How to Produce a Comedy Series

I did a talk for the Austin Film Meet yesterday (Nov. 13, 2014), a group that works to connect media people here in Austin.  These types of organizations bring together people at different levels of the media business so they can network, job seek, learn, and generally get to know more and more people (an essential activity in the ever-unstable world that is media).

We met at CreateScape, a cool little facility here in Austin that hosts people who need workspace.  They also have a common area for meetings, which adapts nicely to a workshop or teaching space.

There were 20-25 people, a big range of ages (15 - 60’s?), some actors, some writers, all of whom were interested in creative work, storytelling, and, ultimately, in getting paid.

Which I guess in some ways is always my thing.  Yes, creativity, absolutely, crank that up as far into the stratosphere as you can.  But always, always, always get yourself paid.  It’s the difference between being able to sustain a life in any creative arts or going really, really broke.

The talk was essentially about producing comedy -- specifically, in web-series, or TV series.  Which means it could focus on how to be a producer, how to work specifically with comedy, how to get a series up and viable on the web, or how to break into TV comedy series.  Lots of stuff in all of that, so after we went through my background as a producer, we kind of just popped along according to questions people had that applied to what they’re doing now.  

One area that I thought was useful was going over how I approached things as a producer, what a producer brain sees when it comes upon a project.  Being a producer is different than being a writer, or director -- a producer is a blend of creative vision with project management vision.  The project manager role requires that you make sure every element of the project is done well, all the way from development of the concept, to hiring/firing, scripting, marketing, pay, legals, insurance -- you name it, the producer is supposed to be on top of it.  This in addition to having enough creative soul to see what’s good and what isn’t, and to help the core creatives on the project bring something to life that is actually good, or even great.

That’s a lot.  And it’s why producers are absolutely essential in media work. And great producers are golden.

So, that’s a little overview of what went on during the talk, next week in my post I’ll lay out the specific creative and project management elements I look for in a comedy web series.  In the meantime, thanks to Judith Ruder for setting up the talk, thanks to Cherdon Bedford of Humblebee Media for running the Austin Film Meet, thanks to Keller Davis of Createscape, and check out two of the web-series put together by attendees, The Local Fix, produced by Jimmy Preston, and The Pantless Detective, produced by Dipu Bhattacharya and Tom Chamberlain.

And, as always, if you want to check and see if a monthly professional mentoring service ($100 flat rate for whatever you want to work on) is right for getting your projects to completion, developing your creative skills to a competitive level, and plotting your way through both sales and a creative career, pop me a note at danmentorscomedywriters@gmail.com.

- d