Talk/Show: The Web and Filmmaking: Is Creativity Wasted on the Web?

Matt Bolish (Dallas IFF): Moderator
Justin Muller: Dream Factory
Jessica Rose: Lonely Girl 15
Joy Gohring: DateAHuman.com
Tina Santomauro: Atom.com
Nicholas Robinson: Vuguru

By Holly Wright
Special to the Daily News

How can you make a film and get it seen by billions for very little money? Go to the web. One of Saturday’s Talk/Shows was a fascinating look at the world of web episodes and films made specifically for the World Wide Web.

Matt Bolish started the discussion by posing the question, “Why put something out on the Web?”

Jessica Rose (an actress in several web episodes and films) stated that quite simply it is “way cheaper”.

That is an understatement. Joy Gohring (DateAHuman.com) stated that on average episode on NBC might be $750,000 to $2 million for 21 minutes. On the Web, you can have a budget of zero dollars to an average of $5,000 per episode for a good quality film.

OK, but how do you get your film out there to an audience?

Tina Santomauro (Atom.com) said, “Title is very important”. That is evidenced by the fact that the web film, Hot Sluts (about a dance club) got a lot of hits from random internet surfing. Joy Gohring said “we are still trying to figure out how to get an audience”. One method she likes to use is e-mailing and social networking. It is “a lot of getting personal with people which the internet is and isn’t”.

Sure, Matt said, “You make entertainment on the web, but how do you make money on the Web?” For Santomauro, it is a matter of “focusing the energy towards the right audience.” For instance, if you have a film in the science-fiction genre, you want to market to Comic-Con.

This enables filmmakers to make films that don’t have to be geared towards a large, general audience as the prime-time television shows are. Justin Muller (The Studios at Las Colinas) concurred “my audience is definitely a specific group of people.”

The other big method is social networking. Nicolas Robinson mentioned the fact that “everyone on a crew sheet has a Facebook account.”
And while product placements can help, as Matt noted, “it is people placement as much as product placement”.

The Web allows an actor to take on projects that they would not otherwise be involved with. Jessica Rose added “it gives me more opportunity to practice.” In Port of Call, the normally sweet actress plays a character completely opposite of the type she is usually cast in.

Nicholas Robinson used The Booth At The End as a great example of how a great talent —Xander Berkeley, an actor with plenty of work—can go do a small budget project and “is able to do so much more.” Robinson is with Vuguru, the production company for The Booth At The End and also Prom Queen.

Most Web episodes hover at five minutes. The future may see longer episodes, as more people use their televisions as a conduit for their Internet information. Even now, a viewer will watch a 21-minute episode on Hulu, but it is still a risk of their time to view a Web episode. It is going to take a must-see kind of show to push web episodes into the mainstream, but Nicholas Robinson thinks we may see that within the next couple of years.

Jessica Rose added that “Sorority Forever was only two minutes long and people complained it was too short”.

The predominant genre of Web films are comedy because that is what the most people are looking for—a quick fix of the ubiquitous YouTube video of “someone’s grandmother falling down and it’s hilarious.” Dramas take time to build.

The fact is: there are filmmakers making great quality films out there. The creativity is definitely not being wasted; viewers just need to look for it on the Web.