The players
If this story has a tragic figure, it's Daniel S. Like any red-blooded California teen, Daniel S. had movie-star dreams. Though he lived in the determinedly un-chic town of Upland, some 30 miles east of Los Angeles, Daniel had an agent, one who saw promise in his lean, kid-next-door looks. One day he sent him to audition at DEN's hip, postmodern studios, located in an old commercial space on Broadway in Santa Monica. DEN was assembling the cast for a series called Chad's World, about a gay teenager coming to terms with his sexuality, and Daniel's agent thought his gangly, all-American client would be a perfect fit for a supporting role in what was presented to him as a sensitive coming-of-age story. When Daniel got the part, it was a breakthrough for him, one that seemed like the first step toward a brilliant career. Instead, it became a step into the Boogie Nights fantasy of a group of wanna-be Hollywood players.
As it happened, Daniel stumbled into DEN at a formative time in its existence. Collins-Rector, Shackley, and Pierce may have dreamed of becoming Hollywood machers, but it was only after Chad's World first streamed onto the Net, in the summer of 1998, that they decided to launch a full-scale network. "They were really smart about it," a former executive says. "They advertise it on all the gay newsgroups; it gets a little buzz. They're so enthused by the attention they got, and the press, that then they decide to build this whole company around it."
DEN began to grow in every direction. It hired away from Disney a 38-year-old studio executive named David Neuman, giving him a Hollywood-size salary of $1.5 million a year, a $1 million signing bonus, and the title of president. Record executives brought in to develop a DEN music label were paid $600,000 each. Even the teenage Brock Pierce was pulling down $250,000 a year.
While most other dot-coms remained the turf of the young and the edgy, DEN stood apart for its ability to attract older, more seasoned hands -- "adults," as it were. "The management team was getting inundated by Hollywood companies and players who wanted a piece of the magic Internet dust," Brand says. Randal Kleiser, who made Grease, among other big-budget films, signed on to direct the science fiction series Royal Standard, and even waxed ecstatic in a trade magazine about the restrictions imposed on him: little camera movement, green-screen backgrounds, and broadcasts made up of slow, jerky images. "Working in the rapidly changing world of digital production for the Internet," he was quoted as saying, "reminds me of what it must have been like in the early days of silent movies, when there were no rules...a Wild West feeling."
Shows were planned, shows were put on the drawing board, shows were produced. Aggronation, an extreme-sports program; Tales from the Eastside, a Latino gang drama; Redemption High, a Christian kids' show -- product started rolling out of DEN's studio. On paper, the ideas were perfectly attuned to the target audience. ConfiDENtial, for example, would feature real teens discussing such topics as bulimia, AIDS, and depression. Hip Hop Massive would tap into the enormous popularity of hip-hop among teens of all demographics; Fear of a Punk Planet would offer an ironic twist on the '60s show The Monkees, following the adventures of a punk band as its members developed their sound and their lives.
"I'm not saying the content was always the best," Terrazas concedes, "but what they were trying to do -- it was amazing."
Soon after DEN actually started streaming its programming, however, the skeptics began to weigh in. Writing in Business 2.0, Mark Frauenfelder described his visit to DEN's studio, during which he watched as shots for one show were blocked out using electricians as stand-ins for the actors. "The whole scene has a from-the-hip feel to it," he reported. "A streaming video entertainment network? Anyone who's ever attempted to watch a streaming video feed on a dial-up connection knows it's not exactly a flowing experience. Shown in streaming video, Mikhail Baryshnikov becomes the staccato David Byrne of Stop Making Sense." In the same article, Jupiter Communications analyst Patrick Keane commented: "The sobering reality is that today the Internet is a narrowband world."
