A groundbreaking Hollywood power play is the Los Angeles-based Black Women’s Entertainment Network, a site billed as “the black woman’s Lifetime Television online.” BWE Network is a curated portal geared toward African American women featuring online shows such as: the offbeat comedy ‘Awkward Black Girl,’ created by and starring Issa Rae; ‘Diary of a Single Mom,’ produced and directed by Robert Townshend, and starring Monica Calhoun; ‘Blue Belle,’ starring Tessa Thompson of TV’s ‘Veronica Mars’; and ‘The LeBrons,’ an animated series produced by the basketball megastar.
Black online content is not limited to straight storytelling. Autsin-based animator Korey Coleman got his start as the creator of an off-beat public access movie review show. His baby, ‘The Reel Deal,’ had an interesting twist: the movie reviewers, voiced by Coleman and his friends, were animated. The entertaining vehicle evolved into Spill.com — a Hollywood.com-owned, online powerhouse with podcasts, animated reviews and over 6 million hits per month.
Coleman’s full-time production staff of eight “does the job of twenty people,” he proudly says. They deliver content daily to viewers craving witty banter and insights about film and gaming.
Aside from attracting mainstream interest as did Coleman and Thompson, are there other ways of making money through developing African-American digital content? Aymar Jean Christian, a professor of communications studies at the University of Pennsylvania who tracks emerging black web series, has this to say: “A filmmaker’s best shot is to get picked up by a network or get a brand sponsor, which has happened for black web projects but not very often.” Yet, “If you’re talking about YouTube though, people are making money. YouTube estimates hundreds, if not thousands, of its creators are able to make a living ([in the] five figures) from the ads run on their videos.”
These success stories are enlightening given the usual complaints that Hollywood does not want to see quality black television or film get made. African-American creators are successfully bypassing the establishment to show that our stories are worth telling, and our perspectives have universal appeal.
But black filmmakers are not abandoning their dreams of making it big by turning to the web for that green light. They’ve chosen to use the changing reality online to conquer a new frontier. These pioneers are using the web as a tool that can lead to opportunities to make money, create buzz, or acquire funding. They’re banking on the web world to make their dreams come true – some even making bank in the process.
