web series

  I’ve been writing about web video since 2009. I’m part of a tiny group of writers who have sustained interest in web television over the years, taking time to interview producers and write about their shows. (Liz Shannon Miller, one such critic, recently compiled a list of sites/publications that do it consistently). Televisual has [...]

It looks like the new television is here: a flexible, open industry more responsive to consumers and producers. Henry Jenkins’ textual poachers have become textual producers. Twenty years ago, audiences struggled to get power in production. Fans orchestrated large, coordinated campaigns to revive shows like Beauty and the Beast. Soon media companies started folding viewers into [...]

Ylse is a 2008 sitcom about a modern Americana and the quirky characters around her. It won a 2010 Imagen Award for best Internet sitcom and the audience favorite at the 2009 Rasquache Film Festival. Ylse creator Ruth Livier was the first person admitted to the Writers Guild for work in new media. Back in 2000, when [...]

Now in its second season, Squaresville is a comedy about two geeks trapped in a small town. The series is distributed on Wonderly, Big Frame’s network for young women. Last year it took home three trophies at the International Academy of Web Television Awards, including best comedy series, best writing (comedy) and best ensemble.  At literally [...]

Premiering in 2010, Broad City is a sitcom co-created by Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. In March Comedy Central announced it was picking up the show for a 2014 release, with Amy Poehler producing alongside Jacobson and Glazer. The show is currently in production. It has been featured by the New York Times, MTV, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, [...]

BLACK&SEXYTV is an independent video network on YouTube. An outgrowth of Dennis Dortch’s 2008 feature A Good Day to Be Black and Sexy, it has released five episodic series, including The Number, RoomieLoverFriends, That Guy, Hello Cupid, and The Couple, for which the network successfully crowdsourced a spin-off. It has been featured in Ebony, Clutch, Shadow and Act and Indiewire, [...]

Downsized is a 2009 web drama. It was a 2012 Writers Guild nominee for original new media and has been celebrated in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Fast Company and Indiewire. This essay is part of Televisual‘s ”Indie TV Innovation” series. Somehow I became a part of the first generation of web series [...]

Soon after the Kickstarter campaign for Veronica Mars sparked a ton of conversations and debates, another woman-led project took the crowdfunding site by storm, raising over $60,000 soon after it launched. The team behind The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a YouTube-based adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, have already raised over $400,000 with three days to go by selling a DVD of the complete series. Funds from [...]

tello films is a subscription video network offering original programming for the lesbian market. It recently merged with OneMoreLesbian, adding free and pay-per-view video options to its offerings. This essay is part of Televisual’s “Indie TV Innovation” series. As I write this I just finished shooting tello’s newest project called Roomies, starring Julie Goldman and Brandy Howard.  [...]

East WillyB is an original series that chronicles the adventures of a Brooklyn Sports Bar owner and his motley crew of regulars as they deal with the trials and tribulations of living in a changing Brooklyn. Its pilot season premiered in 2011. Its first season, for which the producers raised $51,000 on Kickstarter, is currently airing on [...]