"Quarterlife" Creator Marshall Herskovitz Makes the Move from TV to the Web and Back Again

amp160Itamp8217s a new media chicken or egg Is quarterlife a TV show born on the Web Or is it a Web series hatching on television in Marchamp160Both sort of The hourlong show about six young adults pecking away at the existential crises of being single underemployed and blogobsessed started out as a pitch for ABC It didnamp8217t get the goahead so creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwickamp8212veteran hitmakers whose previous network shows all for ABC include thirtysomething My SoCalled Life and Once and Againamp8212decided to take the show Webonlyamp160Beginning on November 11 2007 the 8 to 18minute installments of quarterlife started popping up on MySpace where the show has its own page every Sunday and Thursday Episodes are banked on quarterlifeamp8217s tidy home site which also serves as a social network for young filmmakers writers and other creative types who can post their own work there as well as comment on the plot turns of the show The series airs on a weekamp8217s delay on other distribution partners including YouTube FaceBook and Imeemamp160According to data from MySpace and the quarterlife site more than 120000 Web viewers regularly tune in online The series has amp8220airedamp8221 22 of its 36 Webisodes so far A larger audience will get a look at the show when it telecasts six hourlong chapters in a miniseries format on NBC beginning at 10 pmamp160ET Tuesday February 26amp160moving to 9 pm Sundays as of March 2amp160Former SoCalled Life costar Devon Gummersall he played geeky nextdoor neighbor kid Brian Krakow has written episodes Eric Stoltz has directed some as has Herskovitz Poised for stardom are the showamp8217s six leads played by dishy newcomers Bitsie Tulloch Majte Schwartz Scott Michael Foster David Walton Michelle Lombardo and Kevin Christyamp160Launching a series on the Internet was a new adventure in storytelling says Herskovitz who also appears oncamera in quarterlife as a stern acting coach to a character whoamp8217s an aspiring actress As he prepped for the showamp8217s upcoming run on NBC he took time for a oneonone with MediaVillage talking about the experiment of quarterlife its zigzaggy route to NBC and how a stint on jury duty led to the discovery of the showamp8217s lead actressamp160TV Maven The series begins with Bitsie Tulloch who plays selfconscious lead character Dylan Krieger speaking directly into the camera as she amp8220vlogsamp8221 for the first time Whatamp8217s your experience with bloggingamp160Marshall Herskovitz Blogging is something I never did I wrote a few things for Huffington Post That was like writing an oped piece It wasnamp8217t a personal document New media is about storytelling amp160TV Maven quarterlife looks like a bigbudget television series even chopped into short segments for the Web How is doing a show for the Internet viewer differentamp160Herskovitz This was written as hourlong stories with the act breaks written into them So each 8minute segment stands on its own I did not know how to evoke emotion in eight minutes It takes an hour to tell a story Thatamp8217s all we know how to do Weamp8217re not going to jettison our 30 years of writing experience you know for anything When I first said amp8220Letamp8217s put it on Internetamp8221 I was told that you canamp8217t do hourlong anything on Internet because people only watch for two minutes at a time amp8220No oneamp8217s going to watch eight minutes on the amp8217netamp8230it can only work in twominute incrementsamp8221 I said I didnamp8217t believe thatamp8230Iamp8217m going to live or die by 8minute increments And MySpace would only let us put up two episodes a week Weamp8217ve gone to them twice to let us do longer ones or three in a weekamp160TV Maven Because the No 1 complaint from the quarterlife community bulletin boards isamp8230amp160Herskovitz The episodes are too short right If we have another season God willing Iamp8217ll definitely do longer segmentsamp160TV Maven How much did this challenge you as a writerdirectorproduceramp160Herskovitz It was a slow process of coming to see the potential in being on the Internet outside of the power structure of Hollywood and being able to speak directly to your audience in that way This was the first thing we ever did in that space Ed Zwick and I have been joking for six or seven years about this hypothetical of two kids out of film school who make a movie for 15K put it on a Web site it makes 80 million and it makes the studios obsolete When we realized that quarterlife was not going to have a home on ABC in a way that worked for usamp8230should we let it die Take it elsewhere No itamp8217s the perfect thing to do on the Internet Why shouldnamp8217t we be those two kidsamp160TV Maven How did it find a home on NBC amp160Herskovitz It was a long road between the two A lot of people have misunderstood this project What we were doing for ABC bore no relation to what it is weamp8217re doing now We threw out the whole story and the characters Itamp8217s an entirely different enterprise now Our ABC pilot was telling the wrong story We started from scratch It was around that time thinking of the new story we realized it was suited to the Internet Actually we spent many months trying to do this with Disney another wing of Touchstone where we had a deal amp160TV Maven But they wouldnamp8217t go for the Internet social networking angleamp160Herskovitz Not enough of them were excited by it It