Tubefilter News

TXT M3 B1TCH dropped its first music video (above) today called “Partially Smart” which stars the cast (Sean Barrett, Daniel Stone, Vanessa Ragland) of the web series which is still releasing episodes from its first season. Directed by John Irwin, the video is part of the Meanest Man Contest and the EP is available online at RCRD LBL. [Smalldreams.tv, TXT M3 B1TCH]

North Carolina-based web series Port City P.D. has landed a satellite TV distribution deal in the US on Tuff TV which airs in cities like Dallas, Little Rock, Whicita and Key West. The four year-old web series from Shaun O’Rourke, which did about 4 million views online, already had a distro deal on Europe’s America Unleashed satellite network, but this now puts it in about 70 million US homes. [StarNewsOnline]

Online video viewing was up across the board in 2009, according to new numbers out from Nielsen today. US viewers totaled 137.4 million in December 2009, averaging 193.2 minutes per person for the month, which is up 13.2% from the previous year. And in terms of where they are watching all this video, YouTube is still top dog, serving up 6.4 billion streams for the month. [Nielsen]

Old Friends debuted Season 2 (below) exclusively on Babelgum this week, with the New York comedy series picking up where it left off. Nick Ross needs a place to stay and who better than his good old buddy Tim Curcio and his wife Andrea’s pad to crash for a while. Does it matter that Nick used to date Andrea? [Babelgum]

As Obama continues to work on reviving the US’s reputation abroad, far too many of our countrymen are doing their best to throw a wrench in that process. For Sean McCaffrey, an Irish-American living in London, perpetuating the ugly American seems to be one of his top m.o.’s. And it frequently pays off with innovative, if often sophomoric, comedy.

Written, created by and starring Sean McConaghy as his alter ego Sean McCaffrey, Leave to Enter (taken from the technical term for someone granted entry into the UK by British immigration officers) does an exemplary job of raising the bar for web sitcoms, and could stir up interest in the form over in the UK.

McCaffrey is a young man of about 30 with a bushy mane and a fondness for rubbing his pale, hirsute torso with a mock territoriality (each episode commences with a hearty rub-down, or at least features McCaffrey bare-chested). He’s always over at his Irish girlfriend Donnla’s place (Donnla Hughes), pestering her or her sister Marie (Marie Ruane) about something or other that’s bugging him.

A running thread is Sean’s accusation of Marie using his (electric) toothbrush, a plot device that comes to a wet, wild and exuberant resolution in episode 3, complete with mock-Kubrickian flash edits and Beethoven’s 9th.

Each of the four episodes released so far (the series is slated for 22 total) reliably produces at least a full chuckle if not an all-out bout of cathartic laughs. Along the story line, we are constantly faced with Sean’s exhibitionist, drama king demeanor. He continually sabotages his relationship with the lovely (and reasonable) Donnla by acting like a high-maintenance man-child who just wants to get his way (though Sean is allegedly a chef, he comes across as more of an out-of-work actor).

leave-to-enter-logoFor an Irish-American, McConaghy conjures quite a bit of East Coast Jew. Physically, he reminds me of a cross between my second cousin and DJ Lubel. But personality wise, he’s not as nebbishy. He’s an in-your-face, sometimes trash-talking, always street-corner-rhymin’ Jay-Z worshipper who melds a bit of Swingers-era Vince Vaughn with Curly and a little Charlie Chaplin.

Michael and Valerie are in love. The type of love that means keeping kittens in boxes with no air holes and creating drinking games called “Would You Abort Your Baby If…”. So, you know, highly dysfunctional love. The kind of love Bon Jovi was talking about.

Created and independently produced by graduates of the Dodge College of Film at Chapman University in Orange, CA, Bad Love compares itself to such traditional television sitcoms such as Mad About You and Dharma and Greg but with the twist of having their main characters be completely dysfunctional and unlikable. They are unapologetic yuppies who “decided to open up a t-shirt company … to make fun of minorities in a clever way.” The t-shirt slogans of their various creations serve as titles for each episode.

