The Daily Reel: Judging by traffic, Prom Queen seems to have been a hit. What were some of the factors that helped you build an audience for it, and how do you now hold onto that audience for future Vuguru projects?

Chris McCaleb: We have been so thrilled with the number of viewers! It's so gratifying, when you're working 7 days-a-week, often not sleeping more than a few hours a night, to discover that people are enjoying the fruits of all your labor. We started our company with the belief that the Internet audience was being under-served with this kind of entertainment -- short, daily, scripted drama -- and it seems like that has proven to be true. As audiences become more familiar with the format, we feel the numbers can only grow.

TDR: Were there many ideas from other (old) media that you simply applied to the new format, or were there a lot aspects to production (episode length aside) that were specific to online video. What were some of the biggest unforeseen problems along the way

CM: We applied all the lessons we learned from producing "Sam Has 7 Friends" to the production of "Prom Queen" -- and we learned A LOT. There are many challenges unique to making an Internet episodic series -- first and foremost, you have to write differently than a traditional TV series or movie, in order to find a compelling story to tell every single day. One of the biggest rules we imposed on ourselves was to really utilize the format -- so it doesn't just feel like a movie cut up into pieces. The area perhaps most similar to traditional media production was our production schedule -- unlike "Sam Has 7 Friends, which was shot around our intense day jobs, we shot most of "Prom Queen" concurrently, over a period of about 25 days.

TDR: Obviously, as a professionally produced series with Michael Eisner in the background, you had a lot to differentiate Prom Queen from a lot of the more amateur serials that are popping up online. Aside from increased production values, what kind of marketing advantages did you have in putting the show out there?

We certainly had a lot of press right out of the gate, due to Mr. Eisner's involvement. But ultimately, if people weren't interested in the series they would have stopped watching. That's the key -- no matter how much money you have, it is essential that you make something that's interesting to watch, and that keeps people coming back. With "Sam Has 7 Friends," we didn't have a ton of money -- we were spending our savings trying to tell new stories with high production value, and make a mark, and it worked. But even if you only have $10 and all your friends are working for free, you still have to have an interesting idea. Perhaps the greatest value the Internet has yet offered is the ability for anyone with a great idea and a camera to show their work to the world.

TDR: The audience for Prom Queen (presumably) was, in large part, young people. Do you think older audiences can be reached with similar serials? What sort?
There were a lot of young people watching the show, judging by MySpace, but you'd be surprised. I know my 14 year-old sister and all her friends are watching it, but some of the most die-hard fans span several generations. One of the great advantages of the internet is the ability to interact and connect with your audience, and we hear from SO MANY PEOPLE -- one might be a 20 year-old girl in London, another might be a 26 year-old guy in Northern California, and another might be a retired teacher in Alabama. We believe that the audience for this kind of short-form entertainment is fairly limitless, especially as the technology evolves to make the Internet entertainment more of a shared experience.

What are you working on now? Any hints on when we can expect it?
We're still wrapping up "Prom Queen," and then diving straight into the "Prom Queen" Summer Series, which will air in August. We also have several other projects in the works that we unfortunately can't talk about yet -- one we're casting right now, another we're writing, and several others we're developing for several different outlets -- so it's going to be a very busy summer!