didnamp8217t fit with their corporate strategy They didnamp8217t like something with an independent identity separate from Disney They were gracious enough to give it back to us And we went off on our own We had no intention of doing it on television amp160TV Maven Is NBC changing anything about the show for broadcastamp160Herskovitz It was tricky for usamp8230this was an Internet show What would it mean if it went to television There were a lot of complex issues we had to figure out The key for us was that we still had to own it and have total creative control Nobody gives that anymoreamp160TV Maven And you got that from NBCamp160Herskovitz Yes weamp8217re delivering completed episodes with some changes in language because of the FCC mandates NBC doesnamp8217t know what theyamp8217re about until they get them They trust us Thatamp8217s a big part of it Going back to televisionamp8211I love televisionamp8211what Iamp8217m against is the loss of control and independence that TV producers have suffered in recent years NBC has been totally great They love the episodes This is a new regime with NBCUniversal Entertainment cochairman Ben Silverman Theyamp8217re incredibly respectful They get it and theyamp8217re happy to put this onamp160TV Maven Are you confident that the young audience who found you on the Internet will be interested in quarterlife on conventional TVamp160Herskovitz Audiences on television are still much bigger than audiences on Internet for anything The networks love the 18 to 34 demo Are they going to be there watching the whole hour Are they going to be online at the same time They do watch TV for sureamp8230My sense with NBC is that theyamp8217re not concerned with cannibalizing the audienceamp160TV Maven What surprised you about the popularity of the social networking aspect of quarterlifeamp160Herskovitz Well remember most of the production was done before we went live But the social networking part has been incredibly gratifying We guessed something that we thought would be true and it turns out to be true beyond wildest expectations That there is a large group of people out there who want something more from a social network There are serious artistic creative introspective thoughtful people who felt isolated in their digital lives In how they communicated on the Internet they did not have a venue that spoke to this more emotional aspirational part of themselves Thatamp8217s not what MySpace and FaceBook are about I describe those experiences as amp8220coolamp8221 experiences quarterlife is warm It engages with a more passionate emotional authentic private part of your inner life People just got that right awayamp160TV Maven You comment a lot and answer questions all over the quarterlife site Do you spend a lot of time thereamp160Herskovitz I do The rate at which people are uploading content to the site is extraordinary Itamp8217s a positive environment Itamp8217s about art and trying to develop yourself to be recognized for who you are and what you do Iamp8217m completely connected to the community there I have to hold myself back and play a certain role I do answer questions and clarify things But if something catches my eye Iamp8217ll read their blogs and profilesamp8230Iamp8217ve had hundreds of people emailing with me from the siteamp160TV Maven Does the ongoing WGA strike have any impact on quarterlifeamp160Herskovitz We were finished with our scripts before strike began but Internet productions are not covered by the strike Itamp8217s an unprecedented circumstance our being repurposed on NBC Now weamp8217re negotiating an indie deal with the WGA because weamp8217re an independent company This is not a TV show and itamp8217s not budgeted like a TV show or shot like a TV show There will have to be some accommodation I believeamp160TV Maven Back to the show Who are these characters Your kids Their friends The male leads budding filmmakerscreative ad guys Danny and Jed seem a bit like Michael and Elliot from thirtysomethingHerskovitz Danny and Jed more closely represent Ed and me than Michael and Elliot did With thirtysomething both Ed and I were Michael the Ken Olin character And Elliot was somebody weamp8217d never met In this case we talked about what we were like when we got out of film school and we wanted to be more personal in that way Danny and Jed in caricature represent where we were at 26 years old The other charactersamp8230I donamp8217t know who these people are but I knew them so well Dylan just burst out of my brain fully formed I got her understood her Sheamp8217s difficult wonderful smart I immediately fell in love with heramp160TV Maven Did that make the role harder to castamp160Herskovitz The actress who plays her Bitsie Tulloch I met at jury duty I was so taken by her Sheamp8217s such a special person I kept thinking is that Dylan We went through a whole casting process We must have read 50 people for that part But something was so electric in this girl that I kept calling Bitsie back Sheamp8217s completely different from the character Bitsie does not have ADD and sheamp8217s a neat freak Dylan Krieger is a total slob and dresses like a mess Bitsie embraced the challenge bringing in all the ugliest clothes she had wearing no makeup When she walks in our office now as Bitsie Iamp8217m still sort of taken abackamp160amp160amp160

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"Quarterlife" Creator Marshall Herskovitz Makes the Move from TV to the Web and Back Again

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