Web TV, is the new form of entertainment in the 21st century. There are a variety of shows on the web. From ‘The Guild’ to ‘Casual Sex’, to the Streamy award winning ‘Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog’, they all have a mass following.
The web TV show, I chose to review is ‘Dorm Life’. This show is based at a college on a dorm floor. The tag line for the show is “This isn’t Real Life. This is Dorm Life.” The show is a comedy. Season one which the show calls ‘semester 1’ has 20 episodes. Currently there are seven episodes of semester two. Attention Span Media are the producers of Dorm Life. According to their website “Dorm Life is a multifaceted, mockumentary-style series targeting 18-25 yr olds. It follows the lives of ten-college student thrown together on the same dorm floor. Full of mischief, adventures, rivalries, and romance, the comedic series carries a broad appeal from teenagers to college graduates of any age. The series launched Feb 4th and is centered around the www.dorm-life.com portal. It was a 2008 Webby Honoree.”
Two of the cast members have previous acting experience and one of them is involved in future productions. Jack De Sena who plays Shane and Nora Kirkpatrick who plays Courtney. Nora will be staring in the upcoming movies Transformers 2, Growth, and How to make love to a woman. Jack does not have any upcoming films.
Hulu has a ranking of TV shows that are shown on their website. Looking at Hulu.com and the Most popular shows category, as of 4/6/09 ‘Dorm life’ was the most popular TV Web show of ‘All Time’, ‘Today’, ‘This week’ and ‘This month. The second place for all time is Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog. This shows that Dorm life has a great retention rate. According to the Attentionspanmedia.com Blog site Dorm life beats the rest of the top 50 web TV shows. “Dorm Life Episode 1 to 8 retention was 170% higher than the average top-50 web series.” and that dorm life “retained 95% of viewers from episode 2 to episode 8.” Which was during Season 1.
Dorm life’s budget for the first season was approximately $300,000. They shot the show at a small university in LA on an actual dorm floor. The producers got the whole dorm building to themselves. Having an entire building to your-self to shoot episodes I think is ingenious. This saves on production costs. The cast was able to move into the dorm rooms and actually live there and develop a relationship with the other cast members and they’re surrounding.
The producers also see the show as a franchise. The current characters will move on but new freshman would move onto the floor. This keeps the show continuing past four ‘semesters’ and an opportunity to attract new viewers. If the producers keep using the model for success that they are now then the retention rate will continue to remain high and be one of the most popular web TV shows around.
Overall, Dorm life is a goofy, campy and fun show that shows the trials and tribulations of dorm life in a college. This show was a great find and is a must see for anybody who is looking for some college humor on a rainy day.
References:
http://www.tilzy.tv/dorm-life-returns-for-a-second-semester-with-carls-jr.htm
http://news.tubefilter.tv/2008/10/25/love-is-in-the-air-as-dorm-lifes-romance-with-hulu-continues/
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