Create Your Own Sharable Web Series

1. Create Your Own Webseries - Introduction: In today's class, I'm excited to help you identify and flesh out your very own web series. We will use brainstorming skills, television packaging tools, and an outside in approach to help you find the core of your web series. And then we will flush it out into an actual shell. By the end of the class, you will have a logline with which you can communicate and one brief sentence, what your web series is. You will know what value an emotional impact you're providing with your web series. And you will have a treatment that you can register with the Library of Congress and which will also function as your roadmap going forward into the physical production. To get the most out of this class, it is important that you complete all of the worksheets thoughtfully and thoroughly, that you do all of the homework assigned and that you participate in the group discussions. You are here because you have an interest in sharing yourself, your work, and your message with the world. The world wants to hear it. But before we dive into the lessons, I would like to share an observation that I have made working with web series creators. While a lot of these creators knew exactly what they wanted to achieve with their web series and where they wanted the web series to go. A lot of them did not anticipate some of the surprising outcomes of creating their web series. For some doors have opened up that they didn't even know existed. Others have found love and even redefine their career paths. As you embark on this very exciting journey of building your own web series, I urge you to stay open to surprises. Anytime we engage in the act of creation, we build momentum and we expand. This momentum and expansion can feel uncomfortable at times, but it is not unlike skiing. So when you're on that hill and gravity is pulling you down, The best thing to do is to lean in and see where it takes you. I hope you will lean into this process and you will complete this journey with me. And I look forward to seeing all of your projects and the comments sections below. Now, let's get started. In this lesson, we will look at some of the ways people are creating web series. And we will identify what it is you would like to accomplish with yours. What is your why? Your y is very important? That's perhaps one of the most important things you can identify early on. Because it is your why that ultimately will be the fuel that gets you from where you are right now to the finish line where you will share your work with the world to help you identify your why. We have created a worksheet that you can complete at the end of this lesson. Before you sit down and do this worksheet, I do want to share some examples of web series with you. These are creators that I personally know because I know these individuals. I know why they created their web series in the first place. And I'm also privy to some additional information, mainly some consequences of their web series that they did not anticipate that may or may not be public knowledge. As I mentioned in the intro of this class, sometimes you don't know what may come out of your web series. And I'm hoping that giving these examples can be a little inspiring for you. The first web series I'd like to highlight is Professor Dave explains. Professor Dave of course is none other than high school chemistry teacher and lonely wild drummer. They foramina. Now the thing about Dave for arena is that he has a rebellious side. So working at a high school is not exactly his cup of tea, but he loves to teach and he's very good at it. If you look up, Professor Dave explains on YouTube, you'll see that he has quite a bit of a following. And he has made a niche for himself explaining complex scientific concepts. A clear and concise way. People from around the world will take his classes and comment on how great of a teacher he is. Now an outcome that he did not anticipate. That came right out of his web series, was being contacted by Discovery Science Channel to be an expert on one of their television shows. The second web series creator I'd like to highlight is the actor and director named Reza Amir. I meant Reza a few years ago when I was helping a comedian friend of mine named cave on shoot a series of comedy videos for his website. Reza was helping out as an actor. And onset, I found out that he had created his own web series years ago. And that he had produced a short film in order to showcase his acting and directing abilities. Some months later, Angie and I invited Reza to be a guest on our podcast web series MD. He shared with us during this interview that he had recently gotten his teaching credentials and that he was a high school history teacher looking for a job. Now, Angie as a high school English teacher, and she knew that there was a history position coming available soon. Long story short raises little swap array into web series creating led him to getting a staff job at a high school as a history teacher and outcome, he definitely did not anticipate. Now the third web series creator I'd like to highlight is the comedian K. Vaughan, who was the reason I met Rosa in the first place. Those web series that I help them produce. Some years ago, he was able to put some of those together into a short film and release them through the festival circuit. The comedy writer and director, David Zuckerberg, whom you might know from airplane, the naked guns and so many other wonderful comedies, saw K1s work and hired him to be in several of the funny videos that he produced for the committee platform named circa laughs. Again, an outcome that cave on had not anticipated while producing his videos several years ago. I hope you find these stories inspiring. I know I do. I love knowing why people do the work they do, because that's what's going to get you through actually doing the work. And then once the work is produced and goes into the world, It's like a little child. You don't quite know what it's going to do and what it's going to bring home. So find that, why do this worksheet? Be honest, dig deep. Because you will need this y to get you through the rest we are using in this class and outside in approach. What does that mean? That means we're going to start very general. And then we're going to work our way slowly into the details lesson by lesson. So at this stage in the class, we want to stay very general with your answers. And why do we do that? It's because we want maximum impact. We want as many ideas as possible and getting too specific too fast. We'll limit our creativity. Later on, we'll have plenty of time to tinker with the details and become specific. But for now, we want to stay general. I will see you in the next lesson. 