of all time, and I'm one of those people who still loves "Lost" and always will. My favorite recent movie is "Changeling." My favorite of all time might be "Pan's Labyrinth," but if you ask me tomorrow it will be something else. As for web shows, I watch all my StrikeTV brethren's shows. I watch a lot of the shows that come out of the LG15 community. There are others - I'll probably think of them as soon as I've hit send on this. But my favorite thing to do is discover weird little gems like the videos Pastor Garth of the New Life Christian Church puts out. I stumbled across them while I was doing some reaching out on behalf of "With the Angels." I can't believe a church pays him to do them!

Q.What's the schedule for With the Angels? How often will we see new episodes up? How long will it run? Do you have a complete long story mapped out or are you just seeing where it goes?

A.New episodes post every Monday through Thursday, but the cool thing is people can start whenever because the episodes are obviously always there. It's never too late to watch episode 1!

Right now we're scheduled for our finale on Christmas Day, but I'm rethinking that, as I'm sure it's not the busiest day for people to be watching web shows. I know how I want all the characters' stories to wrap up, but I'm still figuring out how to fit it all in to the remaining 5 episodes!

Here's episode 19 of With the Angels:

Mary Feuer is the creator of With the Angels, the most prolific of Strike.tv's new series -- they've already posted 19 episodes. But then again, Mary probably has a great deal more experience in digital than many of the other Strike.tv creators; Mary was head writer on LonelyGirl15. With the Angels is a fully realized web series with lots of character, story and juice to keep you intrigued. Mary kindly agreed to an interview. She's incredibly insightful and anyone working on digital drama will find her thoughts fascinating. The first part of the interview today, second tomorrow:

Q. How did you get started on the web? What's your background in the digital world? Do you have an relevant training? Were you interested in computers and technology? You've written for television, print and the web. How is writing for the web different? How are the three kinds of storytelling the same and different? Which medium do you prefer?

A. a) I got started when I got hired to be the head writer on Lonelygirl15. Before that, I didn't even know there were shows on the web.

b) I produced 2 features on digital video: Barstow 2008 and East Side Story. I wrote and directed a short called "Rock Bottom" that was also shot digitally.

c) All my relevant training - in pretty much any aspect of my life - has been on the job training.

d) I was not the least bit interested in computers and technology. I'm still not - but I know what I have to know to get the job done!

e) On some levels, storytelling is storytelling. That said, you have different tools at your disposal in different media.

In fiction, obviously, you're not dictating the visual to the reader. You can describe what you want them to see, and whose point of view you want them to assume, but they're going to filter it through their own eye and create the world for themselves, to some degree. Which is great. In TV and film you have the ability to actually use the visual as another layer of story: you can show things without having to talk about them, and people can draw conclusions from what they see that they might not have drawn otherwise. The web, for me, combines many of the best elements of both in that you have the visual available to you but there isn't this expectation that you're going to lean on it as heavily as you do in film and TV. In other words, you are free to have your character TELL instead of SHOWING if that works for your story. There's even an element of theater to it, because you often have the immediacy of audience reaction right there in the comments. Does that make sense? That's just a few small areas of difference. There are lots of others.

Generally, web storytelling is condensed in a way that TV and film are not. But again, storytelling is storytelling. There's as much if not more difference between "6 Feet Under" and "24" , or between a Steven King novel and, say, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." The delivery mechanism is all those pairs of things have in common: the storytelling is completely different.

f) As to which I prefer, I don't have an overall preference. My characters and stories do, though: they pretty much tell me which medium they want to be presented in.

Q. How do you like working on the web (as compared to television)? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

A. What I like about working on the web right now is, frankly, that it could be gone soon. There are a set of tools and aesthetics you use in the medium that will eventually be eclipsed as TV and the internet combine. So I feel like I get to play with this great toy I might not get to keep. As TV viewing becomes more interactive, and web viewing becomes more passive, and as the delivery mechanism becomes the same, there won't be as much difference.

I like the way, on the web, your story can sprawl out into different forms and isn't limited to what's on that little screen. The same could be true of TV, too, if the networks would let it be, and they are more and more getting cross-platform savvy. But the web, by virtue of the fact that people usually sit alone and only a foot or two from the screen, as opposed to TV where you're often watching with someone else and you're 10 feet from the screen, draws you in very differently. It's more conducive to people jumping into the story themselves, feeling connected to it and to the community of others who are watching.

