Particular work on the internet - Web shows/Micro series

In today's lesson, I looked at a variety of shows referred to as micro series which are shown online. I looked at micro web series such as Living with the infedels, Chad Vader, The Guild and We Need Girlfriends. I gathered that they all primarily feature certain characteristics, mainly comedy, which perhaps be a necessity for such short programmes. They also feature a group of friends or colleagues, usually 3 or 4 so you can take in the stories of each character. It features nerdy and postmodern humour, the show reflects on the audiences knowledge to relate to previous programmes or intertextual references.

I also collated that there is a familiar local setting, with lots happening in the space of a very short time. There are establishing shots immediately and are not as long as the shots featured in longer tv programmes. The shows also feature a sense of branding, or a specific logo related to the series. For example in Chad Vader, his name is shown in the yellow star wars font, showing a clear reference. Many feature a short title sequence as the shows are short themselves. The show features things which are incomplete so therefore the next episodes have to pick up on this.

The micro series usually promote themselves mainly over youtube with hits etc, and tags to other comedies. They also have official websites which promote the shows and link to other shows too. A good example of this is the video posted below:

This micro series is an episode of Chad Vader, one of the episodes I watched in lesson. It shows all the characteristics I have explained above, such as relying on comedy and of course an intertextual reference to Star Wars, showing that this micro series is postmodern in the fact it relies on an active audience.

This micro series episode however, is from the micro series The Guild and relies less on intertextual references while focusing on humour and comedy around a small area of friends/colleagues. You can watch the micro series here. This micro series features a more heavy area of advertising, including the website which is linked above, you can buy t shirts and merchandise linked to The Guild which help advertise it.

I also watched another micro series, with the website you can see here. The series was called 'Living with the Infedels' and featured yet again the characteristics of a micro series in which we discussed earlier. Another micro series featuring similar characteristics was the series 'We Need Girlfriends' where you can go on the website here.

Overall, watching these micro series has really helped with the general idea of the series, the length, the characteristics, and the target audience, and I think this research has really helped the beginning of our project.