My Roommate the Cylon

We’ve launched episodes 1.1 through 1.5 of our Battlestar Galactica-themed web series, with the sixth and final episode coming up Friday. With BSG now over, and Caprica still months away, get your Cylon quick-fix at MyRoommateTheCylon.com!

Streamy Awards 2009

As a voting member of the IAWTV, Alec and the team got tickets to the biggest event of the year: The Streamy Awards. Our biggest takeaway? Beyond the excitement, energy, and great show put on by our friends at Tubefilter, Tilzy, and NewTeeVee, the big winners that night were all tied to TV in some way. Dr. Horrible? Written by a prominent TV writer and starring TV stars. Face of the Enemy? Spun-off from BSG and written by a TV writer. Finally, The Guild, is certainly the most indie of all the winning web series that night, but it was initially hyped by leveraging creator Felicia Day’s following from her days on Buffy. Being backed by TV fame-slash-money doesn’t take anything away from the winners — it just signifies the continuingly-closing door for truly independent fare to shine against studio-backed programming. More on that later.

Blah, enough naysaying. Great night!

Robert Gustafson, Alec McNayr, Katie McNayr, & Brady Brim-DeForest. Courtesy Wm. Marc Salsberry.

Harper’s Island

Alec was invited to attend a special screening of Harper’s Globe, the EQAL-produced companion online series to CBS’ new Harper’s Island.

Read his write-up at ScriptMag.com: CBS Crosses Over With Harper’s Globe

The Inappropriate Yoga Guy

Last, we have to share our friend Avi Rothman’s web series with you. Based on a YouTube hit character, Ogden The Inappropriate Yoga Guy is a series backed by (and featuring) Yoga Journal. It’s really, really well done!

LonelyGirl15 Creators Not So Lonely Anymore

Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried Have Built Their DIY Web Series into a Million-Dollar Online Production Company
By Robert Gustafson and Alec McNayr

On an otherwise average Tuesday morning in September 2006, Greg Goodfried made an ominous move. An associate lawyer at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, he walked into his boss’ office and shut the door behind him. He informed his boss that the following day he would be featured in both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times as one of the masterminds behind the popular YouTube video blogger known simply as “LonelyGirl15.” The articles, he explained, would confirm suspicions that the confessional-style videos were actually part of a fictional series created by he and co-creator Miles Beckett.

Lucky for Goodfried, his boss had actually heard of the Internet sensation and offered him a six-month sabbatical to finish the series, after which he could return to the firm. He never went back. Instead, he and Beckett turned their experience creating LonelyGirl15, now viewed over 100 million times, into an online production company called EQAL. In May 2008—just two years after uploading their first video—EQAL announced a $5 million round of venture capital financing.

We sat down with Goodfried and Beckett less than two weeks after moving into EQAL’s new offices in Sherman Oaks, California.

Doing It Themselves

Similar to Goodfried, writer-director Miles Beckett stepped away from a promising career to venture into online entertainment. Through fresh out of medical school, it was Beckett who originally conceived the idea of a girl on YouTube communicating via a video blog.

“He pitched me the idea,” recalls Goodfried about LonelyGirl15, “She would be an active part of the [online] community, and over a few months we’d start trickling in information: that she’s home-schooled, that her parents are in a cult, and that she’s being prepared for a ceremony. Then, after three months, she‘ll run away and you won’t be sure if she made it or not and we’ll be on the covers of magazines. And I was like, ‘that’s the best f-ing idea I’ve ever heard, let’s go do this thing.’”

They didn’t, however, intend the Web series to take center stage. “Originally, LonelyGirl15 was going to be a prequel,” adds Beckett, “We planned to shoot an independent feature film simultaneous to filming the online series and sell it to a DVD distributor or something.”

Unfortunately, they underestimated just how much effort launching LonelyGirl15 would take. “Just producing an online show is the most overwhelming experience anyone could go through,” says Beckett.