The advantage of TV is that you have a longer time to explore a character, an hour or a half hour every week, so you can often go deeper. Sometimes I miss that: having to make a character go through a beat in the 5 minutes a web show usually has is difficult at times. For example, I don't think you'd be able to get the incredible complexity that is Vic Mackey (from "The Shield") in 5 minute bites. On the web, you can deepen that experience through blogs, and through social networking, but it's a very different sensation both for the storyteller and for the person who's absorbing it.

The biggest difference in the experience of going it, though, isn't TV vs. the web, but ownership vs. non-ownership. I've been a "hired gun" on both web shows and TV; in both cases, there are issues that come up because you're trying to fit your own aesthetics into someone else's, and that "someone" controls your ability to tell the story, has the final say. I'm a collaborative person by nature, but the process of receiving and implementing notes can be difficult, no matter what medium it's in. If you and the people you're working with have a different vision of what you're doing, you're going to both be miserable. If you're on the bottom of that food chain, it can be soul-killing.

Q. What has working with Strike.tv been like?

A. A big part of the StrikeTV experience is in that ownership I just mentioned. There is tremendous respect there, and if my StrikeTV comrades told me they thought I was taking a big misstep, I'd definitely listen. but ultimately, my show is completely and totally mine. No one has told me what to do or how to do it. That's the great part. Almost everyone at Strike is an artist.

On the down side, almost everyone at StrikeTV is an artist. There are business decisions that have seemed somewhat random, and the communication is sometimes really not great. All in all, though, they have been great partners.

Q.Tell us about With the Angels. Where did the premise come from? How did you developed the idea? What kinds of creative collaborations have helped fuel you through the creation process?

A. The characters of Taffy, Ashley, and Andy have existed in several different forms: first in a play by Werner Trieschmann, then in a screenplay he and I wrote together, and now in "With the Angels." When the idea of StrikeTV came along, and the seed was planted that I might like to do a web show, Taffy came into my head. You know how I said the characters tell you what medium they want to live in? Well, I think Taffy's found her home.

When I decided I wanted to do this, I went of course to Werner, who gave his blessing, then helped enormously, though surprisingly more with the brand new character of Trey than with the others he'd created. And I went to Jonathan Kaplan, who is my closest writing friend: we tend to push each other very well. He helped me develop the story. My friend Ariel Lustig is a commercial copywriter, and there are some commercials that are part of the show, so I asked her to write those.

I knew from the beginning I wanted to have Neil de la Peña shoot this: we've worked together a lot, and he is one of the few DPs I know who is more concerned with the story than with flashy shots. I knew this wasn't going to be a flashy shot kind of show. Albert Cantu is an editor we'd both worked with and were excited to work with again.

Then of course, there's our absolutely amazing cast. I knew all the actors ahead of time, wrote the parts for them, except Jamie Tisdale, who plays our Taffy. She is incredible - the show would absolutely not be what it is without her. I owe a huge debt to Amy De Souza, our casting director, for bringing her to us.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here's the first episode of With the Angels:

Chelsey OMG is a web series running on Bebo about a young American woman living in London and working at a marketing company.

Chelsey is a reasonably appealing character and some of what she says is funny and attention grabbing. The production values are strong, but where the heck is the story? It seems more of a diary than anything else with no stakes or forward momentum -- nothing to drive a viewer to watch the next one.

On a positive note, every episode seems to end with a call to action; an invitation for viewers to interact with the show. The calls to action are a little soft -- as in email me to tell me about British slang, tell me about your NWE (new worst enemy).

Chelsey has almost 300 friends on Bebo and about 17 videos up although only 6 of them are labeled as episodes. There's additional content on a site called TVhits where they've "hacked" Chelsey's emails home to her friends for your viewing pleasure. And there also seems to be an association with glam.com for whom Chelsey is doing some live events.

Chelsey OMG looks like a set up for interesting marketing vehicle -- all it's missing is story. Here's a sample:

Yesterday at NextMEDIA, Richard Kanee of CTV Digital moderated a Producers Workshop with Patrick Crowe of Xenophile, Jason Chaney of Corus and Greg Goodfried of LonelyGirl15 fame. a lot of practical how-to came out of the session.

Goodfried said that their pattern is to put out content on a daily basis -- although not video content every day. He has a weekly "call to action"; an invitation to his audience to participate. His stories include puzzles to be solved collaborately by the community that has formed around the drama.

His audience wants to help the characters and share and interact with each other. He sees little difference between game play and story telling. Another technique he uses for keeping his audience engaged is by sending them prizes or having a character give a "shout out" to user who solved a puzzle.

Patrick Crowe talked about the need for content of different levels and complexity. You'll have rabid fans who'll solve your most difficult puzzles in 20 minutes -- but the same puzzle will frustrate more casual users. And then there's the 90% of users who are lurkers and won't participate at all. You want to keep all of them engaged so you should provide a variety of ways for them to interact.

