- May 2, 2011
- 10:50 am
- Sabine Schramm
- no comments
The Making of an Interactive Web-Series
By Bob Vail, SOC Website Reporter
Aaron Greer had a simple idea to fill the void left by television content producers. He created a Web series (that could also be a TV series) that plays into pre-teen boys’ love of the Internet by including viewer generated content and giving users the ability to totally re-cut episodes using the content they upload.
Did I say simple? I meant pretty complex.
Greer, Assistant Professor-Digital Cinema and Media Production in the School of Communication, outlined his idea in his presentation “Getting’ Grown TV: The Making of an Interactive Web-Series” in the Terry Student Center on Loyola’s Water Tower Campus. The presentation was part of SOC’s Faculty Speaker Series: Notes from the field.
But, why is there a void to begin with?
“As a culture I don’t think we take kids seriously,’ Greer said, “we either write kids as mini-adults or we are stuck in baby or toddler mode, where you’re doing baby talk.”
Greer acknowledges that there is a time and place for the singing puppet but that isn’t when the viewer is 11 or 12 years old.
“I think it’s an awkward age,” he said, “once people are older than 10 or 11, when they’re out of the little kid singing puppet stage, but before they are in high school and mini-adults, we don’t know what to do with them.”
Greer knows exactly what to do with them. He is adapting his award winning film Getting’ Grown into a Web series of the same name. He does realize that “tween” boys are also drawn away from television a bit.
“If you’re a 12 year-old boy and your choice is to watch television or play NBA 2K, a lot of kids are drawn to NBA 2K,” Greer explained. “I am too, I understand that they are going to play Wii, Xbox, or games online.”
“What boys tend to do with their free time is a little bit different.”
Since Greer is no a video game designer, he has decided on how to engage boys more as a filmmaker. That is where the interactivity of the Internet comes into play.
The show will be shot with built-in opportunities for viewer generated content but fans will have the opportunity to re-cut each webisode to include their own content (still photos, videos, etc.)
The series was originally planned for television, and some television networks have expressed interest in GGTV, but to realize the full dream, there has to be a Web component because the user generated content moments are actually written into the show.
“Even if it was broadcast on Nickelodeon there would need to be a way for kids to get the call about footage to upload and a way to upload it,” Greer said. “There would have to be a Web component.”
“In a perfect world someone would broadcast a show but would also host a website where kids could remix the show and upload their content that would be included in the next episodes”
Greer is a one-man writing staff but the co-producers of the Getting’ Grown, including Greer, have invested the profits from the film into GGTV and are currently working on getting the website and Web series (some of which has been shot) up and running.
The site should be off the ground by early summer 2011.
