14 July marked the fourth consecutive meet up in 2016 for the monthly event, IRL Web Series.
As an introduction to the night, Hayley Adams, co-creator of i can’t even. launched into the reasoning behind the creation of IRL.
IRL is designed to bring together a community of creators who “don’t always get a chance to meet or to show their material in front of people or to talk about what they’ve done,” she says.
The screening for the night featured two web series at opposite ends of the genre spectrum, comedy web series The Katering Show: Season Two, and teen drama web series LOL.
LOL was an Official Selection series at Melbourne WebFest this year.
Set in the UK’s North West, LOL follows the life of a teenage girl named Keely Cooper as she delves into the realm of sex, drugs, and social networks.
In season two, five years later, the story picks up on Keely’s journey into young adulthood as she struggles to find her place in the world.
Melanie Rowland, producer of LOL, says the motivating factor in the decision to create a second season was the question, “could we do it?”
“It would just be like an interesting experiment, seeing who would come back and I mean, we’ve only just put it online so it would be interesting to see if the audience will come back,” Melanie says.
The screening of LOL was followed by an episode from The Katering Show: Season Two titled Yummy Mummies which sees hosts Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney ‘kater’ to a new audience – mothers.
The Katering Show was also an Official Selection at this year’s Melbourne WebFest and won Best Australian Comedy.
Tamasin Simpkin, producer of The Katering Show, says that the second season was a lot easier since the ABC and Screen Australia were interested in airing it as an iView original series.
“After the first series, we kinda thought we’d put it out there and it might get like maybe ten thousand views, and then we’d start approaching people about making more.
But the beauty about doing it well is that we got people calling us, which was nice,” she says.
The big question, however, is what happens to content after you’ve become partnered with networks?
This was tackled by a question of Hayley’s own pertaining to what ABC and Screen Australia thought of the content in the episode, “What did they think of the placenta?”
“We had to pull it back a bit, there was more, and then they wanted us to pull it back more, and we were like no, we really feel like this is the perfect amount.
They didn’t agree, but they’re like look, really what this comes down to is if it gets past the ratings people,” says Tamasin.
The success of the first season of The Katering Show allowed leverage in keeping creative control of the series.
“So the beauty of putting out a completely independent web series that did super well first meant that we had a bit of power, we know the show.
“I mean it’s interesting when you have other people’s opinions come in and it’s a learning experience, but I feel like we’re very lucky in having that first series do so well which meant that we’ve managed to keep heaps of creative control,” says Tamasin.
Covering all your bases as a producer for creative content is imperative, and that may include the process of securing a lawyer.
“As soon as you get funding, get a lawyer, get an accountant, you have to be very on the ball,” says Tamasin.
Melanie also shared her experience from working with smaller budget projects like LOL.
“We didn’t really have any legals, because ours wasn’t funded, and it was just not as much stress, but I can certainly attest to the value of having and finding a lawyer for other projects that I’ve been involved in.
So it’s just interesting hearing which ones will work with you on smaller budgets,” says Melanie.
In finding a lawyer that will “help you in this emerging industry,” Melanie says; “Ask them who they are, references is how the whole industry works anyway.”
Hayley says “the best way to get information” is just to reach out to other web series creators and see who they recommend.
“I’ve always found that web series creators are super happy to share information, they’re very happy to give advice because they’ve gone through it themselves.
So I would say definitely reach out, because people that you are legally dealing with, you’re gonna know if they’re good or nice from other people,” says Hayley.
Reach out to other content creators at the next meeting for Web Series IRL on 4 August at 6pm.