Crowe has developed a number of web properties for TV series including Regenesis. One strategy he's used is to create a story that runs in parallel to the television story -- something loosely related. He admits that isn't always satisfying for the TV fans who come to the web in search of the familiar characters.

Goodfried talked about interfictive -- interacting with the story. But he warned that it isn't always a good idea to let the audience drive the plot. He recalls spending hours reading user forums and then basing plot lines on the ideas and theories generated there. Pretty soon, users were commenting on the new direction of the drama saying it sucked and wondering what had happened to their storytelling.

Goodfried advised content producers that you have to be an ad agency too. You need a sales force working for you. He isn't certain that product integration is a sustainable model and hopes that the web equivalent of the 30 second ad is coming.

He tells producers to keep their costs as low as possible and get some content up on the web, building an audience. How long will it take to build that audience? He thinks a good 6 months of daily content should get you where you want to go.

Bryan Segal from comScore is a numbers guy. You see him do his dog and pony show on who's doing what on the web at any number of conferences. And he did it again with his usual flair today at NextMEDIA's Monetizing Digital Content conference.

Bryan focused particularly on video use on the web:every age group watches video. 18-24 year olds watch 200 videos/month for a total of 221 minutes.

55+ watch 90 videos/month.

In other words, users of all ages and demographics are watching video on the web.

48% of all videos watched by Canadian users are watched on YouTube.

Online Canadians spend 336 minutes a month on social networks and view 809 pages. 80% of users over 55 are on social networks.

Segal says web 2.0 has reached a critical mass. It did it much more quickly than 1.0 and now has surpassed 1.0 with greater reach than IM and email.

I've seen Bryan speak a number of times now. The guy always speaks smoothly barely pausing for breath and, as far as I can tell, never looking at a note. But he stumbled over his words explaining how to measure the success of a digital campaign. Like others, he said you can't judge it in terms of how many views, uniques or clicks -- but when it came to quantifying engagement, even Bryan was at a loss for words.

Scribemedia has a video of Jordan Hoffner, Director of Content Partnerships at YouTube, discussing some of the challenges of online video advertising at Streaming Media West 2008. According to Hoffner, video viewing online has come of age, but advertising spending isn't proportional to the traffic. Why? He has a theory:

monetization = standardization + innovation

A very interesting talk and excellent preparation for Hoffner's session at NextMedia. (He speaks Tuesday, Nov 18 at 11:20.) Ironically, the video isn't embeddable... or on YouTube. You'll have to go to Scribemedia to watch it.

Lucky lucky lucky me, I'm one of the eight producers selected to be part of the nextMEDIA/OMDC Networking Group. Among the benefits of being part of the group is some mentorship from Mike Kasprow, Creative Director Trapeze Media.

The other members of the group are:

* David Oppenheim, Head of Development / Producer, Interactive, Kensington Communications Inc.

* Tony Walsh, Founder & Chief Navigator, Phantom Compass

* John Bessai, President, CineFocus Canada Interactive

* Randall Thorne, Executive Director, The NE Inc.

* Erin Faith Young, President/Producer, caché film and television

* Kevin Airgid,CD, Airgid Media Inc,

* Damon D'Oliveira, Partner/VP Production, Conquering Lion Pictures

It's a very cool and diverse group, each of seeking something very different from the NextMEDIA experience.

In addition to Mike's insights, we've also already met with Amy Davies and Mark Greenspan of Achilles Media and Kim Gibson of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

NextMEDIA's Monetizing Digital Media is next Tuesday and Wednesday (Nove 18-19) at CiRCA in Toronto. There are some great speakers and panels in the lineup. I'm especially looking forward to hearing what Greg Goodfried, creator of LonelyGirl15 has to say.

Is it real? Steve Guttenberg caught on video running naked:

No, it's not real. Duh. If it was real you wouldn't blur the good parts. That would be the whole point of putting it up on the web.

Plus all the pauses in the run are a little too conveniently close to camera.

Final clue: the video was posted to YouTube by Video Army, an ad agency.

Once you know it's fake, it seems a little pointless; a little too contentless. Either it should have been a better fake out or it should have been funnier or they shouldn't have given us a glimpse of the goods. I want my money back.

Liz Dubelman of VidLit has long been my hero of online story telling. VidLit videos bring literary properties to life. This new one is based on How to Profit from the Coming Rapture by Steve and Evie Levy ( Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman) from Little, Brown and Company.

