First it was the column in the Globe and Mail and then it was the discussion on The Current… Here’s an excerpt from the letter I sent to The Current’s producers:
For those of us trying to make a living writing Canadian television, we have to serve up what our employers are buying. And they aren’t buying “golden age” programming. They are buying shows designed for mass consumption.
It is frustrating and disappointing for us as writers to be vilified by John Doyle for making what the buyers wants. And it is ridiculous to think that talent is a geographic phenomenon — that somehow an LA address bestows on you a greater storytelling ability and a deeper understanding of the human condition. In fact, what it offers is a greater marketplace open to a wider diversity of product… and a bigger pay check.
It is upsetting for me, as the president of the Writers Guild of Canada, to see my friends and colleagues flooding across the border. But who could blame them for running to greater creative challenges and away from an industry that blames them for its endemic failures.
It seems to me that we really are in a period of triumph for Canadian TV. Our shows are great, the audiences love them, writers are working. That’s what I’d much prefer to be talking about than responding to this kind of ill informed crabbiness.
So let’s just all wipe that whole discussion out of our minds and listen to last episode of Writers Talking TV in which Simon Racioppa talks with Mike Kiss, Exectutive Story Editor of Grojband and Phil Ivanusic-Vallee, showrunner of Oh No! It’s an Alien Invasion! A way better way to spend your time. You can find that podcast and many more on the WGC site.
Beet Party is an animated interstitial series produced by Toon Box Entertainment. It’s 3D animation and comes embedded on LG Smart TVs. ToonBox made a ton of them and I got to write about 20. I haven’t seen many of the finished episodes so imagine my delight in discovering that a few of the ones I wrote are on YouTube. The one above is called Sink-opation.
Are you following what’s going on with the YouTube Channel, Pronunciation Book?
For the last three years, the channel has been posting videos on how to pronounce common and not-so-common English words and phrases. Frequently, the channel’s choice of pronunciation is debatable. But what’s interesting is that sometimes the words and phrases seem to suggest that the speaker is telling us about more than pronunciation.
How to Pronounce Zoology
What’s really interesting is that sometimes the words and phrases seem to suggest that the speaker is telling us about more than pronunciation.
How to Describe an Unpleasant Memory in English
On July 9th, the channel abruptly changed what it was doing and started a count down.
How to Pronounce 77
How to Pronounce 76
A new video is posted every day at 10 am Eastern. We seem to be counting down to September 24, 2013. But why? And who is behind it? These are mysteries that more and more people around the net are interested in. There’s a 4chann and reddit, a Google doc, a wiki and a blog all devoted to deciphering the mystery.
In my opinion, this is a story. Someone is using the Pronunciation Book channel as a form for story telling. The story is coming out in a fractured, nonlinear way. But it is definitely a story with characters, drama and emotion. It’s pretty impressive that this has been on a slow boil for three years, but still in all, if you collect phrases from the videos you get narrative. This selection of phrases from the count down video is from the 77 Days Wiki.
55 : “When we were born, we saw shapes and patterns.”
These phrases taken from different videos were collected on the Google Doc:
I can’t RSVP until I have a disguise.
We arrived at the brasserie dressed as caterers.
Her svelte figure caught the minister’s eye, just as Chief predicted.
Jackie was lucky no one picked up on his accent.
She served pepperoncini with a tight smile as I photographed documents in the kitchen.
The minister recoils from the gaudy Merlot pairing … is our cover blown?
We had no idea we were enabling the oogenesis of a new power.
The gala was ruined by jealous love.
We retreated to the jungle as fireworks lit the southern sky.
It was the first of several times Jackie would blame things on Belarus.
I lay in the hammock at base, dreaming of LA.
We would resume our reconnaissance in the morning; for now, we tried to forget about the mission.
This is all I was able to procure,’ she said, producing a bottle of Dom Pérignon.
Glyph sulked in his tent as the rest of us gathered for pinochle.
Chief, who had posed as a waiter, said Lasso had been seated at the president’s table.
I finished the last of the now-warm champagne and said goodnight.