The duo spent a month prior to launching the first episode setting up YouTube and MySpace profiles for Bree, the namesake character of LonelyGirl15. In that time, “Bree” established a real relationship with the online community, so when “she” uploaded her first video, it had a built-in audience.

To build the mystique of the show, Beckett and Goodfried also created a fan Web site run by a fictional and nameless “superfan.” The site stirred conversation and offered a look into the mania the duo hoped to incite. “The idea was that a group of [real-life] fans— along with the [fictional] characters—were going to search for the missing girl,” Beckett says.

By the sixth video—just two and a half weeks into their venture—a LonelyGirl15 video received 500,000 views. Goodfried and Beckett decided to give up their feature film ambitions and focus their efforts on the online series.

The Show is Everywhere

EQAL’s tagline is ”The show is everywhere,” which represents Beckett and Goodfried’s view on the difference between online media and television. “It’s about breaking the fourth wall,” says Beckett, “All good writing is suspension of disbelief, and in TV, you suspend it within the walls of that television screen. It doesn’t extend into your living room. For an Internet show, it’s everywhere. The reality extends into your bedroom, into the real world, and onto other Web sites.” Adds Goodfried, “If you want to take Sex and the City and adapt it from a TV show into a movie, you wouldn’t string four episodes together and put it on a big screen: you would write a three-act structure and shoot it differently.”

Goodfried lists interactivity as the most important characteristic of any Web series: “An online show has three core pieces; the top layer is some type of daily or weekly consistent online content. Then there must be a community-based Web site where the hardcore fans can gather [and participate in] chat rooms, forums, and social networking. The third layer is then some sort of interaction between that community and content. It could be as minimal as American Idol fans texting in their votes, or as extreme as LonelyGirl15, where we might give out ‘secret coordinates,’ and, using them, the viewer can actually go to Central Park, dig up a flash drive, make a video of themselves, and upload it. Then the fan is in the storyline itself.”

To leverage Web interactivity into a story-based experience, the team had to think about all levels of online communication. “We think about [MySpace] profile pages, chats, messaging, and live video streaming like a feature film director would think about camera angles and set design,” says Beckett.

The LonelyGirl15 experience extends past the confessional-style episodic videos. “Each character has their own profile page and can submit their own videos,” says Goodfried. “It’s as if these are two [real] kids. This could actually happen,” adds Beckett, “And there were repercussions of each one uploading a video.”

The series, therefore, is subject to the rules inherent in someone broadcasting their life and thoughts online. LonelyGirl15 is, by its nature, interactive in a way that could never be done on TV. Says Beckett, ”The hardest thing is to be able to think in a linear narrative, but then take that linear narrative and explode it outside the walls of everything.”

Restructuring The Definition of a Series

“Since our initial concept was a feature film, it had a three act structure. It was two or three pages with major beats, inciting incidents, and so forth,” says Beckett.

But as LonelyGirl15 became an online-only experience, the team had to rethink their definition of a series. “The pace online is much faster than TV,” says Beckett, “Every week on the show, something dramatic happens, and then the next week again, and then again and again. You literally burn through plot.”

Goodfried continues the questioning of the status quo: “What is ‘an episode?’ Well, we make videos five days a week: on Monday, we introduce the conflict. By the middle of the week there is heightened dramatic tension, and then by Friday, there is resolution and a cliffhanger. So there are beats each week that fans can get excited about and talk about.”

Just because the show is interactive doesn’t mean that there’s no writing involved. “It’s all scripted. One hundred percent,” admits Beckett, ”As we’ve expanded the team to include a director who isn’t writing and an editor who isn’t directing, we’ve found we have to be even tighter on the script.”

The experience of writing LG15 for almost two years sharpened their skills. “I had written a few screenplays for fun, and also wrote a few articles for my college’s humor magazine, but doing an online show where I literally I had to break story every week made me a much better writer. It’s like writing boot camp!” says Beckett with a chuckle.

