Directing The Web Series: Twenty Five

When I was a gangly tween, I used to write plays to perform for my parents with my two younger brothers. They generally involved anthropomorphism and power struggles, and, almost always, ended with the character I was playing claiming whatever throne was at stake despite the best efforts of my brothers’ characters. My directing “style” would probably best be classified as dictatorial; when my brother Sam complained about having to play a character named “Dog the Mom” (I was a 12-year-old Almodovar, basically), I would just threaten to drop his beloved stuffed husky out the window as a means of coercion.

For my first legitimate directing project, on a serialized web series that filmed this past spring, the conditions and stakes were slightly different. For one thing, there was a table filled with snack food within a ten yard radius at all times. I also like to think I wasn’t quite so tyrannical when it came to working with actors. But — at the risk of getting too Freshman English thesis statement here — there was a fundamental aspect, a certain quest to tell a personal story, that was the same, and which I think has run through almost all my different artistic endeavors.

Jordy Lievers

Blogging both personally and professionally for about six years now has helped me immeasurably in developing my voice as a writer and artist. I sometimes liken blogging to “cardio” for writers; you have to produce with intensive frequency, whether you’re in the mood to go to the gym or not. But in that sheer quantity, that massive output of material, you gain strength. And with that confidence, developed over time, comes a certain freedom to get inventive and weird with structure, diction and content — you begin to feel like you can express yourself fluently and clearly without the clouds of insecurity and doubt looming as large. Then eventually it’s as though you’re on this raft with your laptop, where – no matter how many people may be reading your work – it feels like no one is paying you any mind, in a way that’s liberating and serene and wonderful. When I was blogging for New York Magazine, I tried my best to forget about the audience entirely and just pretend I was writing e-mails to my brother about Sarah Palin or Justin Bieber or whoever.

Alex Trow

There is a similar “floating on the raft” quality to filmmaking, as well, I think. The essential difference, of course, is that there’s a bunch of people on the raft with you. The beginning of each stage is marked by some of the same insecurities and doubts, combined with the added challenge of not yet having a feel for the people around you. But then the collective hits a stride; everyone learns who likes fruit snacks and who likes Pop Chips; and you’re able to move at a steady clip, with the fluidity of an efficient blogger. Through the development of the script, the logistical complexities of pre-production, the strenuous long days of production, the tangled web of post-production, your group works in unison to steer the raft along, the horizon remaining somewhat hazy in the distance. (I have definitely squeezed every last drop out of this raft metaphor, I’m aware.) It’s all of these personal viewpoints and stories and ideas coming together, of course, that actually results in creation: it’s in the steering where the film is actually made. (I’m sorry, I can’t seem to stop.) Ultimately, I hope and suspect, our web series will feel as personal to each one of us, in ways subtle and grand, as a revealing blog post, a paragraphs-long e-mail to your sibling, or a five-minute play performed in your parents’ living room.