Tubefilter News

Developing digital content is much different – and often times infinitely more challenging – than creating traditional entertainment. You often have a less focused audience with multiple tabs, ads and videos competing for their attention, and even with recent reports touting longer form consumption on the rise, you still have a smaller amount of time to compel your audience and develop your characters. Not to mention pique their interest enough to return each week (or sometimes, several weeks) for a new episode.

No matter how you slice it, it’s a tall order, and in a media saturated space, it’s more critical than ever to engage users at the point of consumption, which is why many content creators are exploring mobile as either a complementary experience, or an entirely made-for-mobile series. In fact, I’ve been recommending that my content creator clients include a mobile component to their web series to bridge the story transmedially and blend IRL experiences. Mobile is also an excellent vehicle for activating behaviors, especially with the array of technology available to enrich and personalize the experience, such as augmented reality and geo-location-based interactions.

TV Goes Mobile

Most mobile engagements to date have been developed by studios to augment their television programming and tap into a digital audience. Marc Ostrick, founder of eGuiders, was working on original scripted mobisodes as a spin-off for Fox’s 24 back in 2006 that were intended to simulate the high drama/action experience for those who wanted to watch video on their phones. A partnership Fox struck with Verizon to promote their new 3G technology spawned a pay-for-content experience, which was pretty ambitious at that time, especially considering the miniscule mobile budgets didn’t even allow for using the actual cast in the series. “But it did offer some valuable learnings,” said Ostrick. “Just because the technology is there, doesn’t mean people really want to watch TV on their cell phones unless there is something that is truly unique about experiencing mobile content than on any other medium.”

NBC is also attempting to assert a leadership position in this arena with their recent foray into a fully integrated multi-platform experience for Heroes boasting some impressive initial results. Sponsored by Sprint, the campaign began on September 28, and runs through December 30, with the story unfolding across the web and mobile, giving viewers deeper character interactions and original scripted mobile content in the form of games, stories and clues for Sprint subscribers to solve a mystery and enter to win a $25,000 interactive storyline contest. The companion content has already resulted in a rise in viewership for the show, combined with several million mobile streams and hundreds of thousands of sweepstakes entrants.

Every other day is a holiday somewhere. Even today is a holiday (Veterans Day). So the guys behind Crappy Holidays have a lot to play around with. For the 8-month old web series, no holiday—Labor Day, St. Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, not even Veterans Day, is off limits.

Woven throughout the series is comedian Har Mar Superstar, who stands as the main recurring character amidst a cadre of celebrity guest stars like Juno star Ellen Page, Justin Long and Ginnifer Goodwin. We caught up with creator-director Ryan Rickett to find out where this series came from and what he really thinks of the modern holiday circuit.

Tubefilter: Where did you come up with this idea and how did it become a web series?
Ryan Rickett: Har Mar Superstar (aka Sean Tillmann) and I made a video greeting card for Christmas to send out to all our friends and fans (of Har Mar). We called it Crappy Holidays. We had so much fun making it and we got such an awesome response online, that we decided to make one for every holiday. Har Mar and I had previously shot a few shorts with our friend John Ringhoff, who is a brilliant comedy writer, so bringing him on was an obvious choice. I have a background directing music videos so I have been able to bring a lot to the table production-wise. With our three combined talents we are able to pull of some really cool stuff.

Revision3 is getting serious about comedy lately. The online network that basically cornered the web with hosted tech-friendly shows—Diggnation, TekZilla, HD Nation—debuted its second scripted comedy web series today with INST MSGS. The 13-episode series dramatizes real-life web chatter like personal IM conversations, Tweets, Facebook status updates and even Craigslist postings.

Creators Ann Le, Justin Simien, and Mathieu Young developed the series after Simien spent some “research” time at work perusing the Missed Connections ads on Craigslist. You know, those shot-in-the-dark type postings hoping some unrequited eye contact stands a chance at something more. There’s also the Craigslist personals, another gold mine that Simien and his cohorts mined heavily. The opening episode (above)—”My Women”—is one of these treasures, bringing to life an actual rant of someone in Detroit’s dating biography.

From there Simien put out the call to friends to send him stored IM conversations and other social media scraps they had on hand. “I was surprised at how much people saved their IM conversation and how much people actually would send me,” said Simien. “It’s so public but it’s also so private,” he added, “These things we would never say to each other face to face always struck me as really interesting.”

Though the first episode is mostly narration voice over, Simien does tell us there are some “talkies” coming up in future weeks. For those roles they cast a handful of known actors like comedian Phil Van Hest, Dileep Rao (Avatar), Abigail Spencer (Mad Men), Josh Cooke (Four Kings) and YouTube’s Liam Sullivan from the 30 million view “Shoes” video. There’s even a special musical episode in the works.

Originally conceived by Food Channel veteran Darin Bresnitz and produced by Finger on the Pulse, Dinner with the Band first premiered online way back in March 2007. The show became an instant favorite amongst tattooed gastronomes with an internet connection and an affinity for indie rock. In each episode, the edgy Sam Mason (who has made pastries at New York’s WD-50, now runs a restaurant called Tailor, and is edgy both in terms of his appearance and culinary style) invites a band to his kitchen/concert studio space to sing for their supper. That means Mason makes dishes like avocado margaritas or mackerel-grapefruit ceviche with acts like Ontario’s Tokyo Police Club and New York’s Holy Hail, then watches them rock out.

I would tell you to give it a look, but it appears that since the acquisition, ON Networks has removed all Dinner with the Band episodes from its website. To see the program, you’ll have to tune into the television premier at 11PM EST on November 24.

