A still from Pablo Larraín’s Profugos. International Film Festival of Rotterdam
HBO standars have brought TV series into a Golden Era. Since the nineties, when shows like The Sopranos or The Wire shocked the audience with complex and layered plots and deep characters, more and more directors have stepped back from the big screen into television to find a more comfortable place to develop their stories.
David Lynch had his share with Twin Peaks, Gus Van Sant as well, and Martin Scorsese did the same three years ago when he led the production of Boardwalk Empire. Some directors, though, have become icons thanks to television, that is the case of Joss Whedon (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Firefly) or J.J.Abrams (Lost).
The expansion of HBO
So it isn’t strange that the film industry had to change its direction and focus on the small screen. Nowadays, HBO is exporting his successful model into other countries. Such as Chile, where acclaimed director Pablo Larraín (whose film No is nominated for the Oscars) has been backed by the big company to create Prófugos, a story of corruption and Mafia but also a vision of the past and present of Chile through the eyes of marginal characters.
In Poland, HBO helped director Agnieszka Holland to develop Burning Bush, a historical series about the political situation of Czech Republic in the late 1960s, after the tragic suicide of Prague student Jan Palach, who set fire to himself as a protest against Soviet occupation.
A scene from Burning Bush. International Film Festival of Rotterdam
Also Chilean director Sebastián Silva developed, in the USA, his story The Boring Life of Jacqueline, about an unemployed actress in New York. This project in particular shows the blurred frontier between TV and the Internet, since it is an exclusive production for HBO Digitals.
However, the rising force of this “chopped storytelling” makes possible for script writers and directors to build a project without such a big financing support. In Brazil, Felipe Bragança is working in a transmedia production about the counter-culture tradition of the clauns or clóvis, that will consist in a three episode TV series, a graphic novels and a bunch of webisodes.
Internet-based small productions
The digital revolution, though, has widened the window to almost anybody who has an idea and a video camera. ‘Webisode’ is no longer a neologism as YouTube has become a huge platform with an enormous potential audience.
And success is possible. The Misadventures of a Black Awkward Girl has been bought by ABC network after two seasons shown entirely on Youtube. Also The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Blank has been produced directly to the web, but with finantial support by AMC.
But still many series creator have to rely on the “point-and-click” audience and manage to get a recurrent audience, such as Muscle Top, I Hate Being Single or The Eric Andre Show.
Promotional image from Muscle Top. International Film Festival of Rotterdam
The times, though, they are a-changing and with the numerous digital devices that we have nowadays the attention is shifting slowly toward the smaller screens and the Internet, so it is pretty sure to say that there’s nothing but future in this projects.
Also, the VoD and streaming platforms are going to attract more filmmakers to the web and the quality of the new products surely will be better each year. We only have to wait and enjoy.
Be sure to check the Signals: Changing Channels programme, a selection conducted by Inge de Leeuw.
Carlos Carvajal 