The show stars Michael Ashley and Valerie Shepherd who are also the screenwriting team that wrote the series. Oh, and they are a real life couple. Which begs the question: does that onscreen chemistry apply only to the hot and heavy make-out scenes that conclude each episode or have they ever really told their friends fiancee they should “totally go to Iraq”?

Bad Love is directed by Tom Flynn, whose short film, Soulmates recently won a Student BAFTA at the Student BAFTA/LA Awards. It co-stars Matt Hirschfeld and Flynn and Mandy Flynn. The show’s original score is composed by Evan Howard, a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music with a Masters Degree in Jazz Performance.

‘For Your Consideration’ campaigns are everywhere this time of year. It is Awards Season after all. And with the Streamy Awards on its second year, the web series world seems to have firmly marked their calendars. Web networks like Revision3 have put up a Streamys “For Your Consideration” page to make it easy for fans of their shows. Even Star-ving co-star Corin Nemec has activated his ‘fan army’ into helping his comedy series take home some hardware. Other series have turned to video to drum up support, and fan submissions, like Elevator Show’s FYI video for actor Ben Pace and Broadway’s Shoshana Bean’s musical FYI video for indie comedy The Battery’s Down.

But it isn’t all a popularity contest, as public submissions only account for part of the process. With the deadline for public submissions this Friday (1/15), it then turns over to the International Academy of Web Television’s (IAWTV) hands, who will cull through the thousands of eligible submissions and pare down the final nominees in each category. The winners of course will be announced live at the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards on April 11 in Los Angeles.

At last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Dailymotion’s Joy Marcus, general manager, North America and Eric Cremer SVP, Media Development, joined us (above) to offer tips on how content creators can work with Dailymotion and also shared the many places you can find Dailymotion’s shows across the digital entertainment universe.

Did you know that Dailymotion actively pitches advertisers to co-finance or fully finance original Web series? Ideas come from both independent content creators (who pitch them A LOT) and the Dailymotion team. Though their audience enjoys “edgy” content, Marcus encouraged content creators to keep in mind that their ideas should also be brand-friendly to successfully pitch advertisers. This is what’s known in the industry as the “branded entertainment” model and holds true for all content creators looking for financing from advertisers.

Marcus also noted that they do exclusive deals with shows that are fully produced and looking for launch marketing support (as in the case with Compulsions). And their programmers worldwide stay busy searching for the best shows for the best cultural fit by country or region. For example, a show that rocks in Turkey may not take off in the US market. You get the picture!

Cool Hunting is already one of my favorite daily reads, a curated intersection of inspiring art, design and culture from around world. And woven throughout the interviews with designers, craftsmen and artists is a regular web video series Cool Hunting Video that brings this all to life. With a history going back to early 2006, just after Apple announced their video iPods in 2005, the series has grown into a standalone show of 150 episodes to date, and business, in its own right.

Its latest episode (above), a three minute look at Nike’s newly opened Tokyo flagship store with architect Masamichi Katayama. Shot in Japanese, with English subtitles, we get an authentic sampling of the sounds and design of the new store without an overtly corporate polish. The episode was in fact sponsored by Nike, which explains some of the access they had, but its captured in Cool Hunting’s discerning style.

Producer Ami Kealoha recently posted a Best of Cool Hunting Video 2009 list, somehow picking the top 5 episodes from the past year. Some creators would say that’s like picking your favorite child, but Kealoha and her team managed to draw favorites, including a portrait of three colorful printmakers in Sao Paulo, Brazil (below). Kelaoha often hires director Greg Mitnick to helm most of the bi-monthly episodes, with Cool Hunting’s EIC Josh Rubin and executive editor Evan Orensten stepping in to produce part of the time.

