The fifth Web Series IRL meet up on 5 August saw screenings of series Footballer Wants A Wife, The Graceland Happiness Project, and Goodall & Gallagher.
Co-Creator of I Can’t Even. and host of the event, Hayley Adams started by explaining why she and her sister Alyce Adams, the other half behind I Can’t Even, started IRL.
“We found there was huge community of creators and web series fans in Melbourne so we wanted to make a night where we could all watch, laugh and talk about web series,” she said.
The series screened all differed greatly both in genre and in release strategies, marketing and supporting content.
“There is no formula,” said Footballer Wants a Wife creator Ben Nicholas when discussing how to release content.
Footballer Wants a Wife, which was an Official Selection at Melbourne WebFest 2016, is a parody reality show that follows three young football stars on their modern-day quest for love, with 14 women who will stop at nothing to become a WAG.
“We had an opening night where we released the first three episodes and then the next week released the final three,” he continued.
However, this wasn’t an entirely effective formula.
“There were people who didn’t come back and didn’t know the final three episodes had been released,” he added.
The Graceland Happiness Project producer Hammy Goodman, from Princess Pictures, also reflected on the release of his series.
“If we had our time over I would drip the episodes out,” he said.
Winning Best Editing at MWF 2016, The Graceland Happiness Project, follows 2013 Big Brother contestants, Tim Dormer and Ben Zabel. Tim fulfills his promise to take Ben to the home of Elvis Presley, after an attempted suicide made Ben’s ongoing struggle with depression public.
“Binge watching is great, but in terms of building your brand and getting people excited you have to give them a reason to keep come back… build momentum and get them excited,” he continued.
Goodall & Gallagher creators agree. “Content is king,” said Marc Gallagher.
Created by Luke Goodall and Marc Gallagher, Goodall & Gallagher is a Facebook focused sketch comedy show with a satirical view on male behaviour and social media etiquette. Goodall & Gallagher were a Spotlight on Melbourne series at MWF this year.
“We decided we need to release content consistently, find a way to keep getting audiences to come back,” Gallagher continued.
This approach came from a learning curve for the creators after a failed series attempt.
“We tried and we failed, we had to re-brand from this mandate of build it and they will come, because no one came.
“We didn’t even build it we made like two episodes a year,” continued Goodall getting a laugh from the crowd.
You gotta remind people what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, it’s click bait basically, that’s what we do,” he added.
Nicholas agreed when looking back on Footballer Wants a Wife.
“In hindsight I would make more content with less production value,” he said.
When it came to audiences all three series creators had specific ideas about what they wanted to create and who it was aimed at.
Nicholas initially wanted to create a series based around AFL but with funding and guidance from Screen Australia the direction of the show evolved.
“The best piece of advice we got from Screen Aus was to make the show more appealing to a larger audience, so we expanded from just AFL,” he said.
This led to a surprising trend in audience engagement. “I thought were would do better with the male demographic but it’s the females that engage with the show more.”
Goodall & Gallagher had a similar experience. “Our fourth most popular country is Pakistan, I’ve never been to Pakistan but they loves us. Once it’s out there in the ethos you never know who’s going to appreciate it,” said Gallagher.
“To start, we were approached by an American comedy website to write for their demographic, 13 year old boys, so we wrote a lot dick jokes,” added Goodall.
“As it turns out 25 year olds love them as well…we got the audience we wanted to get and we ended up finding more,” he added.
With The Graceland Happiness Project Goodman had a clear audience in mind also. “We thought, where are the Tim Dormer fans, they’re 16-20 year old girls so they’re online,” said Goodman.
This worked for the series as the ABC approached Princess Pictures asking them to cut the series into an hour long TV programme for mental health week.
“Just make something, get it out there, if it’s good you never know what will come of it,” he added.
The next Web Series IRL meet up will be held on 22 September.