by Marc Hustvedt on June 22nd, 2009
Uninhibited, enlightening, ridiculous – comedian Jason Nash’s latest character The Shaman is like that guy you should have left at Bonnaroo.
It’s hard not to watch this cosmic train wreck of a man trying desperately to maintain an ephemeral existence surrounded by the sobering responsibilities of modern Los Angeles life. That’s really just a fancy way of saying he’s a lazy roommate.
The other end of that roommate coin is Matt Price, a comedian Nash has worked with on his basement podcast, Guys With Feeling, and who capably pulls of the straight man to Nash’s joker. Nash steps up with a unique spin on the Will Ferrell-popularized flabby everyman on mission routine. He’s the mushroom-toting hippy version that the more jocky Ferrell hasn’t nailed yet.
For more on the production and secret tidbits of the series, take another look at our interview with Jason earlier this spring, where we learned, amongst other things, that he cast his director, Mike Blieden’s wife and Roommating star Erin Gibson as The Shaman’s love interest.
by Marc Hustvedt on June 22nd, 2009
My first reaction to watching the Zack Johnson videos on YouTube was the feeling that it just didn’t belong. It was too good. Not good in a I’m-going-to-stop-right-now-and-tweet-this-out kind of way, which is what the creators intended when they cooked up this would-be viral project. No, it was more the immediate feeling that they outed themselves before we even had a chance to get sucked in.
The site, Zack16.com, is a little too perfect. Granted, this wasn’t exactly intended to come off as an amateur rouse, but it’s clear they hoped the clever story would shine enough to get some social media juice out of it. But that in the end may be where they missed, telegraphing a professional-level ad campaign and setting the expectation level too high.
The storyline takes its time to develop, but right off the bat we find out that Zack, an unassuming 16 year-old high schooler has woken up to find his “man parts” have been replaced with “lady parts.” Each episode is a new day, with the beautifully shot videos remarkably void of brand placement until “Day 9″ when Zack gets his first period during class and scuttles into the girls’ bathroom to find some Tampax relief.
by Alex Crowley on June 22nd, 2009
“But what about the children? Won’t anybody think of the children?” I certainly had not. When was the last time you watched a porno and wondered, “What do you think their kids are up to right now?” Sure, you only watch teen gonzo flicks, so it’s not really a pertinent issue, but now that I’ve [...]
by Marc Hustvedt on June 20th, 2009
We’re not sure what you do with your Saturdays, and frankly we don’t want to know. But at Tubefilter it means time to catch up on web series we fell behind on. (Yes, we do watch everything you send us.) This week we’re taking a look at five new web series that launched during the past week. And is it just us, or is summer becoming the web series busy season? Busy little interwebs…
From creator-star Kaily Smith, this dating comedy proves that even the uber-rich can strike out at love. Faced with losing her trust fund if she doesn’t find a man, Merri calls in all the help she can find to match her up. And for fun, throw in Tom Arnold as her borderline psychotic and ruthless billionaire father, some pool furniture friends and a whole host of celeb guest stars like Tony Hale, Ryan Eggold (90210) and David Weidoff (who also wrote the series).
Also new from Crackle this week is jock-fave Owen Benjamin’s new series All Stars, which takes his sports satire into the corporate softball leagues. Fresh off his March Madness stint with CBS Interactive’s Heckle U, this series is all Benjamin, as he both directed and wrote the series along with fellow Gaytown buddy Jess Shapiro. Brought along for the bro-fest are comedian Brody Stevens (The Hangover) and, why not, Heckle-U co-star Chris Wylde. Just goes to show that web series stars love keeping it in the family.
by Marc Hustvedt on June 19th, 2009
Cold. Hard. Cash. We love it when companies are willing to put their money where their mouths are.
Massachusetts-based web studio OurTVSpace is offering up $10,000 to a writer (or writing team) to develop a full 20-episode original web series as part of their New Media Fellow program. Entries for the program are being accepted through August 15th.
I spoke to OurTVSpace founder Doug Kirkpatrick from his office in Sturbridge, MA, who said he created the program as a way to bring top writing talent to the production team to develop their next web series.
by Pat Miller on June 19th, 2009
If the idea of a show centered around entry-level angels that hire hookers to cuddle, sleep in the houses of the rich and famous, and generally handle most of Heaven’s scut work sounds intriguing to you, go ahead and check out Circledrawers, the latest web series project by Poppoli Pictures and Cicala Filmworks.
Created by Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur Johanneson and NY-based writer and filmmaker Stefan Schaefer, Circledrawers stars Sharon Angela and Steve Schirripa from The Sopranos (“Rosalie” and “Bacala” to fans of the show) as well as Icelandic actors Benedikt Erlingsson as “Mozart” and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason as “Oleg.”
by Daisy Whitney on June 18th, 2009
While online video has been dubbed the “fastest growing medium of all time,” the stark reality remains that there isn’t enough ad money yet to keep everyone in this business fed, clothed and sheltered.
Because even though Internet users watch more than 14 billion videos per month, that doesn’t constitute the all-important “scale” most advertisers want, according to several panels and keynotes at the OMMA Video conference in New York earlier this week.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule and one of those is the high-pitched YouTube star Fred. During her keynote, Google’s Eileen Naughton, the company’s director of media platforms, said Lucas Cruikshank who plays “Fred” is making a six-figure income from his YouTube videos. That includes YouTube partner revenue and money from “Fred’s” ongoing ad deal with Zipit Wireless.
by Michael Joshua Rowin on June 18th, 2009
Last year I wrote two reviews in which I gauged some of the problems inherent to the web series format. Cataclysmo and the Time Boys could have been a fun little exercise in sci-fi camp if it didn’t have all the episodic time in the world to keep meandering into wearying nonsense. Artifact, on the [...]
