Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart, the writer/director team behind comedy feature I Put A Hit On You, are taking a new route with their latest project, The Commute.

The nine-parter is the pair’s first-ever web series and debuted last week on AwesomenessTV’s YouTube channel. The first four episodes have racked up more than 1.4 million views since the project went live on June 27. The remaining episodes will be released three times a week between now and July 15.

AwesomenessTV approached Stewart and Clark about writing and directing a “bus stop romance” in November 2015, after seeing the pair’s short film Long Branch. Stewart and Clark pitched the story of a teen romance about a guy and girl who bond over the fact they must take public transport for the entire summer vacation. The AwesomenessTV team liked the idea and felt the connection between the two characters worked well for their YouTube channel.

Stewart and Clark set about writing the series in early 2016 and shooting took place in L.A. for 10 days in May. The project is produced by AwesomenessTV and stars YouTube influencers Steffan Argus and Claudia Sulewski, the latter of which has more than 1.7 million subscribers to her YouTube channel.

Though it was AwesomenessTV that proposed the idea of a web series, Clark and Stewart said they were already looking to expand their business into new areas, having already done short films, features and writing for TV (Mr. D). Doing this web series afforded them the opportunity to work in the U.S. for the first time, as well as exposing their work to a much greater audience: their short film Long Branch has amassed 659,000 views on Vimeo over the course of four years, while the first four episodes of The Commute has been viewed 1.4 million times since June 27.

Though they were writing and directing for a new platform (web series), the pair said the process remained largely the same. “We wanted to approach the web series similarly to TV and film, trying to treat each episode like a short film, as that’s the world we come from,” said Clark.

Steward added that he and Clark would be open to doing more web series in the future, if they feel the project is appropriate for a web-based format.

Aside from I Put A Hit On You, Clark and Stewart’s other credits include short film Margo Lily, and the pair are also staff writers on Mr. D. Clark has been with the CBC show’s writing team for season five and six, while Stewart joined the team for its sixth season, which went into production in late June.

Clark and Stewart received BravoFACT funding for their short film Bickford Park earlier this year, with production scheduled to begin this August in Toronto. As well, the pair is developing a feature-length dramedy with an L.A. producer about a divorced couple who take their dying dog on a final trip before it dies.