She stumbled into my tent an hour later, surprisingly tipsy for a femme fatale.
Eventually, I yield to uneasy jungle dreams.
I have no doubt that this is storytelling.
Those researching Pronunciation Book have discovered that the channel is a YouTube partner, which tells me that this is the work of a pro. This is a money-making venture. And as the count down continues, the numbers of viewers is growing rapidly and so too, the revenues.
There are a lot of theories about Pronunciation Book and you can read about all of them on the wiki. Some say it’s a marketing effort for a game or TV series –The Battlestar Gallactica reboot is a favourite theory. I’m still fond of the theory that the band Nine Inch Nails is behind this as a way of promoting their new album. They did such and amazing job with Year Zero and I believe they might have the patience to let something like this play out for three years. I’m dying to hear some new and fresh theories. Share yours with me, please!
I’ve been following this for a couple of weeks now and from an entertainment POV, the one teeny video a week is way too slow. I’m bored, I want more and soon. But if you look at the slow build and its usefulness in building audience and awareness, you have got to take off your hat to whoever is behind this. Totally awesome! There is still lots of time before we hit blast off for the mainstream to clue in.
It’s also an absolutely amazing form of storytelling. I love the way the story emerges inside the form of the pronunciation video. It reminds me a little of how You Suck At Photoshop used the format of the photoshop how-to video to tell a story.
I bow to the brilliance of whoever is doing this and I can’t wait for the end game to reveal itself.
Like when they send you one of those emails suggesting you might not have rights to your work.
Once you turn on those ads and start to monetize, contracts, releases and other documents that give you have the rights to commercially exploit your work are important. I have binders full of detailed, lawyer-approved paperwork.
The problem is that YouTube is so monolithic that it’s near impossible to communicate with them or prove your claim.
Here’s the text of the email that arrived today (not the first time I’ve gotten one of these babies either. I have no idea what the status of the last one it. YouTube hasn’t bothered to tell me.).
Dear RubySkyePI,
Thanks for submitting your recent video “Tween Web Show: Ruby Skye PI – Episode 11: Best Served Cold” ) for monetization. We may consider your video for further review provided you verify that you are authorized to commercially use all of the visual and audio elements in your video such as:
Visuals:
Images, video games, or software visuals licensed for commercial use require a copy of a license agreement, or a link to the terms
Original visuals from third parties require written permission from the rights owner(s) stating that you are permitted to use their content commercially containing the video’s URL
For visuals in the public domain, please link us to a primary (original or scholarly) source proving this
Audio:
Royalty-free music requires: the song title, artist name, a direct link to the track, and a link to the terms
If you are the artist, please provide us with your name, song title, the composer/publisher, and music label (whether you own or not)
Music you created using software or other music requires that you identify the program used and its terms
Original compositions from third parties require written permission from the rights’ owner(s) stating that you are permitted to use their content commercially containing the video’s URL
For a musical composition in the public domain, please link us to a primary (original or scholarly) source demonstrating the status of the composition
Please submit your additional information here. Note that we may disapprove your video for monetization if we do not hear from you within 14 days.
YouTube reserves the right to make the final decision whether to monetize a video, and may disable monetization for users who repeatedly submit ineligible videos.
Thanks,
The YouTube Team
You look at the video in question and tell me what element they are on about. I have no idea what they think I don’t own.
Here’s the answer I sent them:
As much as I may look like a mind reader, I have no idea which element of this video you are challenging my right to commercially exploit. I have hundreds of pages of contracts and you are only offering me the opportunity to upload a single file. Awesome!
I’m going to take a wild guess that your problem is with either the music rights or the rights to show the mural that appears at 0:47 and again at 1:25 which is on the side of the ice cream parlour The Big Chill. Thus I am uploading a file which includes our contract with the composers of our original score and a location agreement with The Big Chill ice cream parlour which gives us the right to shoot at their establishment and show images of it including the mural on the wall outside.
Now, say I’m wrong and you take issue with my right to exploit some other element of the video.
Perhaps you could email me again and tell me what element that is? Or at least give me a little more of a hint than “all of the visual and audio elements”.
