Tribeca N.O.W. is a new initiative that recognizes creators of new online work (N.O.W.) aiming to discover, highlight, and celebrate the next generation of storytellers who choose to create and share their work in the online space. Tribeca Film Festival Programmer, Cara Cusumano, sat down with several artists/online pioneers as part of a series of talks hosted at the Apple Store in SoHo.
Members of the panel included Rob Michael Hugel, creator and star of “I Hate Being Single,” Ben Sinclair & Katja Blichfeld, creators of “High Maintenance,” and Natalia Leite & Alexandra Roxo of “Be Here Nowish.”
Cusumano asked the creators where they wanted their work to develop. The answers revealed a similar theme. Television is the light at the end of the tunnel. Leite said, “I mean we would love to take our show to television. I think that would be a dream for us. We love being on the web because it’s accessible… but we want to make this a more sustainable thing of being able to live off of our work.”
Blichfeld said, “The draw of television is the money. There’s nothing like it right now. There’s not that kind of money happening for just a web series.”
Cusumano then asked the panel if they had any advice for aspiring creators of original online content. Hugel said, “be specific… the most compliments I ever get about anything I make is when they’re pointing out something that I thought in a little tiny crevice of my head was funny to me.”
Both Sinclair and Blichfeld suggested that new artists should strive for patience and quality. Sinclair said, “Don’t worry about numbers… You’re primary goal is, ‘is it good?’ and would you watch it… At a certain point people confuse persistence or exposure with ‘good’ and that’s not true.”
Blichfeld elaborated on themes that the other artists touched on, saying, “Besides being truthful to what you know, like everyone is saying, wait until your ready to put something out… Waiting until something is complete and ready to release it.”
Check out the clips from the interview below, and be sure to check back on iTunes shortly for the full podcast.
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