If you’re making a Webisodic series, rather than going out filming on location all the time, look for people and organisations with interesting stories that have already shot the footage, repackage with a new interview and it will add new value for both parties.

Right now the economics of making a success out of factual Web Video depends on effective use of your time versus outputting regular and prolific content. Making original video is a very time consuming business compared to sticking up a two paragraph blog post and someone else’s photos.

What’s great is nowadays loads of people are filming what they do/organise/create to stick up on their own site. But they may not have the traffic, distribution reach or google rank that your show has or if they do have loads of views they may still want to reach your specific audience. If you can repackage their material, give them new exposure via your show and follow through traffic they will give you their archive to use. Their goal is not a hit series but to gain exposure for an enterprise so little chance of conflict.

Case in point check out this Rocketboom Episode (above) on the Break Out In Sound project in New York. Ella Morton the new Rocketboom Field Correspondent links it together with a couple of simple master interviews with Producer Ryan Mackey and Choreographer Andrew Turteltaub, but what makes the piece come to life is from the Break Out In Sound archive. BOS has done well with their own YouTube view count (c. 100,000 for a clip I just looked at) but add the reported 350,000 (or so) weekly views Rocketboom has and you can see the advantage for them to release archive.

When asking what your next story is, why not look if someone has already filmed it for you?