Here’s To Productions has released a pilot episode for their new series Graduates, and it is good. Thirty minutes of good. In fact unlike the short form episodes favored by most web series studios, they’ve got a full half-hour TV-length pilot out.
Paul Gulyas, one third of the writing-producing trio (Jorge Gonzalez III and Patrick Beck comprise the other two) and HBO Lab veteran was on hand to answer a few questions:
Tubefilter: What inspired Graduates, and why did you choose to do this independently of HBO?
Around the same time Jorge found this article, I was able to attend a “conversation circle” at my work with Richard Plepler, co-president of HBO, and hear him talk about what made certain series in the HBO mosaic successful – and he used the term “core-gut connectors”. It’s something that really resonates with people beyond initial attractions; The Sopranos wasn’t about the mafia, it was about a guy in his 40’s struggling with family and advancing at work; Sex and the City wasn’t about four women trying to find the perfect guy, it was about a woman trying to find her home. And this connected with audience on an emotional level because they saw themselves and their own struggles in these stories and characters. And when Jorge showed me the “Odyssey Years” article, I thought– there really isn’t a core-gut connector for this demographic. The wanderers. And what better way to demonstrate this transition between adolescence and adulthood than three confused early-twenty year-olds in grad school, surrounded by partying undergrads, which they were themselves a year ago, but now have become peers of the faculty, pulling them like a tractor beam towards adulthood. And thus, Jorge, Patrick, and I wrote Graduates.
As for why we chose to do this independently of HBO Lab: we really wanted for this to remain ours, and we’re glad we did because it was a tremendous learning experience for all
of us to take a pilot from the very beginning– from conceptualizing and breaking a story, to rewrite after rewrite, to budgeting, casting, hiring a crew, a full five day shoot on location, months and months post-production, and now the marketing of it online and trying to get it seen by the right people. Wouldn’t trade that for the world, and we would have missed out if HBO Lab had taken the reigns. Also, HBO Lab is very strategic; everything we do is very calculated and purposeful. It is kind of counter-intuitive these days to release a half-hour piece of content on the web. I just don’t think it would have flown.Tubefilter: What will we see in future episodes? Are there any sponsorship leads on the horizon?
Tubefilter: How do you like working with a half-hour show format? Do you feel any particular advantages or disadvantages putting a 30 minute show out on the web?
Gulyas: We never had any intention of making this a web series with five minute episodes. The advantage of working on the web is that you don’t have restraints on how long you have to tell a story. You can take as little or as much time as you need. It’s very organic. Some people take that and make episodes a few minutes long. But we wanted to do something different and stand out. Because with the success of sites like Hulu, and other network sites streaming their shows on the web, we are seeing more and more people sitting down in front of their computers to watch long-form content.
We believe that this is the way internet entertainment is going and wanted to be some of the first independent content creators to compete with the networks for this particular web audience. Also, we understand it is hard for content to stand out in a content-saturated world. We thought going against the grain, doing something different by producing a half-hour episode that could be successful on the web as well as TV, would help get us attention. Really, who is going to notice a bunch of twenty-year olds putting out two minute episodes on the web anymore? It is extremely difficult. There are a few disadvantages to the half-hour though– it takes longer for people to get back to us, as they have to definitely set aside a part of their day to watch, unlike short internet content. But we’re surprised we haven’t had ANY comments complaining of it’s length or that we should shorten it. The response has all been overwhelmingly positive.
A major player in the burgeoning newsletter industry has made a sizable addition to its…
Meta has kicked off the week with a pair of announcements that should make its creator…
MrBeast continues to show us that he's in a league of his own as far as…
Jellysmack and StyleHaul alum Chas Stahl has joined GEM Studios, the digital content production wing…
John Oliver appreciates that his fans can watch his late-night show on YouTube, and Last Week Tonight fans are…
Footballco is betting on the growth of soccer in the United States. Over the past few…