2. Know Your Why: In today's class, I'm excited to help you identify and flesh out your very own web series. We will use brainstorming skills, television packaging tools, and an outside in approach to help you find the core of your web series. And then we will flush it out into an actual shell. By the end of the class, you will have a logline with which you can communicate and one brief sentence, what your web series is. You will know what value an emotional impact you're providing with your web series. And you will have a treatment that you can register with the Library of Congress and which will also function as your roadmap going forward into the physical production. To get the most out of this class, it is important that you complete all of the worksheets thoughtfully and thoroughly, that you do all of the homework assigned and that you participate in the group discussions. You are here because you have an interest in sharing yourself, your work, and your message with the world. The world wants to hear it. But before we dive into the lessons, I would like to share an observation that I have made working with web series creators. While a lot of these creators knew exactly what they wanted to achieve with their web series and where they wanted the web series to go. A lot of them did not anticipate some of the surprising outcomes of creating their web series. For some doors have opened up that they didn't even know existed. Others have found love and even redefine their career paths. As you embark on this very exciting journey of building your own web series, I urge you to stay open to surprises. Anytime we engage in the act of creation, we build momentum and we expand. This momentum and expansion can feel uncomfortable at times, but it is not unlike skiing. So when you're on that hill and gravity is pulling you down, The best thing to do is to lean in and see where it takes you. I hope you will lean into this process and you will complete this journey with me. And I look forward to seeing all of your projects and the comments sections below. Now, let's get started. In this lesson, we will look at some of the ways people are creating web series. And we will identify what it is you would like to accomplish with yours. What is your why? Your y is very important? That's perhaps one of the most important things you can identify early on. Because it is your why that ultimately will be the fuel that gets you from where you are right now to the finish line where you will share your work with the world to help you identify your why. We have created a worksheet that you can complete at the end of this lesson. Before you sit down and do this worksheet, I do want to share some examples of web series with you. These are creators that I personally know because I know these individuals. I know why they created their web series in the first place. And I'm also privy to some additional information, mainly some consequences of their web series that they did not anticipate that may or may not be public knowledge. As I mentioned in the intro of this class, sometimes you don't know what may come out of your web series. And I'm hoping that giving these examples can be a little inspiring for you. The first web series I'd like to highlight is Professor Dave explains. Professor Dave of course is none other than high school chemistry teacher and lonely wild drummer. They foramina. Now the thing about Dave for arena is that he has a rebellious side. So working at a high school is not exactly his cup of tea, but he loves to teach and he's very good at it. If you look up, Professor Dave explains on YouTube, you'll see that he has quite a bit of a following. And he has made a niche for himself explaining complex scientific concepts. A clear and concise way. People from around the world will take his classes and comment on how great of a teacher he is. Now an outcome that he did not anticipate. That came right out of his web series, was being contacted by Discovery Science Channel to be an expert on one of their television shows. The second web series creator I'd like to highlight is the actor and director named Reza Amir. I meant Reza a few years ago when I was helping a comedian friend of mine named cave on shoot a series of comedy videos for his website. Reza was helping out as an actor. And onset, I found out that he had created his own web series years ago. And that he had produced a short film in order to showcase his acting and directing abilities. Some months later, Angie and I invited Reza to be a guest on our podcast web series MD. He shared with us during this interview that he had recently gotten his teaching credentials and that he was a high school history teacher looking for a job. Now, Angie as a high school English teacher, and she knew that there was a history position coming available soon. Long story short raises little swap array into web series creating led him to getting a staff job at a high school as a history teacher and outcome, he definitely did not anticipate. Now the third web series creator I'd like to highlight is the comedian K. Vaughan, who was the reason I met Rosa in the first place. Those web series that I help them produce. Some years ago, he was able to put some of those together into a short film and release them through the festival circuit. The comedy writer