by Joshua Cohen on October 31st, 2009
With a budget bumping $240 million and technology that’s over 10 years in the making, James Cameron’s Avatar is primed to push Hollywood into a new dimension. The 3D tour de force is the first film of it’s kind, comprised of roughly 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live-action, all seamlessly melded together into a brilliant depth of field when seen through the lenses of polarized, stereoscopic, librarian-looking glasses. Entertainment pundits expect the movie to be the biggest blockbuster since, well, Cameron’s last biggest blockbuster (which happened to be the biggest blockbuster of all-time). Some say it may even save movie theaters from the internet. Avatar could herald the arrival of a revolutionized 3D film industry that studio execs have tried to make stick since the 50s.
Unless, of course, the internet also gets three dimensional.
While early tests on YouTube have been both interesting and headache-inducing, a new web series from Hank’s Beak Productions and starmaker, Svengali, and Hollywood hustler Ray Manzella hopes to make 3D on the internet entertaining. And lucrative.
13 Minutes to Midnight bills itself as throwback to the camp found in classic television horror titles like Vampira and Tales from the Crypt. I’d say the self-aware silliness and homegrown aesthetic makes it more of a low-budget, macabre-themed Mister Rogers and/or Clue that could, at any moment, break out into the kind of softcore you see on Skinemax. B-movie scream queen and co-writer Erika Smith stars as the host of a Halloween party that attracts the likes of Nightmara (Heather McDonald), Paranora (Elizabeth Killmond), Vampira (a tranny version of the original), an unfortunate whodunit incident, a Perez Hilton cameo, and lots of product placement.
by Tubefilter News on October 30th, 2009
Remember last Halloween when master horror-thriller director (and Tubefilter reader) Wes Craven took over the main page of YouTube? He featured a number of spooky themed web series like Aussie thriller The 21 Conspiracy, 2009: A True Story and Luke 11:17. This year, it looks like a smattering of snoozer vampires vids. But luckily we served up a Halloween specials sampler from the web series this week, including The Guild’s Halloween special.
View counts are still hot button issue, with Revision3’s CEO Jim Louderback venting his frustrations this week. We too are frustrated with unverifiable view count claims, and so we requested to audit the backend analytics of IKEA-backed Easy to Assemble’s nearly 2 million views in just three weeks. Our breakdown looked at how they engaged the IKEA faithful who hav rallied behind the cult series.
Chiller Circle of Ei8ht debuted on MySpace, giving the site a much needed return to scripted web series.We asked readers what they thought, and so far the verdicts are mostly positive. And TheWB.com snuck out a little treat for web drama-thriller fans with all 18 episodes of Blood Cell released this week.
by Jenni Powell on October 30th, 2009
Here’s the idea: someone wakes up in a cell, doesn’t know who they are or how they got there. This may not seem like a lot to go on, especially when I tell you that CELL (not to be confused with Blood Cell) just wrapped production and won’t be hitting the web until 2010, but hear me out on this one.
Produced by Austin, TX-based Lovable Varmint Productions, CELL is the brainchild of writer/director Mark Gardner. The film was shot entirely in Austin and Smithville, Texas, a tiny town about 40 minutes outside the city. In true indie fashion, the majority of the series takes place in one location, built out of an old Dollar Store, and the majority of props and tools used to build the set were donated by local businesses. The crew was made up of volunteers just wanting to be a part of it, some even having to be turned away simply because there wasn’t enough food for everyone.
I talked to Gardner about the indie spirit of this production, beginning with how the idea for CELL first came about. “I came up with a framework of a show that would have minimal cast and minimal locations”, said Gardner. “Great. Good start. Then what? Well that’s when story rears its ugly head. Not only did the show need to have simple locations and cast, it needed a great story. That was what was most important. So I came up with the idea of CELL. Within the framework I’d established, I started writing a series about finding yourself and what it means to be an individual. At least that was the goal. It may have ended up being about the latest craze in fashion or apple oatmeal. We’ll see how it fleshes out in the edit.”
by Jake Weaver on October 30th, 2009
In a previous life I think I was a fluff girl so I’m kind of sensitive about behind the scenes porno shows. While most of you were laughing it up watching Trey Parker shave his balls in Orgazmo I was strapped into a 94-minute emotional roller coaster ride of painful memories.
So what can be expected from Blue Movies, a new web series from creator/director Scott Brown? Well if you don’t have painful and repressed memories of pleasuring the leading man off camera while trying to support three children all under the age of four I think you’ll be getting some pretty fantastically good awesomeness out of this one.
Episode 1 (above), “The First Time,” opens with a “pivotal scene” from a special Batman adaptation, “The Dark Night: Full of Hot Freakin’ Orgies,” where an actually well costumed and acted Joker Zack Gold reenacts the famous disappearing pencil scene. Here though, instead of using someone’s forehead they cleverly use a mammoth purple dildo surrounded by various orifice filling jokes – nice! When it works it works.
The show follows an idealistic film school student, Tom, played by Back Bennet, as he interns for Pornamount Studios, (you guessed it) an adult film company. Only Tom isn’t clued in on the whole porn aspect of the company until a topless starlet complains about having to do a “thing” with three guys and a little guy that used to be a chick. Overworked assistant Anna Sascha Alexander, who seems to be the glue that holds everything together, reassures her that “nobody is going to be putting 3 ½ anythings anywhere.”
