Instead I will look at the debate about the nature of a webisode and the hell it is.

It is hardly surprising people don’t know what exactly a webisode is, despite the term being around for over 10 years Websters only got around to acknowledging it 2009.  Basically put a webisode is a  single episode of a series that first aired over the internet, either streamed or downloaded. If you have a whole bunch of webisodes then you have yourself a webseries. It is generally accepted that a webisode will have runtime of 4-15 minutes, but I suspect that this will continue to increase as web TV gains in popularity. Reasons for the short length at the have been to do with budgets, YouTube limits and bandwidth (ie the speed it takes to download an episode). Broadband is now standard and streaming full length shows is no longer a problem, you only have to look at the popularity of BBC iplayer to see that. YouTube now allows longer videos and there are other sites that will stream and host material. Finally cost. This use to be a barrier in creating good quality shows, but digital technology is now much cheaper. For £10,000 you can buy yourself better equipment than is used currently on many mainstream TV shows. Mobisodes are the same thing, although originally coined  as show for mobile phones the prevalence of the internet on phones has rendered this a thing of the past.

The next thing you have to understand is that a webisode is a broad term, it is basically a TV show on the web.  This means a webisode can be drama, comedy, documentary, hosted, political, animated and even reality.

Knowing this, this should free you up in your writing.  The web provides a massive opportunity for people to break through and get noticed.  Distribution which has been for so long a barrier creatives has now been shattered. A BBC3 show will be considered a hit for topping 2 million viewers.  Meanwhile this episode of Fred has a staggering 37 million views, what makes this more shocking is that Fred is currently the second most subscribed YouTube channel in the world and you have probably never heard of it, much like the number one channel Nigahiga. This shows that your videos don’t need to go viral to be a success, you create characters that people like and then tell interesting stories, the audience will find show if it is what they are looking for.

Hopefully we will be seeing more webisodes in the future as this is an exciting medium ready to be exploited.

So in parting I will leave you with a few different series that are floating around on the web.

You Suck at Photoshop – masquerading as tool to teach photoshop you can enjoy the host’s life fall apart over the series.

The Guild – Streamy award winning sitcom.

Gemini Division – Produced by NBC as exclusive online content the sci-fi drama stars Rosario Dawson and a ton of product placement.

Hardly Working – What goes behind the scenes at College Humour.

Red vs Blue – Now starting up on its 11th season, this web series follows 2 opposing soldiers in the Halo universe.

DJ School – ComComedy launches their first webseries, with hopefully more on the way.

Anyway, our main feature tonight came curtsey of Martin Price and Lawrence Scholey, their script entitled Please Help Me saw a group of flat mates throw a party.  Warmly received by the group for its humour and creative events, there was of course plenty of ideas for improvement. Although the script flowed quite nicely, many considered it to be a series of sketches rather than coherent plot. A slave to the devices, the script failed to set up any of the events before they happened, this left audience surprised, but missed out on the trick of building anticipation.  The idea of throwing a party although a fine idea does not work for a pilot or spec script.  Since a party involves so many people it does not give a good idea of how the series would play out, we don’t know who are the regular characters, and who are just around for that episode. The originality of the idea was also questioned, it is well known that every writer has a flat share script in their back pocket, right next to their heaven and hell script, there would have to be something special in that script to make it stand out in the crowd. Being Human after a year in development solved this problem by making one character a werewolf, one a ghost and the other a vampire.

As writers we will often draw on our own life experience when writing a script, the mistake we often make is to take just the events and characters that we fondly (or not) remember and forget the emotion behind it.  We hide our deeper feelings behind the visual, but it is that emotion which makes real characters that the audience connects with.  Inside we share many of the same vulnerabilities and fears and we can sympathise when we get to see it in others. Since Please Help Me was based on many real life experiences it could have benefited from revealing a little more depth and brutal honesty in the characters.

Sketch wise we had The Flush by Mark Leeson a charming piece of character interaction on the serious matter of phone etiquette. The visuals needed Porn Sketch by yours truly brought up interesting debate, but from my point of view the visual nature of the sketch could not be captured in a reading, so I am still not sure the best way display what I believe is a very strong idea.

ComComedy had a weekend full of filming, a series of office sketches were produced using material supplied by members of the group and call has been put out for sketches based in a park.  You can find more details on ComComedy here.

Right, back to writing for me now. Until next time.