The writer/director/producer behind two of the buzziest TV-on-the-internet series spoke to us about fundraising, making great TV on donated budgets, and why this is the golden age of web series.
Writer/director/producer Adam Goldman already has one successful series under his belt, and he's just embarked on his second one. That both series were produced for internet streaming and both funded with crowd-sourced Kickstarter campaigns doesn't set Goldman apart from the pack the way it might have done years ago.
Rather, it's the quality of the product and the enthusiasm of the fanbase that has distinguished first The Outs (which debuted in March of 2012 and concluded this past April) and now Whatever This Is (which released its first episode on July 31st and follows up with its second on September 10th). With a successful Kickstarter that raised over $170k to fund a full season of Whatever This Is, Goldman is hard at work putting his second web series into the universe ... even if web series may not be the optimal terminology. We spoke with Goldman about his projects, Kickstarter, and the freedoms and constrictions that come with making TV that's not specifically on TV.
Tribeca: So first of all, congratulations on the Kickstarter success.
Adam Goldman: Thank you, thanks a lot.
Tribeca: That's fantastic. I was following it as it went down to the wire on that last day -- it was like entertainment and sports at the same time.
AG: Yeah.
"People said Nobody is going to want to watch something that is 12 minutes long online. And I had to say you know I bet they will if it's good."
Tribeca: So can you explain the idea behind the escalation of the Kickstarter goal from I think it was ultimately $24,000 that you got for The Outs to the goal of $165,000 for Whatever This Is.
AG: Absolutely. I mean with The Outs you know we had our first episode in 48 hours for about $500, and we went to Kickstarter and we asked for $1,000 and we made $1600, and then for the second Kickstarter for The Outs we asked for $8,000 to finish up the show, which was low and we knew that we were kind of low-balling it, and we were hoping to exceed that because even though we weren't really going to be able to pay anybody, you know, just equipment rental and paying people to shoot at places that weren't just their apartments costs money, so we would have be able to finish the show in some form with $8,000, but it would not be what it is right now. And because people like the show and because of the way Kickstarter works, we raised $22,000, which was well over our goal, obviously, which was hugely encouraging.
People are now going, Yeah, if it's produced and it's written and it's acted like it's television, then it is television, and I will watch it on my laptop.
Tribeca: Sure.
AG: And that allowed us to finish up the show. But with Whatever This Is, you know I talk about this a lot. We don't purport to take any responsibility for this but if you look for the release schedule for The Outs, it turns pretty clearly with the way that people have evolved the way that they watch television online. And when we started The Outs the first episode is 12 minutes and people said fuck you, nobody is going to want to watch something that is 12 minutes long online. And I had to sort of say you know I bet they will if it's good. And then by our last episode they sort of grew and grew and the last one is 43 minutes and by the time out last episode was out, House of Cards was out and Netflix has been so huge in that arena.
So it really does chart pretty clearly with the way that people are now going, Yeah, if it's produced and it's written and it's acted like it's television, then it is television, and I will watch it on my laptop. And anyway, people are watching TV on Hulu and all that stuff. The point is that with Whatever This Is, we said look we are going to make six episodes of 25-minute television. And if you are in the UK, that's a whole season of television.
Tribeca: Right.
AG: And so we said look we are going to be doing this work, and we are proud of the work I really believe that we are doing it better than almost anyone out there on an indie level. There is no reason the people should be doing this for free in their off time. And so we said we want to be able to pay our DP and we want to be able to pay our PAs, we want to be able to down the line say the people that make this show happen are artists. They are doing work. They are not doing this for kicks, although of course we do enjoy it.
Tribeca: Right
AG: So we said we can't do that for $22,000 and we can't do that for $50,000. If the 30 to 40 people who are breaking their backs to make this show are going to work on it for the first season, they are going to need to pay their rent, and it really is not about nobody is getting rich on Whatever This Is. It's just about making sure people can pay their rent, and they can eat dinner, and that's kind of the beginning and the end of it. On Kickstarter, $165,000 dollars is a lot of money, and in a pile, 165,000 dollars is a lot of money. But if you look at television, a sitcom costs on average $1.7 million per episode, so this is small fries compared to industry budget. That's how we got there. People don't really know, with Kickstarter, Kickstarter takes 5% of what you get, and Amazon takes 5% of what you get for processing the transaction, so [out of] $165 we make $150. There's a big difference there once you get up into the bigger numbers.
It wasn't like I was a complete idiot about it, but I had never produced anything on this level of sophistication.
Tribeca: So before, sort of backtracking a bit, what was your experience filmmaking before The Outs? Was this sort of like jumping in with both feet
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The writer/director/producer behind two of the buzziest TV-on-the-internet series spoke to us about fundraising, making great TV on donated budgets, and why this is the golden age of web series. 
