Tubefilter News

The New York Times’ longtime Art Director Steven Heller has a fascinating walk through (above) of the iconography of the Olympic Games over the years in his latest video. This one’s not just for design geeks either. [New York Times]

Win Streamys prizes: By now you know the nominees for the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards are being announced in a live streamed webcast on Monday at 9:30am led by Shira Lazar and thestream.tv’s Jim Festante. But in the meantime, fans have been counting down to the official annoucement with a “Guess the Nominees” contest on Facebook. Follow the @streamyawards on Twitter to see make your pciks and see what category is up for guessing. [Streamys on Facebook]

Neil Patrick Harris, speaking of awards, already nabbed a Streamy last year for his leading role in Dr. Horrible, so having mastered that he is trying yet another field, stepping up to direct the LA production of the Broadway musical Rent at the Hollywood Bowl. It will be NPH’s first theatrical directing gig. [LAist]

Venus Spa and its creators at Chad Media aren’t hiding their Canadian roots with their latest promo video—GO CANADA GO!!!—put out (below) to support The winning hockey team gets a free spa appointment at the Venus Spa. [YouTube]

NBC let out a sneak peek(below) of its latest companion web series for The Office this week. This one’s called The Mentor, with Angela (Angela Kinsey) stepping into the spotlight. The Mentor is set to debut Thursday on NBC.com. [NBC.com]

Oh, the anticipation. Next week is a big week for web series fans and creators. After weeks of Academy voting to narrow down the top web series of 2009, the final nominees for the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards will be announced in a live streamed broadcast Monday, March 1, at 9:30 AM (PT) on Streamys.org. The live streamed announcement will feature web personality Shira Lazar from CBS News reading off ten of the main categories. The full list of nominees in all 35 categories will be announced in a press release immediately following.

Without Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog in the running this year—the Joss Whedon (and family) musical took home 7 Streamys last spring—many believe that it’s anyone’s game this year across the award categories. With twelve new categories in the mix this year, including a new one that separates out what are now considered “Companion Web Series” or shows that have spun off of existing TV, film or gaming properties like The Office or Heroes web series. Other new additions include “Best Vlogger,” “Best New Web Series,” “Best Foreign Web Series” and “Best Branded Entertainment Web Series.”

The Streamy Awards ceremony itself is set for April 11, 2010 at the Music Box / Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood. The live internet broadcast of the show will begin at 5:30 PM (PT) with the red carpet pre-show beginning at 4:00 PM (PT).

I grew up knowing the ‘Dear Abby’ phenomena only as an ironic comedy reference. However, when I found that real people wrote in with real problems I was blown away. First of all who writes letters anymore? I think only serial killers and hostage takers, but they don’t even write they just cut out letters from magazines. Next it spoke to a time when people were more eloquent with words and didn’t feel the need to abbreviate ‘OK’ as ‘K’. Lastly, it was damn nice of that Abby to be so helpful. So, I want to pretend to know what that’s like and write a letter to help me understand Twilight With Steve Cooper.

Dear Abby, I was watching episode 7 and it didn’t make any sense. The host, fictionalized Steve Cooper (Jeremy Seglem), is in a chair and then a guy in a bad Renaissance Fair costume (The Earl of Sandwich) comes on. Then they start talking about sandwiches, because I think the guy in the bad Renaissance Fair costume is supposed to be the guy that invented sandwiches.

At one point I even found myself saying, “I’m confused”, out loud. I guess if I were IM’ing with someone about it I would’ve typed ‘C.O.L.’ for ‘confused out loud’.

OK, I get that this is supposed to be mock interview show taking benign issues, such as sandwiches…. I just said ‘sandwiches’ out loud because I got confused again. Anyway, the show takes an issue like sandwiches and tries to be serious about it, hence making it funny. Um…no. The host doesn’t play it straight enough. And the weird Renaissance guy… Um, no. So, I watch other episodes and there are other characters from other historic time periods. And I’m just like, “I get it. Next.” Then I watch another one and I’m like, “Nope.” Even the Koldcast.tv, the network that hosts the series, is confusing. I clicked on the link and it started playing some Dora The Explorer rip off commercial and I was ‘C.O.L.’ once again.