and director, David Zuckerberg, whom you might know from airplane, the naked guns and so many other wonderful comedies, saw K1s work and hired him to be in several of the funny videos that he produced for the committee platform named circa laughs. Again, an outcome that cave on had not anticipated while producing his videos several years ago. I hope you find these stories inspiring. I know I do. I love knowing why people do the work they do, because that's what's going to get you through actually doing the work. And then once the work is produced and goes into the world, It's like a little child. You don't quite know what it's going to do and what it's going to bring home. So find that, why do this worksheet? Be honest, dig deep. Because you will need this y to get you through the rest we are using in this class and outside in approach. What does that mean? That means we're going to start very general. And then we're going to work our way slowly into the details lesson by lesson. So at this stage in the class, we want to stay very general with your answers. And why do we do that? It's because we want maximum impact. We want as many ideas as possible and getting too specific too fast. We'll limit our creativity. Later on, we'll have plenty of time to tinker with the details and become specific. But for now, we want to stay general. I will see you in the next lesson. 3. The Viral Formula: Now that we have a general idea of your why, it is time to get a little bit more specific with it and dig into it a little bit. And to help us get there, I'd like to introduce this idea of viral videos. Is there some kind of a viral formula? And the answer to that, of course, is no, there isn't. Nobody really knows what makes videos go viral. And to demonstrate that, I'd like to give you the example of circle laughs. Circle laughs is a Facebook channel that is dedicated to creating viral videos. So all they do all day long is right, comedy skits and create videos that they hope will somehow touched the Xite guys and catch on fire. They use a distribution company that pushes this content out. So the first several thousand views that they get on every video is pretty much paid for. Beyond that, it's up to the video to catch fire. Now when we go through all of the videos on circle Laughs, It is interesting to point out that yes, they do have quite a few videos that have millions of views, but they also have just many, if not more videos that have tens of thousands of views. And many are only in the five to 6 thousand view range. And remember that the first several thousand are paid for. What this should tell you is that even a company that is purely focused on creating viral videos cannot predict what people will respond to and what people will share. How then can we create content that is shareable? What I found is that the easiest, most effective way to make your video shareable is to provide value. Value is so important because what I find is that when you start thinking in terms of value about your videos, then you're going to do certain things quite naturally. If you're thinking about the value you're providing, then you care about your viewer. And as a result, you will naturally create content that is better, smarter, and user-focused. You will also respect your viewers time, and therefore, you'll create shorter content that is entertaining. And to the point, you also, we'll think more about your viewer as an individual rather than a demographic. And therefore, you will create content that is more targeted and effective. Also, you will be more creative and you'll be more inventive in the way that you communicate with your viewer. When you ask yourself that very important question, how can I provide value? You start finding out that value can come in a lot of different ways. You can provide value through information, through humor, through connectivity, emotional connection, community, entertainments, suspense, and in so many other ways, the value that you provide will be unique to your project and your gifts to the world. For now, take a few minutes and complete the attached worksheet. The next lesson, we will expand on this idea of value and how it connects to people in emotional ways. See you in the next lesson. 4. Emotional Impact: I hope that as you went through the lesson to worksheet, you are able to see the correlation between value and emotions. Some of the most effective value that we provide is almost always emotional. It connects with people on some deep emotional level. And to demonstrate this, I'd like to share with you two of my favorite web series and tell you what value I receive from them and what emotions they trigger within me. The first web series I'd like to cover assignments, cat, Simon's Cat has been one of my favorite web series for years. It is created by the animators Simon TO field, who basically based the series on his experiences with his own cats. Simon is brilliant at capturing the bizarre behavior of his cats through his art. And with over 4.5 million subscribers, he's doing something right? Well, what value does he provide for me? I love these videos because they make me laugh. So humor is definitely one of the values he provides. I've never had my own cats, but I have cat sat for friends before. And I can tell you from experience that once you've hung out with cats, you will relate to Simon's videos in a whole new way. So they provide community. That's another value. But what are the emotions triggered by these videos? For me, I feel a sense of joy. So that great sense of humor that Simon brings into his videos definitely translates into elevating my emotional state of being. There is also a feeling of newness and the details that Simon captures that makes me feel like I'm somehow in on a grand joke. And then there's a feeling of belonging. I've sent Simon's Cats videos to anyone I know who owns a cat. Because it makes me feel like I belong to this community of people who understand the strange behavior of cats. The second creator I'd like to highlight is the