In part 2 of Hypable’s exclusive interview with Jenni Powell, the producer of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Powell talks production challenges, merchandise, and possibilities for the next book adaptation.

In part 1 of our exclusive interview, Powell gave us an extensive look into the casting process on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, as well as into Hank Green’s original idea to adapt The Diary of Anne Frank. In part 2 we discussed the possibilities of merchandising, production challenges Powell has faced on The LBD, and her dream book adaptation.

Hypable’s exclusive interview with Jenni Powell

Hypable: What for you has been the biggest challenge producing The Lizzie Bennet Diaries?

Jenni Powell: The biggest challenge would be staying within the confines of what we have available in terms of resources. We don’t have the biggest budget in the world, and we especially didn’t in the beginning when it was just us doing it on our own. But at the same time, it has always been important to Bernie [Su, co-creator, executive producer, director, head writer] and I that we pay the crew, that everybody makes at least something, even if it is much less than what they might normally make on a traditional media show.

So balancing keeping the look and feel of the production very high quality, while at the same time balancing that with having enough left over so that we can pay the cinematographer, and the writers, and all of that.

Has the show become more financially viable as it has gone on?

Well the only nudge up that occurred was it got to the point where Hank [Green, co-creator and executive producer] was no longer having to help us with financing because we were making enough off of our CPMs, and then DECA, who is our sponsor now, actually came in and they supply our budget. But we never had a real need to make the budget larger. There was talk about what if we wanted to start doing walking and talking, because that’s how lonelygirl went – it originally was the locked camera with Bree just vlogging to her webcam, but eventually they expanded out from that and started carrying the camera, still keeping the first person style.

I remember that coming up a couple of times with Bernie, but he was like “You know what, no, I think we just keep it. It’s working, the locked camera style is working, why mess with anything that’s working?” Obviously the Lydia spinoffs were a little bit different because she was filming those on her camera phone, so of course she did need to hold it in her hand, but other than that we have’t really varied from that locked camera style and just letting the acting be the voice and be front and centre.

Is more merchandise something you’re looking into?

That’s funny that you should say that, I had a merchandising call just a few hours ago, this morning in fact.

Is there anything you can tell us about that?

Nothing that is set in stone. We definitely are looking at doing more merchandising. It’s something the fans want, it’s something we want. Once we finish major production we can spend a little more time focusing on that. So it’s definitely something very important to us.

Speaking of finishing major production – what will happen when you finish the book? Will the videos and transmedia be phased out slowly, or will it all end abruptly? Has a decision been made either way?

That decision has not been made yet. I swear, I don’t know.

Let’s talk about the medium itself. Are web series something you see yourself staying in for now, you don’t feel any urge to run across to television?

Nope. I’m here to stay. I love working in online video, and it’s not just producing content, it’s on the whole I just love the fact that it’s doing things your own way, creative people coming together and being able to have access to one another.

There’s not as much ego in this industry – there probably will be, we’re getting there. As we get bigger those things come into play and we are already seeing some of it, but on the whole I feel like I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and stay true to what I like to do. There will always be other people who want to come along with you to do that. I’ll keep doing it as long as I can.

Do you think online storytelling is becoming more recognised as a viable option compared to television?

I definitely think so. I think a huge credit has to be paid to YouTube for that. When a company says, “I’m going to invest $200 million into content for the web,” it’s not billions of dollars, and millions of dollars are spent on one movie sometimes, but still – it’s the biggest investment anyone’s made into our space. People are going to take notice. Unfortunately it sometimes takes money to get people to go “Oh what? This is a real thing?” and the fact that advertisers are starting to realize, “Oh my gosh, there are all these kids and some of them don’t watch TV.”

I don’t watch TV, I don’t have cable. I watch everything through the Internet, through Hulu, through Netflix, I don’t need a cable connection, I have cut all those ties and everything I watch is online, and there are a lot of kids that want to hear, “Hey Philip DeFranco, what movie should I go see? Hey Olga Kay, what’s your favourite designer, I wanna wear what you wear.” And there’s a lot of power in that, and advertisers are like, “Oh my gosh, I want to figure out a way to be a part of that.”

So I think it’s a combination of YouTube investing in original content and the power that some of these creators have to say, “You can go to my site and look at my numbers, they are right there for you. That’s my power right there.” It’s a very exciting time.

From the beginning of the series we have seen how the actual process of documenting their lives has itself changed the lives of these characters. We see it when Lizzie and Lydia are in a fight and don’t see each other’s videos, or when Darcy and Gigi catch up on Lizzie’s videos. Was that an active decision, and what do you think about that concept?

It was always an active decision. As we were going through the creative process every month part of what the creative team thinks about it what is their online presence. What has to happen with their online presence to make the story work? That’s why we have a transmedia team that works with the writing team to make sure that these two things are working in harmony, because always from the beginning there was a social media plan with each of the characters.

Knowing that, if Lizzie is following Lydia, you have to assume that they are reading each other’s stuff. There has to be a logical reason why they wouldn’t be, and if they’re in a fight – I’ve had this happen before where I’ve been in a fight with a friend and I’m like, “Oh, I’m not following your Facebook page anymore because I don’t care about your feelings.” It’s a real thing that happens so they wanted to reflect that in the storytelling.

