"Using your experiences on this project and relating your programmes to other webisodes you have researched, discuss how taking account of the online audience affects the process of showing creative work"
Online shows vs Television shows
There is a great diference between television and online shows, with shows such as Family guy and Little britain, which you used to be able to watch on televsion only have now recently moved over to the online format, with the site best known as 'bbc catch up' or as it is fully known 'BBC I-player'. With this new format of watching tv shows online, shows how the two formats of online and tv have converged to give us as the viewers the chance to watch waht we have missed not only by watching it on our televisions but online aswell.
The fact that you can now watch shows online has proven the fact that television shows, do not have to be television based, but also computer based aswell, which makes it easier and more accessable for many people / fans. With devices such as the I-Phone and other mobile devices viewers can now watch their desierd shows where ever they want to on the move, which meant a great increase in the number of viewers for television shows - turned web-shows by being placed on the bbc-i player.
The fact that the online format for tv shows has come around is a massive reason why webseries or webisodes have become much more popular. webisodes or web shows such as 'Chad vader' have been around for a few years, but have recently become much more popular, which is mainly due to the fact of there being a much wider range of online viewers, mainly due to the fact that television is slowly moving onto the online format, which has a huge fan based background to it.
The fact that television is merging itno the online format is another big reason why webisodes are created, it is cheaper, easier, and most important of all it is easier for them to get noticed, rather than going htrough the expensive and very time consuming process of getting your show put onto tv, hence why people rather place their shows on the internet and call them 'webisodes'.
Marketing for 'Lines'
After we had planned to create our webseries, we started to plan on what would be the best possible ways to market / advertise the actual webisodes. Our first thoughts were to create a facebook page, as this is vital to grab the attention of our target audience, whom is around (15-upwards). We believe that this age range is perfect for our webseries as it suits the theme of detention very well.
After deciding that we would set up a facebook group, we then decided to research into other possible social netweorking sites which we could use, sites such as twitter, and myspace where the other two social networking sites which we first decide to create along side our facebook group.
We set to work on creating the three social networking sites (twitter, facebook and myspace). We had specific roles for each social networking site, and they were as follows: Twitter: To update the fans on what we were doing and also the process of each episode. Facebook: To find cast members for the auditions and also to inform people of the progress of each episode (upcoming episodes etc), and also to show of photos of us at work on the production of the series, and finally Myspace: Due to the lack of users who now use myspace, apart from local bands, we diecided to create a myspace in order to find a local band who would be able to offer us their music to use for our webseries, it was also a good tool for the bands to know about our upcomming webisodes.
Apart from internet pages and websites etc, we did also use a more oridinnary advertising teqnique. We decided in order to gain as many fans and as many views as possible from our target audience then, what is better than advertising in and around our own college (Long road). So after discussion we all deicded that to create a poster for the launch of each episode would be a very wise move in order to gain as many views as possible, so taht is what we done. We created 3 posters for each episode launch. We placed up the posters in and around the college 2-3 days before the launch of each episode (aprox). Unfortunatley we were unable to place up the 3rd episode poster due to the lack of time, but as for the other posters we managed to place them up on time, which gained us many more views than we could of thought for, which was of course very good indeed, and meant an increadse in the number of fans / comments we recieved.
The main website which we used was of course, youtube, as this was where we uploaded all of our videos including (the auditions right the way through to the actual episodes themselves).
We used this as both a marketing tool and also the main place of which our fans / viewers can actually view our webshows.
Feedback on 'Lines'
Overall the feedback which we recieved on our episodes was pretty average, and unfortunatly not to the amount which I personally thought. I believe that the repsonse which our 1st episode was very good! For a first episode launch it was very successful and gaind much interest, with the views going over 100 within the first hour I was sure that Lines was going up and up from then on out, but unfortunatly from the showing of the 2nd episode the views seemed to go down.
The views were up in the hundreds within the first hour of relasing the 1st ever episode of lines but as I mentioned above, for the 2nd episode the views were not as high. By the 2nd day of placing the 2nd episode on youtube the views were barely over 100 which was of course not living up to the expectations of both us as a group and the fans.
The lack of views could of well been the fact that we have had a decrease in the number of fans, or the simple fact that we did not publicise the showing if the 2nd episode as much of the 1st, but I am sure that we kept all of our advertising to one single level, in order to achieve a high amount of views or as high as we could get them every time an episode was launced, but unfortunatley this was untrue, and the case of the matter is, is that the views / comments we recieved on both the 2nd and 3rd epsidoe were definatley not as high as I personally would of thought we could achieve, neither am I unimpressed or impressed by this.
I am very bewildered by the fact that we recieved these viewing stats on our episodes, I think it is interesting and important to take into account, about how the views ofr any webseries can be up and one point in time and down in other points, so overall the views and comments which we have recieved during the time of this project have been up and down and we have recieved some valuable data and knowledge from this.
Overall conclussion of project
I strongly believe that by creating this online series 'Lines'. we have recieved a varied amount of views and comments, which we would never of recieved if we would of produced a show for television or any other format such as dvd.
The fact that this was an online based project, and the fact that we had an active audience completley different to the other formats of media, then we recieved both very good knowledge of the product we had created and the views of other people on it. After many comments and many websites created I can suggest that the internet is indeed a better place inorder to gain experiance, views, opinions, guidlines, and much, much more on the media products which you create, it is the comments and feedback inwhich you reciweve from the active audience in the online world, which really does make the differnce to your finished product.
Another reason why the online audience is affeting our creative work as the practitioner, is the fact that they cna get more activiliy involed with anything and everything. Once the video is online people have the freedom to alter or suggest alterations to the product itself. For example if the viewers really wished to they could download our finished webisode and then reedit it into their desierd video, or even suggest ways inwhich we could do that ourselfs, it is these sorts of comments / aspects which make the online audience so different to the other audiences of which we usually dispaly our work towards, so overall if there is one thing which I have learnt during this process of using the online format for uploading our webseires is this:
"Peoples views are different online than in real life, people may be tougher and harder on their opinions, but it is these which are most valuable and these which make the most difference to the finished product and future ones to come".