So Abs, can I call you Abs? Any way, if you could help me make sense of this series I would greatly appreciate it. I want to go on the Internet, and at the very least not seek council. I applaud the concept, but I also applaud the concept of Communism, or as Republicans like to call it, Democracy.

Now is exactly the right time to spoof vampires, because they are everywhere. Right Thoughts of a dying Atheist? They are in our books, our movie adaptations of books, even our TV show adaptations of books. Eddie Murphy, either you had bad timing, or were way ahead of your time.

As you might have guessed from its title, Intercourse With A Vampire is a spoof. The comedy is about a lascivious, rather unconvincingly seductive Dracula-type named Vampire Larry who lives with his high school sweetheart. The idea being “what if Robert Pattinson’s Twilight character Edward got older, kept his girlfriend, but was a creep.” Using that premise, Vampire picks up where creator and star Jacob Fleisher’s comedy short Twilight – 5 Years Later left off.

In terms of performance, Fleisher has the tendency to go broad with his comedy. That’s putting it politely. In the first scene of the first episode he slimes his way into bed with his girlfriend Tracy (Kristen Carney), and as they have sex his face contorts wildly, as if a GIF Party of Jim Carrey’s face from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Vampire is the type of show that reads well on page, but not quite as much on screen. Some of the punch lines do work, on a Zucker brothers level, as with the third episode when Tracy lays eyes on Vampire Larry for the first time in high school. He glides down the hallway, his hair blowing in the wind. Then a smash cut to reveal Larry being pulled along on a skateboard while a woman holds a fan up to his face.

However, while some of the jokes do work the performances do less so, save a small, but funny, turn by comedian Ben Schwartz as a waiter in the episode three.

The show naturally references aspects of the current pop culture mythology of vampires, like their supernatural ability to “glamour” someone, recognizable to you True Blood fans. If this reaches into a second season they may even land a few gag references of Let the Right One In.

Break a Leg is a web series about creating a television show called Groomates, which is a sitcom about three ex-grooms living with their two ex-wives. Wordplay! Brothers Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky released Break a Leg online in late 2007, and it’s bizarro Hollywood stylings, murder mystery hook, Arrested Development sensibility, and excellent use of a laugh machine quickly made it one of the web’s first breakout hits. Unfortunately, the Arrested Development comparision goes beyond the show’s sense of humor.

Despite widespread critical acclaim, Break a Leg was never able to garner big money sponsorships and its YouTube viewcounts equated to little cash. At least that’s what happened when the show aired in the US. Perhaps it’ll garner good reviews and fame and fortune in Italy.

Happy Little Guillotine Films, the production company behind Break a Leg, recently announced a deal with Fox Channels Italy that will bring the web series overseas. Fox Channels Italy is set to “broadcast the show on their linear mobile TV channels, over mobile digital terrestrial television and online (linear and on demand) on www.floptv.tv.”

It’s not everyday that a major television network buys, translates, and distributes an independent web series to an international audience, so I caught up with Yuri and asked him for more information on the deal.

Tubefilter: How’d the Break a Leg – Fox Channels Italy deal happen?

Yuri Baranovsky: We were contacted by FOX Italy. They were huge fans of the show and their digital department was just sort of starting up. FOX uses FOX Italy as a testing ground for a lot of their new programs and Floptv.tv was, at the time, their first foray into online video and even now is, as far as I know, FOX’s only actual online destination point for FOX-related materials.

Fan favorite indie drama Anyone But Me released episode 4 (above) of its second season today with former Gilmore Girls star Liza Weil making a guest appearance as a pregnant shrink in “Girl Talk” along with two more episodes coming next month.

