Tubefilter News

Bullets fly through the air like pestering gnats, our hero, armed to the teeth, lies pinned down behind a pillar, he stays cool, panic is not in his blood, never has been. He grabs a propane tank and tosses it around the wall. It lands in front of the henchman who look at is quizzically, the hero comes from behind in the pillar with a smile. The camera swirls around him in slow mo as he blasts the canister, the explosion sending bodies flying. The hero opens his mouth and says, “Damn, I love PS3-based machinima game play.”

Of course, he wouldn’t say that, he’d probably say something like “smells like a BBQ.” However, the truth is, with the cinematic tools in the upcoming PS3 game “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” the hero can say anything you want. Any concoction of events that you can dream up in the dream world can be created cinema mode included in the game, which is nothing short of revolutionary for machinima design and filmmaking. So in this situation instead of throwing that canister, he could just sit there and quote Shakespeare, not that exciting, but hey mixing genres can be thrilling.

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the premiere of Streamy Award-winning series Pink and what better way to celebrate than to hear from series creator-director Blake Calhoun? I had the pleasure of interviewing Blake via e-mail to get the lowdown on his past and future projects, his directing process, and insight for those hoping to break into the New Media industry.

Tubefilter: You were one of the early creator-directors on the web series scene with Pink in ’07. What inspired you to go into the field?

Blake Calhoun: I had recently finished directing my third indie feature (an action/thriller called Killing Down) and was developing a new feature – a project in the vein of Boogie Nights about the early 1980s professional wrestling scene – and had hired Mike Maden to write it. We finished that script in spring 2007 and were playing the “finding money” game to make that film (btw, we’re still trying to get that project made). So in essence we were in between projects and I wanted to work on something new. I had made several short films over the years and really wasn’t interested in doing that again. Then one day I heard about this new online show called Prom Queen… and inspiration struck.

I had worked with Natalie Raitano and Sheree Wilson on my previous feature film and they both had nice TV followings from their work on V.I.P. and Walker, Texas Ranger respectively. So I thought we’d create this new “Web TV” show around them and hope to lure some of their fan base to it.

What happens when a divorcee “acquires” her ex-husband’s marketing research company and asks her best friend, a beauty editor-turned-bestselling author, to help her run it? On the surface, it seems almost plausible. But when those two best friends are Cynthia and Pillar, two of the most self-obsessed women in the San Fernando Valley area, then things get interesting…and often hilarious. Especially when you bring in actors such as David H. Lawrence (Heroes, Goodnight Burbank) and Sandeep Parikh (The Guild, co-creator-director The Legend of Neil) to play some of the crazy cast of characters that participate in the focus groups for the horrible products that result from this “acquisition”.

Groupthink was created by two former cast members of Goodnight Burbank, so the writing-directing-producing-acting team of Angela Espinosa and Wendy Rosoff have a lot of web series experience to bring to the table. I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Wendy and Angela and wanted to know how working together on Goodnight Burbank lead to them creating Groupthink.

Lindsay Campbell is back on the web. Today kicks off the first season of Small Business Rules, a new web series from Next New Networks starring Campbell in a familiar role as business-minded host meeting top entrepreneurs around the country.

We’ve been watching Campbell’s online work for years now, and most readers will recognize her as the first host of CBS’s popular Wall Street satire series Wallstrip, which was cancelled late last year along with Campbell’s subsequent series, the Streamy-nominated Moblogic.

The Stanford grad brings a unique blend of business savvy with lighthearted and lively hosting chops. Next New Networks’ co-founder Tim Shey knew this when he approached her first to host the new series. “We knew she could talk credibly about business,” said Shey. “We needed somebody who could be great host, produce, write and think of things on the fly.” He added that unlike Wallstrip, which often featured large public companies, “now she’s looking at companies at a much different stage in their life cycle.”

There’s a lot be said about making content for your audience. It’s another to be able to sum that audience up is just six words.

FOR PEOPLE WHO GIVE A DAMN.

A magazine with a purpose. For the some 230,000 readers of the bi-monthly GOOD Magazine which launched back in 2006, it’s been more than just cleverly designed explanations of the latest social and environmental issues, but a hub for actually doing something about them. And that starts with the subscription fee, with 100% of the $20 annual subscription going one of the several non-profit orgs you have to choose from, like Room to Read, Teach for America or Kiva.

Now three years after its launch, GOOD has expanded beyond just a magazine, to a formidable online blogging presence, events and even venturing into film financing. The extension into web video content was also a natural move, lending its unique voice and highly crafted design touches to one of the fastest growing forms of online media.

That’s where GOOD Video comes in. It serves as the company’s video network with a number of original web series getting front billing—shows like GOOD News, GOOD Business, Look, Transparency and newcomer Inventions (see above with Atom.com regular Nick Thune). So far the video team has produced over 80 videos that together have racked up a non-trivial 18 million streams.

Labor Day weekend is here. Joy! (Now you know why we’ve been wearing our whites all week.) Despite its very American traditions—BBQs, boating, parades and football season kickoffs, this holiday is one we have the Canadians to thank. Yep, it was a printer’s strike in Toronto back in 1872 that started this whole Labor-loving end-of-summer trend. So go for it, hug a Canadian this weekend!

Web series news was steady this week, though a few places held off major show releases until after the Holiday. So count on Tuesday being full of flurry of new goodies.

The week started with news that MSN is wising up the the social internet, and finally is allowing open embedding of the new season of The Guild, which debuted on the network this week. Tech blogger Shira Lazar kicked off the new Stylit.TV giveaway web series TechStyle with plenty of geek gear from MacWorld. And Asthon Kutcher’s inside the production company web series, KataylstHQ, bowed its second season this week, releasing exclusively on Facebook via the Slide FunSpace app.

If there’s one thing to be said about Craig & the Werewolf, it’s that it doesn’t beat around the bush with its premise. Three seconds into the first episode, we see Craig’s roommate gnawing on a bloody, severed hand. Five seconds later, Craig enters the apartment, freaks out, and demands to know what’s going on. [...]

It’s about once a day that we get tipped off on a new office comedy web series, and we really have no idea why they are so popular to make. Is there really that big of a dearth of workplace hijinks with The Office on hiatus? Are they just easy?

Today marks the return of KataylstHQ the lightly-scripted comedy web series from inside the offices of Hollywood-based Kataylst Media, the multiplatform production company founded by Jason Goldberg and A-lister Asthon Kutcher. During last season’s run earlier this year, releasing exclusively on Facebook via the Slide FunSpace application, the show racked up over 8 million “shares” from Facebook users.

This isn’t really a show about Ashton Kutcher, it’s a show about people who work for Ashton Kutcher. And by association, the office dons a affectation of cool, a hipness tied to working with Twitter’s most followed user, @aplusk.