We asked Kealoha about the series and how they pick what what to feature for their high brow audience. “We use the same criteria that we use for the site—it’s stuff we like, said Kealoha. “Of course, we temper that by considering what does and doesn’t work for video, so the nature of the subject and the kind of access we have to it makes a big difference.” And this is playing out as the video series progresses, trying to match content choices with their astute fan base. “We think of our audience as creative professionals,” she added, “so we are always thinking about things like process and behind-the-scenes.”

An other episode (below) teamed up the CH crew with fashion label Diesel who invited them to check out the Miami edition of their annual Diesel:U:Music Tour last month. Headliners of the event Kid Cudi and Santigold are interviewed talking about how their multi-genre music styles are “taking it back to rock and roll basics.”

Comedy tends to work best when it’s unexpected. In a comedy like The Jim, an indie web series about a pseudo-celebrity gym owner and his employees, you might expect to find a lot of dumb jock and airhead trainer jokes. And you’d be right.

What you might not expect, however, are an almost equal amount of jokes about anxiety disorders, taxidermy fetishists, asexuality and the current US recession. The Jim draws it’s humor in equal measure from sitcom cliches, dark humor, and sheer absurdity. The result is a show that’s as funny as it is surprising.

The premise of The Jim is concisely explained in an expertly crafted opening sequence. Jim is an upbeat yet painfully insecure jock who’s nervous habit of exposing himself got him kicked out of the NLF. Each six-to-eight minute episode follows his efforts to promote his own pro-fitness gym, manage his dysfunctional staff, and keep his junk in his shorts. In a typical episode, he accomplishes none of these goals.

The Jim takes the essential structure of old media sitcoms and runs them through the new media compressor. The problem-of-the-day plot structure and cast of wacky employees is classic prime-time television, but the show’s quick pace and glib, often NSFW humor is distinctively net-based.

Take for an example a conversation in Episode 5 where two characters have a conversation about “rabbits”, neither realizing one is talking about floppy-eared animals and the other is talking about vibrators. It’s the absurd extent to which the double entendres are pushed (“My newest one is a Flemish giant – his name is Dwight”) that really exemplifies how cartoonish the show is willing to go in the name of comedy. It’s broad, but smart, and it works.

The cast is great all around, and Jim himself, played by show co-creator Nelson Carter-Leis, is an excellent and unconventional protagonist. He bears his tribulations with a high-energy attitude and a forced smile, and it’s painfully funny to watch him try to keep a lid on his bubbling anxiety. After all, that’s another major pillar of comedy, other people’s pain. Though The Jim’s characters may be on shallow side of the intellectual lap pool, they’ve got hilarious emotional turmoil to spare.

CraveOnline launched MotoMan, its latest original web series today, that “covers new cars, classic cars and all things car lifestyle. In a nutshell, MotoMan drives cars you can’t.” The debut episode (above) waxes auto-philosophical for a few minutes on whether a luxury cars are more about what’s under the hood or the logo on top of it. [CraveOnline]

Hans Zimmer didn’t compose the theme song for The Guild, but what if he did? Brian “Tweex” Arnold mused on this question, coming up with a remixed intro theme song on his site [Tweex]music, combining the beefed up Season 3 theme with Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean. He even re-edited a clip from Season 3 with the new intro theme. [TweexMusic]

Tubefilter’s Jamison Tilsner talked Web TV and Streamy Awards on the Kodak K-Zone stage at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week. Joining him on the panel, moderated by Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett, were Blip.tv’s Dina Kaplan, My Damn Channel CEO Rob Barnett, and Boxee’s VP of Marketing, Andrew Kippen. Video from the two-part session is up on YouTube and posted below. [YouTube]

British actress/host Emily Booth bowed a new hosted web series that sits down with horror icons called Behind The Screams. The series has seen some play on horror blogs, though no formal distribution deal is in place for the show which has three episodes pushed out so far. [ShockTilYouDrop]

BBC Reporter Dan Simmons, host of the BBC’s technology show Click actually managed to break a mobile phone touted as “unbreakable” by its makers (Sonim) who were showing off its rugged features during a demo this past weekend at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. See the mud-on-face below. [BBC]