Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Prodigeek - How did you kind of come to this idea of an internet musical about a superhero?

Whedon - I had come up with the concept and the title originally as an audio podcast. I wanted to write a song. I was tired of not writing songs and I wanted a structure to write from. And I though this guy would have a blog and sing about what’s going on with him. It would be a fun thing to do. Then, during the strike, when everyone was looking to create internet content, I thought of it as a limited series. Then when I decided to do it myself, I thought of it as an even more limited series. It played itself out pretty simply. I brought writers in; we knew from the start exactly what we wanted to do. I had written the songs for it a while ago. The first song was called “My Freeze Ray.” I played that for the other writers. We got sort of an idea of sound, and then we started breaking a story. We broke it into three acts, a mini-series event, and then hopefully to make it a downloadable commodity. In addition to creating something out of love of musicals and love of the fans, I also wanted to create something where we could make money doing our own thing, outside the system. I also want to, in a perfect dream world, pay my crew.

Prodigeek - You were talking before about distribution and web video. How are you handling the business side?

Whedon - Luckily I do have an agent, who is much smarter than I am. And taller. So we’re basically going to people, talking about different methods of distribution, and getting their responses. We were always prepared to lose everything on this because we really did it out of love. But at the same time, the response has been very positive, so we figured that we might end up partnering with some company that can do internet distribution. We’re gonna have a DVD, with the most extras, the best extras, ever on a DVD. So we’re looking at different venues. But making the thing was so exhausting, trying to distribute it is a little exhilarating. I can’t really say more, we’re still working it out.

Prodigeek - What challenges have you found in trying to make an internet series?

Whedon - Every challenge that you find when you try and produce something. I’m very lucky because I’ve worked for a while and I’ve got a lot of people that I can turn to and say “are you interested in this?” Everything from props, to sound, to producers. And if I didn’t know people, Zac, Jeb, and Maurissa knew people. We all had people we could go to and say “this is a labor of love, please come labor with us.” So many supremely talented people said yes, we kind of got intimidated. We said “wait, now it has to be good, we’re freaking out!” But even with all that good will, it’s really really complicated. But a lot of people in the industry, when they aren’t busy with paying jobs, are making student films. They just want to do work because they love work. That’s just part of the ethos of this town that a lot of people probably don’t know about. But yeah, I’m very very very old, so I’ve worked with a lot of people.

drhorrible_03 Prodigeek - You were kind of alluding to this, was the writers’ strike, internet issues and funding, did those influence how you were going to distribute Dr. Horrible?

Whedon - It was a big influence in how I wanted to pursue this and how I wanted to roll it out, showing it act by act over a course of a week. But as far as distribution beyond that, we have been looking at some possibilities that include some big companies. We want as many people as possible to be able to find it.

The strike was definitely a big influence. It left me with some free time, not as much as I’d hoped, and in fact by the time we got this ready to go, the strike ended. I was suddenly preparing “Dollhouse”, Neil was suddenly back on “How I Met Your Mother”, Nathan was back on “Desperate Housewives”; everybody was working. But we still managed to find a window to film it in.

Another influence, the other writers, they had been doing internet shorts, which I really admired. That’s what made me think “we should get together, really work together.” We thought “let’s try this, it’ll be fun. Or it’ll destroy our family.” It actually turned out to be the former. And then The Guild, it’s [a web series]about an online roleplaying group, that was a big influence in knowing that it can be done.

Prodigeek - You were talking about working with your brothers. What’s next?

Whedon - Jeb and Maurissa are on Dollhouse, Zac is working on Fringe.

Prodigeek - Did that sort of spin out of this project?

Whedon - It absolutely came out of Dr. Horrible. Zac’s always been the kind of guy that wants to make his own way, but Jeb and Maurissa, I didn’t even realize they were writing as a team until we did Dr. Horrible and I really really liked the experience. They still had to come in and pitch for Dollhouse, because it’s very different. But Dr. Horrible caused a lot of very good fallout.

Prodigeek - So it kept the family together. That’s good!

Whedon - Yeah, and we were about to go to war, brother against brother, blue against gray.

Come back tomorrow for my interview with the creators of Silence: The Musical and the 24: Season 2 Musical.