How web series are shaking up Australia’s screen industry

First published at The Conversation, June 30, 2017. Written by Sue Swinburne - Lecturer in Film and Screen Media Production, Griffith Film School, Griffith University & Richard Fabb - Senior Lecturer, Film and Screen Media and Creative Director, LiveLab, Griffith Film School, Griffith University

The recent Film, Television and Digital Games Survey, conducted by the ABS for Screen Australia, showed a staggering growth in web series made in Australia: from just 107 episodes in 2012 to 3,248 in 2016. At the same time, the amount of TV drama broadcast fell from 632 hours to 497, while the amount of TV documentaries being made dropped from 566 hours to 444. This explosion in web series is fostering a far more democratic platform than TV or cinema.

This week at Melbourne Webfest, 50 series from Australia and around the world are competing in 21 categories, with the winners announced at a gala event on Sunday. The Melbourne awards follow the Australian Online Video Awards, and international events like The Webby Awards, The Streamy Awards, and LAWebFest.

The relative youth of the world’s major web festivals reflects the immaturity of the form itself. But these fests are growing up fast, and online content is being taken seriously by industry elders in broadcast TV and cinema: both the Emmy and AACTA Awards now welcome online video into some categories.

It may be that the Screen Australia figures don’t show the true scale of the growth, as online content isn’t always produced by an established production company or broadcaster, making it difficult to track. Still, while 2011 may not be the Year Zero the statistics suggest, there can be little doubt that there’s been extraordinary growth in this mode of TV production.

Who is making the content?

Drilling down into demographics is tricky given the nature of the web, but some high-profile success stories help to paint a picture of who’s behind this surge. Women feature strongly, with comedy stand-outs from producer Tamasin Simpkin (The Katering Show), and the team behind SketchShe, a trio of female sketch comedians perhaps most famous for their lipsync car videos.

Online has also been a great proving ground for LGBTIQ voices like Julie Kalceff, creator of Starting From … Now, and Jade of Death director Erin Good, a six-part supernatural drama. The web has given these emerging writers, directors, and producers the chance to create content that would have struggled to see the light of day in a conservative, risk-averse broadcast market.

Australian factual content also does well online. One example is YouTube science powerhouse Veritasium. Its creator, Derek Muller, came to YouTube as a 29-year-old, while working on the ABC’s Catalyst program.

It’s telling that while Catalyst has been pruned back at the ABC, Muller’s YouTube channel has gone from strength to strength, racking up an astonishing 4 million subscribers. His most popular video, on the Magnus effect, has over 34 million views.

 

An episode of Veritasium.

Animation has also contributed to the growth in Australian web series. The Sexual Lobster YouTube channel, for instance, has been a recipient of Screen Australia and YouTube’s Skip Ahead funding program for Australian YouTubers. In 2016 the program awarded funding to three established YouTube channels for longer projects, either one-off films or pilot episodes.

ArtSpear Entertainment, which began as a live-action project, has seen its subscriber base grow from just a few thousand to over a quarter of a million in just two years after shifting to parody animations of blockbuster movie trailers.

Amid the surge of new web series, there are also a sizeable number of very low budget projects, often produced by film students or recent graduates. That in itself is nothing new, with series like SYD2030, Flat Whites, and Newtown Girls examples of web pioneers from the early 2010s.

But while those early series may have lacked the production polish of a broadcast TV show, the passion of these shows’ makers is now matched by ever-improving production standards. WebFest’s Content Director, Alexander Hipwell, has noted a “massive jump” in quality web series.

Digital technology continues to level the playing field, allowing emerging talent to compete alongside bigger budget productions. Series made for as little as $2500 were selected for Melbourne WebFest over projects with budgets between $500,000 and $1,000,000. These “amateur” works may hold their own - competing even in the top festivals - alongside fully funded work.

So what does this mean for the traditional funding models, and regulatory frameworks? The Australian government is looking to recalibrate the screen industry through its review of screen content, while the broadcasters are working hard to find ways to stay afloat within their current business models and funding structures. What is clear is that the screen industries are being gradually taken over by new content creators like those treading the red carpet at Melbourne Webfest. They will undoubtedly be at the forefront of the changes to come.

Cool animated overview of how media manufactures consent

Manufacturing Consent feels like a must-read all over again lately, and this excellent primer by animator Pierangelo Pirak lays out the five filters of the mass media machine.

Per Manufacturing Consent, this sounds as if it could have been written about those covering a certain sitting President:

A propaganda model has a certain initial plausibility on guided free-market assumptions that are not particularly controversial. In essence, the private media are major corporations selling a product (readers and audiences) to other businesses (advertisers). The national media typically target and serve elite opinion, groups that, on the one hand, provide an optimal “profile” for advertising purposes, and, on the other, play a role in decision-making in the private and public spheres. The national media would be failing to meet their elite audience’s needs if they did not present a tolerably realistic portrayal of the world. But their “societal purpose” also requires that the media’s interpretation of the world reflect the interests and concerns of the sellers, the buyers, and the governmental and private institutions dominated by these groups.

• NOAM CHOMSKY - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine (YouTube / Al Jazeera English)

via Boing Boing

Teens can't tell the difference between Google ads and search results

By James Vincent on November 20, 2015 10:56 am @jjvincent

 

The familiar narrative of teens and technology is one of natural proficiency — that young people just get technology in a way that older generations don't. But research suggests that just because children feel at home using smartphones, it doesn't mean they're more aware of the nuances of how the web works. In a new report published by the UK's telecoms watchdog Ofcom, researchers found that only a third of young people aged 12 to 15 knew which search results on Google were adverts, while this figure was even lower — less than one in five — for children aged 8 to 11.

