Story consultant and script editor Eilish Kent gives three tips for creating a web series.
Creating an online series is a great way to get noticed in the industry and kick startyour career or prove that your idea has commercial value. If you can show that you can attract and engage audience with your content broadcasters and financiers will follow. As usually no one is paying for you to make the series, you have total creative freedom.
- Define your audience: with so much content available to audience online you need to find an idea that is going to standout to a specific audience and target that cohort. Often this is people who have similar tastes and interests to you, you need to know this audience’s likes and dislikes, how to find them online and how to get them to take notice of your content.
- The renewable idea: while online is saturated with content, audience is always hungry for good/original series and want more and more of it; so ensure that your idea is endlessly renewable from the beginning; for this you need to have an open-ended narrative with no built-in definitive end point. This idea will be your story engine.
- Engaging, active characters carry the story: without great characters your series will be boring and you will lose audience. Turn up the heat on the idea you already have by making your central character just a little sharper/dumber/hapless/romantic, etc. Define the protagonist and antagonists and give them memorable entrances onscreen.
To explore these topics and more join Eilish for a weekend on Creating Webseries (13th – 14th February 2016) where you will get the opportunity to work on your ideas for a webseries and pitch them to the rest of the group.
Eilish is a story consultant and script editor with 20 years’ experience in project development and commissioning in Irish TV.
Eilish is available for script editing and story consultancy, she can be contacted by email at eilishkent@gmail.com
