The Daily Reel: What are you planning on doing differently on The Burg now that Motorola has signed on?

Kathleen Grace: We're just figuring that out now, but we've paid our actors, and that's fantastic. We shot the shorts for Motorola the last two weekends and it was really great to have that kind of financial ease. We had an [Assistant Director], and we were able to shoot much more quickly than we normally do.

Thom Woodley: We're just making the transition from basically coasting by on personal financing, working on weekends and editing overnight, to something that we're actually able to pay people to do, which is great.

KG: It's not quit-your-job money, but it's nice for the interim to breathe a little easier.

TW: And hopefully, if it keeps coming in, we can start [making episodes] a little quicker and post more frequently.


TDR: Are you looking into other ways to monetize the show?

KG: Now that the Motorola deal has been announced, there's been more interest. It's been done once, so now people are realizing "Oh... they *will* take product placement."

TW: It seems like product placement -- or even just light, soft advertising -- is the really best way to pay for Internet video.


TDR: Are you going to make production more elaborate at all?

TW: To some degree the aesthetic of our show is based around a sort of gritty approach -- with a lot of documentary-style shooting and outside shots -- and we don't want to change that.

KG: It's mostly smaller stuff that's going to change. We're redesigning our site, and during the campaign [Motorola is] going to be hosting our video so we maybe won't have to compress as much, and the quality will be a little higher. A lot of things that aren't as tangible are going to be better. We'll have better sound because we have two sound people and two cameras consistently for the shorts. Little things that maybe your average viewer wouldn't notice are going to be improving, but nothing major.


TDR: Can you give away any of the next season?

TW: It's sort of changing. It's going to be the same, but the focus is now going to be more on actual events going on in the neighborhood. I mean, this is a show about 20-somethings being at that transitional stage in life, and now the neighborhood is transitioning from a gritty, industrial, artists' neighborhood to luxury condos. And that's sort of a framing device for a lot of the stuff that we're doing now, with the changing of the neighborhood sort of mirroring the characters' lives. Past that … well, they all get robot sidekicks.

KG: (laughing) And they all have a kid brother who comes and lives with them... named Oliver.