Alternatively, I’d be happy to invite you over next time you’re in Toronto so you can go through all of the contracts and permits that I have in order to verify that I have carefully and thoroughly — dare I say, professionally — acquired all the rights necessary to exploit this work in all media now known or yet to be invented, in this universe and all others until the end of time.
And while you’re going through the paperwork, I’ll make you a nice cup of coffee and some of the delicious brownies that appear in our episodes — which by the way — if you’re wondering — are an original recipe.
Just sayin’ 🙂
I’m really hoping they’ll come by the that coffee. In fact, I’m preheating the oven right now.
The Dreaded Letter from <no_reply@youtube.com>
The helpful form that YouTube provides for you to prove your rights
Grand Prize for Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library
Award-Winning Tween/Teen Web Series Wins Big at LAWebFest
https://rubyskyepi.com/
April 4, 2012 [Toronto, ON] — Ruby Skye P.I., the award-winning web series for tweens and teens, took home a Grand Prize from the LAWebFest this week, along with four Outstanding Achievement Awards. Chosen from more than 400 submissions, the Grand Prize includes an all expenses paid trip to Marseilles, France for the Marseilles WebFest to be held in October 2013.
The Haunted Library – the second season of the Ruby Skye P.I. web series – also won four awards in the Interactive Narrative Drama Category: Outstanding Directing: Kelly Harms; Outstanding Lead Actress: Madison Cheeatow (Ruby Skye); Outstanding Guest Star: Geri Hall (Gifted Sarah) and Outstanding Cinematography: Alex Dacev. Held March 28-31, 2013, the LAWebFest is the world’s oldest and largest festival devoted to web series. The Marseilles WebFest, which will be held October 11-12, 2013, is the only web series festival held in Europe and one of four web series festivals held worldwide. Ruby Skye P.I. is produced by Story 2.OH, was created by interactive storyteller Jill Golick and is directed by Kelly Harms. Harms and Golick executive produced the series along with Steven Golick.
Ruby Skye P.I. is one of many Canadian web series to have fared well at the 2013 edition of the festival. Vancouver’s The Last Fall of Ashes was also a Grand Prize winner. Other Canadian series celebrated at the event were Clutch, Out With Dad, Pete Winning, Bill & Sons Towing, The Verdict, Guidestones, Prison Dancer, Verdict, The Runner, Model Mayhem and The Casting Room.
“With web series from fifteen countries represented at the festival, it so exciting to see Canadians leading this new industry,” says Golick. “The LAWebFest does a tremendous job of bringing recognition to web series creators around the world and we are delighted to be heading to Marseilles this fall!”
Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library is currently nominated for a WGC Screenwriting Award and for an Alliance for Youth Media Award of Excellence. The series is available on RubySkyePI.com, KoldCast TV, blip, YouTube and DailyMotion. The series has topped over 2 million video views and developed a large and devoted fan base.
Launched in early October 2012, Ruby Skye P.I. The Haunted Library advances the story of intrepid teen detective, Ruby Skye (Madison Cheeatow) and her small, tightly knit group of friends. A natural next step in young adult entertainment, Ruby Skye P.I. takes the girl detective genre into a new realm of problem solving as high-tech tools meet good old-fashioned sleuthing. Along the way, Ruby gets herself into plenty of hot water en route to an action packed resolution.
In addition to the over one hour’s worth of original, narrative video content, Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library includes 50 behind-the-scenes and “extra features” videos, four web sites, four Tumblr blogs, multiple social media channels, and ten interactive clues. Between episodes, viewers can study and solve the clues which Ruby finds in the story. Mystery-loving tweens and teens can also solve puzzles on the companion website ODearyPuzzles.com or explore the “haunted” O’Deary Library to learn more about the characters, the books mentioned in the mystery and to find – or submit – book reviews, author profiles, interviews with YA authors and book cover art work.