satirist. Maddox ever been eating an apple and think, man, I wonder if I'm doing this right. Yeah, me neither. Welcome to the best show on the universe. I Maddox, I am probably not Maddox as main demographic, but even so, I get value out of his videos. And the main valuated receive is that of humor. All share Maddox has videos with my friends because he says things I would never say out loud. And he says them in a way that is rude but hilarious. The other value I receive from Maddox as videos is information. I may not agree with his opinions about this information, but I get a perspective that I can either strongly agree or disagree with. Going back to the emotion that Maddox has videos triggered within me, I have to admit that one of those emotions is the feeling of being cool. Through Maddox, I get a glimpse into a world that I may know little about. And there's a sense of novelty in that and I like it. Now before you move on to the next lesson, be sure to complete the accompanying worksheet. It will not only help you dig a little bit more deeply into your values and identify the emotions you would like to trigger within your audience. But the questions will also help you fine tune your y, which is so important to this journey. And once you're done, I will see you in lesson four where we start digging even more deeply into the gift you would like to give to the world. 5. What's Your Gift?: By now you should have a good sense of what value would like your audience to walk away with by watching your web series. You should also have an idea of what emotional impact you would like to have on your audience. And all of that feeds into why you're doing this in the first place. We create because we want to share a piece of ourselves with the world. In this lesson, we will talk about your gift. What is it that you are specifically sharing with the world? These are skills that you might have. These are ideas that you might have. These are theories you might have. We want to be quiet, uninhibited in this lesson and come up with as many of your gifts as possible. The value you provide is emotional, the gift you share is practical, and all of us are multifaceted. There are many things that are good at, and there are many things we could be sharing with an audience. So don't inhibit yourself, don't limit your creativity. Just go with it and put as many ideas on the wall as possible. Here's what you'll need. Post-its Sharpies, a blank wall, a quiet place, and the timer. So I'm standing here in front of my blank wall holding my post-it and my sharpie, and I'm ready to brainstorm. And how do we go about it? The rules are quite simple. We're going to set a timer for 20 minutes. And during those 20 minutes, all you will do is come up with gifts that you can share with the world. For example. Thinking about it, I think writing that is one of my gifts. And it's one idea per posted and I write it down or I sketch it out and I put it on the wall. I can put web series creation. Again, one idea and I put it on the wall. But you knew these things about me. There are other gifts I can offer to the world, cooking, for example, I am quite a home chef, networking, painting, murals. Remember, your gifts are skills that you have. Knowledge that you possess, things that you're really good at, that you could be sharing with the world. So don't hold back anything that you're interested in, anything that you're good at, anything that people come to you for advice on, put it on a post-it and put it on your wall. And at the end of the 20 minutes, if you feel like you need more time, set the timer for another 20 minutes and really challenge yourself to get through the whole thing. Whatever you do, do not stop the timer. Keep brainstorming, keep thinking. Also, you don't want to get bogged down by any of these. So don't go down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how you would turn any of them into a web series. At this point, we're only focusing on your gift, nothing more. So your homework for this lesson is to brainstorm, set your timer for 20 minutes, and come up with as many ideas as you can about what your gifts are that you can share to the world. And at the very end, take a photograph of your wall and posted in the discussion session and share it with all of us. And we'll see you in the next lesson where we start narrowing things down. 6. Getting To The What: Now that we've gotten our brainstorming feet wet, we're going to use this technique to dig into your gifts a little bit more and figure out exactly what it is that you would like to create as your web series. Creating a web series requires an incredible amount of commitment. It requires time, money, resort any resources that you are willing or able to throw at it. It requires your energy, your ability to ask people for help. Now because of that, we want to pick a concept that is really exciting for us. So from this point on forward, we are going to use our heart, our gut, as a guiding mechanism to get us that concept that will get us excited. Now our y, we'll do that partially. It'll give us some fuel. Now if we can figure out what that, what is that excites us the combination of the why and the what will get us through practically anything. So how do we use the heart and the gut as guiding mechanisms? First of all, let's go back to the wall. As you read through your wall of gifts, I want you to just quiet your mind for a bit. We tend to do a lot of thinking. Don't think anymore. I know that's counter-intuitive, but don't think about the practicality of what it is you're offering or what it is. People want to see what it is you think your audience wants, what it is. You know, your friends told you should do. Just look at your wall, look at your gifts, and really tap into how they make you feel. Is there one out of these that makes you feel a little bit more excited? It makes your heart flutter a bit. Or is there one that Nazi your stomach into, into a ball of worry because you don't know how in the world you're going to communicate that, or it will