Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/394837
www.postmagazine.com 35 POST SEPTEMBER 2014 WEB SERIES producers of Very Mallory. "All the celeb- rities in the series have incredibly-large social followings, and their fans are more likely to check out the series. The celebri- ties love the opportunity to play them- selves and see their likenesses drawn. It's a quick and fun way to spread their wings in another space. And for fans of the talent, each episode includes some inside jokes for them to enjoy." Since Stun Creative was told that Very Mallory was CW Seed's most popu- lar digital series, they aren't tinkering with success this season. But they are expanding Mallory's world by introducing more regular characters, including a rival "gallerista," and some new locations, like Mallory's apartment. SugarShack does the animation through its studio in Sofia, Bulgaria. "We write a script and do the voice recording and give the track to SugarShack. The network approves the character likeness- es, we get animatics and then the ful- ly-animated episode," explains Feldstein. SugarShack uses Flash animation for the series, along with Adobe After Ef- fects, Photoshop and Blender. Episodes are cut on Apple Final Cut Pro with Sony Creative Software's Sound Forge for audio editing. Last season The CW ran some Very Mallory episodes as interstitials on the broadcast network, and Stun hopes that will happen again. "We hope we'll get named most popular show again and maybe that will translate to a TV order for the show," says Roth. "Part of the goal this season is to demonstrate that the series has legs, that the characters have enough depth to play out in a bigger and longer form." Stun Creative is no stranger to digital series. The second season of the live action The Single Life is on Conde Nast Entertainment's glamour.com Website now. And the company won a 2013 Webby for Best Writing for Presidential Clippings, their own live-action comedy series featuring Obama and Romney lookalikes engaged in surreal barbershop conversations. "What separates us from other com- panies is that as a full-service agency and production company, we can bring a level of quality to Web series that others can't," says Feldstein. "We can deliver a more expensive look for the digital dollar." HOUSE OF CARDS, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK Hollywood's Encore (www.encorepost. com) works on two of the Web's biggest series: Netflix's House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. The compa- ny picked up the former starting with Season 2 and has been involved with the latter since its inception. Encore's senior vice president of oper- ations Morgan Strauss notes that unlike traditional network shows with weekly air dates, Netflix has a single go live date when all of the season's episodes are available online to binge watch or view at leisure. "That changes the delivery process," he says. "There's no 1-2-3 waltz going on with one episode just starting, another in the middle of post, and a third ready for delivery. It requires a really proficient project manager to manage the sched- ule and navigate the requirements and expectations of the client. Additionally, it requires an airtight pipeline and work- flow, and ample SAN storage since we may bounce between Episodes 1, 6 and 10 as we get notes from the network or if the producers make changes." For House of Cards, Encore con- forms episodes in Autodesk Smoke and performs color grading with a FilmLight Baselight system; the company also titles, screens, reviews and delivers epi- sodes to Netflix. The series began shooting with Red Epic in Season 1 but only started deliv- ering to Netflix in 4K in Season 2. "The amount of data we're housing is over four times that of a traditional HD net- work show," Strauss explains. "The work- flow in editorial and color is analogous to HD, but what has changed is the prep time and the back end: Preparing files for the conform takes longer, rendering requires faster hardware and the entire process requires more storage." By contrast, post for Orange is the New Black has been "pretty consistent" over its run, according to Strauss. Since it shoots in New York City, dailies are done in Encore's New York facility and data is sent to Hollywood for the HD conform on Avid Symphony and color grading on Baselight. "We do remote color sessions with the DP via Streambox prior to the completion of color," Strauss says. Encore also works with Deluxe Dig- ital Studios, which does all the show's downstream work for the international market — translations, dubbing, subti- tling. "By the time the picture is com- plete here they're already working on all the international versions, after which time the entire package is sent to Net- flix," he reports. JUST SEEN IT Some Web series strike it big online, and some make the jump to television. Just Seen It (www.justseenit.com), a Hermosa Entertainment Production from executive producer David Freedman, started as a movie review series on the Web (it still screens on Hulu) then moved to public television where it is now seen in 140 markets nationwide. When Freedman was getting his Masters degree in TV production at the University of Southern California "the last incarnation of the old Siskel & Ebert show had gone off the air and the only movie Encore, which works on two of the Web's biggest shows, Orange is the New Black (far left) and House of Cards (opening page), is guided by senior VP of operations, Morgan Strauss (left). CONTINUED ON PG 46 COURTESY OF NETFLIX