Ahead of the third edition of Melbourne WebFest, we are profiling all the official selections that will be screening 10-12 July at Deakin Edge.
The webisodes see classic Neighbours characters Drew Kirk (Dan Paris), Stingray Timmins (Ben Nicholas), David Bishop (Kevin Harrington) and Robbo Slade (Aaron Jakubenko) return to wreak havoc on Erinsborough. Mason Turner (Taylor Glockner) also makes a return, to fight the zombie invasion.
The series is a collaboration with Melbourne YouTuber Louna Maroun who stars as guest character Hope. Louna has also recorded a zombie themed version of the Neighbours theme tune, which aired as part of the series.
What was the biggest challenge you faced when bringing back dead characters?
Many of Neighbours’ most memorable scenes were the fantastic character deaths – Daphne, Jim, Madge – massive, tearjerker moments in Australian TV history. With so many to choose from (Erinsborough can be a dangerous place), whom do you bring back? We looked for characters that still had links to the current Ramsay Street residents.
Once we had our shortlist, the biggest challenge was tracking down the actors who played them and selling them on the concept. ‘Do you want to return to Neighbours and play a zombie?’ – not a call you’d expect to receive. Some actors had put Neighbours firmly in the past and others had moved on in their careers and stopped acting full time. Can you imagine how weird it would be returning to a workplace you left a decade ago? They needed a little coaxing to come back.
You have a large fan base on both Twitter and Instagram, how important was this when it came to promoting your web series? Can you tell us a bit about it?
Getting the word out is incredibly important. It’s one thing to make a piece of content, but quite another to get people to watch it. There’s an incredible amount of material on YouTube – how do you stand out?
We were lucky to be able to leverage the existing Neighbours subscriber base – over 700k across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. After the initial announcement of the project, we were careful to stagger the release of information and slowly tease which characters would be returning. All the time pointing to our release date. So when we released the first episode, our audience flocked to it.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome making this series?
Shooting six episodes a week, Neighbours is a bit of beast production-wise with two crews running simultaneously – one in studio and one on location. Actors are shared between both. Our challenge was to weave our shoot around the main series. So you’d have a day where you needed to shoot scenes between Susan, Karl and the resurrected Drew Kirk – but the hospital set was unavailable. So we had to build our own (in the corner of the digital office). Art department did a great job – I don’t think you can tell!
You’d also have issues where we’d have to complete a scene by a certain time, because five minutes later the actor was due on location. It meant we couldn’t fall behind – so some scenes were shot very quickly.
The scene where Karl, Paul and Amber are trapped inside Harold’s store had to be shot continuously, without cutting between takes, so that we could exit the studio before twenty crew members came in to shoot regular scenes. It added a heightened sense of pressure, which thankfully worked for the scene.
How do you reach your audience?
The web series was promoted via the Neighbours social media platforms – in addition to clips airing on Channel Ten immediately prior to the show during Halloween week. So if you were a Neighbours fan, it was hard to miss.
For the wider audience, we were lucky press took an interest – with a decent number of newspaper, magazine and blog write-ups. I had friend’s texting me whenever Louna’s amazing theme cover got played on radio. Still can’t believe it was on Triple J!
How do you finance your series?
Skip Ahead, a joint initiative between Screen Australia and YouTube, funded the series. They were looking to help YouTube content creators build their audiences – hence the partnership with Louna. The scheme is running again this year – highly recommend looking into it if you’ve a channel with 50k subs, or could partner with another channel to reach 70k.
Is your series an ongoing project? If so can you give us some clues about what comes next?
Unfortunately, professional actors, crew and zombies all cost money – so it isn’t possible for us to continue the series without investment. As a one off series set outside the regular continuity of Neighbours, I’m quite content with that (we did kill off virtually the entire suburb by the end).
As an extension of a TV series, Neighbours VS Zombies acted primarily as a promotional tool. Given the number of views and wider press coverage – I feel it succeeded in that regard, so would be keen to do another. Maybe as an annual Halloween special. The high-concept premise seemed to cut through and reach viewers that didn’t see our previous efforts that were tied more closely to the continuity of the show.
Personally, I would love to do something around time travel next… going back to the start of the show in 1985, and also see a glimpse of the future. Whatever the next project – I’d be keen to partner again with a YouTuber. Louna brought heaps of YouTube expertise and skills as a writer, director, actor and musician. A good chunk of her audience came across to follow her behind the scenes experiences, and see her acting in the webisodes. Read the comments – you can see the engagement there.
How long have you been making web series for?
My first was LOL in 2008 – a UK teen drama exploring peer pressure and social networking through the eyes of a fifteen year old. Shot independently, it was one of the first to use the Red One camera, which cost a small fortune to hire at the time. The web has changed a lot since then – our platform of choice was Blip, which has since been eclipsed.
Last year I went back and produced a second series of it, which picks up the characters in their twenties. All shot on the Blackmagic Pocket – which is cheap enough to own outright. Series two is still in post; the YouTube strategy needs a bit more work. It’s not enough to just put out the episodes…Between jobs working in TV I’ve kept returning to producing/writing/directing/shooting/editing web series – it’s addictive! In 2012 I made the brand funded Project Schoolies – a teen drama shot on the Gold Coast during actual schoolies week – and a project with The Janoskians for MTV. Since joining Neighbours, I’ve made three more series, Steph In Prison, Brennan On The Run and Neighbours VS Zombies.
When are you completely satisfied with your work?
When it gets millions of views? No. (Though that can be nice – and help get funding for the next web series). I suppose the most satisfying thing is to see engagement with an audience. If something’s working, or not, the YouTube community will tell you. LOL built up this small but keen fan base that would leave angry comments demanding the next episode be released sooner rather than later. They weren’t happy to wait a month between episodes – and I needed to change the production model to fix that. So, since then, with every series I’ve tried to release episodes weekly – or even better – daily. When you see tweets with fans creating artwork based on your characters, that’s incredibly cool and encouraging.There’s also something to be said for going out, making something on a shoestring budget and just having learnt something for the experience. That can be enough to make a project worthwhile.
What’s the magic formula for a successful web series?
Targeted audience. Regularly releasing content. Making a series that wouldn’t be done on TV. And being able to run it for two years without getting paid.
Neighbours VS Zombies on the web:
Watch Neighbours VS Zombies
Neighbours VS Zombies on Facebook
Neighbours VS Zombies on Twitter
Keep up to date with Melbourne Web Fest on twitter: @MelbWebFest.
La Trobe University is Melbourne WebFest’s exclusive learning partner.
