Online is where quality serials are

CHENNAI: For generation Y, which clocks 12 hours in a corporate cabin, web series have become an ideal watch. These

serials

, which come with fresh and snappy content, not only raise issues relevant to the current generation but also talk about things that otherwise are considered as taboos in society.

“They’re like palatable nuggets of wisdom coated with a strong layer of entertainment. The continuing storyline and fewer advertisements help sustain your attention,” says HR executive Sunethra Mahidhar, a fan of sci-fi comedy

Star Boyz.

The web series wave in the country began in 2014 with the show ‘Permanent Roommates’. It was a 12-episodes-long comedy that told the story of a couple who after being in a long distance relationship of three years face the prospect of marriage. Rated as the second most-watched long-form web series internationally, the show produced by The Viral Fever (TVF) became immensely popular within a few days of its release. Not to be outdone, shows targeting the urban, educated Tamils have also hit the cyberwaves. ‘Black Sheep’ and ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ are two noteworthy ones.

Realistic portrayals with the right amounts of drama, comedy and romance serve as an ideal concoction for a good web series. Colloquial and conversational writing, peppered with sarcasm and humour fortify the quality of these shows. With keen minds drawing up the scripts, professional actors and top-notch technical crew have helped to make web series a big success.

Whether it is four IT professionals juggling with love and project deadlines in the Tamil-English comic drama ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ or an engineering student dropping out to pursue theatre and stand-up comedy in ‘Black Sheep’, true-to-life anecdotes take center-stage.

Talking about the immense response that ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ has received, Put Chutney’s director Hari Haran terms the show a fair reflection of urban life in Chennai. “Just the comments of the audience below our videos prove how much the issues the show addresses resonate with the conflicts in their own life,” he says.

“The idea behind ‘Black Sheep’ was to keep it real, urban and raw,” says city-based Bhargav Prasad, the writer of the show. “That is why we shot the series in live locations with ambient sound. Starring popular actors Janaki Sabesh and Jeeva Ravi, the eight-episode bi-lingual series seeks to showcase taboo issues and normalize what is otherwise seen as socially unacceptable, like “the way people talk about sexual intercourse.”

Prasad says the overwhelming response (over 40k views per episode) has motivated them to create more web content like ‘Stray Stories’ and ‘Make Word Not War’.

The biggest advantage of publishing content

online

is the relatively low levels of censorship it enjoys compared to

television

. “Television cannot afford to put edgy content in India since it caters to a cross-section of people. It is quite commendable that despite these barriers, the web space has grown exceptionally and created a niche for itself,” says Jyotsna Hariharan, a student in dramatic writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

But making a successful breakthrough in the digital galaxy isn’t easy, says Kumar. “On the web, quality triumphs over everything else and without it, your creative work may as well go unnoticed in the sea of information. It is the kind of values one brings to a story that makes it click,” he says.

Sleepless nights, delayed lunch breaks and testing moments are part of the package for making classics akin to feature films. While some toil for nearly two years to make a bunch of 15-minute episodes, others strive to wrap it in a few months. Creators insist they need to compromise very little with their artistic integrity. With the cost of canning an episode running to several lakhs of rupees, however, web series do get support from brand tie-ups and ads. “When there’s a tie-up, we write stories with the brand at its heart,” says TVF founder and creative experiment officer Arunabh Kumar, an IIT graduate who set up TVF in 2011.

He explains how in TVF Triplings, which is created in association with an automobile company, the car is at the core of the story. But the makers say that in such cases the brand is subtly weaved into the story, while ensuring that the story is not marred by brand-driven props.

While India has produced some of the best content on the web, web series makers still have a long way to go. “Web series in India are at a very nascent stage. What they need is greater access to reach more people. With more youngsters experimenting with the space, there will soon be a variety of content in different genres,” says Hari Haran, who hopes to make videos that are more edgy and impactful in the future.

(The author is a freelance writer)