Last Thursday night at Loop was the second meet up of Web Series IRL. The event was hosted by Hayley and Alyce Adams as the series creators of I can’t even.
Screenings of the selected web series are a customary precursor to the Q&A session with the creators later in the night. The screening jumped right into action with an episode of Neighbours VS Zombies first.
Neighbours VS Zombies is a Halloween spin off from the regular Neighbours show. The show is an answer to the question: what if our favourite Ramsay Street residents were thrown into a zombie apocalypse?
The usual suspense and humour of Neighbours is combined with the supernatural threat of zombies, and all your favourite, prematurely deceased characters are back ( including Sting Ray!). It’s all rolled into a five episode series, which you can watch on YouTube.
Left hungering for more Neighbours, the screening moved onto a compilation of the Instagram web series Xanthe ♥ Ben. The series follows Neighbours characters, Xanthe and Ben as they get caught up in the Lassiters aftermath.
Xanthe ♥ Ben proves to be a game changer in the way that online screen content is delivered to an audience in releasing the series exclusively to Instagram. Aimed at neighbours fans, it allows them to access content off the TV screen and really makes Neighbours a multiplatform drama.
Following Xanthe, a screening of the YouTube web series Words from Wilde was next. Words from Wilde is a modern day, YouTube v-logger take on the life of the famous playwright Oscar Wilde.
Mary McGillivray, writer and director, and Jessica Budin, Producer, both agree that compared to other web series, Words from Wilde does not have your typical mainstream audience.
“The difference is that Words from Wilde is an adaptation from a historical figures life. Finding an audience can be hard,” says Jessica.
While Words from Wilde cater to a very niche audience, Wizards of Aus which was the last series screened, has a surprisingly large international viewership.
Wizards of Aus creator and lead actor, Michael Shanks, says their “content was created exclusively for online” before they were picked up by SBS. It was during the time prior to this, when the series was released on YouTube, that they gained their large international audience.
Wizards of Aus encapsulates the struggles of Jack, a magician from a foreign realm, in his mission to assimilate into the West Melbourne suburban culture.
You can keep up to date with the next Web Series IRL Meet Up by liking their Facebook page, or checking out the website.