Fox Television Group Senior Vice President Kiliaen Van Rensselaer announced his departure Wednesday to launch Insurrection Media, a digital studio he said would “shoot first ask questions later.”
Insurrection Media is backed by an undisclosed investment from Third Wave Capital Partners, a venture capital firm led by YouTube multichannel network Machinima founder Allen DeBevoise.
Van Rensselaer is not the first television executive to leave a Hollywood studio for the open plains of the Internet. In an interview, excerpts of which are below, he explained how Insurrection is betting on a free-flowing production style and Internet distribution, while trying to retain the high-quality touch that comes from Hollywood studios.
Question: How are you going to do the development process differently?
Answer: Our model works when we can take more shots on goal. I was thinking about naming the company Shoot First Ask Questions Later, but for obvious reasons we decided against that.
The strategy is very light touch and hands off in providing talent with resources they need to tell the stories they want to tell, how they want to tell them. The beauty off a low-cost model, shooting on spec, is we can take a lot of these shots and find out really quickly if something on paper translates to something that is compelling to consumers on screen.
I’ve heard you’re focusing on scripted comedy and drama, is that correct?
Yes. I can’t say much right now, but we do have a slate that we are developing and we will be making some announcements about that.
Anything else you can tell us about the content you will be working on?
Some projects will look a lot like broadcast cable and some will look a lot more outrageous and rough around the edges.
One is a traditional kind of TV show that we can launch more efficiently. We’ve developed a stable of production service companies who can squeeze every dollar and make it work and make very expensive looking shows at low cost.
The other is new types of shows that are custom designed for emerging digital platforms (such as Snapchat) that may have a different look and feel. We are going to be following the lead of the platforms that seem to be picking up traction and we are going to make adjustments in terms of their audiences and how they want the content.
For your longer content, should we expect a traditional format?
In terms of the length of the content, that’s the magic question. The traditional television format of 22 minutes and 44 minutes seems to work pretty well, but there isn’t any reason you shouldn’t be able to color outside the lines.
In some cases, we may be shooting 12 to 15 minutes and that may be enough to give a consumer or buyer an understanding what the show is. It really depends on the kind of project.
What channels will you be distributing on?
We will be fairly platform agnostic. We will choose a platform based on what will be the best home for that project. For us it’s going to be more about reaching the right consumer through the right platform.
We’ve had a great experience with YouTube over the years and I think YouTube could be a really good staging ground; they have great analytics.
There are a lot of people creating video content for the Web. How will you guys stand out?
Insurrection Media is different and better because it’s a combination of that talent-friendly, light-touch approach and empowering creatives with distribution resources.
Also, we protect our creatives in the process. The writers and creators are going to be involved financially in the project for its life. And we are shooting Episode 1 out of our own resources, so the writers and creators who bring projects to us don’t have to go around town dancing for their dinner.
What kind of resources are you going to provide?
We are going to be providing development, business affairs, legal and distribution, the key areas of infrastructure. You could call it distribution services.
Technology reporter Garrett Reim can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @garrettreim for the latest in L.A. tech news.