My favourite VidLit will always be Liz's own Craziest. I have yet to see a better example of web-based storytelling anywhere. It's just a great story well told. Watch below:

This is Part 2 of my interview with Steven de Souza creator of Unknown Sender. (Part 1 is here.) Steven posted two new episodes of Unknown Sender this week, check them out at Strike.tv or watch the embeds below.

Tell us about Unknown Sender. Where did the premise come from? How have you developed the idea? What kinds of creative collaborations have helped fuel you through the creation process? Which episodes in the anthology are you most proud of/excited by?

I noticed that the things that came to my attention on the web frequently came to me virally, or on a wave of “recommends” at other sites, they were a mixed bag, and they were overwhelmingly “authentic”. I decided to do an anthology, and in groping for an organizing principle, the best examples in the past were usually dependent upon a host, be it Rod Serling, Alfred Hitchcock, or even the Cryptkeeper – “Tales From the Crypt” was even a show I had worked on. However we could abandon the twentieth century he-looks-at-you-and-intro’s-the-episode element… with the web as a delivery system, he’s more webmaster than host…. If strange things came to us, once, from “The Twilight Zone” and “The Outer Limits”, then where do strange, weird things come to us from on the Internet? We all know the answer: From the unknown sender, Q.E.D.

Where's the money? Do you have a sense of how we're all going to make a living at creating digital drama eventually?

This is the big question, but unless the Large Hadron Collider provides the answer sooner, we’re going to have to wait a bit. Ask me, next fiscal quarter when I get my first statement from Strike.TV.

When you're goofing off on the internet, what do you do? What sites do you spend your time on?

The Whole Gawker family, Chexydecimal, Aintitcoolnews, Huffington Post, the Daily beast and DailyKos, SkepticFriends and Snopes for reality checks (on the other hand, Drudge.) Of course Story2.OH to see if anyone’s gaining on me, MTV’s movies page, and for comics MTV’s “Splash Page”, CBR and The Pulse.

What do you watch on TV? What films do you like? What do you read? What web series do you watch?

I have to say with few exceptions the only things on television these days that can hold my attention are animated shows. Animation is the only arena that hasn’t had all the creativity and surprise squeezed out of it by the relentless pace of television production.

The web series that have my attention lately are all on Strike.TV, I’m as concerned about the characters making them as the ones who appear in them. My son just brought to my attention, “Val Verde”, an action parody that takes place in the fake country I invented to satisfy studio lawyers concerned about slandering actual countries which I have used in several T.V. Shows and films.

Do you want to keep creating for the web? Do you have new projects in mind?

I am purposely channeling my ideas for pilots into things that I can – at least initially – kick off with a web oriented production. It’s never been easier to escape the prison of Development Hell – you just pick the lock with your credit card.

Don't forget to watch the latest episodes of Unknown Sender over on Strike.tv or through the miracle of embed, right here:

Unknown Sender has two new episodes this week over on Strike.tv. Creator Steven de Souza has an impressive off-web resume. He agreed to answer a few questions about Unknown Sender and how his first digital project came to be. Part 1 of the interview today, Part 2 tomorrow.

Why did you decide to create something for the web?

First of all, the Strike was in full swing, about four months in, and I was going stir crazy. So, when, along with everybody else in the WGA and SAG, I got an e-mail about a start up venture that promised to be an outlet for professional film production – a distribution channel with a window of dispensation from those Guilds, an enhanced viewing experience, and the lion’s share of profits to filmmakers – I went to the meeting. I had already been thinking about doing something for the web but had no sense of how to collect or even police the revenue. That was my main takeaway from the Strike.TV meeting… the impressive cost/profit ratio of an exemplary sample that was part of the power point presentation, “Ask a Ninja”. My daughter Amy, who’s a casting director, was there with me, and we looked at each other and said, “yeah, we can get over that bar.”

Before you started writing for the web, did you do any research? What web series did you watch?

In addition to the aforementioned “Ask a Ninja”, I of course had seen “LonelyGirl”, and early on enough to both glean that it was fiction and then watch it become a phenomenon. I also watched “Chad Vader” (a Webby finalist, I noticed!).

When you started working on this project, did you make a conscious decision to vary your storytelling style? You've written a lot of movies and television, how did you think writing for the web would be different? And how did you think it would be the same?