____________________________________________________________________________
How a TV-PG Show Became the Edgiest Series Online: Rube Skye P.I.’s Case of the Missing Rulebook | The Sixth Wall, 11.21.12
____________________________________________________________________________
Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library stars series regulars Madison Cheeatow (Ruby Skye), Marlee Maslove (Hailey Skye) and Elena Gorgevska (Diana Noughton). Season 2 cast includes Scott Beaudin (My Babysitter is a Vampire), Rosemary Dunsmore (Anne of Green Gables, Murdoch Mysteries), Geri Hall (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Jordan Prentice (Mirror Mirror, In Bruges), Laura de Carteret (My Babysitter’s a Vampire), Samanatha Wan (Leslieville) and Shaun Shetty (Call Me Fitz).
Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library was shot at the Emmanuel College Library (University of Toronto) and at various location in Toronto, Canada.
The series was produced by Story 2.OH with the participation of The Independent Production Fund (IPF) and made possible with the support of The Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC). Ruby Skye P.I. Season 1: The Spam Scam has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Parent’s Choice Silver Honor, a Youth Media Alliance Award of Excellence, a 2011 “Rockie”, the New York Television Festival’s Best Family Pilot and eight Outstanding Achievement Awards from the L.A. Web Fest.
About:
Story 2.OH is a Toronto-based production company. Stepping beyond the television model, Story2.OH combines video, photos, graphics, blogs and more to create the next generation of screen-based entertainment.
A lot of traffic on YouTube comes from someone clicking on your thumbnail and watching the video. That means your thumbnail has to be hot.
I’ve been redoing all mine to make them stand out in a crowd.
Here are two of my videos — an old thumbnail on the left and a new one on the right. (Eventually, I’m going to update that lefthand one and then this comparison will be useless.)
I checked out what a bunch of popular channels are doing with theirs — Lizzie Bennet Diaries, AwesomenessTV, Geek and Sundry. I notice a lot of them are using text on their images. Especially web series, to indicate the name and also the episode number. I have been emulating them.
I like to use people’s faces — head and shoulders usually — to fill about half the space. In a couple of cases, I’ve used a graphics program to (clumsily) mask out a complicated background so that I can add readable text.
I’m using big fonts — 45-65.
The YouTube playbook tells us that thumbnails should be 640×360, bright and high contrast and that foreground should stand out from background. They also remind us that the image should represent the content.
It’s worth noting where the YouTube overlays are locating and adjusting what you do accordingly. YouTube places a narrow black overlay at the very top of the image, the red and white “Play” triangle in the middle and in some cases, a small video length box in the right-hand corner.
Enable your channel for custom thumbnails:
If your channel is enabled for monetization, you should have the feature that allows you to create a custom thumbnail. To check, in YouTube, go to settings.
In settings, enable monetization.
It may take a week or two after you enable for monetization before your custom thumbnail feature comes online.
How to upload a custom thumbnail:
In your YouTube, go to Video Manager. Under the video you want to work with, select Edit.
On the right-hand side, under the three thumbnails that YouTube automatically generates, there will be a fourth option: custom thumbnail. Click on it and select the thumbnail you want to use.
Input please!
My new thumbnails aren’t perfect by any means but getting there… I hope. I would love your thoughts on what works and what doesn’t. And on how to improve these.
Ruby Skye PI: Meet Diana
Facebook Doesn’t Play Nice
We did have one little glitch and that’s when pulling a video into a Facebook promoted post. When you post a video on your Facebook channel, the thumbnail becomes the image.
But when we tried to promote the story, Facebook “disapproved” it. Facebook advertising guidelines say that not more than 20% of an image can be covered in text.
Photos with too much text can be disruptive in news feed, where people are used to seeing photos of their friends and places in their lives. Use text sparingly to brand your image or add emphasis to what it’s showing.
So to use my YouTube videos in promoted posts now, I will have to find a work-around. If you know of one, let me know.
I will be speaking at Transmedia 101’s First Meetup of 2013 in Toronto.
Creator Jill Golick will present Ruby Skye P.I. on January 15, 7-9 pm at our regular host location: InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Center. The night begins with a screening and demo of how the interactivie, followed by a talk on how to integrate interactive into narrative and world building. For the second half of the night, Jill will explain a bit about marketing and distribution for transmedia and tween series.