make you way too vulnerable if you go down that path. For me, I can tell you that writing gets my heart beating a little faster. I want to share this with everyone. Design on the other hand, even though I've created websites and done a lot of marketing materials, it makes me nervous to talk about design. Same with public speaking. I've been public speaking for the last 20 years. And yet, the idea of talking about it and sharing about it makes me a little nervous. Good talk about web series creation, which is exactly what we're doing in this class. You'll find that you'll have some leftover, some ideas leftover that don't affect you emotionally in one way or another. In this class, we're going to focus on the ideas that excite you. But I do urge you to also look at the ones that scare you a bit. Because the ones that scare you are the ones that are going to force you to tap into some vulnerable space. And when you tap into that vulnerable space, magical things tend to happen. Now, I've gone ahead and removed all of the gifts that I did not have an emotional reaction to. I have kept the ones that excite me, but also the ones that make me a little bit nervous because I do want to look at those as well. In this area in-between and this empty space. That's where we're going to do our brainstorming and we'll come up with as many concepts for your show as possible. Now, your gift is what you are sharing with the world. The show, the concept that web series. That's the vehicle with which your gift enters the home of your audience. There are infinite number of ways you can bring your knowledge about any topic for me about writing, about cooking, about design into my audiences home. And that's what we're going to be brainstorming here. The idea here is simple. We're going to set our timer again. And then we're going to look at all of these gifts, the ones that excite us and also the ones that make us a little bit nervous. And we're going to see what ideas come out of them. For example, looking at my wall, I can already come up with an idea of doing an interview show in my kitchen where I would bring people in. I would just interview on different topics. What you'll find is that as you start going down the brainstorming rabbit hole, new ideas will just pop up on top of each other. For instance, the moment I thought of that interview show in the kitchen, I also thought of a cooking show where I would make 365 different dishes from 365 different countries. One for every single day of the year. Ambitious was kinda cool. Again, at this point, we are not going to get into the logistics of how I would do that or why I would do that, or what that would look like. They're just ideas. So just put them on the post that and stick them on the wall. So set your timer, come up with as many ideas as you can. Don't analyze them. If you get to the end of the 20 minutes and you think, Oh my gosh, I can go a little bit more. Set your timer for another ten minutes or 20 minutes, and make sure that you brainstormed the entire time. Once you set that timer, Don't stop it. Even if you have to sit there and think for two or three minutes, just sit there and think and something will pop up. What you'll find is that as you're brainstorming the low-hanging fruit of ideas, they'll just like drop. But sometimes there's gold at the top of that tree. So we want to brainstorm to the point of exhaustion because sometimes that idea number 15 or 16, or 20 or 30, that's where your heart just goes, starts fluttering and you can literally can't wait to get started. So set that timer. Put your ideas on your wall, take a photograph of it and posted for us all to see. And I will see you in the next lesson. 7. Expand Into A Show: Whether you found the last brainstorming exercise really easy or the minutes just inched by. I hope that you have at least five or six ideas that you can work with at this point. Some of you might have dozens of ideas, maybe over 40 or 50, and that's wonderful. And some of you might have just five. And that's wonderful to at this point in the exercise, we are going to look a little bit deeper into the concepts, fine-tune them, and then also put them through the gut and the heart test and see which ones excited as which ones scare us and which ones we have no emotional reaction to. We have gone ahead and removed a row of gifts from up here just to give us a little bit more space to work with. At this stage, we want to look at every one of these concepts and look a little bit more deeply and examine how they make us feel. For example, I quite like this idea of cooking 365 different dishes from 365 different countries. I love that, but I have to admit the idea really terrifies me a little bit. I don't even know if I can generate that many videos. So I might adjust this to 52 and make it once a week rather than once a day. Much more manageable. And now it's an idea that makes me feel excited. So I can put it in the excited pile. I'm not going to put you through reading all of these ideas to you that I came up with during my brainstorm. But I will tell you that some of them excite me a little bit more than others and some of them are just plain out of nowhere. I don't know what to do with them. Even though I find them quite cool. For example, this cooking show here, cooking with kids while interviewing world leaders. I would watch that show. I'd love to be able to produce it that would be super cool, Not quite practical at this point, I think. And you'll find that some of these ideas are scripted and some of them are unscripted. Scripted basically means that you have a script and you have actors acting the script out. Unscripted is an interview show, a follow Doc where you're following somebody around or anything that is basically reality based. So some of these are scripted ideas. For example, this concept here, a motivational speaker who is a complete mess when not motivating. So I like this idea quite a bit. This would definitely be a scripted show and it excites me. I think that would be a really fun character