|
Creating Great Webisodes
So you want to put together a great online series. Where to start? There are many decisions to be made before you bring on a team to help you create and produce the Webisodes. Here are a few of the decisions you willl need to make:
1) What is the Goal?
Webisodes can be extensions of television shows and movies or they can be original creations. Whatever the origin of the Webisode you willl need to think about what you want to accomplish. Do you want to use the Webisode to attract an audience to an established television show or website? Or do you want to create an orginal Webisode series that stands alone and builds it's own audience as more episodes are created?
2) Story is King
Once you have the idea of the story, it's important to execute it well. This means getting professionals to write the script, produce, direct and act in the video. I've found that success of a Webisode will depend on the following: Is your story compelling or funny? Are the characters believable? Is the story well shot, acted and produced? Online Webisode audiences are pretty sophisticated and will be quick to drop a video that doesn't tell a good story or have basic production value.
3) Short and Sweet.
Most Webisodes carry out a story arc just as you'd see on a typical television show or film. The trick here is that you'll need to keep your story relatively short, given the attention span for people watching online. Think about creating something that is within the 4- 5 minute range to start. A case in point, Felicia Day's wildly popular web series "The Guild" has gotten over 6 million hits to her web wide. She keeps the episodes at just under 5 minutes each.
4) Production Value.
If your content is going to be distributed online only, you don't need to worry about shooting on film, ultra high cost digital or HD equipment, necessarily. If you want the Webisodes to have a high end television or film "look" to them, there are ways of using great digital equipment to approximate this aesthetic. An experienced producer should be able to help you through this process, based on your objectives and how you want the media delivered.
5) Authoring Tool.
95% of all Web browsers have Flash Player installed, which means that most Internet audiences will be able to easily view your content. Also, the cost to produce Webisodes using Flash is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional media formats,. So the choice is pretty easy here. Oh, did I mention that Flash also has faster download speeds than most other media formats?
6) Talk To Your People.
Once you post your Webisode, it's important to get feedback on the story, the length, from your audience. Make sure you have a means for them to give you their feedback. From this you can develop a plan for creating your next Webisodes based on your audiences likes and dislikes. The Internet is a beautiful thing, in part, because you can obtain almost instantaneous feedback from your audience. Using this information to better serve your audience is going to be key to your online success. Quincy Films & Media
|
