In the last part of our interview, Afterworld co-creator Brent Friedman discusses making money from an internet series, the practical limits of digital storytelling, and why sci-fi works on the internet.
TVA: Outside of the studio system, how do you make money off of an internet series?
BF: Well, I think it depends on what type of content you’re creating. But I think in our case, one of the things that’s a very strong reality is that there’s a full-scale migration of advertising money on Wall Street, so to speak, that is moving from television, and to a lesser degree movies, and into the digital realm.
And if you’re just making a funny little one-off type comedy series between you and your friend that you shoot in your apartment, it’s probably going to be a little difficult to make money. But my guess is that you’re probably not spending that much money. So if it’s good and it catches on and you work hard to get it out there and you create your own kind of grass roots distribution campaign, you can probably make enough money back just based on the undefined and undeveloped ad market that’s out there right now because, again, your cost will be low. That’s the big thing you have to think about.
If you’re trying to do something more ambitious like we are, I think you have to build, you know, the right mouse trap to go out and catch some of these big advertisers and companies that are looking to brand certain content and make certain strategic alliances with producers who are making content. One thing that opened the door for us is that we didn’t just make Afterworld. We said, OK, we’re doing Afterworld but we’re in business for the long haul. So we’re trying to form relationships with not just the NBC’s and Sony’s of the world, but with these larger companies. And that’s what they’re looking for.
So I think that opportunity exists right now. It’s a little hard to open the door and get in there but I think you’re going to now see micro and boutique agencies that are designed to be the facilitator between content producers and this new kind of outlook on Madison Avenue.
TVA: In terms of advertising, there were no ads during the airing of Afterworld episodes. Is that something that you specifically wanted, for there not to be ads during the show?
BF: Yes. We are trying to resist that as much as possible now. One of the situations is that when the show gets distributed by Sony into various territories, a specific territory may decide that they want to monetize the episodes in a way that there’s advertising of some sort tacked on to the end or the beginning of the episode. We can’t control that in every territory. Our goal is to avoid that and find more elegant ways to advertise, so to speak.
TVA: So is that a feature of your partnership with NBC, that there won’t be ads tacked on to Gemini Division?
BF: Correct.
TVA: You’ve expanded to about 4 minutes per episode for Gemini Division. What do you think is the limit, or is there a limit, to how long a story you can tell on the internet in a single sitting?
BF: I don’t know that there’s a creative limit. But I think that what we’re cognizant of the fact that internationally the mobile platform is a very real commercial platform much more advanced than it is in the US. When you start making content that is beyond 4 minutes, and stretches into the 5, 6, 7 [minute] market, it chokes a lot of those telecom companies that are trying to deliver the content. You always have to look at the low end user. Even in the countries where mobile is highly developed, that doesn’t mean that the lowest user has the best handset to accommodate streaming content of 6, 7, 8 minutes without it really degrading the experience.
I think one thing we’re looking at is, what’s the maximum amount of bandwidth that we can ask people to have to enjoy our content. Probably about four minutes is the maximum – right now. That’s one of those things where, as technology keeps evolving, that ceiling will keep getting raised. There probably will come a point where it doesn’t matter. Then it just comes back to, what do people really want? Do they want little bite-sized pieces of content every day or do they want a big, long download?
TVA: The stories you’ve been working on so far have all been sci-fi oriented. Is that just because the genre is compelling to you personally, or do you think the internet is inherently niche, so that sci-fi is better suited to the internet?
BF: Both, actually. It’s a personal interest and favorite of mine. I also think that sci-fi is uniquely qualified to allow you to tell big, universal stories that have interesting themes in them without sounding preachy. It all gets wrapped into a fictional component. But it allows us to tell stories, because of the production choices we’re making, where Afterworld isn’t shot live action, it isn’t real, it’s a fantasy story, on some level, as is Gemini Division. It allows you to suspend your disbelief and get caught up in the story, rather than how it looks. If we were trying to do a gritty drama, it would be very hard to pull it off. It just wouldn’t feel appropriate to use the production techniques we’re using, number one.
Number two, sci-fi, when it’s not shoot-em-up, hardware, Star Wars kind of stuff, but when it’s more kind of a story about ideas, it travels very well internationally. They say that comedy doesn’t travel very well because it’s culturally specific. Sci-fi, and a story about big ideas and things that impact all of humanity with kind of cautionary tale themes and elements to it, everyone can relate to that.
So it is in a way something that I like, something that the world seems to like. And your other point about it being something that is specifically a niche audience, it’s absolutely, in my mind, the right thing for the internet because the internet is also something that encourages social community and fandom. And you find that a lot of people, a lot of fans, are most loyal to sci-fi franchises. So if you build a good one, hopefully, they will come.
TVA: Is there a premiere date for Gemini Division yet?
BF: Right now we’re in the process of trying to work that out. Right now I would have to say it’s going to be right after the Olympics in late August.
TV: I think that was everything I wanted to ask you. I really want to thank you for your time and ask you if there was anything that you wanted to say to your fans.
BF: The main think I want to say is really just reiterating an earlier point. We know we made some mistakes on Afterworld and we really are aiming to correct them and just provide a better experience all around and really just provide a better product on our next shows.
We really appreciate all of the feedback that we’re getting from fans who post on all of the sites where the show is available and also from people like yourself. There have been a lot of people who have written about or blogged about the show, some that have liked it and some that haven’t. Whenever I see someone write about it, I try to make contact with them and engage them in some sort of conversation. Or do what I’ve done with you and do a formal interview because I want people to understand what we’re trying to do, what the process is, and judge the show more by what our intentions were than just necessarily just what the results were.
I think a lot of people don’t understand and didn’t understand some of the business decisions behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, the only way that you can make compelling content that has a real, professional production quality to it is to make money. Someone has to pay the bills. We are not Paul Allen and Bill Gates, spending our billions creating content for everybody. This is a business. So we’re trying to, as best we can, make intelligent decisions that allow us to make the best content and create the best experience for the users. So the more that people can understand why we do certain things a certain way, and why we’re making certain decisions, we’re hoping that people will go, ‘Well, I understand what’s going on now and I’m looking forward to them growing and getting better with time.’
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