Great panel discussion tonight at the Writers Boot Camp in Santa Monica. Bob and I (Alec) were lucky enough to join some great panelists, and drop some knowledge-bombs on the crowd.

Some key takeaways:

• Create content to SERVE your audience. They purpose of the content is not to serve YOU as a creator. Nothing stops viral spread like there being “nothing in it” for the consumer.
• Have an exit strategy. Treat your writing like a business. Decide whether you need to partner up, sell out, or gather an audience to monetize. (At Space Shank, we do both — we create content to sell AND to leverage our position into getting bigger and bigger writing/producing gigs.)
• Be funny and approachable. The two go hand-in-hand, I think. Bob and I made an effort to lighten the business talk with some jokes. Some hit, some missed, but hey, if nothing else, be entertaining!

One last funny experience from tonight’s panel. Now, we knew we were a big deal because we were a part of this prestigious panel discussion. However, about halfway through the event, my wife noticed that our nameplates had a small, itsy-bitsy typo on them. It listed our company as “Spank Shark Media.” Hilarious. Juuuuuuust when we thought we had made it to the big leagues.

It’s cool. Special thanks to the Writers Boot Camp and Script Magazine!

New Media Panel
Monday, September 21, 2009
7:30 PM
Writers Boot Camp in Santa Monica

Hosted by Script Magazine/Final Draft, the panel will also include Donna Michelle Anderson, Aaron Mendelsohn, and blip.tv’s Rafi Mamlian. Details:

The Screenwriter of Tomorrow: What New Media Really Means for Writers
Everyone has heard the term New Media tossed around, but what does it really mean for the screenwriter? Have we learned how to monetize DIY content? Do the writers of today have to pick up a camera to survive? Can being transmedia make the difference in your writing career? Learn from writers working in new media and related media (graphic novels, short film, etc.) how you can expand your career by thinking outside of your writing space.

For more info, or to RSVP, visit ScriptMag.com.

Let us know if you’re coming, and we’ll look for you in the audience!

Unlike many meandering online comedy series, there are actual jokes written into the first episode, and lots of obscure baseball references, sure to please any sports fan (they’re lost on me, but I get the gist). Pre-launch promos for the show include Jordan Farmar of the LA Lakers and Dennis Rodman of the Crazytown Crazies.

In particular, the receptionist at Topps, Bev, plays her role brilliantly in the midst of a male-dominated cast and subject matter, reminiscent of Kaitlin Olson (Sweet Dee on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

The show has all kinds of things going right for it — niche subject matter paid off by thoughtful knowledgeable jokes. The editing is a tad slow, but it’s forgiven with the snappy writing. I’m a fan of the video content… but that’s all…

Now, for the marketing, I’ve been woefully disappointed in most of the support given to Vuguru shows, but Back on Topps takes the cake. The BackonTopps.com web site has no further information on any character (not even a mocked-up baseball card? come on!), no clickable links, no information on guest stars, and you can’t embed their video. A few days after Episode 1 appeared, they added some content to the BackonTopps.com site. Better, but not mind-blowingly awesome (which is what I demand!). Lots of “Coming Soon.” Eh. Still Strike 1.

Perhaps Back on Topps is hoping its Fox Sports/MSN Video home with provide it a super-targeted audience, but the user experience there is fourteen times more difficult to manuever. Strike 2.

Where is the heart of this show’s audience? Just 43 views on “special partner” Veoh for Episode 1. Episode 1 hasn’t fared better on YouTube. It barely has 400 500 750 views. Not the right view counts for such a good show. Strike 3?

You’d think that a niche show like backing from a smart guy like Eisner would have secured bigger distribution (uhhhh, ESPN?) and sports blogger attention ahead of launch. Without it, this show may be destined for the bench (I couldn’t resist).

Just got an email from THR and all three articles in it were about TV networks hemorrhaging audiences:

• ABC had three season premiere stinkers (all good shows, btw): Pushing Daisies dropped 55% over last year, Private Practice 38%, and Dirty Sexy Money 31%.
• Despite being the first basic cable show to earn a ‘Best Drama’ Emmy, Mad Men lost audience in the week after its big win, from 1.9 million the week before the Emmys to 1.6 the week after.
• And despite Dexter’s big gain in audience (likely due to its temporary move to CBS during the writer’s strike), Californication lost audience as well.

Broadcast networks, cable networks, and premium cable networks all getting the same story. They’re losing audience.

Add on this article from the New York Observer: Only Two-and-a-Half Sitcom Writers Left in Hollywood.

“At one point in the 1990s, NBC had 16 half-hour sitcoms on the air. This fall, it has four. And two of those four—The Office and 30 Rock—though critically beloved (both are up for Best Comedy Emmys on Sunday, Sept. 21), are struggling to be embraced by mainstream audiences.”

