HOME/OFFICE Uses Targeting To Help Fund Web Series
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Millions of people around the world have been drawn toward comedy series about the workplace. The Office, Parks and Recreation, Murphy Brown, News Radio, Taxi and Cheers are just a few iconic comedies that helped audiences blow off some steam laughing about the craziness of the workplace. But what about the self employed? Where do they fit it? Finally, there is a workplace comedy for those who work at home by themselves.
The eight episode season of HOME/OFFICE follows a web designer as he starts his own business, finds his first client, and completes a deadline all from his studio apartment. And he squeezes in some time for online dating. The new series, created by filmmakers Josh Shayne and James Darling is available now at homeoffice.tv, ready for bingewatching- perfect for the self employed to watch while procrastinating.
Creator Josh Shayne says he was inspired by his and Darling’s own lives. While writing screenplays and film projects, they each worked from home, freelancing. James worked as an editor, while Josh launched his own design agency. They both quickly found that the realities of combining your home and work space were both challenging and full of comedic scenarios. “It’s nearly impossible to maintain work-life balance without getting stressed when you’re literally surrounded by what you have to do every day,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t see any shows out there about all the people who are self-employed in this very modern way and it seemed ripe for comedy. It has been exciting ground to cover.”
It’s the constraints of the HOME/OFFICE universe that help generate the creativity and the biggest laughs. A single studio apartment, no dialogue, and only 2 on-screen characters give the series its original voice. That’s right, no dialogue. Instead the series features voice-over exclusively.
Shayne and Darling wrote the scripts first, and then self financed the series, renting equipment, and reaching out to friends and other professionals he met at shared office spaces to help put together a crew on a reasonable budget. The entire season was shot in Shayne’s Brooklyn apartment, over the course of eight days. Of course true to the premise of HOME/OFFICE, Shayne and his wife continued to live there while shooting. “My wife Robin and I slept in the spare room/glorified closet, because our bedroom was now the set. James, the co-creator, flew in from LA and camped out on our couch in the living room which was packed with lights and camera equipment. Every morning, 15 people packed into my apartment at 6 A.M. and we’d film for the rest of the day.”
The aesthetic of the series is bright and colorful, clean and modern. Shayne says he used his experience as a graphic designer to create the look, using visual gags in the set, and via on-screen visual effects.
The series was originally released last fall, generating tens of thousands of views, and they’ve already recouped all of the money spent on the series through some creative sponsorship opportunities. Shayne got the idea from a lecture series called CreativeMornings which used sponsors from companies like Squarespace and MailChimp to finance their programs. “I was sitting in the studio alongside CreativeMornings, and listening to a bunch of podcasts like Startup and I started thinking, “The direct sponsorship model is really interesting. Why is no one applying this to film?” And I saw an opportunity.” If it sounds like television advertising, it’s not. Shayne explained that traditional television advertising allows sponsors to reach general audiences with general content. But on the web, he can target his content to exactly the audience his partners are looking to reach. “Our strategy has allowed us to produce the show independently and recoup costs before a single episode was even released online,” he said.
HOME/OFFICE teamed up with three partners. DreamHost, Backblaze, and the Noun Project were all trying to reach the type of people who would watch HOME/OFFICE. Freelancers and self employed workers tend to need websites, and cloud hosting, and icons, so there was a perfect fit.
What is the future of narrative content?
“We believe that the internet is an incredible platform for independent film and that its full potential hasn’t been reached yet. Often, the web is used as an aspirational platform for filmmakers — a venue to showcase ideas and talent in hopes that they will be picked up by conventional media like film or television. With HOME/OFFICE, we’re not thinking of the web as a stepping stone, but as a legitimate end goal.”
Shayne created the company Good Worker to continue using this business model, and already has multiple projects in the works.
Watch the first episode of HOME/OFFICE below, and see the next eight episodes at http://homeoffice.tv.
