The internet drama that makes TV look so last year
The online supernatural thriller Kate Modern is an interactive, multimedia sensation, writes Declan Cashin
Whodunnit?: The cast of online suspense drama Kate Modern; (back row, left to right) Tariq (Jai Rajani), Gavin (Ralf Little); , (front row,L-R): Julia (Lucinda Rhodes Flaherty), Steve (Giles Alderson), Charlie (Tara Rushton)
Monday February 11 2008
It's 'Who Shot JR?' for the tweenage generation. The pioneering online drama Kate Modern -- which airs on the social networking site Bebo -- has just kicked off its second series with the boldly Hitchcockian move of killing off its leading lady, a troubled art student named Kate.
The shock twist has captivated the show's fans, who have helped transform the project into an interactive multimedia hit that's making television executives very nervous indeed.
The first series of the show -- which started airing last July and ran for 155 webisodes, lasting one to four minutes each -- clocked up an astounding 35 million views, breaking down at an average of 1.5m a week. When series two started just over a fortnight ago, some nine million views were recorded in its first week.
Kate Modern is a supernatural drama -- pitched as a cross between Buffy and Skins -- about young Londoner Kate (Alexandra Weaver), a girl with a dark past that she cannot remember. Kate's real identity is somehow connected to a secret organisation known as The Order, and the first series was dominated by her attempts to solve the mystery, aided by her Australian roommate Charley (Tara Ruston); computer slacker Gavin (The Royle Family star Ralf Little); her ex, Tariq (Jai Rajani); and the enigmatic Steve (Giles Alderson).
With the death of Kate, the show has turned into a whodunit where everyone is a suspect, and the viewer can play detective as much as the characters onscreen. It's an interactive experience that Kate Modern's head writer, Luke Hyams, claims will forever change the way young people watch TV.
"I think you could argue that theatre became cinema became television which becomes the internet," 27-year-old Hyams explains. "What we're seeing right now is more like a convergence. Kate Modern allows a very different viewing experience to just laying back and vegging out in front of your average TV programme.
"Once the video goes up, viewers can comment on it; they can have a conversation about it, and there's a puzzle in the video that they can help solve online.
"They can also make their own fan videos in response because video blogging is so easy. We also have the live events where they can come meet us. It's really an exciting way of telling a story."
Kate Modern is the brainchild of the same team behind Lonely Girl15, an American web-based video series that became a sensation when the New York Times ran an investigation into whether the vlogs (video blogs) were real or not (the writers subsequently admitted that LG15 was all fictional).
Like LG15 -- and cult movie hits The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield -- Kate Modern blurs the line between fiction and reality, an effect made possible by casting unknown actors filming themselves on a hand-held camera. It's a format that allows the writers more freedom than if they were working within the confines of conventional television. "We have to be considerate to the fact that we broadcast on Bebo, which is used mainly by young people," Hyams says. "There's definitely freedom, but it's not like you can go around swearing like crazy or doing anything too risqué. But for me it's more about storyline freedom and being able to do as many episodes a week as we like, depending on what the story demands."
Another online show, Quarterlife, which runs on MySpace and is produced by the US team behind the cult 1990s teen-angst show My So-Called Life, is about to make a transfer to the NBC television network, having picked up a huge following online. Are there any similar plans for Kate Modern? Hyams shakes his head. "The thing about Quarterlife is that it's shot in the third person like a conventional TV programme, and it doesn't take advantage of the same kind of interactivity on Bebo like we do. I'm not sure how well Kate Modern's style would work transferred to TV."
With the entertainment industry as a whole struggling to find a way to work with the internet, Kate Modern's producers have unashamedly embraced a novel way of funding their project outside of conventional advertising: brand integration.
But unlike the satirical movie The Truman Show, where characters break into product placement adverts out of nowhere, Kate Modern has found a way to work brands such as Gilette, Microsoft and Orange (who paid up €300,000 each) into the plot without compromising the storyline. "We're the first people making a show using product integration in the UK," Hyams explains. "It's an interesting testing ground and some brands work better for us than others. For example, I really wanted to do a road trip storyline and then at the same time I was introduced to Toyota.
"Rather than take away from the show, brand integration keeps it going." Considering the popularity of online viewing and downloading, is it safe to assume that the television establishment has been a bit frosty towards Kate Modern and its ilk? "Before Christmas I was invited to give a talk to BBC Drama," Hyams says. "All these development people were there and they didn't like the idea that we were letting the fans have so much say. They felt it would threaten the drama, and there was an air of, 'We know better'. But I think a lot of TV drama, especially in Britain, is in a tired, dull space. There's also great TV drama that works well -- Torchwood and Heroes, for example -- but, it's time for a change."
And as for who killed Kate, Hyams will only reveal that viewers can decipher clues in almost every webisode and the big revelation should come in March. But unlike the Dallas cliffhanger, Hyams has yet to see fans wearing an 'I Killed Kate Modern' T-shirt. "No I haven't seen any yet," he laughs. "You really know you've arrived when it's printed on a T shirt!"
Watch Kate Modern on http://katemodern.bebo.com
- Declan Cashin