Tickets are $5 cash at the door. Please RVSP here.
I’ll be talking about the process of creating The Haunted Library (Season 2 of Ruby Skye P.I.) and many of the features of the show. I’ll also devote quite a bit of the time to our marketing and distribution techniques.
Lately a lot of people have been asking about YouTube advertising (Google AdWords), so I will discuss my experiences using it and some of the pros and cons. Also some of the tricks I learned after being selected for some special attention from AdWords specialists.
Please come on out to the event. It’s a great opportunity to connect with other transmedia-ites.
Five nominations for Ruby Skye P.I.:The Haunted Library!
The Haunted Library has been honoured with five nominations from the 4th Annual Indie Soap Awards from We Love Soaps! Two of our five noms are for editor extraordinaire, Mike Reisacher, who got nods in both the Best Editing and Best Visual/Special Effects categories. Yay Mike!
Several other Canadian web series got nominated as well. Our pals at Out With Dad took nine — count ’em, nine! — noms! Hitman 101 was no slouch either with seven nominations. Pretty in Geek and Clutch also received nods.
We’re excited by our nominations and thrilled for our nominees. But at times like this we always remember what a team effort making Ruby Skye P.I. is. There are tons of us involved and it take hard work from a lot of people to make anyone of shine. And every nomination in any department is really a nomination for our director, Kelly Harms.
BEST EDITING (ALL SHOWS)
ONCE YOU LEAVE – Nate Locklear
HUSBANDS – Nathaniel Atcheson
RAGGED ISLE – Barry Dodd
OUT WITH DAD – Jason Leaver
THE OUTS – Adam Goldman & Jay Gillespie RUBY SKYE PI – Mike Reisacher
BEST MAKE-UP (ALL SHOWS)
THE BLOODY MARY SHOW – Jamey Leigh-Weber
BREAKING POINT – Tina Soares & Nicole Evans
DEVANITY – Liz Kan
HITMAN 101 – Tzu-Jung Toby Lee
PRETTY – James Freitas & Brenda Oen RUBY SKYE PI – Jessica Panetta
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (ALL SHOWS)
THE BAR – Sam Diaz
THE BLOODY MARY SHOW – Christopher Skipper
COST OF CAPITAL – Rob Gokee
DRIFTER: BROKEN ROAD – Michael Brasier RUBY SKYE PI – Studiocat, David Wall, Jamie Shields & Adam White
WHERE THE BEARS ARE – David Maddux
BEST VISUAL/SPECIAL EFFECTS (ALL SHOWS)
THE BLOODY MARY SHOW – Luke Dyton
RAGGED ISLE – Eric Anderson & Derek Kimball
DRIFTER: BROKEN ROAD – Geoffrey Palmer RUBY SKYE PI – Mike Reisacher
MILGRAM AND THE FASTWALKERS – Craig Herron
HITMAN 101 – Pranjal Verma
BEST WRITING (COMEDY)
HUSBANDS – Brad Bell & Jane Espenson
WRECKED – Liz Ellis & Gabriel A. Carbajal
I HATE BEING SINGLE – Rob Michael Hugel
PRETTY – Steve Silverman
FUMBLING THRU THE PIECES – Julie A. Smith RUBY SKYE PI – Julie Strassman-Cohn & Jill Golick
We’ll find out the winners at the Indie Soap Awards on February 19st, 2012 at New World Stages in New York City. Good luck to all!
Toronto, ON [December 10, 2012] — Ruby Skye P.I., the award-winning web series for tweens and teens, hit a milestone on the weekend capturing over 1.5 million video views for the first eight of its nine Season 2 episodes. Currently, Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library is available on KoldCast TV, blip, YouTube and DailyMotion. Season 2 has topped over 600,000 video views on KoldCast TV alone and has been among the most popular shows on blip, hitting over half a million views on that platform.
The final and ninth episode, “Apparently The Heir”, premieres on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 on RubySkyePI.com.
