A few glasses of wine, that Instagram aesthetic and a night out on the town with the girls. Leftovers, a web series created by Andrew Mills, Helena Ruse and Pippa Mills is all about that female lifestyle, and their experiences as young people.
The ongoing sketch comedy series featuring Pippa and Helena first debuted two years ago, and has been a growing journey for the two girls in their early twenties and getting through life with its mystical ways.
Your sketches draw on relatable life experiences, particularly today’s internet culture. How did you approached building an audience for Leftovers?
We build our audience through having a pre-determined time for uploads that allow people to know when we’re publishing. So we’re usually uploading our videos on a Sunday fortnight. Thematically we like to make stuff that is relevant to people our age, which helps people to engage with the content of the videos.
What inspired your web series?
We were initially inspired by mumblecore films, their DIY aspect and lo-fi nature were extremely motivational for us. We started our series because this genre of filmmaking proved that you don’t need a big budget, or fancy equipment to make something good. Along with mumblecore films we were really inspired by Lena Dunham’s early short films and her web series, as well as classic sketch comedy.
What did you want to achieve in creating this series?
It’s just something we enjoy doing in the spare time in between uni and part-time work. It’s fun to post videos online and get reactions from an audience. Because it’s been going for over two years now we’re hoping to leverage the skills we’ve learnt doing the sketch series to do longer-form content, like a proper web series.
What do you want your audience to take away from this series?
We want people to laugh first and foremost. But also we want people to feel connected to the characters we’ve developed, which is becoming increasingly important to us.
What is unique about your series?
People tell us that because we feature two females in a comedic way that’s unique. Which I guess is true. But it just seems normal to us and is the only option available to us. It wasn’t a choice.
Are your sketches based on real life experiences?
Almost entirely. There’s pretty much no other way to come up with material. It happens to us, then we take that premise and do something with it, it gets stretched a lot in this process of course.
What was your release strategy?
We release more or less fortnightly, a video on Sunday night. We’ll post to Instagram and Twitter to try and activate people over to our YouTube and Facebook.
What was your target audience and how did you build a relationship with them?
Young people in Australia, I guess 18-30. We built our relationship through making stuff that is relevant to people our age and where we live. We post to Instagram a lot of behind the scenes and daily life stuff, which people really respond to.
What advice would you give to emerging creators?
Find your team, don’t do it all by yourself. Find people who are interested in doing the same thing and work together. This can be easier said than done, but it’s important. It will make the process more enjoyable if you can work with friends and like minded people. You should only do it if you’re having fun as well. There’s no point in making anything if you don’t enjoy it. Because in the end, the enjoyment comes from actually just creating your work, and not from success or achieving your goals. Also don’t listen to advice from people just yet (other than this advice). It’s important to make mistakes early, because you’ll learn from the ground up, and then you will know what you need to do going forward. Start listening to people eventually of course, but initially you should focus on learning how to create for yourself, without an audience in mind.
FOLLOW LEFTOVERS