Of course Tom, being the film school type who is all into film as art, has a bit of a meltdown about the whole thing and demands some face time with sexual renaissant director, Max Chapman, played by Jareb Dauplaise.
by Marc Hustvedt on October 29th, 2009
Somehow without much fanfare, all 18 episodes of Jessica Rose-starring Blood Cell snuck out this week on TheWB.com. What was once one of most anticipated (if YouTube trailer views mean anything) series cooked up at the now-defunct 60Frames, is now tucked away on TheWB.
Right off the bat, this on is, well, gripping. A girl has been kidnapped and her friends Julia (Rose) Alex (Sara Sanderson) are lopped into the hunt when a late night call from their kidnapped friend Susan jolts Julia. Being a web series, the media-rich phone shows a video friend Susan—crying and scared. The kidnapper is a disturbingly grotesque thing (think Saw’s tricycle riding clown and you wouldn’t be far off), but there’s a catch: Julia can’t turn off her phone – if she does, her friend dies. A text message hits the phone moments later: “Dead Cell = Dead Friend.”
Over a year ago we looked into what happened to Blood Cell, which seemed to have squandered its healthy web buzz. The trailer, which featured a sultry close-up pan shot of Rose, racked up almost 7 million views since its release in April, 2008. Now the thriller web series, created by genre director Eduardo Rodriguez and produced by Jeremy Bell, is finally online—though unfortunately the roll out made no use of the show’s popular YouTube channel.
by Tamara Krinsky on October 29th, 2009
One of the biggest concerns amongst web content creators is that branded entertainment will destroy artistic expression as product integration increasingly compromises story and vision. However, producer/directors Alex Johnson and Lance Weiler of the Workbook Project (WBP) are attempting to do just the opposite with RADAR, which premiered on yesterday on Babelgum.
RADAR, produced by WBP Labs, is a weekly three-minute, made-for-mobile and web series that goes behind-the-scenes of innovative projects and events across different creative disciplines. Season Two highlights include episodes about the live art event Art Battles, 3D printing startup Makerbot/NYC Resistor, performance artists Undetermined Measurements and Mark Horowitz’s Google Maps Road Trip.
Johnson, a former interactive strategist at Adventure Pictures and advertising agency Deep Focus, is taking the lessons she learned there and using them to support and showcase cutting edge work. In the case of RADAR, the brand is the art itself. Says Johnson, “My background is in branded content and in advertising, so it’s really working with the contributors to put their product on a pedestal and ask ‘How can we help you?’”
By contributors, Johnson means the subject of each piece. RADAR refers to them as such because each is integrally involved in the making of their episode. By treating each subject as a collaborator, RADAR directors are able to go deep behind the scenes of the creative process, share material with the contributors and work out the best way to showcase the group or event. Explains Johnson, “Rather than being reportage or news, where we just cover something that’s happening, we try and talk to the contributors and figure out how do we take this to the next stage in terms of representing what they do in an interesting and visually engaging way. And sometimes that’s actually putting on an event ourselves or helping them do that.”
by Jamison Tilsner on October 29th, 2009
As part of our ongoing effort to grow the web television space and evangelize the inherent advantages of an open entertainment medium, Tubefilter has partnered with creative communities all over the country. NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts has a longstanding reputation as a hotbed of talent for visual arts, and we’re honored to join them in programming the web-focused installments of their renowned Director’s Series.
We’re very excited to announce that the next installment of NYU’s Web Directors Series will be a candid conversation with CollegeHumor TV moderated by Tubefilter on November 9th at 6:00 PM.
When they began posting funny photos and stories on the Internet as college freshmen, CollegeHumor.com creators Ricky Van Veen and Josh Abramson didn’t realize they were creating an entertainment sensation. Since its launch in 1999, CollegeHumor.com has grown into a massively popular site for 6 million visitors monthly, a comedy tour, a T-shirt business, books and even a television series, MTV’s The CollegeHumor Show. The parody and sketch focused content is a favorite of men ages 18 to 22. In 2006, media mogul Barry Diller acquired a majority stake in CollegeHumor through his holding company, IAC.
by Jenni Powell on October 28th, 2009
IImagine if Eeyore, Oscar the Grouch, Scrooge McDuck, and Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were related. Throw in a dash of the Addam’s Family and you’d be at a good place to start understanding the concept behind The Gloomers. With the tagline “No matter how bad your day has been, The Gloomers day is always worse.”, the family greets you with slick flash-animation, a catchy theme song, and the promise that this won’t be all gloom and doom…there is a lot of laughs to be had as well.
Behind The Gloomers are some veteran broadcast TV vets. Charles Mechem, the former CEO of Taft Broadcasting, which owned animation studio Hanna Barbera from 1967 until 1990 serves as the outfit’s ‘Chairman.’ His son Dan serves as CEO and penning the series is senior writer Neal Barbera, son of the late Joe Barbera. Neal often wrote or co-wrote episodes for Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo. In fact, The Gloomers is the first series at the center of their new animation studio focusing on the Hanna Barbera style of animation.
The Gloomers also boasts a fantastically designed website that is ripe with interactivity possibilities. Upon signing up, you are immediately prompted to build your own “Gloom Room”, where you are encouraged to celebrate everything that makes you feel down, off-kilter, or just plain bummed out. It’s a place “where Gloom meets laughter”. The series is also trying to build up its community presence on Facebook.
