Diary Of A Web Series: How To Score Your Web Series

[Editor’s Note: Welcome to Diary of a Web Series, the column that offers you an entertaining look into the machinations of a zero-budget web series made possible by an idea, fortitude, and democratized tools of production. For all the background on why we started publishing Diary of a Web Series – and why we think it’s great – check out the first installment right here. You can watch the web series the diary is about, too. It’s called STRAY and it’s good. Click here to watch it. And you can catch all the installments of Diary of a Web Series right here.]

Step one: Have money.

Step two: If step one was successful, skip all remaining steps.*

*Note: Step two applies to every single thing in life.

Step three: Have musician friends.

Step four: Like your musician friends. If they main Hanzo, skip to step six.

Step five: Like your musician friends’ music. If steps four and five are complete, skip to step nine.

Step six: Score your show with your friends’ music without telling them.

Step seven: No, don’t do that. That’s fucked up.

Step eight: OK, really jumped the shark on this format. Let’s get back to it.

Step nine:  Think of a song that matches tonally and thematically with a specific scene.

Step ten: Or think of a moody, ethereal love song and apply it to a masturbation scene – for irony, if such a thing exists post-Alanis Morissette.

Step eleven: Approach your musician friend with your cards very close to your vest.

Step twelve: DO NOT tell him about the masturbation scene yet.

Step thirteen: Shit, you told him, didn’t you?

Step fourteen: Your friend wasn’t offended and actually chuckled a bit. It’s cool. Phew!

Step fifteen: This is non-specific, not related at all to The Morning Sea’s “Lonely Hearts in the Cosmos,” which features in STRAY’s fourth episode, “Magic Man,” as Rich, the protagonist, jerks off.

Step sixteen: Adam Cohen is not Leonard Cohen’s son, not that this is about Adam Cohen and The Morning Sea, whose fan page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/themorningsea/. This is non-specific.

Step seventeen: Life, I wonder, will it take me under? I don’t know. (Sorry, I lost focus. I just like that song)

Step nineteen: Shit, I skipped one.

Step twenty: Go back to step eighteen.

Step twenty-one: This is step eighteen now.

Step twenty-two: Don’t write step-by-step articles. They suck.

Step twenty-three: Well, it depends.

Step twenty-four: Watch the show.

Step twenty-five: OK, I’m done.

Step twenty-six: No, I’m not.

Step twenty-seven: I really should have numbered these. It’s getting tough to spell them out.

Step twenty-eight: OK, now I’m really done. Your show is now scored.

Pablo Andreu is not a creator or a scriptwriter. He’s certainly not a filmmaker. He’s just a guy who decided to make a web series called STRAY. It’s a bromantic comedy in which a brash gay dude and a nerdy straight guy talk sex and relationships while reconnecting in New York City years after college. He hopes it’s funny. By some inscrutable alchemy, his scribblings have wormed their way into The New York Times, McSweeney’s and some others. Usually, you can find him babbling here: https://medium.com/@pdandreu

Photos by Alison Bourdon.