For a "social set", connect to Facebook

The next series of one of the major Hollywood studios will not reach the TV channels with the largest audience or a multiplex cinema halls, but will be broadcast on Facebook.

"Aim High", the story of a high school student with a double life as an agent of the U.S. government counterterrorism, is touted as the first web series to debut in Mark Zuckerberg's social network, which claims to have a base of 800 million active users in the world.

Behind the content, there is a group of young people gathered to make a video with friends or a first-time director, the series has the signature of Warner Bros. and the direction of McG, the same as "Charlie's Angels" and "Terminator Salvation "and series" Supernatural "and" Chuck. "

At a time when the business of a seasonal series on American television is rejoicing, those responsible for "Aim High" have decided to move the platform. They say that theirs is a "social set", not only use Facebook as screen display, but will encourage forms of participation with the audience.

"We think the format is appropriate for people to feel comfortable watching online, but with the quality that used in television productions. We do not believe that the Internet is synonymous with home video content or sloppy," said director McG, in dialogue with BBC World.

For Teens

With an aesthetic that combines the graphic novel and comic book superimposed on the screen and some elements of the hit series "24" (minus the drama), "Aim High" marks one of the attempts by Hollywood studios to engage the young audience in a context of media consumption in that film, TV and other forms of entertainment to compete with the web ... and not always win.

According to a Nielsen study, fewer and fewer adolescents in urban areas with subscriptions to pay TV because they are inclined to the new media. Thus, young audiences American TV have two years of free fall: in the segment from 18 to 49 years, there was a loss of 2.7% in 2010 and then 1.4% in 2011, according to Nielsen.

"Aim High" bet to reconnect with those viewers in the virtual world, on Facebook and Cambio.com, a portal for teenagers AOL company and will have a format of weekly episodes (six in the first season, with expectations of a second) but with shorter chapters, about 10 minutes.

The logic of the series also remained at the time of hiring the actors, in a list headed by Jackson Rathbone, best known for the series "Twilight" and Aimee Teegarden (from the series "Friday Night Lights"), along with other " veterans "of the world of sitcoms as Greg Germann (" Ally McBeal ") and Rebecca Mader (" Lost ").

"For actors, there is no difference in the way we work for this series or for a classic series as" Ally McBeal. "Clearly, we are going in one direction: the scripted content are moving to the Internet, telephones, tablets, "said Greg Germann, who plays the principal of the school attended by the teen-spy.

The network, leading

However, the star of the show is the technology: the "revolutionary component," according to director McG is the possibility to participate in real time that Facebook users have now turned spectators.

"Watching a show is a passive act. By moving it to Facebook, the experience becomes more intimate.

Embodying the 'I like' and the preferences of each viewer, "anticipated the charge.

How will it work in practice? The user can incorporate your photo or name to see them appear, for example, in a poster at the cafeteria or graffiti in the bathroom of the high school.

Or you may appear, the user and his friends on the networks, on screens that are displayed (the redundancy makes sense, in a series in which the protagonists are always on hand a technological device), or make music they are listening to sound while the action takes place.

To that end, Warner is betting that viewers choose to see the chapters in "customization mode" with the promise that the information they share will not be stored.

Trend

The proposal to move the series to the web is not entirely new. It is rather a trend that has led to a new business model, in times of "lean" to U.S. studies, where the number of viewers in theaters has not grown for at least two years .

The company Vuguru, for instance, is a digital studio founded by a former Disney director behind such series as "Prom Queen" and replicate the trading scheme of the giants of the industry to seek profitability, by signing agreements achieve international distribution.

The same Warner is behind another project, called "H +" and directed by Bryan Singer, the head of "X-Men," "The Usual Suspects" and "Superman returns". This series webisodes (web episodes) has apocalyptic story in which a device implanted in humans their nervous systems to connect to the Internet for 24 hours.

Although the format you have the web series or "social" is sufficiently similar to that prevailing in the TV, to ensure easy digestion by the audience, advertisers are still waiting: the world of Internet advertising, you know, even is nearly as appetizing as its pair of television.

Source:caracoltv