Kate's adventures online

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Kate Modern's creators on the dramas of the Bebo web hit.

Bebo's pioneering web drama Kate Modern reached a climax at the end of June after 48 weeks and 267 episodes.

With the social network now established as a youth-oriented web drama commissioner with subsequent projects such as Sofia's Diary and The Secret World of Sam King, Broadcast sat down with members of the Kate Modern production team to reflect on how the show evolved, what they learned from its development and how it has influenced online drama.

How much of a challenge was it to manage the interactive side of Kate Modern?

Luke Hyams (lead writer): It took a long time for the Bebo community to get used to it - -people thought the characters were real and wondered why they were messaging them. This was when Bebo was still primarily a social network and before it signed deals with broadcasters.

Creatively, the challenge was in understanding the medium was different. Because they are talking to the audience, we realised that characters had to be endearing and likeable.
It was interesting to be in the middle of an avalanche of storytelling - producing 25 pieces of content a week, coupled with instant feedback, was demanding but a great discipline.

Our first storyline went out the window really quickly because it clearly didn't work for the medium. By series two, I wrote the entire storyline in advance but still had to be flexible. If it didn't pick up momentum or people reacted critically, we had to mutate it to their needs.

Kelly Brett (series producer): People got used to having new stories every day and expected to be entertained. Once we ran a 12-episode block in one day, and we were asking "How do you beat that?" Nobody ever sat back and said: "Here's the story, that's it." We threw the rule book out of the window.

How much did the actors get involved?

Giles Alderson (actor): We always discussed where it was going. For me, it was fantastic to have conversations with the head writer about what could happen. What was hard was playing a nasty character and straightaway having the viewers tell you what they think of you.

Hyams: I always like to involve the actors but here, the end result was 33% the writer, 33% the actor and 33% the audience.

Kate Modern was funded by sponsorship and product placement. What editorial issues did this pose for the production?

Brett: Some of these didn't work because neither the brands nor us really knew how best to integrate brands into drama at first. We sold everything for series one upfront and clients had different agendas - some wanted just to raise awareness of their products, while others wanted to promote specific brand values.

Toyota was unhappy about references to luggage in the back of a car being mistaken for drugs, and one character wasn't allowed to drink too much if he was driving the next morning. Proctor & Gamble intervened in one storyline because it didn't want to be seen to endorse characters filming themselves having sex and putting it on the web.

By series two we were taking storylines to brands with the Bebo sales team and created packages for clients. The story has to come first. The first question for potential partners has to be: what do they want to get out of it?

Kate Modern was filmed on a rolling schedule. Did that create problems for such an innovative format?

Brett: When we started, we thought we'd film Monday to Wednesday each week for pretty much a whole year. But with a small production team - just a runner, a co-ordinator and a producer - this proved unrealistic. Occasionally, we'd be scheduling, filming and editing on the same day.

Yusuf Pirhasen (director): We always seemed to be up against it - there was never a cut-off point. Because everything is in the first person, the audience can never be a step ahead, which was a stumbling block when you're trying to create suspense.

Whenever things got too smooth and filmic, the audience wanted it to get rougher so we'd have someone leave the camera somewhere or have it taken off him - anything to take it away from a conventional cinema route.

Hyams: Here's an example of how to cut corners for the web: for the finale, we ran through a forest using a £200 DV camera and two torches.

What would you do differently if you were launching Kate Modern now?

Hyams: I'm not sure I'd do a five-day-a-week format again, as you can get stuck with one story and it can be difficult to catch up. Perhaps more rounded single episodes that can stand alone. What I also discovered a bit too late was that you needed to have as much mystery as possible.

Pirhasen: You need different devices to take the story onto a different level. The mystery is the main thing and the story has to constantly evolve. At certain points in the story, we were taking it almost into sitcom territory and although we really engaged with it, the audience were less keen to follow.

What advice do you have for online drama-makers?

Pirhasen: Keep the crew as small as possible, for budgetary and practical reasons. All of our actors knew or learned how to use cameras and mic themselves up. It made for quite a theatrical way of shooting, all in one take, and meant we could run through and then do retakes without constant stop-starting and people interfering. It was very liberating.

Brett: Don't waste anything. We shot a couple of storylines early on that never got used, but in series two, these became a back story for Kate and fans felt rewarded for spotting links with the rest of the story. Also, don't be precious - encourage viewers to do whatever they want with your footage to create something new. Just remember there has to be a reason why it's on the internet, rather than just a TV show that happens to be online.

Why end it now? And what's next?

Hyams: Creating five or six episodes a week, it could easily have fallen into the trap of becoming disposable. Some web shows seem to go on forever. This was two chapters of a story that worked well together, but there is still the potential to do something different with some of the characters.

We're also aware of its influence now - Bebo gets lots of pitches that reference it and BBC3 controller Danny Cohen has explicitly asked for something that "really works" like Kate  Modern.