Yikes. Makes it a difficult sell to work up the courage, nerve, and gusto necessary to write a TV spec script, doesn’t it? With all the money in the world for advertising, production value, and star power, what the heck is going on?

We’re in the midst of a painful shift of media, and everyone is feeling the pinch. Writers, directors, actors, executives, agents, everyone. Especially up-and-comers that are working dangerously hard to ‘break into’ the business. Will there be any ‘business’ left when they get there?

Well, the only answer is: adapt or die. The only thing failing faster than traditional network’s’ TV shows are traditional networks’ online shows. They’re suffering from the same symptoms. These fledgling show concepts are expected to bolster the weight of a lot of overhead (only with less money). They’re hoping the independent producers will sell out their ideas so that the future revenue will remain in the corporation. You can’t build a lasting model that way, when self-distribution costs are so low. Everyone has to work fast, cheap, and good. The trifecta of creativity.

The audience (their attention to ads being the primary source of revenue these days) is not staying with any studio, network, or medium. They’re fragmenting like crazy, and it’s up to the individual creator to harness, compel, and motivate an audience to stick around.

Adapt or die. It’s no longer good enough to just write. You have to write and edit and web design. Or know about online video distribution, direct, and act. Or all six.

Creativity is the only thing that’s still pure about this business, and a new wave of audience is seeking it out. Online originals, TV-on-the-Web (Hulu, ABC.com, etc.), and Tivo are all killing traditional numbers because they give choice and satisfaction back to the consumer.

What are you doing to increase your skills? Editing better, writing better, marketing better? We’re learning that big, slow overhead won’t get the job done. Nimble, quick responses to audience will build an audience.

Update: Fresh Hell reports on shows that gained audience this fall — most of them on CBS and CW. My rant still applies…

iTunes recently became the #1 retailer of music (physical or digital), and everyone seems to be gunning for them. Amazon has its own download service, MySpace Music just launched, Best Buy is buying Napster to help them sell digital devices, and the big music companies are still trying to build their own portal/download service.

After almost ten years of digital music, the traditional music industry still can’t find a way to stop the hemorrhaging. That’s scary.

What does this say about the traditional TV and film business? Digital downloads and file-sharing hasn’t caught the mainstream culture like it did for movies, but big media is facing a squeeze. As hard drive sizes increase, and download speeds quicken… the barrier for trading/downloading/sharing/storing video content in high-quality (that’s the key) is getting lower and lower…

What can we learn from the music business to prepare for what’s about to happen in TV and film?

Indie labels rock. They reach smaller audiences, but the talent development is there. The niche audience is a fervent, loyal one.

Distribution matters, but sharing is better. People don’t just want to buy media, they want to experience it with friends. That “experiencing” used to be gathering at a friend’s house, listening to a record player, but today is trading notes and comments on Facebook.

Free media leads to other revenue streams. Many bands want to give away music for free (or for donation, a la Radiohead), because they know it leads to other revenue: touring, merch, gift sets, etc. By the way, their free media doesn’t come with an pre-roll ad (take note, video networks).

What else is happening in music that we should be looking at?

But I was impressed with I saw these introduction videos of the 14th season’s new cast members Eric Price, Erica Ash, and Matt Braunger. (14 seasons? really?)

I think this is a great roll-out strategy for generating some buzz around new blood. I think it would also be worthwhile to see the new cast members blog or create regular videos about their own experience coming into the world of MadTV. It would give fans something to sink their teeth into, and perhaps separate it from its NY doppelganger.

Eric Price

I’ve lauded Stephen King’s N. as the best web series I’d seen in a long time, but it ended with an awkward “okay, that’s done now.”

Now what?

As a fan, what am I supposed to do? Buy the book? In November? I might, but reading the book won’t match my interest in the video-based series. There’s not really any further online interaction to speak of.

As a producer, I question the close-out strategy for the series. I was a big fan (bigger than most, I bet), and they never captured my name, email address, or anything about me. They can’t send me a coupon to save $2-3 bucks off the book, they can’t hit me up for further King-related series, and they can’t claim my demographics to future potential advertisers.

There were a lot of players on the team that made N., including Simon & Schuster, Marvel, and CBS. Why no thought on marketing?

Half advertisement, half action series, TNT’s new short-form series Lucky Chance is a high-speed romp through a what feels like a student film inspired by the fast editing style, one-liner quipping actors, and outlandish mobsters in Guy Richie’s Snatch.

The series, which consists of twenty 2-minute episodes, airs on TNT (and almost as an afterthought, online) during the commercial breaks of episodes of Bones and Law & Order, and is essentially a commercial in itself.

The story follows DEA undercover agent Lucky Chance (yes, that’s his name, and he carries around a pair of lucky dice to prove it) who murders some dishonest cops, and must race to clear his name. Along the way, we find out that his red lingerie-sporting girlfriend is one of the agents asked to bring him in.

