The Golden Age of Internet programming has begun.

We have entered the Golden Age of Independent Series over the Internet

All media and formats have their Golden Age where artists flock to the new and—unbound by rules, standards, or precedent—create a great variety of amazing and original artworks.  The trouble with a Golden Age is that they are awfully hard to recognize when you’re in the middle of them—and even harder at the beginning.  But I’m here to tell you that the Golden Age of Independent Series over the Internet is beginning.

My bold prediction:

Within two years an independent series airing on the Internet will be generally recognized as being as good as any of the better content on broadcast television—and better than much of the network dreck.

Depending on where you see the state of independent series, this statement is either ludicrous or obvious—I doubt there’s much middle ground.  To me, it’s so plain to see that I worry that I’m pussy-footing around the issue—I should probably shorten the time period to one year and expect a half dozen independent series to be recognized in this way…on the cover of Newsweek.  However, many people are understandably stuck in a Fred/machinima/montages-of-cat-photos mindset when they hear the words “web series” or anything similar, so it’s hard for them to see past the current glut of user-generated content.

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I have been getting an amazing response to my article about Independent Series.  Thank you!  I truly appreciate all the people who are liking, re-tweeting, and basically spreadin’ it around.  Many, many people, both friends and people I’ve only met through this blog have contacted me with questions via e-mail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, phone calls–the whole gamut.  And I love it.

But I have a request: Is there any chance we could keep the main discussion on the Blog itself?

So many people have had such wonderfully intelligent and insightful things to say about the topic—You know who you are!—that I think a lot of other readers would benefit from your comments.  Also, I plan to talk about this topic quite a bit in the weeks to come and adding your comments to the post itself keeps things all permanent-like for readers who come across these posts in the future.

And big thanks to the folks who have been discussing this on the Blog page.

A few people have asked me about adding a threaded BBS forum to the site to discuss some of these topics.  I’m looking into it and if the comment pick up I will try to add one.  Let me know if you think this would be useful or if BBS forums are all just extra chatter in the age of Facebook.

Yeah, I said it.

I think that independent feature film has had its day and the future of visual storytelling belongs to independent series.  I’ve been saying this for a while, and I still get the blank stares from my independent filmmaker pals, so this topic is probably a good way to kick off the new focus of my blog.

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The future--and present--of visual storytelling. Get with the program.

I’m changing the focus of this blog to creating Internet-based television series and distributing them to an audience.  In the past I spoke about independent film because that was what I was interested in and where I thought I had some experience worth sharing.  The fact that I’ve become an infrequent blogger reflects my waning interest in independent film.  I’ll always love indie films and may even be fortunate enough to make more.  But I’ve come to believe that there are better formats for both audiences and content creators—namely, serialized long-form stories distributed over the Internet.

I’ll be posting more about this soon, but in short, I believe we’re entering a golden age for visual storytellers and audiences where the confluence of new production tools, new modes of internet-based distribution, and new socio-economic realities are coming together to allow experienced filmmakers to create series for web-based audiences that rival the quality of network shows without being reduced to the least common denominator in order to satisfy a network-sized audience.

Of course, people have been talking about this possibility for several years now, without it yet becoming a reality.  I believe that’s about to change.  Changes on all three of these fronts: better cameras and software, more effective web distribution channels, and a recent societal and economic shift all push this closer to reality.  All of this will be the topic of several posts to come as I lay out my vision of what seems to be coming and how filmmakers can reap the benefits.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey of discovery.  I believe that this is going to be the most fecund and rewarding time that filmmakers have seen in decades. I’ve spent the past three years creating a media company—Popular Uprising—to explore and exploit these rapidly emerging opportunities.  Popular Uprising is the product of untold hours of work from myself, my business partner Dan Southworth, and a few other amazing collaborators.  We would not have put the time into this if we did not see a very real opportunity.  We’ve learned a lot along the way and I’m sure we have much, much more learning ahead of us as we release our various series.  The first series, DIVERGENCE will begin airing in 2012.  I want to share what I’m discovering in the hopes that it paves the way for other filmmakers looking to play in this sandbox.  I also want invite you to share what you’re learning to keep the dialogue going.  I’m here to learn as well.

So, you’ve been asked to represent your company or organization in an interview as part of a promotional or information video.  Congratulations!  It means people believe you’ll present well on video and avoid saying anything embarrassing.  In other words, somebody thinks you’re good looking and intelligent—not too shabby.  I have seven tips that can make a video interview process enjoyable and effective.

I direct video shoots for organizations all the time.  Frequently, the people I interview are executives who have received corporate media training, but more often the interview subject is new to the process and a little nervous.  The tips that follow are the ones I give to friends or clients who are taking part in their first corporate video.

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