You Don’t Have To Do It Alone

“Over the past couple of years, there really haven’t been that many shows online that have achieved really, really big viewership. I don’t thinks it’s due to a lack of creativity or talent; I think it’s a lack of a company like ours,” says Beckett.

“Sure, you can do it by yourself,” explains Goodfried, “Put something together, get something out there, and maybe it gets popular, but to make an online show into an actual business where you can quit your day job, you need something else.” Beckett inserts, ”The bottom line is you’re not going to get anywhere unless you collaborate.”

“We wanted to do more interactive shows, and we knew we would need financing, ad sales, legal, accounting, and someone to build our website and run it,” says Beckett, “But there was nobody who could offer that. Some people offered pieces, but nobody offered the whole solution.”

With the formation of EQAL, Beckett and Goodfried now have the resources to build large-scale interactive Web series. They recently signed with CBS to help the network expand the online experience of their flagship TV shows. But as they reflect on starting a simple Web series, they admit that the basics of storytelling are what really matter.

“Honestly, we were lucky that we did [LonelyGirl15] when we did it. We hit at the same time as YouTube, and that’s a hard thing to replicate, but we’re a perfect example of not needing the ‘right’ equipment to do the job. I didn’t have a Mac or Final Draft, because we didn’t have enough money to pay for it,” admits Beckett. “We shot with a Logitech Webcam plugged into a laptop,” follows Goodfried, “We had no lights, just a desk lamp and a window.”

Beckett summarizes, “the truth is you don’t need it. You just need a good story, and in this case, something that will work in the medium.”

If two guys with a Webcam can turn a story into a multi-million dollar, industry-changing production company, what can you do with the tools you have at your disposal?

But she knows that the Apple iPhone 3G comes out tomorrow. The buzz is on her lips, and everyone’s lips.

My personal measure of marketable buzz is: if my parents are talking about it, it’s big.

How does Apple consistently generate such big buzz? How does any company or movie or product or restaurant or web service generate it, and how do they measurably turn it into revenue?

Being in the viral video business, I have a vested interest in creating tactics for generating buzz about my videos and media, be it for marketing clients or for personal entertainment projects. Here are the characteristics of buzz:

#1 Buzz is Real, But Fleeting

Screenwriter John August and Ask A Ninja’s Kent Nichols have been downplaying the importance of film festival buzz on their blogs.

From Kent:
“I view awards [and film festival wins] as a karmic thumbs up that I’m going in the right direction. Nothing more, nothing less.”

I agree with them in that buzz alone does not create a career, or even a job, but it can generate a first step into a different world. Once in that world, of course, you need to back it up with talent, training, and hard work.

#2 Buzz is Triangulation

Buzz is hearing about something from multiple channels on multiple levels. Media, social, and personal.

Iron Man was a perfect example of a buzz-worthy summer blockbuster movie. The industry said it was good. The commercials made it look good. The reviews were good. All that is standard mass marketing, however. Those media outlets can be bought. The most important component to buzz can’t be bought…

The most important component to buzz, of course, is people. Regarding Iron Man, people I actually connect with said it was good: friends, strangers, acquaintances, bloggers. Then my mom said it was good, and there you go. Buzz achieved.

Iron Man

#3 Buzz is Buzz-Worthy!

Believe the hype! Buzz only works if the thing is actually worthwhile. The iPhone really is as cool as promised. Many friends say its the best device they’ve ever owned bar-none. But there is nothing lamer than buzz for something unbuzz-worthy. But that’s subjective, so be sure to narrow your buzz projecting to audiences that fit your product.

Case in point: Bon Iver. I’m the perfect audience for the indie rock album. So, when I heard about it on public radio, read about it on Pitchfork, and saw it on a friend’s iTunes shared folder, that was enough buzz for me. The media matched my tastes and my friend brought it home. I bought the album on iTunes.

