The UK is fast emerging as a centre for the production of online interactive dramas. One of the earliest shows Wannabies was produced by Illumina Digital for the BBC. The BBC followed this by one of its biggest online drama commissions to date - Signs of Life which was produced by Endemol’s digital arm.
Since these broadcaster led shows there have been a string of further online drama’s produced or adapted in the UK following the success of Bebo’s KateModern with a growing number of social networks. MySpace is currently running I Love Chieftown and Beyond The Rave is showing in 19 countries having been produced from the UK by Pure Grass Films & Myspace. The Gap Year by Endemol UK and Bebo has been in 6 countries and The Cell, Endemol UK & O2 has now been in the USA on Crackle and just about to launch in Europe & Rest of The World on Fox.
The BBC has recently announced news of its intention to come back to the party with a £1.3 million investment in a new online drama. This has sparked some very interesting debate around just how much drama £1.3 million would buy you. (Read some of detailed answers here from the leading online drama producers…www.futurescape.co.uk). The answers range from one show to a number with at least five and possibly six series of 65 x 3 mins episodes each, really depending who is producing and what kind of production values and platforms you are looking to produce for.
The interesting thing is the costs aren’t that different from TV on a per minute basis (£1000- £5000 a minute), but the episodes are obviously shorter, so to make it work producers are stacking the episodes up so they total around 3.5 hours (65 x 3 mins = 195 mins in the example above). This way the producer has enough value in the production to make it worthwhile and give the audience enough time to engage with the story.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Friday, 11 July 2008
Work less, play more ?
I’ve just finished reading Tim Ferriss ‘The 4-hour work week’ which is a mixed bag but worth a mention on several fronts. Firstly anyone that has achieved what Tim has in his 29 years is worth listening too. He is or has been a successful cage fighter, holds a Guinness world record in Tango dancing, is a Princeton University guest lecturer, Speaks Japanese, Chinese, German and Spanish, was a National Chinese kickboxing champion, a MTV break-dancer in Taiwan, a athletic advisor to 30 world record holders, shark diver, motorcycle racer, political asylum researcher, TV host in Thailand and the list continues…
He has developed a system for living that involves running a business (small scale but successful ones) by outsourcing all of the knotty processes. This leaves you most of your ‘working time’ to devote yourself to the things you really want to do – learning, traveling, friends, family, hobbies etc. Sounds great but you can see the flaw in his plan.
One of my main grips with his very American view is that building a business isn’t fun or enjoyable. The start up and growth phase have for me (& others I think) always been the best bit of running any business so I’m not sure I’d want to outsource or not be directly involved in the day to day bits.
His experience of outsourcing everything comes from running a product-based business and I’m not sure this would work for service-based businesses. I feel he could do with healthy dose of failure to widen his view of the world.
However, there are some excellent resources with the book (and associated website
www.fourhourworkweek.com) and a great reading list at the end.
Some of the links that are useful or interesting are:
Alexa (www.alexa.com) - check the traffic levels of your competition and who’s linking to them
Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) the digital library for literature considered to be in the public domain
InventRight (www.inventright.com) Stephen Key successful inventor who develops products and licenses them to large corporations.
LibriVox (www.librivox.org) is a collection of audiobooks that are free to download
ExpertClick (www.expertclick.com) Put up an expert profile for the media to see and receive up to date media contacts database which you can press release.
Virtual assistants – search www.elance.com . Outsourced executive assistance, business planning, accounting etc Brickwork (www.b2kcorp.com) and for business and personal www.yourmaninindia.com
Review and purchase at Amazon
He has developed a system for living that involves running a business (small scale but successful ones) by outsourcing all of the knotty processes. This leaves you most of your ‘working time’ to devote yourself to the things you really want to do – learning, traveling, friends, family, hobbies etc. Sounds great but you can see the flaw in his plan.
One of my main grips with his very American view is that building a business isn’t fun or enjoyable. The start up and growth phase have for me (& others I think) always been the best bit of running any business so I’m not sure I’d want to outsource or not be directly involved in the day to day bits.
His experience of outsourcing everything comes from running a product-based business and I’m not sure this would work for service-based businesses. I feel he could do with healthy dose of failure to widen his view of the world.
However, there are some excellent resources with the book (and associated website
www.fourhourworkweek.com) and a great reading list at the end.
Some of the links that are useful or interesting are:
Alexa (www.alexa.com) - check the traffic levels of your competition and who’s linking to them
Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) the digital library for literature considered to be in the public domain
InventRight (www.inventright.com) Stephen Key successful inventor who develops products and licenses them to large corporations.
LibriVox (www.librivox.org) is a collection of audiobooks that are free to download
ExpertClick (www.expertclick.com) Put up an expert profile for the media to see and receive up to date media contacts database which you can press release.
Virtual assistants – search www.elance.com . Outsourced executive assistance, business planning, accounting etc Brickwork (www.b2kcorp.com) and for business and personal www.yourmaninindia.com
Review and purchase at Amazon
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Online Success
In a recent panel session at the MIPTV festival Nuno Bernardo the General Manger of beActive, the creators of the successful Sofia’s Diary’s (50 million views world wide and counting), outlined his recipe for financial online success.
- If it’s printed it becomes news
- If it’s on TV it becomes real
- If it’s cross media it’s become a brand
- Then you can license it
- Then you can make money!
Friday, 29 February 2008
Friday, 15 February 2008
Another Million Dollar opportunity ?
Casey Walker, a Canadian TV director is aiming to produce a feature length movie by raising a million dollars, $10 (Can) at a time to make My Million Dollar Move.
He has a script (mmm, just!) and has done the casting (some!), but is raising the finance frame by frame (144,000 frames).
Casey obviously takes his inspiration from the ‘Million Dollar Homepage’ designed by Alex Tew, Casey to set up his ‘My Million Dollar Movie’.
Purchasers receive advertising and website traffic for their money, and in the event that the film makes a profit, they also stand to make a financial return proportional to the number of frames they’ve purchased.
Its not clear how the film will be distributed, but if assuming they sell all the frames there is definitely going to be a lot of buzz around the project regardless of what the finished (assuming it gets that far!) product is going to look like.
Another film project (perhaps with a touch more creative integrity!) that’s been running for some time that’s worth checking out is Swarm of Angels which lets people join a global community to create, collaborate, vote and input into the making of a £1m feature film.
See www.aswarmofangels.com
If you were looking to take punt on one of these creative swarming projects see Mark Bowness (creator of tribe wanted) latest project. He is looking for 3000 individuals to in up £60 each to found a new breed of TV production company he's calling Have you got the Nerve ?
He has a script (mmm, just!) and has done the casting (some!), but is raising the finance frame by frame (144,000 frames).
Casey obviously takes his inspiration from the ‘Million Dollar Homepage’ designed by Alex Tew, Casey to set up his ‘My Million Dollar Movie’.
Purchasers receive advertising and website traffic for their money, and in the event that the film makes a profit, they also stand to make a financial return proportional to the number of frames they’ve purchased.
Its not clear how the film will be distributed, but if assuming they sell all the frames there is definitely going to be a lot of buzz around the project regardless of what the finished (assuming it gets that far!) product is going to look like.
Another film project (perhaps with a touch more creative integrity!) that’s been running for some time that’s worth checking out is Swarm of Angels which lets people join a global community to create, collaborate, vote and input into the making of a £1m feature film.
See www.aswarmofangels.com
If you were looking to take punt on one of these creative swarming projects see Mark Bowness (creator of tribe wanted) latest project. He is looking for 3000 individuals to in up £60 each to found a new breed of TV production company he's calling Have you got the Nerve ?
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