"What we're focusing on now is more actively engaging our users in our programming. It's not just hey, come to JibJab and watch something. It gets a little tricky because we have new product lines I can't talk about yet. But it's going to be, come to JibJab and engage, create, and publish, so it becomes more that the user can get their hands dirty with the content and spread it around as opposed to just watching."
At one point, he suggests that paying producers based on performance is part of their future plans. "We're trying to figure out ways to engage them in productions where they make some money for getting into business with us and in the event they create a hit, in the event they create a 'This Land,' they could make significant amounts of money. That's what we're trying to build now."
Working in Los Angeles, the brothers are confronted by the reality of a system of agents, managers, executives, and lawyers that was designed long before anyone thought of the Internet, never mind creating video content for it.
"It's so hard to get anything done," Spiridellis complains. "The whole system was created to produce a small number of really big investment productions, but with the web you've got to be able to produce a very big number of small productions."
"One of the problems we're trying to solve is how do we scale our production, because I can't make a production for a few thousand bucks if it's going to cost me five thousand to deal with the lawyers and everybody else."
It's a thought that resonates any time a television show creates online content. In my interview with Greg Daniels of The Office, he lamented that the current union contracts having no tenable provision for participation in "cheap and disposable" webisodes, for example.
When I mention that I was blown away by the behind-the-scenes peek at "What We Call The News" (which unfortunately no longer seems to be available on the JibJab site), Spiridellis explains the concept of "density" in web programming, which makes their videos not cheap and disposable. "People think it's just a little Flash animation, but these are significant production endeavours. In two minutes we fit the number of cuts and scene changes and characters that you might have in a 15 or 20 minute piece in normal television show pacing."
Article comments
1 - Clint Johnson
The reason that "television" will survive, even as it translates to the Internet as a deliver medium, is that creating quality episodic drama is expensive and that can't change. There are only so many good writers, directors, actors and editors to go around and they command a premium for their services. And it doesn't work to have a good writer and a so so director working with adequate actors, they all have to be there to bolster each other.
Canadian television producers have bigger budgets than any online content producer and they still fail to deliver quality content because the good creators and talent have moved to the US where the money is.
The chances that you can get five good writer, a good director and a dozen good actors to work for next to nothing... it is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable.
And even if that 0.000000001% possibility panned out, you would be relegated to a very narrow selection of material that could be created with any semblance of production values.
Sanctuary is there with production values but that costs over half a million dollars per 15-18 minute episode... and as far as I can tell, they are paying the talent largely with participation in a financial venture that is almost certain to be a money losing proposition.
You need deep pockets to create quality episodic drama and that can't change.
2 - Diane Kristine
Yup, that's pretty much Spiridellis' point, that the current system is great for producing hour and half hour productions for broadcast, and that won't change - there'll always be a market for that, and a short video, which is what the web does best, doesn't compete with that.
However, he points out - and I've heard this over and over again from TV industry people - that the system is not set up to do cheaper, shorter, made-for-web content. It hurts JibJab and it hurts teh TV industry, who are desperate to use the Internet to engage and build audiences. The next round of union contracts will either help or hinder the process, but there's other work to be done too.