to explore. As I mentioned, I do love this idea of the Cooking with the kids while interviewing world leaders scares me a little bit just because I don't know how to gain access to all of those world leaders, but maybe I can adjust that to celebrities. I know those are a lot easier for me to get to. Again, another example of a character that I would really like to explore is a writer who can't leave her apartment because of social anxiety. And maybe she has an imaginary friend. Maybe she talks to herself, writers or cookie anyways, and one with severe mental illness could be quite fun to write about. Another one of the ideas that I kinda like, but scares me a little bit just because of the time requirement, is this idea of going to different restaurants every week and interviewing the chef, maybe even getting a recipe from them. I think that would be really cool. And if I, if I really wanted to, I could come home and try to recreate that recipe and see if I can do it the way they do it. This one, logistically, I think it's scary, but I think it would be a really cool cooking show to watch. Now that you have separated your concepts into piles of, I'm super excited about this. It's getting my heart pumping faster. I like this idea, but it terrifies me a little bit. And I don't really have an emotional reaction one way or other. We're going to focus our attention on one of the ones that excite you that get your heart pumping a little bit faster. As we answer the lesson six questionnaire. Lesson six questionnaire is a two-page questionnaire that will get you to think a little bit more deeply about your concept. It'll have you refine what your concept is and actually write out what the show would look like if it's scripted, if it's unscripted, what the tone of the show is going to be, what the structure of the show is going to be, and what we can expect in every episode. So at this point, now that you have your concept, we are building it out just a little bit. Once you are done answering the questions to the lesson six questionnaire, go ahead and scan it in or take pictures of every page and post it in the comments section below so that we can participate in your journey of building out your web series. And I will see you in Lesson seven where we continue digging into your show. 8. The Treatment AKA Your Roadmap: Now that you have identified the format, structure, tone, genre, and value of your show, it's time to dig into the nitty-gritty details of it a little bit more. In this lesson, we will expand your show a little bit further and we'll make more decisions that will refine and define what your web series actually is. Then we will use this information to write a treatment. Before we move into writing your treatment, I would like to highlight a few web series creators who have stood out for me. The first creator I'd like to highlight is the very funny comedian and photographer, Molly hockey. Now, Molly last year decided she wanted to be on the Bachelor, except she's probably too old to be on the Bachelor, and she loves that show. So she decided she's going to create a web series where she edits herself into the bachelor episodes. So her web series was very time-sensitive. 1 ninth bachelor would be on television, and the next day she would release the deleted footage from the episode of Bachelor online in her web series. She would basically cut herself and footed from the Bachelor together as though they were deleted scenes from the actual shell. So she was a contestant on the show but only lived online. Now, Molly realize that under the new digital media categories, you could potentially be eligible for an Emmy nomination. And she started a new Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the application fees. She raised more money than she needed you. Some of those funds to also purchase some park benches with her name and her face on them. The second web series creator I'd like to highlight is Byron lane. Byron is also a very funny writer. He's just such an incredibly talented actor and a fun guy to be around. Now, Byron years ago created a web series called herpes boy, who was a boy with a birthmark that looked like herpes. The web series became very popular and then it was made into a feature film starring Octavia Spencer. Years later, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. And what does he do? Of course, he makes a web series about it, a very hilarious web series about being diagnosed with cancer and having to tell his family and his lover and the tumor actually makes an appearance as a person in it. Byron's beautifully written web series has touched many people around the world. People have written about it and tweeted about it. And it has also opened career doors for him. I hope that you find inspiration in these two ab series as well as all the other ones we've talked about as you go into writing your treatment. One of the most important cells tools that I use to package and sell television shows is a treatment. A treatment is sort of a mini bible. It tells us what the show is, what happens in every episode, what the format of it as, what the genre is, what the tone of it is, and also who all the characters are and what their relationships are, what the main conflict in the show is, and so on. You can use your treatment to protect your idea by registering it with the Library of Congress, are with the Writers Guild of America. Or you can use your treatment to raise funds or support for your project by showing that you are actually very excited about this project. You're serious about it and you have all the details figured out more than anything else. Your treatment will be your roadmap. It will be the thing that guides you back in line when you lose your footing a little bit to help you figure out how to write the treatment and to generate the content you need for it. We have created all the worksheets that you'll see in lesson six and then Lesson seven. In the lesson seven worksheet, you will write a synopsis. Synopsis is basically your concept expanded