I think that the instinct that people have when they see a beautifully produced web series is that they think it must have been made for television and they just chopped it up and put it online.
I think what working in a short film online is that the response from the audience is immediate whether your short film or web-series works or not, it is immediate. You can see comments and you can also see how many people have viewed it.
The term 'web-series' has a stigma attached to it because it was created at a time when the only web-series that were being created were being created by people who would have loved to have a television show, but they couldn't. So they created a web-series instead, on their own dime. And those series look cheap because of it.
You can be in Ohio and shoot your own web series, if you want. If this had been around when I was in high school, I can guarantee you that my friends and I would have been shooting our own television shows and putting them online and trying to get as many hits as possible.
Web searching and cellphone use both flourish in the wee hours. Before the dawn of the web, I would stay up watching television. But there is something soporific about television: I would often nod off. Not so when I'm online. As technologies expand, these problems may only worsen.
In a TV show, you are restricted to a lot of things. On television, you can't put the content you can put on web series and on the channels digitally.
I love a web series. But to me, it does the girl in Detroit a disservice who just watches television. It does a disservice to the girl on the south side of Chicago who doesn't go online.
I don't get tons of scripts to be looking at and deciding on in terms of feature films; the industry has changed. Fortunately, with television and streaming and original series online, there's this whole new thing that has opened up, which I think is fantastic.
I didn't know enough as a writer to understand why I needed to do this, but I understood in a very gut way that I could not entertain those thoughts of pleasing people and write this book - that it would be a very different book. Without really sort of investigating that instinct, which I'm glad for, I just made a conscious decision to put blinders on and not think about anything and put it all in. And I did. I put everything in. I had to look at the whole picture to see what I needed.
The Internet has been a great outlet for storytelling. After all, there are web-based shows that have started online and have then gotten picked up. I think it's a great opportunity for artists to get through the network roadblock. It just allows us another venue to be creative in.
When you are just starting out with an online business, there's a good chance that you'll be making several mistakes. Because of the mistakes that can be made with starting an online business, many people decide to quit or think that online businesses are just a scam.
When I see someone filming me, I don't usually think, 'No, man, don't put this up online!' I'd think, 'Hey man, you don't get to go to shows very often, put down the camera and enjoy it!' I love going to theatre and to shows so much.
I think God is back, I think there is a huge amount of spiritual interest in the country. And I think the bishops are supportive of it because they see people's lives being changed. They see the difference. I see people who've been in prison, whose lives have been messed up, who've been alcoholics, who've been drug addicts, set free and contributing to society.
Television is just amazing - how many people see it and how many people recognize you, and I think once you've had the opportunity and have been in front of the public, it's very flattering to have people come up and say hello to you. It's a tremendous industry. I've been in places where people come out of the woodwork. And you would never think - small towns in France or traveling through Europe - and there are so many of those people there that recognize you, and you've been in their homes. I find it to be a very flattering thing.
I think half the people who get married now have met online. If I think about all the people in my life who married - they met online, online, online. And it makes sense if you think about it, because you fill out this form of 35 things that really define you and - bam - look, you've got two people who match. It works.
When it comes to how I portray myself online, I'm trying to be as real as I can and show people every side of what I do and not just put up selfies online of me in full done-up make up and stuff.
I'm not a righteous man. People put me up on a pedestal that I don't belong in my personal life. And they think that I'm better than I am. I'm not the good man that people think I am. Newspapers and magazines and television have made me out to be a saint. I'm not. I'm not a Mother Teresa. And I feel that very much.