Interview pt. 2: Shelf Life’s Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt

While Action Flick Chick Katrina Hill conquers San Diego Comic-Con, Elizabeth Ann steps in by interviewing the webseries’ Shelf Life‘s Tara Platt and Yuri Lowenthal.

Continued from part one.

What would you say are some of the biggest challenges in creating a web series?

Y– Part of what Tara said the viewership question. How do you get it out there? As far as the creation part, is overcoming the fear that (which is usually paralyzing) that it’s not going to be good enough, that people won’t like it, that it’s won’t come out exactly the way you want it.

T– That you won’t know what you’re doing.

Y– That you won’t know what you’re doing, you don’t have enough money. I think that stops a lot of people from creating in general, but for the web definitely. I think overcoming that and saying “Well, we wanna make something and we’ll make it as well as we can with what we have, and we’ll see what happens. People will like it or they won’t but we made it.” I think that, and then keeping the momentum going, too, when you’re not pulling a big salary or you don’t have a million hits per episode, or whatever, just keeping the momentum. We’ve also seen this and I think you mentioned this earlier, a lot of web series, they peter out pretty quickly, or they have two, three great episodes and that’s all they did, because they were hoping that it would be this huge thing, and even if people do love it at that point, then they’ve gotta go back, and then there’s this huge time lag between those first three amazing episodes and then coming back, and you lose—the internet moves so quickly, and you lose your viewership. So for us I know maintaining momentum has been huge, and staying consistent. We’re airing a season- we have to come out every Tuesday. We can’t not come out Tuesday and say “oh, it wasn’t ready yet, we’re going to do it on Thursday this week” because then people won’t know when to tune in. Every little thing you do to make it harder for somebody to watch your show, you lose people. Those are some of the biggies. You’ve seen a lot of the shows out there—anybody can create for the web.

T– I think we both always say, “Just do it. Just do it. If there’s something you want to do, do it.” I mean, like, figure out what you think your obstacles are, and then work around them.

Y– Or use them to your advantage.

T– Yeah, use your obstacles, because your problem is your solution, which my dear friend Alice always says. I get to a point where I’m like “I don’t know what to do” and then I look and the problem is the solution. So I have no money, okay, I have no money is the solution! So what do I do with no money? This is what you do. So I just turn it around.

Y– You justify a really cheap-looking show and there are ways to do that, and as long as the love and good writing…I always believe that that’s not necessarily essential to getting millions of hits on YouTube, but if you want to maintain, and you want people to enjoy it there has to be something there, the story or characters-

T– The other thing, and I sometimes forget this, even for myself, is you don’t have to do it alone. There’s lots of people out there that want to create something, and they may be really good at something you’re not good at and vice versa, and so you’re really not alone. Now that we live in such a global community by being on the web, if there’s something that you can’t do, there’s probably somebody out there who can that’s looking for somebody to do what you do, and so you can really easily build communities and groups and teams and make things happen.

Y– Yeah, we work with people we love working with and do it over and over again because we love doing it and we work well together, and those people are out there.

What do you think the web series landscape will look like in five years, and how do you think it will evolve from where it is right now?

T– That’s really hard to say because it’s changing so rapidly. Right now we’ve gotten to almost a breaking point of too much content, if there is such a thing, because what’s happening is people are so inundated with so much material all the time that people are not knowing where or how to tune in. I think the face of entertainment is changing. There’s all new acts and new studios and networks that are trying to focus on the web specifically, and I think there’s going to be a change—I don’t know if it’ll be within the next five years—how people tune into entertainment, whether it’s now that there’s lots of YouTube channels that they host other information on them, whether it’s a matter of it being channels that you go to for this type of comedy or this type of drama or this type of information, or whether it’s providers that you get the app of their provider and you get all the content that they host or whatever. I just think that things are changing really rapidly, and so part of the fun of being in that content creation is living in the Wild West of it, so I don’t know that I would be able to stay…

Y– I think you touched on it, you said aggregators, coming up with networks and channels, which is happening now with all the YouTube channels that are being sponsored, like Geek and Sundry, or Young MS, channels that are coming up like mad, when people know “oh, this is where I go to see that stuff that I like” as opposed to “I’m just going to get what somebody sent me in a link somebody sent me in an email, oh that’s funny, where do I go to find more of that? Oh, who knows?” Right now it’s just a big…you can come up with a metaphor together.

T– It’s almost like too many channels, like too many racetracks, and somebody has to decide where you’re going to put your attention.