"The internet allows children to learn, discover different points of view and stay connected with friends and family," Ofcom's director of research, James Thickett, told the Financial Times. "But these digital natives still need help to develop the know-how they need to navigate the online world."

31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds couldn't identify the ads in Google's search results
In the tests carried out by Ofcom earlier this year, children were shown screenshots of Google search results for the term "trainers" and asked whether the results at the top of the page were either a) ads, b) the most relevant results, or c) the most popular results. Despite the fact that these topmost search results were outlined in an orange box and labelled with the word "Ad," they were not recognised as such by 31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds and 16 percent of 8- to 11-year-olds.

Other tests showed that one in five 12- to 15-year-olds (19 percent) believed that if a search engine listed particular information then it must be true, while just under half of all children (46 percent) could say for sure that Google itself was funded by ads.

More young people preferred youtube to TV for the first time

This lack of awareness of the role of advertisers in the web's ecosystem was also noticeable when it came to young people and YouTube. Ofcom's researchers found that for the first time since they had conducted the annual survey, more 12 to 15-year-olds said they preferred watching YouTube over traditional TV than the other way round. Additional, more than half (53 percent) of those surveyed in this same age group were unaware that vloggers might be paid to endorse certain products.

For organisations worried about the relatively unregulated world of online content these findings aren't good news. Earlier this year, for example, several US consumer watchdog groups filed a complaint to the FTC claiming that Google's YouTube Kids app blurs the lines between ads and original content. And in the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority has even banned videos on YouTube that were not clearly advertised as paid-for content. (The videos in questions featured a "Lick Race" challenge to lick the filling off an Oreo. Some of the UK's most prominent YouTube stars participated, with the videos paid for by Oreo makers Mondelez.)

Although Ofcom's research only examined children's awareness of advertising with regards to Google and YouTube, other social networks — including Instagram and Twitter — have also been criticised for letting paid-for promotions slip under the radar. Instagram is especially well known for its often unofficial celebrity endorsements of products like weight loss teas and teeth-whitening oil. In the US, the FTC says that any commercial relationship between a brand and an endorser online must be "clearly and conspicuously" disclosed, but as Ofcom's tests show, children often do not recognise ads, even when they're clearly labelled as such.

[via The Verge]

3 Minutes That Show How The Media Failed Women In 2013

posted on December 3, 2013 at 8:33pm EST

Spencer AlthouseBuzzFeed Staff

From The Representation Project, a movement that aims to “expose injustices created by gender stereotypes.”

In general, 2013 was a great year for women in the media.

Time Magazine / Via sinuousmag.com

There was a record number of female directors nominated for Emmys.

Getty / Dan MacMedan

PBS appointed its first female anchor team onNewsHour, a show that has been on the air since 1975.

CBS / Via youtube.com

And ESPN aired the Nine for IX film series.

ESPN / Via teamfenom.com

But “some things aren’t changing fast enough,” proposes The Representation Project, which strives to “shift people’s consciousness towards change.”

therepresentationproject.org

Because extreme Photoshop is used to promote the Barbie lifestyle.

youtube.com

And calling a 9-year-old girl — or anyone, for that matter — the C-word is used for humor.

thedailybeast.com

And a GOP leader called Miss America a prostitute for standing up against bullying.

youtube.com

And sex appeal is apparently the only way to sell hamburgers.

youtube.com / Via barstoolu.barstoolsports.com

Here is the video that asks why things aren’t changing fast enough.

youtube.com

Photoshop Commercial

Infographic: Hollywood's long war on technology

Infographic by Anne Rhodes via matadornetwork.com

By Cory Doctorow at 1:13 pm Saturday, Jan 28

You know, when I was sitting down with entertainment execs on a regular basis to debate applied, practical technology choices in DRM standards bodies, their constant refrain was, "We love technology! We use it all the time!" The implication being that if they instigated a law prohibiting a technology it would not represent ignorance or fear, but well-informed solemn judgement. I'd often cite Jack Valenti's infamous words to Congress: "The VCR is to the American film industry as the Boston Strangler is to a woman home alone," and they'd scoff. "Why do you always bring that up? It's ancient history!" And I'd say, "Oh, do you repudiate Jack Valenti, then? Because the last time I checked, you guys renamed your headquarters (I shit you not) the Jack Valenti Building." And they'd say, "Ha, ha, very funny. But seriously, is one wrong-headed statement from Jack all you've got?" And then I'd go into the long list of all the crap they'd fought as an industry, from the remote control to cable TV, from diversified cinema ownership to yeah, the VCR, and they'd mumble something about how EFF stood for "Everything For Free," and I just didn't understand the arts. Which always made me laugh because generally speaking I was the only working creative artist in the discussion, and I'd often be going to meetings in between working on novels. Clearly, to understand the arts you need to be an entertainment industry lawyer working for a giant multinational conglomerate, not a working artist.

Anyway, if I was still in those stuffy, hateful rooms where they plotted to ban technologies, I'd print out a stack of this Matador Network infographics, which are a handy guide to the pig-ignorant campaigns that Hollywood has waged against new technologies since the industry's founders ripped off Thomas Edison's patents and fled to California.

Infographic: Why the movie industry is so wrong about SOPA