Quarterlife is a new online television show which we have
looked at here on WebTVWire before.
It’s a series of eight-minute
videos, created by Marshall Herskovitz and
Edward Zwick which is being touted as the first network quality show
produced for online viewing.
In a recent Business Week article MySpace Goes Hollywood, MySpace
was tossing the term “Network Quality” around
when talking about this forthcoming show without much understanding of
what it means.
As someone who has shot content for
“Broadcast”, the term is
specific to certain technical parameters for transmission of SD or HD
signals…for another post.
Will Web Users Even Notice?
Considering that many people view on-line
content using a laptop, desktop monitor or mobile device such as an
iPod they are not going to see the difference between a five thousand
dollar DV camera verses its sixty-thousand dollar cousin.
In addition,
most content today is not yet encoded at VC1 specs, which seems to
render this point moot.
Quarterlife, the thread for the series is about a group of
twentysomething writers, actors and dancers trying to break into show
business. Their site in soft-launch indicates they are aiming to bring
the audience along as community, read; Entourage on MySpace.
The site
went on to further that participatory angle by saying the community
would “participate in the ongoing creation of the series, be
discovered
as a writer, director, composer, photographer – find your next step as
an artist and as a person”.
And bring peace in our time,
sorry I could
not resist.
Of course, I find this rather ironic seeing that writers,
actors,
dancers, producers and DP’s are trying to break into the
on-line and
IPTV television distribution space on their own without significant
traction.
The Muscle Of Hollywood
That it takes the muscle of Hollywood to dangle this in front
of thousands of talented content creators does not speak well for the
current opportunities for Indies, but more like an on-line reality show
where people might be discovered.
That Producer Herskovitz has estimated each 48-minute episode
will
cost more then $500,000 to produce is not surprising for Hollywood
though rather shockingly excessive given the target platforms and what
some Indie producers have created with far less resources.
Perhaps MySpace has not heard of Williamsburg or ventured into
Brooklyn, NY where The Burg,
a very well produced series (near network quality, read; sarcasm) with
talented actors and solid storyline has been on-line since late 2005,
long before Hollywood ventured into their hood. Even the Quarterlife
trailer reminds me of The Burg.
So what’s the path for aspiring content creators serious about their craft, pepper the web’s aggregator sites in hopes of a few dollars, self-promote on their own site or hope to get discovered by the Producers of Quarterlife, its a tough call with no easy answers.
[Content in whole or part adapted from IPTVe and is licensed under Creative Commons, no addition derivative works may be copied from this article without prior permission from IPTVe and Web TV Wire]