Y– It’s like, even to a certain extent, “Oh, I’m hungry, there’s every kind of food. I know I can go to a Mexican restaurant and get that kind of food, or I can go to a sushi restaurant and get that kind of food.” I think the internet will have to start breaking down into channels like that, which I’m sure TV networks are terrified that that’s where it’s headed and probably don’t believe that it’s going to happen that way. I think that’s the only way.

T– It’s the diversity of content, that there’s almost too much, and people are getting really overwhelmed, and an overwhelmed or confused mind tends to say no, and you don’t want that if you’re an advertiser, which is part of why content is created, so that advertisements can then be put out there. The whole face of entertainment is changing because now you can make a show and NOT have advertisements and put it out there and get your fans to like it and there’s just different ways of getting that content disseminated, so I agree with Yuri about aggregators.

Returning to the question about the target audience, Yuri mentioned that they might get quite a few viewers that are too young for the show. While the overall storylines of each episode are probably watchable by anyone, there are obvious elements that should be limited to mature audiences. Obviously the language used… there are F-bombs all over the place. The sexual content and political commentary should hopefully go over any child’s head but as they are the baseline comedy of many episodes, why risk it? Keep your kids off YouTube, ladies and gentlemen. It does beg the question of why, when you are portraying characters that are likely to interest kids, use the bawdy humor.

So let’s touch on the slightly blue color of the humor; why use the bawdy humor and do you think it may alienate some of your audience?

T– I am a little worried that it does alienate some of the audience, but because we’re trying to push the envelope and feel like there’s no topic that’s taboo or off limits, we did sort of make the decision early on that right next to an episode that might be the boys punching each other in the nuts, there’d be an episode talking about politics and then, so we do try to balance it that we will have blue, potty humor, but we will also have racial commentary or political commentary or sexual commentary. We try to balance out the type of humor from episode to episode, and even within the same episode.

Y– I think for the most part, every now and then, farting is funny, to me, anyway, and getting punched in the nuts as long as it’s not happening to me in real life, but it’s it always funny to me, but besides the occasional times we venture into that purely for that, even when we’re going blue, it’s based in something else. It’s not gratuitous. It’s either based in the character, or the story or what’s going on.

T– Or a comedy trope that’s just sort of a natural thing that you will find repeated in every comedy theme that’s out there.

Y– I would actually get bored writing the show and making the show if it were just that, and I may be justifying my own proclivities, but I think it’s based on a lot more than just that.

Right.

Y– I’m hoping that…I might even go…you know, Tara’s parents- (Tara laughs) They were worried about that in the beginning too, and now they’re diehard fans who write us an email every time a new episode airs and tell us exactly what they loved about it.

T– But it’s not usually the blue potty humor that they love.

Y– They see past that and see the funny for the funny.

T– I just love that Yuri’s mom loves Samurai Snake.

Y– That’s not fair! I should be my mom’s favorite character! Bug Boy should be my mom’s favorite character! She’s like “Nope, I like Samurai Snake best,” and I’m like, “Mommm!”

(Laughing) Oh, parents.

Outside of getting your project or series seen, something that was just touched on as a difficulty in creating is money. Essentially, the first three seasons of Shelf Life were funded completely by Yuri and Tara and their credit cards. Imagine getting that monthly bill? With the upcoming season four, they’ve decided to pursue external funding through the fans. Their plan is very ambitious and springs into action right after San Diego Comic-Con 2012 (which is right around the corner- they’ll be signing autographs, doing a panel, and chatting with fans all weekend); they shared the low down and some hints of perks backers can expect- by the way, if you’re like me and dying to figure out the lyrics to the theme, that’s one of the perks.

Let’s talk about this season 4 campaign – you’re using IndieGoGo? What’s the plan?

T– We’re trying to be very ambitious; we’re trying to raise $30,000 in 30 days for our next season. We’re going to be posting a bit of content every single day for 30 days. And some of the content is we’re actually going to have scripts, so people will actually be able to read the scripts.

Y– And some of the content will be outtakes. And little behind the scenes interviews

T– But because you’ve specifically asked about the script, I was gonna say, that’s actually going to be some of the content we’re posting, so people can see, ya know, what does it look like on the page versus what does it look like when you watch it.

T– YES. It’s going to be starting on July 18th, and actually, the week after Comic-Con because we’re going to be crazy the week of Comic-Con.

(laughs) Right, aren’t we all?

T– Yeah, in order to launch it, what we’ve decided to do, is we’re hosting a live webcast party that we’re calling Shelf Live instead of Shelf Life, and Shelf Live is going to help us launch our IndieGoGo campaign, and it’s going to start on 8PM PST on TheStream.TV/live and what we’ll be doing is the cast and the crew of Shelf Life, as well as special guests are going to be there, and we’re going to be doing live Q&A with anyone that tunes in, and we’ve got giveaways and prizes and really special announcements that people that are tuned in will get to participate in a really fun way, and so that’s how we’re going to mark the launch of our IndieGoGo campaign; actually doing the Shelf Live event.