Ruby Skye P.I. is produced by Story 2.OH. It was created by interactive storyteller Jill Golick and directed by Kelly Harms. Harms and Golick executive produced the series along with Steven Golick.
“While Ruby Skye P.I. was created to entertain tweens and teens, and it does that extraordinarily well, we believe the show constitutes good old-fashioned, family-wide entertainment in this new era of television and digital media,” says David S. Samuels, CEO of the popular online television network, KoldCast TV. “The series creator has done a brilliant job stretching the Internet’s capabilities to make her story come alive in an unprecedented way, and KoldCast is thrilled to have Ruby and her fellow sleuths entertaining our audience in such creative fashion.”
“We’re delighted that Ruby Skye P.I. is connecting with a dedicated and engaged audience,” says Golick. “We have followers from all over the world in every age bracket and we are delighted that the web gives us the opportunity to get to know them.”
According to Harms, “the enthusiasm of our audience shows that high production values, excellent acting, and great writing are a formula for success on any platform.”
Launched in early October 2012, Ruby Skye P.I. The Haunted Library advances the story of intrepid teen detective, Ruby Skye (Madison Cheeatow) and her small, tightly knit group of friends. A natural next step in young adult entertainment, Ruby Skye P.I.takes the girl detective genre into a new realm as high-tech tools meet good old-fashioned sleuthing. Along the way, Ruby gets herself into plenty of hot water en route to an action-packed resolution.
In addition to the over one hour’s worth of original, narrative video content, Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library includes 50 behind-the-scenes and “extra features” videos, four web sites, four Tumblr blogs, multiple social media channels, and ten interactive clues. Between episodes, viewers can study and solve the clues which Ruby finds in the story.
Mystery-loving tweens and teens can also solve puzzles on the companion websiteODearyPuzzles.com or explore the “haunted” O’Deary Library to learn more about the characters, the books mentioned in the mystery and to find – or submit – book reviews, author profiles, interviews with YA authors and book cover artwork.
How a TV-PG Show Became the Edgiest Series Online: Rube Skye P.I.’s Case of the Missing Rulebook | The Sixth Wall, 11.21.12
Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library stars series regulars Madison Cheeatow (Ruby Skye), Marlee Maslove (Hailey Skye) and Elena Gorgevska (Diana Noughton). Season 2 cast includes Scott Beaudin (My Babysitter is a Vampire), Rosemary Dunsmore (Anne of Green Gables, Murdoch Mysteries), Geri Hall (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), Jordan Prentice (Mirror Mirror, In Bruges), Laura de Carteret (My Babysitter’s a Vampire), Samanatha Wan (Leslieville) and Shaun Shetty (Call Me Fitz).
Ruby Skye P.I.: The Haunted Library was shot at the Emmanuel College Library (University of Toronto) and at various location in Toronto, Canada.
Season 1 The Spam Scam has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Parent’s Choice Silver Honor, a Youth Media Alliance Award of Excellence, a 2011 “Rockie”, the New York Television Festival’s Best Family Pilot and eight Outstanding Achievement Awards from the L.A. Web Fest.
Story2.OH is a Toronto-based production company. Stepping beyond the television model, Story2.OH combines video, photos, graphics, blogs and more to create the next generation of Web serial.
One of the coolest things about being a web creator is getting to know your audience.
If you write TV… or film, you don’t know much about the people who watch your shows. You might get some demographics or sometimes you meet someone at the PTA or a dinner party who reports watching.
But Facebook has this incredibly powerful subscription mechanism. I have all my notifications to everything turned off, but not when someone subscribes or comments on YouTube. That comes right to my email inbox. And whenever we get a new subscriber, I go over and check them out. I can leave them a message, see what else they’re walking and watch any videos they’ve uploaded.
I find it incredibly powerful to get up so close and personal with the people watching the show. It makes you a way better storyteller when you know who it is you’re telling your story to.
Now if you’re an old media type and you’ve seen Ruby, you know my audience is tweens — probably tween girls. Well, not so on YouTube. I mean, there are tween girls, but here are videos of a few of the recent subscribers:
