Four reasons its easier to succeed in internet media than film

Producing an internet series can be substantially easier and cheaper than producing a film, and it is much more likely to succeed than an independent film. Here are four reasons internet video is much more accessible to the average filmmaker:

Actors - No one expects attachments in a web series. It’s pretty standard to have unknown actors in a web series. Now, that doesn’t give you license to have bad actors, but you don’t have to shell out $15,000 for B list actor just to get a DVD deal. On the other hand, even a small name actor that is popular to the internet audience nearly guarantees your success

Decreased expectations - People don’t expect high production value on the internet. You can get away with alot of cheating, and still keep a fan base. You can do a ton of things that would appear outright stupid on a TV show. Imagine a 30 minute episode of “Ask a Ninja”. All that bouncing around would drive you absolutely crazy, but in a format with a five minute maximum, its hilarious.

Wow factor - The converse of the above rule, is the idea of the wow factor. If you do have amazing production value, great cinematography, or really great writing it gives a huge boost to your chances of success.

Spend as you go - You could shoot your whole series at once…or you could shoot it every weekend. If you can afford to do at least the first few episodes, you could use the revenues of those episodes to shoot the next episodes. It would require some serious planning, but if there is one thing we indie filmmakers value is the ability to use ingenuity to overcome a lack of finances.