IFC is set to air a total of six 30-minute episodes as part of the network’s Automat programming block. The episode line-up includes appearances from Les Savy Fav, Kid Sister and Flosstradamus, MEN, Final Fantasy, YACHT, and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. I hope your palates and eardrums are appropriately whetted and/or satisfied.

The brainchild of award-winning Squishy Studios, produced with EvolutionArts Media, and created by a cast and crew of local independent filmmakers in Phoenix, Arizona, Normally This Weird is the story of newlyweds Vanessa (Lauren Henschen) and Simon (Michael Peterson) moving into their first home together. And while on the outside, their suburban neighborhood looks average…their neighbors are anything but. From eye-patched Swivey Dinkle, to the dark magic practicing Archevils, the couple discovers they are in a place that is…well, it’s just normally this weird.

I personally have a lot of personal affinity for this show because it instantly reminded me of the short-lived television series Eerie, Indiana, in which a teenage boy is forced to move with his family from the city to a suburban neighborhood and discovers the town is a hub for strangeness. It’s a plot ripe with opportunities for fun, something that is important to director/co-writer Nathan Blackwell, and it is refreshing to see it play out in web series form.

The unique take Squishy Studios took in creating the series stems all the way back to the casting process. Said Blackwell: “our producer, Bracken J. Batson, had a hilarious idea … he likes to throw the actors a subtle curveball right up front that weeds out some of the flakier people. So we held our auditions in the back office of a car dealership. And sure enough we had a lot of no-shows. Besides being great actors, because we couldn’t pay anyone, we really needed reliable people who were committed to endure an entire season of production.” Not something I’d recommend if you’re shooting your series on the SAG New Media contract, but it worked for this production.

It started in July of 2003. Star Wars Gangsta Rap hit AtomFilms.com (now just Atom) and captured over 4 millions views for the animated rap parody of the George Lucas masterpiece. It was arguably the most popular of the site’s annual Star Wars Fan Film Challenge, a yearly contest (since 2002) sanctioned by Lucasfilm. Gangsta Rap creators at flash animation Bent TV Productions—Jason Brannon, Chris Crawford and Thomas Lee—followed it up in 2004 with Star Wars Gangsta Rap: Special Edition.

Now 10 million views and what seems like an online eternity later, MCs Vader, Skywalker, Palpatine and Trooper are back for the latest episode Star Wars Gangsta Rap: Chronicles. Not surprisingly, it’s the first finalist announced for Atom’s 2010 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.

Even with the dearth of the Death Star flow, the Ottawa-based Bent TV guys have been busy these past few years, getting hired on by Weird Al for his “I’ll Sue Ya” video and even by 20th Century Fox to promote an X-Men DVD release with X-Men Gangsta Rap.

Next New Networks’ Barely Digital channel, the 11-month old offshoot of its Obama Girl led Barely Political, has launched a new musical series Key of Awesome this month. The musical lampooning series has already belted out four episodes bashing everything from celebrities crying to Twilight hating vampires. There’s even two “making of” videos that are pretty spoofy themselves.

The new series is a slight turn from Barely Digital’s first scripted comedy Tech Know, which took a behind the scenes look at a fictional tech gadget review show. Think an internet spin on The Larry Sanders Show or Goodnight Burbank for the techie set. Tech Know has been on hiatus since mid-August and no word yet on its return.

Key of Awesome is a return to what put the Barely Political crew on the map in the first place–internet topical music vids with viral breakout potential. And using their highly subscribed Barely Political YouTube channel is key to sparking that viral mojo. The Twilight episode above had already raked in over 270,000 views on YouTube alone in just a week since launching.

Most episodes star Barely Digital writer Mark Douglas and are helmed by Tom Small.

Yahoo took a sheet from its own playbook in launching its newest original series today, What’s So Funny? Having already found success with its crop of short TV recap series like its incredibly popular tentpole Primetime in No Time and its sister version Daytime in No Time, it seems only natural that there was more juice to be squeezed from this fruit.

Where the others breezed through the hot reality shows and soaps, What’s So Funny recaps selected comedy clips from the night before. Tapped for the hosting spots are comedian Mike Bachman, a former writer on Primetime in No Time, and Shira Lazar.

Sponsoring the series for Yahoo is ConAgra Foods, with episodes featuring post-roll video and display ads and for a rotation of its brands like Marie Callendar’s and Healthy Choice. Even within each 4-minute episode is a slightly forced, but bearable, “ingredients for good comedy” segment which breezes through some of the pair’s favorite comedy clips. There’s also the He Said-She Said face off to each episode, where each host picks their favorite comedy clip from the night before and makes the case for which is funnier. In the debut episode (above), Lazar backed an ‘underrated’ Taylor Swift clip from her SNL appearance which Bachman went with Larry David’s lemonade stand melee from the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Online personality Shira Lazar is no stranger to hosted web series. For years now she’s been a venerable journeywoman of the internet, with a slew of semi-regular hosting gigs on shows like This Week in YouTube, TechStyle, LX.TV, and Reelz Channel’s What it Takes. But lately Lazar has signed on with two major media brands—CBS News and Yahoo!—giving her a much needed home for the budding media empress.

Catching up with Lazar, it’s almost exhausting trying to piece together the myriad of projects she has brewing. She is now perhaps the Ryan Seacrest of web TV. The new position has her shooting six days a week, typically from around 6 to 9 PM in the studio, not counting TV watching time from the night before. This is all of course after she spends much of her days creating content for her CBSNews.com blog, On The Scene with Shira, shooting video segments for Mo Rocca’s The Tomorrow Show, working as an ambassador for GeekChicDaily or even contributing to the Huffington Post.