into an actual shell. So when somebody reads this synopsis, they should get a sense of what the tone of the show is, what the structure is, what happens in every episode and in the season. And they should also get a sense of who the main characters are and what some of those relationships are. And then we will simmer down that synopsis into its very core. And we will find that one through line, that one log line that tells us the story of the entire season in one sentence, that logline will not only be the basis of your elevator pitch, but it will also keep you on track whenever you start wavering. So really take your time and see what the core of your show is and what that sentences. Because that is perhaps one of the most important things you'll do in Europe treatment in this lesson, we've also included a character breakdown sheet that will get you to understand and get to know your characters a little bit better. This is really important as you go into writing your web series because you really want to know how your characters think and get into their heads. And you want to know what the relationships between those characters are as you write them out. Finally, we've included a treatment template for you. So you won't have to start with a blank page and you can start plugging that information. And as you complete your worksheets, I hope you find these worksheets and resources helpful. And I hope that they will help you understand and define your show in a very compelling way and in an easy way, in an intuitive way. So that you can come out of this class with a really clear idea of where it is you're going. Because once you know where you're going, the how figures itself out. So go ahead and complete those worksheets. I know it's a lot of work, but it's well-worth it. Share them in the comments section below, and I will see you in the next lesson when we start talking about production. 9. A Word About Production: As I mentioned during the intro in this class, we're not going to get into physical production of your shell. However, I do want to break down the production phase as you go into it. Production consists of three main phases. First, we have pre-production. This is essentially your planning phase. This is where you will create your budget, assemble your team, lock in all of your locations, figure out all the logistics and details of production. The more prepared you are, the easier your production days will go. So I really urge you to be prepared as you go into production and really figure out all of the nitty-gritty, all the details before you move on, then we have physical production. This is when everybody and everything comes together. All the equipment, all the people, the professionals, the crew, the actors, everybody comes under one roof in order to help you shoot your web series. Production days are perhaps some of the longest, most fun, most nerve wracking days. You will have once issued all your footage in physical production. You will then move into post-production. Well, you'll assemble all the footage into episodes and you'll do the color correcting and sound design. This is also where you'll incorporate stance, title, special effects, and music as your homework for this class, I have a favor to ask. I would love to bring new classes that are relevant to your needs. And to do this, I need your help. If you have enjoyed this class so far, please take a moment and let me know what writing and production classes you would like to see in the future from me. I look forward to your thoughts and I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson. 10. Final Words: Congratulations, You made it to the end. In this class. You found out why you wanted to create a web series in the first place. And you supplemented your y with the value and emotional impact you'd like to have on your audience. You used brainstorming technique to identify the gifts you want to provide to the world. And then to expand those gifts into actual show concepts. You'll learn that the value providers emotional, and your gift is practical. You also learned that your web series as the vehicle with which you transport your gift into your audience's homes. You dug deep and you trusted your heart as you fleshed out your concept into an actual series, then you made even more decisions. And you use those decisions to create a treatment that you can use as a roadmap as you embark on the next phase of production, the treatment you created in this class is very valuable. And I do want to highlight some of the ways in which your treatment will help you. Once you are done producing your shell, first year treatment will help you create cohesive messaging as you package your shell. So your website, thumbnails, posters, one sheets, they will all have the same language, the same messaging, and they'll look very cohesive and professional. Second, if you're trying to put your web series out into the world, your treatment will render itself invaluable. For example, if you want to submit it to a contest, you can pull language directly from your treatment. Or if you want to write a press release, again, you can pull language directly from your treatment. Same goes if you want to create an ad for your web series or submitted to YouTube or Facebook or any other online platform, or submitted to a blogger or distribution channel. Third, your treatment will allow you to create cohesive messaging when it comes to your brand ecosystem. So that means for your blog, for your social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and so on. Your treatment will give you the clarity of vision that you need to create a very cohesive messaging for your web series. The more clear and focused your messaging is, the more easily people will connect with your web series. So the treatment will allow you to do this. I hope you have enjoyed this class as much as I have enjoyed teaching it. I look forward to reading all of your comments and learning about your web series in the comments sections below. Until next time. Happy creating.