The style of each episode is certainly frenetic, with fast, chaotic camera moves and jump cuts, which unfortunately don’t match the slow, story-driven movement of the shows they support. And in a strange editing tactic, lines of dialogue are shown on screen, as if to engage the half-watching viewer.

The series is heavy with product placement, primarily from the 2009 Dodge Challenger. The show itself feels like a series of scenes connected by shots of a Challenger racing over the desert sand at sunset: the same gorgeous shots you’d expect of a car commercial. Other consumer products are introduced just as obviously: the cold and brooding Lucky oddly orders a “Fiji Water” at a bar and the barkeep drops it right in the middle of them. Each character’s mobile phone also gets a fair amount of screen time.

The strategy behind the series (and likely the similar-sounding upcoming series Blank Slate, sponsored by Acura) is to serve as a “Tivo-killer” to keep viewers from fast-forwarding through the commercials. It’s a tactic we’ll see more of as overall TV ad spending decreases, and, done well, it will provide an opportunity to add value to viewers’ experiences.

However, in Lucky Chance, the characters are thinly developed and the dialogue is a series of colloquial sayings and semi-puns about gambling. And unfortunately, neither of these things can be covered up with any amount of fast cars and fast editing.

But here’s something that might bridge the gap:

WSJ reports that Vogue is lending its brand and audience to a reality web series that follows around three young up-and-coming models. Model.Live is set to launch in August.

Highlights from the article:

• 12 weekly 8-minute episodes (96 total minutes)
• The 3 models will blog in addition to their videos, and will connect with viewers on Bebo
• $3 million to produce ($31,000 per minute!)
• Streamed on-demand at Vogue.tv (also distributed at Veoh and Hulu)
• Lead sponsor Express paid “in the low seven figures”
  (Product placement is key. viewers can direct-link to buy the clothing the models are wearing. See: Video Clix writeup)
• Vogue promised Express 83.4 million ad impressions

If you estimate Express’ ad buy at $1.25 million, they’re paying about a $15 CPM. That seems right on target, and perhaps even low. Daisy Whitney reported last month that advertisers pay the networks a $25 CPM for TV-run spots and upwards of $40-$75 for an online run of the same show (though the views are less, there are fewer ad impressions).

If that’s the case, then it seems like Vogue is getting a steal, but WSJ forgot to mention one thing: if Express paid just over a million and the series cost three million, that’s a difference of almost two million dollars that needs to be made in second-tier sponsorships, second-run distribution, and other creative methods (DVD sales? Merch? A percentage of the three models’ career earnings in perpetuity?).

Almost $2 million seems like a big number to overcome after the launch and completion of the show.

But let’s not let the money get us off topic. While newspapers flounder and many popular magazines see subscription rates fall, perhaps a clever online video strategy could keep their enterprises afloat, and in a circular consumption strategy, both satisfy current readers and bring in new ones with fresh, interesting video content.

I think this really works for a couple of reasons:

Skim. Read. Watch. I think a large percentage of the public are now ready to integrate different formats of media. It’s now very commonplace to read about something in a print document, look it up online, read more, and watch a short clip… all connected to the same brand experience. I do this all the time at CNN, for example.

Niche Rules. Content is made for niche audiences. Inside jokes. Specific interests. While much of TV needs to be broad to bring in a big enough audience, most independent online video producers (ahem), would be happy with a smaller, more active and passionate audience that can justify a smaller, more effective production budget.

Audience and Marketing. Magazines have two things that online video really needs, that TV already has down. A core audience and a mechanism to influence them. Part of the reason TV shows get so many viewers is the millions in advertising spent to promote them. Magazines already have a print publication ready to deliver related content, ads, and teasers.

Man, the more I think of it, this seems like a win-win-win. Video producers get paid, audiences get good content, and magazines get additional ad inventory.

Vogue Models a New Reality Series

Surely this isn’t news to you. If so, where you been?

Aside from all the great buzz being hyped about this movie, there’s been some great viral online marketing done. First, there was Why So Serious, then Commit Your Friend, and then live events covered by MTV interns (Hollywood and New York).

One thing caught my eye: a trailer recut into what it would look like if The Joker’s After-Effects-competent henchmen got a hold of it.

Ledger aside, it’s a chilling effect on the dark nature of the character and the movie. And to think, someone might say, “Hey, they’re ruining the scenes! They’re literally drawing on what WB spent millions of dollars to shoot and create!”

Let’s learn a lesson from the biggest blockbuster hit of 2008 (yes, bigger than Iron Man): no footage (and no brand) is too precious to not take a chance at telling a compelling story.

If you have trustworthy people with video-editing skills, let them mash up some footage. Let them experiment with your brand in their eyes. After all, they’re already brand ambassadors to their circle. Why not give them some slack on the leash. You might find viral gold.