Writers, Producers and Creative Entrepreneurship in Web Series Development

The comedy web series is often celebrated as a mode of production which allows for a creative voice ‘[un]diminished by consensus’ (Miller cited in Williams, Web TV Series: How to Make and Market Them. Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2012, 179), providing an opportunity for content to be produced and distributed to audiences whilst still being developed (Williams, Web TV Series: How to Make and Market Them. Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2012, 67). This iterative approach to development challenges traditional notions of key creative roles, as content creators have the potential to engage in feedback with their audience before an episode is even realised. This chapter will focus on two of these roles, the Writer and Producer, investigating how they function throughout the development of a comedy web series across three different contexts: pedagogical, independent (self-funded) and what we’ll call commercial (projects that have received external funding). This will include a definition of what these roles are in each context, where they intersect and where they remain distinct. Further to this, an argument will be put forward about how these roles are evolving into what Cunningham and Silver refer to as ‘entrepreneurial and innovative creators’ (Ellingsen, Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy, 150, 106–113, 2014); those who can identify opportunities presented by a form for which few conventions appear yet to be established, and have the ability to not only create and distribute their content, but also integrate promotional outcomes and commercial opportunities into their concepts from the outset. Ultimately, the purpose here is to investigate the development phase of a comedy web series, and for this discussion to be centred on a practitioner-based enquiry of key creative roles within this form, in order to better understand the opportunities and limitations that working within this form presents.