So yes, it’s always been something that has been part of the creative plan from the beginning. It became more complicated as you added more characters. The more characters we have, the more accounts we’re juggling and it’s more to keep mapped out.

And there’s a fine line where the actual fans get involved; we had in the Lydia video where she was angry with the fans themselves, and I saw there were some fans on Tumblr saying they wanted to get the LydiaBennetTape site taken down, and Bernie and Jay had to both say “Please don’t do that.”

Well they actually did. Someone succeeded in taking the site down. The fear was if we couldn’t get it up in time, how that would affect. And that’s a single case where if we hadn’t already shot the few episodes following that, there may have been a possibility that last minute we could have gone in and changed some things to make it work, but it was already shot so the fear was we could really ruin the fourth wall here, if this were the fall through, because it doesn’t match with what we have already shot.

That was just a reality, that Jay [Bushman, transmedia producer] and Bernie made the decision to say “Hey guys, sorry to come out of the curtain, we don’t like to do this but just so you’re aware, try not to do that. We’re not going to tell you why, but just try not to, just this once.” And it ended up working out and it was fine, and as you saw the site did go down and everyone was very excited. I think at the end of the day, they do feel satisfied with how it turned out.

But at the same time I have to say, I find it very endearing that a group of fans would care enough about Lydia to attempt to do that. To just say, “This isn’t right, what can I do?” and actually try to take actions.

[Author’s note: You can also read Hypable’s interview with Jay on all things transmedia]

Are you planning on being involved in the next book adaptation that Bernie and Hank are doing?

I always say that whatever Bernie and Hank want, I will absolutely do, 100%. I would love to. Bernie has already said that when he knows what is going on we will all sit down and talk about it, and it’s really hard – I’m never going to be the type of person to say with 100% certainty that something is happening until it is actually happening. Working in the industry, you learn that because so many times it’s like “Yes! It’s a done deal – Oh, no. It’s not a done deal.” So all signs point to yes. Me, Bernie and Hank I like to think love working together so I would love to continue to do that for as long as possible.

Have you been involved in any of the discussions about what the next book might be?

I have.

Can you give us any hints, apart from it will be out of copyright?

It will be out of copyright. I can say that much.

Are there any books that have been ruled out, maybe because you couldn’t get the copyright to them?

I will tell you the book I would love to do someday is Lord of the Flies. I think Lord of the Flies done as ‘found footage’ after the fact, and somebody got a hold of it. Oh god, I hope I now haven’t put that idea out there and somebody is going to take it, but hey, if somebody wants to do that, call me. It’s a rights issue, Lord of the Flies is not out of copyright, but I would love to do that someday. I think it’s just brilliant, it is one of my favourite books – again, my dark childhood, I was like “Yeah little boys killing each other, cool.”

I could see it done that way, something about Lord of the Flies does lend itself to that, it would be cool.

Yeah!

So you’re working on Vidcon right now. Do you have any other projects going on?

I am actually producing another show right now, that is called Style Club TV: Makeover. I actually also freelance produce with another amazing new up-and-coming network that’s coming out, called TV4 Entertainment. It’s really looking at the landscape right now and their tagline is “Your passion plays here.” It’s really about, “Hey, is there a show you have always wanted to do that didn’t fit anywhere else?”

I use this silly example of Freddie Wong. Everybody knows Freddie Wong’s current style, and obviously he loves what he does, but what if Freddie Wong also loved knitting, and just never had the occasion to do a knitting show? We would say, “Hey Freddie, you want to do that knitting show you always wanted to do? Come do it here.” We want to work with existing talent.

So this show that I’m working on is a makeover show, but what makes it different is it takes these celebrity designers and stylists and pairs them with YouTubers, giving them a day of style, like “Hey let’s make you pretty, or get you ready for your hot date, or whatever you want to do.” Everybody loves that!

And I’d totally watch that knitting show.

Oh, the knitting show? I’ll get onto that.

Please do.

So a style show is obviously very different from Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but I will say Ashley Clements is going to do an episode, so that will be fun.

And Vidcon is coming up August this year?

Yes, August 1-4. People have asked this, I am 90% sure we will do something with The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The creator of Vidcon and the director of content both work on the show.

So it’s probable.

It’s probable. And we had so much fun on the show last year, it was great having everyone there. And that was before, when we had no idea how big it was, and to come to Vidcon and just be welcomed, and the girls just had such a great time. We really would love to do something again.

I saw a cool idea recently: what if your next adaptation is in a similar style with the vlogging, and they happened to go to Vidcon, maybe the Lizzie Bennet Diaries characters would be walking around in the background as a little crossover. What do you think about that, could it happen?

Well, I will say that something that has been in consideration in thinking about what we are going to do next has always been, can we set it in a universe where there can be crossover? We’ve really grown to become close to everyone on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, especially the cast members – it’s really hard for us to fathom a world where we would just end the book and be like, “Hey guy, see you later.” We don’t want that because we love being around them, and we have become like a little family, so it is definitely not beyond the realm of possibilities that you will see these characters again.

Images: The LBD Facebook, GIFs via Tumblr (linked to source)