Okay, other than season 4 and the IndieGoGo campaign, do you have any future projects that you’d like to talk about, or that you’re able to talk about?

T– Sure! Well, besides the two of us always working in voiceover and various TV and film projects, we actually have our mockumentary, our feature film that we shot two years ago?

Y– Yeah, over the course of a year, all the conventions that we went to, we shot a mockumentary, but it’s about half documentary, actually.

T– It’s a mocku-docu.

Y– It’s called “Con Artists,” about the convention circuit, and two people, two voice actors on the convention circuit. We always thought it was really funny, the kind of fame that voice actors enjoy—it’s kind of fame in a bubble, because outside of a convention hall like Comic-Con or any of the anime cons or the pop culture conventions that we attend, nobody knows who you are, nobody knows what you look like, nobody knows what your name is, nobody cares. It’s not fame as fame is perceived. When you go in there, in a convention hall, you’re famous. As soon as you walk out the door, you’re nobody. We always thought that was a really interesting dynamic, and we thought, ripe for comedy.

T– Yeah, so what we did, over the course of the year, a friend of ours is a documentary filmmaker and actor in his own right, traveled with us to all the conventions—there was like, ten, or eleven, in the year, and we shot footage in each of those conventions, as well as just regular footage of the convention to introduce people who have never been to a con, or to show the fans that are at the con the things that are there, but we also did silly little vignettes of us playing versions of ourselves, in a comedy way that we had sketched out ideas of what was going to happen for the rise and fall of our characters. So we did that and it should be coming out in a couple months. We’re just putting the finishing touches on post-production and we’re very excited about that.

Now, will that be coming out on DVD or hitting the festival circuits? How will that be available for viewing?

Y and T– A combination thereof.

Y– We don’t have any distribution prospects right now, but at the very least, like with our last film, we did another feature, a psychological thriller called “Tumbling After,” after trying to get classical distribution for it and failing, we distributed it ourselves, and it’s available on iTunes and DVD now, and so we’ll see how things turn out at the festivals, we’ll see if people are interested in it and if we can’t get a classic scenario of distribution, we’ll work on getting it out ourselves. Besides that, we’re making video games and movies and we’ve got a couple other projects in development, and a book—

T– Yeah, your book’s coming out this year!

Y– that I wrote a long time ago with a friend, we finally just decided to publish ourselves, so I’ll be doing an e-version of that to start, maybe a print on demand, so we’re always…

T– Always working.

Y– We’re rarely bored, let’s put it that way.

And there you have it, the low down on Shelf Life, its future (and how you can be a part of it), the difficulties and fun of creating a web series, and a little insight into the thoughts of your action figures. I maintain that all of mine have potty-mouths, so they’d fit in just fine on the shelf. Catch the rest of the Shelf Life season three as it airs- every Tuesday on the website and on YouTube.

Of course, we can’t let these two go without hearing one more thing.

All right, so here’s a personal question: what is the worst thing you ever did to one of your toys?

Y– Oh my god.

T– I’m gonna be sad because I didn’t really have toys.

Y– Yeah, you weren’t really an action figure person.

T– I did have a doll that I chopped all her hair off, but I don’t think that really counts.

Y– I think to a girl that might be harrowing, but you’re right, hair grows back. Oh, the lengths I went to to destroy my toys. Sometimes I think I would build models just so that I could blow them up.

T– Pyrotechnology was a lot easier to access when you were a kid.

Y– Yeah, I’m surprised that I can still see out of both my eyes and have all my fingers because I used to…it’s funny, because I treated my “Star Wars” action figures like they were made of, ya know, gold, and yet I would have no problem setting other toys on fire with homemade napalm (The girls crack up) Here’s a little tip for the kids at home—you can dissolve Styrofoam into gasoline and—

T– Oh, ‘cause that’s a good idea!

Y– And it makes a sticky, jelly-like substance that is essentially napalm.

(Laughter)

T– And now we’re on, like, a terrorist wanted list for saying that.

Y– I know- every watch list. Yeah, burning and blowing up. M80s were always the right size firecracker to insert in various crevices of action figures to blow them apart. Yeah, that is a really personal question when you get right down to it.

(Laughter)

And I thought I was bad for just, like, taking off their feet and saying oh, they were just hurt in a battle, oh, my god!

T– So much for decapitation!

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