Hoodlum, a once modest Australian creative studio, envisioned an opportunity where other, bigger production entities saw an exit sign.
Back in the golden era of the dot.com, when new media was exploding and everyone tripped over themselves to herald the dawn of a new entertainment age, the big Hollywood studios were quick to build new interactive and online entertainment divisions. There were dreams of endless online shorts based on popular franchises and web series boasting entirely original material.
But, then those same networks and studios woke up one bleak morning and realized that web series production costs money. The writers, directors and actors aren't made of 1's and 0's. They eat. They expect to be paid. And they need office space, computers and coffeemakers. This online stuff suddenly seemed less exciting if it was going to get uppity and expensive.
Meanwhile, executives in expensive suits were scratching their heads on how exactly to make money off such online entertainment. The scratchiness got worse until labor stoppages resulted. That killed whatever excitement survived the expensive bit, and the studios and networks wanted out of the online production business faster than a rat off the deck of the Demeter.
Enter Hoodlum.
The Aussie firm specializes in mainstream, multi-platform drama using "branded integration and storytelling." Those are fancy marketing buzzwords that mean Hoodlum "takes franchises from movies and TV and makes online tie-ins."
It's the kind of work many in Hollywood envisioned the studios doing for themselves. But, these days, a lot of powerful and busy folks in LA would just as soon pass such work onto specialists.
Hoodlum cofounder Nathan Mayfield told Wired.com that his company is more about enhancing what studios do -- rather than replace or compete with any online work going on inside of them.
"When we first emerged into Hollywood, we met with many of the online divisions at the studios," Mayfield said. "But we found that the key to working in that environment is finding champions inside of them that like what we do."
And what Hoodlum does is make multi-episode web series for licensed franchises in the U.K. and U.S. They made a parallel production for everyone's favorite on again, off again British sci-fi monster hit with the online series Primeval Evolved. The company won a BAFTA for its online work on the Brit spy show, Spooks (MI5 in the U.S.) And, they built another portal into the ever-widening backstory of Lost with The Dharma Initiative.
When developing these genre online spinoffs, Hoodlum looks to add something special and essential to the franchise universe -- not just come up with something similar to the original show that can run online.
"We look to enhance the series that our work is contributing to whenever we're working with a larger franchise," Mayfield said. "I think we're developing a reputation for producing online productions that offer every bit of the quality the original shows offer."
Hoodlum's reputation has it on the radar of big non-entertainment companies like Pepsi and Toyota. But, the company is looking to build on its genre web series success and produce its own original content.
"We continue to develop our own series and hope that our position as a leader in franchise production continues to position us as an online content provider that entertainment fans remember and make a point to watch."
Images courtesy Hoodlum
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