Our production team just informed me that the interactive web TV series we produced last year, DELETED: THE GAME, has been shortlisted for the Webby Awards 2009 in two categories: Best Interactive use of Video and Best Experimental and Weird.
Congratulations to the team and the very best of luck!
Knowledge@Wharton recently spoke with the 45-year-old Whedon about the lessons learned from "Dr. Horrible" and what he believes needs to happen for the Internet to serve as a platform that can sustain original creative content. An edited version of that conversation follows.
Knowledge@Wharton: To what extent was the original impetus behind "Dr. Horrible" to serve as an experiment for how web-based content can generate revenue?
Whedon: It was equal parts that and the love of the silly. The concept originated as an audio podcast that I would do myself because I was hungry to write some songs and I liked the idea of the character.
And then the Writer's Guild went on strike. I tried to make some deals with Silicon Valley companies and song studios to create jobs and put out product. But it took so long trying to make a deal with these companies up north, that I missed my window. So I said, "I'll just do it myself -- if that's okay with my wife." And because I could not afford to do a huge, lavish production we did it with a ton of favors.
We were, at the time, very much in the spirit of the strike. By the time we finished writing ["Dr. Horrible"] and had everyone lined up, the strike was over and we all had shows to scramble to do. But we found a window to shoot it. It became us goofing around and just having a great time making a piece of art that we all enjoyed.
Once we finished ... it was equal parts ethos and capricious glee. We said we were going to roll it out for free and then put it on iTunes. We just steamrolled past everybody's idea of how you market and of how long it takes to do these things. We had people [drawing up] contracts in days that usually take months, because we were tired of people sitting around.
Ultimately, though, we were still in the mind of: This is a bit of a lark. The strike was over and so we wanted to do right by everybody, but we weren't thinking it would be a grand statement. We thought it was going to be cool.
Knowledge@Wharton: Several numbers have been quoted regarding the overall cost of "Dr. Horrible" -- "low six-figures"; "around $200,000" -- can you set the record straight?
Whedon: We got so much of this done through people doing us favors -- department heads and people who have access to things. But you've got to pay your day-to-day crew. The actors all did it for nothing. And we all did it for nothing. So, the production costs alone -- the basic costs of filming the thing, and getting the locations, props and everything -- ran a little over $200,000.
We had a secondary budget drawn up in case of a profit, wherein we were trying to find rates for Internet materials. In some cases they didn't exist. We used models that had been created by the guild for repurposed, or reused, material that we used for original [content], because this had never come up before.
We didn't want to leave a sour taste and say, "Well, we made some money off of you guys being kind." It was like: No, everybody has to benefit from what they've done, obviously not enormously -- it's Internet money we're talking about -- but as soon as we got in the black, we paid everybody off.
So that budget was probably about twice what the original budget was.
Knowledge@Wharton: You've now earned more than twice the original cost?
Whedon: Yes.
Knowledge@Wharton: Which members of the production shared in the profits on the backend?
Whedon: The crew that got paid, got paid. [Those] who didn't get paid [included people like] department heads who had jobs and could afford to do this as a lark.
As we go forward into profit, there are also residual schedules and payment schedules for all of the creative people. We're trying to figure out how that works.
Today is the soft launch for my new purpose built digital studio for web TV, film, photo and music productions. It's an 8,000 sqf space with 25 ft ceilings in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood. Check back at Bayard Studio for updates.
Kevin Foong, an angel investor, occasional entrepreneur and veteran of the new media industry.
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