Zapruder's learns online from Hungry Beast team
According to Andrew Denton, Zapruder’s Other Films‘ production Hungry Beast has allowed the company to learn more about online content and social networking.
“Bringing in a bunch of people under 30 has been like a tutorial for us; the way they use and consume social media has given us a much clearer understanding that we wouldn’t have got from just looking at it from the outside,” Denton told Encore.
Hungry Beast is a topical TV program in which 19 young people from different professional backgrounds have one directive: tell the audience something they don’t know. Their work ranges from serious news stories to short comedic pieces, and features an innovative use of graphics to present information.
But the project also has a strong online component. The audience is able to comment, discuss, suggest and upload their own content. Most of the show’s segments are posted not only on the show’s ABC website, but also on a dedicated YouTube channel, and combining the two they can reach a larger audience than they do on television. A video for The Beast File has 316,795 views on YouTube, in addition to the unpublished number of hits on the official website.
Even more successful was their Avatar 2 trailer parody on episode 14, which is available at the Hungry Beast website but could not be posted on the YouTube channel due to rights issues. It was, however, posted by a fan, and it has had more than one million views there – compared to the 687,000 metro viewers that tuned in to watch the latest episode.
Denton said Zapruder’s would apply some of these online strategies to other projects.
“Some of the things we thought were true about websites and what worked online, the Hungry Beast team thinks are old-fashioned and boring. What we thought was actually a good idea turned out not to be so good,” added Denton.
Denton, executive producer of the show, admitted that the program was conceived as an experiment and had an unclear direction when it was launched in September 2009, but for the second series the team has found a more solid formula.
“We told the ABC that it was going to be experimental, bringing in new talent and trying new things. We said ‘this show is going to be very patchy, it’s not going to be the next The Chaser’s War on Everything, and it’s not going to be the next The Gruen Transfer either’,” said Denton.
According to Denton, it was hard for the first series to find an audience. He admits that decision to program it on Wednesdays at 9pm – made jointly with the ABC – wasn’t a good one.
“That put the show fairly and squarely into a position where there were very high expectations,” said Denton. “And you can’t have 19 people who are new to the game and to each other, creating a show from the ground up, and not have it patchy.”
But Denton believes that the team, mentored by Zapruder’s experienced creatives, has done something that even some people working on television for years have not been able to achieve.
“Most of these guys had never written a single word for TV before, and in such a short space of time they’ve created a show which is very distinct, very original, with a vibrant look and feel to it, which is created a response: stirring emotions, surprising people, provoking outrage sometimes,” he explained.
“We are not sure where we go from here; what we do know is that we found some genuine talent and the question for us as producers and the ABC as broadcasters is, what are we going to do with that talent?” said Denton.
An ABC spokesperson told Encore that the public broadcaster has not yet made a decision about the future of Hungry Beast. The last episode of series two will air on April 14.
In the meantime, the DVD Hungry Beast – The Best of the Beast was released today, with a selection of all the best videos the team has produced.
-by Tasama Vatanaputi