Bon Iver

Takeaway on buzz: generate media and talking points for all kinds of talkers. Reporters from big media. Bloggers. Message boards. Casual fans using Facebook or MySpace. They’ll spread messages to all levels of people, and if it all coordinates on one set of ears, you’ll get the buzz you’re looking for.

I’ve been heading to things like this on the online entertainment side for a few years now, but haven’t been to a tech-related event since my days working for Jupiter Media Metrix in 2000/01. Back then, I was fresh out of college, no idea what I was doing, and catching the tail end of the dotcom boom (and bust).

It certainly was exciting back then, and it was just as exciting last night. A room full of ambitious people invigorates me. Do you like networking? Does it scare you? It did me back in my younger days, but now the pressure is off: I don’t have to shine in that room. I can just be me.

It’s always funny who you meet at things like that:

• I saw Tim Street, who just wrapped an advertisement/video episode for mDialog, a video startup that has commissioned a series from me and Bob.
• I ran into a girl that recognized me from welcoming people at church.
• I briefly saw Jason Nazar, whom I interviewed for a Pepperdine Law video two years ago, and now runs docstoc.com, a web site devoted to sharing documents (“a YouTube for documents,” I think I’ve heard him say).

Jason even offered to buy Sarah Lacy’s book for the first 25 people who mention docstoc.com on their blog, and I hope I qualify. But more than just a cheap mention, I’ll take it one step further. I checked out the site and found it to be an immediate help in two areas:

1. I searched for “online video marketing plan” and found some nice resources for developing my methodology for online video marketing, including doing some specific SEO on video metadata.
2. I am hosting a seminar on resume-building at church later this month, and found some great examples of resumes from all kinds of industries.

Check out docstoc for yourself, and, more importantly, go to where people are in your area of business. It makes it all worthwhile.

NewTeeVee has a nice video follow-up interview, where Marshall lays out some of his rethinking about online vs. televised media. He also expands on his plans to leverage quarterlife.com as a creative community to raise up projects. Artists (and agencies) are becoming the new studios.

I sat down and watched episodes from season 2 on DVD tonight, and then got caught up in Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s “video diary” (part 1 here on YouTube).

Got me thinking about how creating a show with just ideas and words creates community. First for the writer(s), then for the production (actors, crew, etc.), and then for the audience. It’s quite honorable, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

Sometimes I wonder if Comedy is a noble profession, like Medicine or Law. And then I realize your work is what you make of it. If you make it amazing and caring and meaningful, it will translate across the world.

Just a year and a half ago, the YouTube “most viewed” page was the go-to place to find the hottest viral videos, trends, and water-cooler “did you see that one with the ______” moments.

Of late, YouTube seems to be a smoldering cauldron of snarky sex advice, sexy etymology, steroid weight-lifting videos, Ze Frank wannabes, and the NBA. Hardly a compelling collection of content.

Sure it’s hard to keep relevant when hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to your site every month, but YouTube has unveiled some nice tools in the past few months, and it’s worth mentioning. Combined with the largest slice of the online video audience, these new services could keep YouTube relevant as TV (as we know it) continues its slow march to death.

• Distribution: New Panasonic TVs include YouTube videos
• Layering Content: Annotations allows a creator to add his or her own layered text and comments right on top of the video
• Analytics: YouTube Insight provides data on viewer demographics, referrals, and location
• Advertising: YouTube recently announced that they are allowing creators to sell their own ads
• Higher Quality: Viewers can view higher quality versions of videos
• Downloading: Unofficial hacks allow anyone to download YouTube vids

These may not solve the content cesspool that is YouTube, but it certainly could draw creators back to the site for something other than “audience generation.”

PS — SMPFilms did one of the most creative YouTube applications I’ve seen in a while: a choose your own adventure style video series. The content (he’s looking for his cat) is lame, but the use of the YouTube interface is great.