I really gave the storytelling and style a lot of thought. I mean, months, months, probably unconsciously, years - ever since I first started seeing people experimenting with this form, I was noticing what worked and what didn’t – assuming that my definition of “works” is what captured my attention. And in my mind what worked best were the pieces that embraced the experience of direct, personal communication that is the most distinctive element of the web.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I went back to the well. I re-read David Bordwell’s “On the History of Film Style” which is a fascinating look the evolution of shooting styles from the silent era on. Contrary to the impression today that at the infancy of the cinema, Edison filmed a sneeze and then a dozen years later D.W. Griffith invented editing, with nothing much going on in between, Bordwell explores early filmmakers around the world. In short the technical problems they faced drove a style of, essentially, problem solving evolving to an art. A lot of the tools and techniques of that era remains in the filmmakers tool kit today, but are often ignored in favor of the newest camera rig or lens. Looking backwards can be helpful.

Now that you're well into the project, how do you like working on the web? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

I’ve enjoyed the utter freedom and the nimbleness of production.

What has working with Strike.tv been like?

Liberating. They're incredibly supportive and responsive. I try to be the same.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2 when Steven talks more about how he came up with the premise for Unknown Sender and fills us in on which sites he frequents when he's goofing off on the web.

And now, episode 2 of Unknown Sender:

Online advertising is a big business. The evidence:

AdTech is a massive conference -- the New York version last week was at the Hilton on Avenue of Americas. The exhibition hall took up thousands of square feet on three floors and it was packed full of people. Inside there, you would never have imagined that there was an economic melt down outside.

AdTech New York is only one of many AdTech conferences taking place during the year. They are also held monthly March to November rotating through an impressive list of cities: San Francisco, Sydney, Paris, Miami, Singapore, Tokyo and London. Not only is this big business, it's international.

Despite the fact that Google Ads seem to dominate the market, there are 350 ad networks. That's a big marketplace -- sustaining giants like Google ads and hundreds of others.

$25 billion was spend on digital ads this year.

The speakers at AdTech -- in fact everyone I've spoken to in the ad and marketing world -- is expecting spending on print and conventional media to shrink. But they all expect the digital spend to continue to grow.

Unilever spends 2% of $2.2 billion ad budget on digital.

The big brands are doing very cool things in the digital space.

Nike is offering a virtual soccer bootcamp.

Japanese clothing company Qlo has the very strange and cool Uniqlock.

Companies like Unilever, Kraft, Saturn, IKEA and MacDonalds are running digital campaigns with such things as web series, casual games, utilities and ARGs.

Representatives from the brands and their agencies say they are looking for the innovative and new.

Digital marketing is proving successful:

The Uniqlock has had 180 million viewers in 240 countries.

The diamond Shreddies campaign claims 800000 views for their videos on YouTube.

Many feel Obama's use of the digital space had a huge impact on his campaign. In fact, he is AdAge's marketer of the year. His Yes We Can video shows 13 million views on YouTube alone. He has a 125,000 followers on Twitter and a presence on Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Digg and LinkedIn and many more.

Resources:

AdTech's blog and podcast.

AdAge

AdRants

MarketingVox

AdGabber, a social network for the ad biz.

1 Tim Street

So, you're going to produce a web series. Great. How are you going to make money with it? That's a question for which there is no good answer.

There are few models:

Subscription

The user pays a fee to watch the show. Sanctuary tried this. The Guild had a tip jar on their site which invited you to make a donation. In theory, the subscription model isn't such a bad idea. A lot of users each kick in a little bit of money and pretty soon you're flush. The hitch is that users have to be willing to pay.

DVD and Download Sales

After allowing users to watch their series free on the web, some producers then make them available for sale. The Guild has a DVD now. So does Prom Queen. And you can buy Dr Horrible on iTunes. Jeff McManus has a post about what the revenues for Dr Horrible on iTunes could amount to.

Merch

Sell some merchandise: soundtracks, t-shirts, mouse pads, coffee mugs. You won't get rich, but it'll help defray a few costs.

Revenue Sharing

Some sites like Revver, YouTube and Metacafe offer content providers (aka producers) revenue sharing opportunities. You make your content available, they share what they make on advertising based on how many people watch your content.

Advertising

There are lots of ways to bring ads into your world. You can put them on your site or add pre-roll to your video or use some of the cool new overlay technology. Or you could try to get an advertiser involved before production and work out a way to integrate their product right into your story line. Easy to Assemble is set in Ikea. Novel Adventures is brought to you by Saturn.

Sponsorship

Remember the television series "Hallmark presents"? Hallmark got their name over the title every week. A similar arrangement could be worked out with a brand for your web series.

Many series have combined several of these elements.

Here's the first episode of the new series from CBS Interactive and Saturn.

Mike says it does that in order to save gas. He says that we like it because it conserves energy.

A little heavy handed with the ad content perhaps?

Don't forget to enter the Prom Queen contest! It's your chance to win Prom Queen on DVD.

Entries are due by midnight November 2nd.