Nine ways to fund your Web show – part 4

6) Gain in-company incubation and support in kind

Some savvy production companies help staff make their own projects, appreciating the potential of a win-win for the employee and employer. The individual has an opportunity to improve their skills and the company benefits from increasingly skilled staff.

Writer Ric Forster seized the opportunity of an in-house training scheme to launch his own Web series, LOL. It's an online drama which "explores the teenage world of sex, drugs and social network-fuelled peer pressure" and was shot last year on the sets of Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks via a talent development programme run by Hollyoaks production company Lime Pictures.

Ric, who created and directed the series, explains: "LOL received assistance from Lime Pictures due to it being produced as part of their director training scheme. I'm currently an employee there working as a storyliner on Hollyoaks and the company has a scheme for nurturing new directing talent. I was given the opportunity to shoot a short over a weekend, with full use of all the sets and equipment. I'd written LOL before I was accepted onto the scheme, so tweaked some of the story and made it producible on site.

"We shot on Sony HDC-1500 studio cameras, recording onto XDCAM HD decks and used a lot of lighting gear. On top of that, the company paid for sparks and covered some minor expenses. The production was also covered by the company insurance and we didn't need to pay any location fees as it was all shot on site. All in all, this probably contributed about £3,000 to the production.

"I'm really grateful for Lime's help - LOL has much higher production values thanks to their assistance."

Ric is currently writing further episodes of LOL and developing Ghosts, a sci-fi Web series to be shot this summer. He concludes, "Web series like We Need Girlfriends and Sanctuary show that creating online content is a great way to build an audience and get your work noticed."

Similarly, BBC Scotland runs a three-person Innovations team. Its first commission is a multiplatform crime drama, Townsville, with a £12,000 budget. The 4 x 40 mins show will combine video, still photos and special effects, with most of the action taking place online, and premiere in Easter 2009.

Comments

[Ric]

As an update to this article - we just shot two more webisodes of LOL, with a further four being shot in April. A US broadcaster got in touch recently re: LOL potentially being a web/tv series for them. Really exciting and just shows what can happen when you release content online.

[Brett Snelgrove]

That's great news. I've watched the first three ep's of LOL and really liked it and keen to see the new ep's. It's also wonderful to see a company like Lime Pictures offering the support and resources for LOL to happen - something that is often talked about but rarely happens from my experience.