I’ve long thought that Hulu’s video-watching experience and video quality was really great, but I didn’t really like navigating around the site. And as they add more nostalgic TV shows, marginally-successful movies, and sports fare, the site itself will become uncontrollably cluttered.

It seems as though Hulu itself does not want all your attention, but rather wants to lock in advertisements to their content and distribute it all over the internet. As Hulu rises out of the clutter, it seems that they want to allow you to watch your content when and wherever you want… they just want to serve the ad you watch when you’re there. Smart.

One thing that’s not so smart. I had to sit through a 30-second commercial before I could get to the “embed” code for this video. If I want to pass it along, and not watch the clip itself, it’s annoying to have to wait.

And with that, enjoy this genius: The Japanese Office on SNL.

So tonight, it was exciting to get some good news from an old comedy-brother Alex Enriquez who just got into The Groundlings Sunday Company. It’s been a long time coming and I’m excited for him. Couldn’t happen to a nicer (or funnier) guy.

With Alex’s big win, it got me thinking about The Improvatory. It was my experiment back in 2003: an attempt to fuse many styles of improv into one experience. It served as a place to keep working between Groundlings classes. I had big dreams (a performing company, a school, a dynasty), but perhaps as I lost touch with being an actor, the group lost its focus as well.

I may be biased, but we were exceptionally funny and good at long form (clap-in) improv, performing about a dozen shows before I bowed out in late 2004. Sure, it was short-lived, but we had some great shows including raps, time-doors, shanks, Floor Lords, lots of “jumping pictures,” and other now-inside jokes. We also had a revolving door of cast members, but throughout the whole experience, we had a core group of six guys who led the charge.

About four years later, it’s amazing to me that our “core” group of six guys have each had some major successes as comedians. To some extent, we’ve each gone our separate ways, but we’re all moving up the ladder:

• John Baumgaertner – Award-winning writer-director of online shorts. Our production partner on Hollywood Rumble.
• Bob Gustafson – Producer on American Idol Extra and award-winning Space Shank Media producer. Three deals in the works as a writer-producer-director (with me!).
• Alex Enriquez – Just made the Groundlings Sunday Company. Star of ICN’s Annals. Staff writer/performer with Fries on the Side.
• Alec McNayr – Sexy and elusive producer/celebrity.
• Avi Rothman – Star and writer of Partners (2007 ITVFest Best Comedy), and more YouTube hits than anyone we know.
• Kenny Stevenson – Veteran member of Groundlings Sunday Company. Landed commercials for Yahoo! among others. Also a staff writer/performer with Fries on the Side.

I’m proud to be among your company, gents. I’d put on a “reunion tour” in a heartbeat. What do you say, guys? Guys? Anyone?

I’ve been to events like these for about a year now and it was nice to see all the usuals were there:

Ryan Wise and Doug Cheney got two minutes off from their work on Foreign Body to come out and enjoy a drink. Felicia and Kim from The Guild were trading business cards fresh off their triple crown wins. Hayden Black as kind and engaging as ever. Kent Nichols in the corner. LG15 guys mulling around. Tim Street holding court.

The event reminded me of the old Venice Interactive Community (VIC) — the hottest networking parties in the midst of the dotcom boom, where money was exciting and everyone had an opportunity. I saw a gold rush in those rooms, but there is something different about this world of new media today. Sure, everyone is talking monetization and distribution and leveraging creative control, but — at the heart of it — is a group of truly open people, each trying to make sense of this new phenomena. It’s an exciting time, and I was proud to be counted among their number.

And, perhaps for the first time, I had my own news to share, instead of reporting on it for Script Magazine (or this blog!). We have two shows in the works, with promise of more, and hope that they propel our status high enough to leverage our own deals and our own level of ownership.

Because the one big lesson from the meetup tonight is that there is a room city country world full of creative-types who are all trying to get paid for their work, so you should be working hard to make sure your work is top-notch.

Update: Photos are up, but I effectively dodged every camera I saw.