There Will Be Brawl, the noir comedy spin on the world of Mario Brothers is hosting a wrap party with six—yes six—DJs at Club Good Hurt in Venice, CA on Saturday March 13. The $10 event organized by the web series’ co-creators Matthew Mercer and Zach Grafton promises live performances from The Megas, a band taking inspiration from Nintendo’s Mega Man series, and The Yuki Shundo Dance Crew. The complete series of TWBB can be found on The Escapist. [Bubble Punch]

AfterEllen.com is asking readers to help them pick Top 50 Lesbian/Bi TV, Film, and web series characters of all time. They are looking for the best fictional characters—votes for reality stars or other “real” people won’t be considered, according to the poll. [AfterEllen.com]

Woody Tondorf, creator of the long running hit series Elevator has left Break Media, the company that acquired his team from HBO Lab last year. The fate of his series Elevator remains in flux, as Break still holds rights to the series, which they have decided to discontinue. They would be will to part with them for a sizable (and as of now undisclosed) price. [NewTeeVee]

More Werner! William Maier is back with his spot on impersonation of director Werner Herzog. In the follow up to last year’s Cooking with Werner and Auto Maintenance with Werner, comes Speed Dating with Werner. [Funny or Die]

Big Fantastic has one of the more impressive track records in the web series circuit, tent-poled by their international breakout franchise Prom Queen. For years they have been the goto production house for studios like Michael Eisner’s Vuguru (Prom Queen, Foreign Body), 60Frames (Cockpit) and Warner Bros. (Sorority Forever). But now as the company prepares its first non-studio original series since their debut Sam Has 7 Friends, the company announced they have signed on as a new media signatories to the Writers Guild of America, West, under the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement (“MBA”).

“The Guild has done a great job of recognizing and legitimizing the efforts of online creators like us,” said Big Fantastic’s Doug Cheney. “We chose to become a signatory now because it affords us tremendous opportunities as writers while allowing our company access to the vast WGA talent pool.”

There’s been a fair amount of coverage around the Writer’s Guild East’s (WGAe) efforts to organize new media creators, with as many as 22 web series shops on board as of last month. But out west, its sister guild, the WGAW, has been quieter, though no less successful in bringing in signatories in online content. Big Fantastic in fact is the 33rd web production company to become signatory under the WGAW’s recently won jurisdiction in digital and mobile.

So far 73 web series have been released from these WGAW signatories including Streamy Award-winning Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Web Therapy and Back on Topps. Other series like Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy and television show companion web series like those from Battlestar Galactica, Chuck, Heroes, Monk and The Office are also on that list.

Now the 4-man Big Fantastic team has a new undisclosed web project heading into production. We’ll have updates on this as soon as they are available. Their latest edition of the Prom Queen franchise—Prom Queen: The Homecoming—is still slated for a 2010 release from Vuguru, though no official launch date has been set.

This is the latest installment of our weekly web series critic column Pass The Mustard. No sugar coating, no doublespeak, no hand holding. Just brutally honest reactions from one guy: Ned Hepburn. We’ll throw a handful of web series at him each week. Agree, disagree, love him, hate him, but please don’t punch him. Got something clever to say in retort? Leave a comment below. He’ll probably read it and embarrass you later. His opinions are his own, so take them or leave them. See last week’s column here.]

Spade

A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style show on YouTube? This works. This works fairly well. This could work better. I’ll spare you the details on what the show is about as I’d recommend you get a feel for it yourself – but for what the show lacks in production cost it makes up for in inventiveness. The great thing about watching these web shows is that you get a sense of what it must’ve been like 100 years ago in the movie industry – a hell of a lot of 10 minute shorts that don’t make sense – some rising above others – and occasionally someone doing something new. Well, this is something new done very well on such a low budget. I’d love to see this with a major league budget, and I applaud them for their originality.