Month: May 2017

Releasing Your Web Series into the Wild Web! – @Stareable

So You Want To Make a Web Series – Step 12
by Bri Castellini

You’ve done it. You’ve made a web series. Before we go any further, from the bottom of my soul, congratulations. Writing is hard enough, but you have gone above and beyond. No matter what happens, this is something to be proud of. And now, it’s time to show it to off.

I’m writing this with the assumption that you’re uploading your series one episode at a time to a site like YouTube of Vimeo. I prefer YouTube, because of its playlist functionality and its prominence as the go-to video site online, but whatever floats your boat[a][b]. There are distributors you could also reach out to, who host your content and potentially get you a higher return on investment with advertising, but for your first time, self-distributing is probably your best bet.

So what should your individual web series episode look like? I have a couple suggestions, all centered around the concept that people should know your videos are a part of a narrative series, not just a random vlog or one-off. read article

Cartoon: ‘Problem Solving’

For some of us, thinking is more concrete than for others. Provided that you think of the act of writing is concrete – which some jocks, cheerleaders, and coaches failed to appreciate back in this TVWriter™ minion’s high school days.

But that’s ancient history. Our favorite cartoonist, Grant Snider, exists in the here and now, and so does his latest bit o’brilliance:

read article

And Now for the Drawbacks to Crowdfunding (& Other Indie Pitfalls)

Long time TVWriter™ visitors know that we are Big Believers in crowdfunding as a terrific way to get your work and yourself before an audience. And, yeppers, we recommend that you use the search bar in the righthand column of each and every post on this site to see what we’ve said in the past.

But even we, as crowdfunding’s staunchest advocates, know very well that it isn’t perfect. Recently we came across an article that points out several of the biggest problems indie film (and TV) makers face in the current world, and guess what the writer says is Number One? read article

Attn. Film Fests – Enough is More than Enough

Nope, this isn’t a festival our whistleblower is talking about, just a lovely bit of generica. No liability here, folks. Move on…

by Hank Isaac

I have to begin this by saying, “I’m not an attorney.”

However, that does not indicate in any way that I can’t read, write, or think.

So I was invited to enter my web series pilot episode into an awards competition. All a-twitter, I started going through the online submission process. Everything was great until I got to their agreement/release. Which I actually read, by the way (more later on why you should always read those). read article

Diana Vacc sees “Great News”

“Breakdown” is right. GREAT NEWS represents how broken network TV really is. You’ll never see anything this bad on FX.

by Diana Vaccarelli

—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT—SPOILER ALERT–

At the end of April, GREAT NEWS, a new sitcom produced by Tina Fey and created by Tracey Wigfield, a writer from Ms. Fey’s 30 ROCK, premiered on NBC. Like its predecessor, GREAT NEWS is also an exaggerated behind the scenes look at how TV works. This time around, however, the series centers around a news producer and her relationship with her mother, who unexpectedly begins working with her as an intern.

THE GOOD: read article