Failed Screenwriter

By now you've probably heard that quarterlife bombed on NBC, the experiment to bring a popular scripted web video to prime time television a failure. Josh Catone on ReadWriteWeb, argues that it might not have been that much of a bomb all things considered. And according to reporter Scott D. Pierce it wasn't that bad.

No, "quarterlife" wasn't bad. And the one episode of the 2006 Heather Graham's "Emily's Reasons Why Not" that aired in 2006 was pretty good. (Although word was that the writers exhausted all their talent in that half-hour.)

The thought that they may have exhausted their efforts in one half-hour episode is an interesting one. Even Will Ferrell has been unable to keep the momentum going on his site funnyordie.com.

Even with the benefit of perspective, the gulf is stark. Mark D. Kvamme, a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital, financed the comedian Will Ferrell’s funnyordie.com last year, which has had only one runaway hit, “The Landlord” video.

- New York Times article - Bridging the Gap, the Sequel

Everyone knows that to be successful on the web videos must be short - shorter the better. However that doesn't leave much room to develop a plot or characters - the very things that keep us coming back each week with popular television shows. ReadWriteWeb simply asks the question, Is scripted web video failing?

If the scripted web video has failed to catch on, you might blame the attention deficit audience rather than the content or format. Where as watching television is habit, affording it more leeway, the web has yet to reach such a plateau. And it may never reach such a plateau, requiring the entertainment of the future to be drastically different than anything we see today. We won't be able to simply transition today's formats to the new medium. We're already seeing the death of scheduled programing with DVRs . We may see the same fate for scripted series and it might go even beyond that. But we shouldn't see this as the dearth of rich entertainment, rather we should see it as an opportunity for experimentation. The introduction of photography certainly hurt painting, but also allowed artists to experiment and produce what fills our art galleries today. I of course greatly look forward to the experimentation in interactive story. The entire purpose of immersive drama is to kick start that experimentation in interactive story.