Tubefilter News

Tongal jumped on board the MacGruber buzz bus this week at SXSW, launching a video contest for user-generated videos linked to the ROGUE Pictures film based on the popular SNL character “MacGruber.”

A panel of judges will then select five winning pitches that will be announced on tongal.com/macgruber on March 30 to move on to the next phase, which asks participants get to film and submit a 90-second video segment based on the top pitches. There is additional chance for prizes for watching and predicting the five winning video submissions. The grand prize for the top video is a ‘Hometown Screening’ of MacGruber as well as the five winning videos receiving cash prizes.

“We had been talking with Randall (Cox, EVP International Business and Corporate Development of Relativity Media) for a while about how to use Tongal as a social media platform to compliment Rogue releases,” said James DeJulio, co-founder and president of Tongal. “Especially if the campaign would result in user generated content. MacGruber was a perfect fit because of the overall level of awareness and enthusiasm for the character.”
Their latest foray into their unique brand of reward-based user-generated content, announced at SXSW, is a partnership with ROGUE Pictures, specifically, the feature film based on the popular Saturday Night Live character MacGruber. “We had been talking with Randall (Cox, EVP International Business and Corporate Development of Relativity Media) for a while about how to use Tongal as a social media platform to compliment Rogue releases,” said James DeJulio, co-founder and president of Tongal. “Especially if the campaign would result in user generated content. MacGruber was a perfect fit because of the overall level of awareness and enthusiasm for the character.”

After shutting its doors last spring and then being resurrected by original founder Drew Massey, maniaTV is ready to get back to its roots: producing original celebrity-driven content. After having past success with talk shows that featured the likes of Tom Green and Dave Navarro, the site will be releasing at least three new original series this summer starting with frat-brother friendly Celebrity Rush.

Hosted by ExtraTV star Jerry Penacoli, he describes it as: “imagine Animal House meets Inside the Actor’s Studio. That’s Celebrity Rush.” The show is a weekly interview series taped live on the UCLA campus and will feature live audience participation. It is scheduled to being airing in August.

Some other projects in the works include Comedy Club Live, which will feature known as well as undiscovered comics and hosted by celebrity comics such as Jamie Kennedy, Wee-man’s Wrecked, a 10 episode series featuring Jackass star Jason Acuna, as well as new seasons of Tom Green Live and Navarro’s SpreadTV.

If there was any ever doubt that a web series—without any moonlighting Hollywood celebrities or TV network backing—could galvanize throngs of faithful fans into a live rock concert adoration, well, it ended last night at SXSW. Before a sold out crowd of over 2,200 at Stubbs BBQ one of Austin’s legendary outdoor concert stages, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht took a page out of the rock star playbook at the live Diggnation taping Saturday night.

The spiked hair and fire breathing magic skills of Scam School’s Brian Brushwood primed the crowd, in an opening act that probably could have its own Vegas offshoot some day. Then there was the #OMGConan hoax, an organized prank led by Rev3 co-founder David Prager that generated 426 tweets from the audience blasting out that Conan O’Brien is joining Revision3. This was of course full-circle to the web network’s credulous offer back in January for Conan to have his own Rev3 show.

Oh, and the crowdsurfing. Alex and Kevin floated over the sea of outstretched arms. Even live streaming TWIT.tv’s Leo Laporte joined in on the fun to cheers of “Leo! Leo! Leo!” as he was whisked up while carrying his lighted unipod to stream his ride. Was this the first live streamed crowd surfing shot first person?

In the parlor game of us spectators, one of the questions batted around was just how much PC-maker Alienware paid for the ultimate product integration—swapping out Kevin and Alex’s usual laptops for two of theirs. Best bets from those in the know seemed to say it was at least $50k for the privilege of that placement. Some speculated it was a six figure deal. Either way, not cheap to free known Apple-lover Kevin Rose from his MacBook Pro.

Spotted up in the VIP section were a number of web series vets like Taryn Southern, Tim Street, Brett Register, iJustine, Phil DeFranco, Tony Valenzuela and others—all there to witness first-hand just how big this video space has actually become. It left us all thinking, who needs Conan when you have have these guys?

In a constant effort to improve the accessibility of Streamy-nominated content to members of not only the voting body of the IAWTV but to the public at large, the International Academy of Web Televison hosted bi-coastal Streamy Awards finalist screenings on March 11th, 2010, with one occurring in New York and the other in Los Angeles (which was also streamed live via Stickam). Each screening included a viewing of finalist nominees of 11 of the overall Streamy Awards categories and a presentation of various New Media professionals and creators.

Held at NYU’s Cantor Film Center and supported by NYU Tisch School of The Arts, The Writers Guild of America East, The Producers Guild New Media Council, and The New York Television Festival, the New York screening included a discussion with MyDamnChannel Founder and CEO Rob Barnett. Barnett presented his experiences in successfully providing popular entertainment content to the web including Wainy Days, The Iceman Commeth, and distributing Easy to Assemble, just to name a few. He revealed that beyond picking out the content to be developed, he takes a very hands off approach to the actually creative process, instead choosing to let the creators of the shows do what they do best: create. The audience of the New York screening, which was open to the public, consisted of a wide range of enthusiastic content creators, IAWTV members, and NYU students.

The Los Angeles screening was presented as a part of the the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) LifeRaft Live Stream series, a professional development program that provides insight into the business of acting through seminars. Following the viewing panel discussion with nominated producers and creators, all of which were part of SAG signatory shows, was presented to an audience of IAWTV and SAG members. Moderated by Drew Baldwin, Co-Founder of Tubefilter, the panelists included Aaliyah Williams and Anastasia Ali (producers, Buppies), Ernest Vecchione (creator, Sex Ed), Sandeep Parikh, (creator /writer/director, The Legend of Neil), and Jonathan Stern (producer, Wainy Days). Panelists shared their insights across a wide array of experiences; from how funding and distribution effect production, to the importance of social media tools such as Twitter; and fielded questions from not only the audience in attendance but from the internet viewers, with the Stickam feed count exceeding 73,000 viewers, with a peak concurrent audience of 3,266 (per Stickam).

Inspired by the Playstation video game of the same name, Infamous shows us a world where everyday people have the regular occurance of having to deal with the fact that they are suddenly shooting lightning out of their body or hearing someone’s thoughts. A world where anyone can suddenly find themselves with superpowers and have the tough decision of whether to use their abilities for either good or evil…or sometimes a little of both. “[Co-creator] Greg [Washington] and I are both avid comic book readers,” said co-creator Joey Barto. “So, the story is kind of an extension of that. We love revenge stories, we love dark stories, we love anti-heroes, and this is a really great story about a very dark, dark anti-hero.”

Created by Barto, Washington, John Chambers, Harvard Taylor, and Travis Barth, produced by Newborn Productions and Cultivate Media Productions and shot locally in Shreveport, Louisiana, the series sets out to prove you can create high-quality, complex, and visually stimulating content outside of the heavilly debated “Los Angeles Bubble”. Said Washington: “We have built a great relationship with two local studios here in Shreveport; Fairfield Studios and Crain Video, that have donated equipment and studio space for the production of Infamous.”

“Shooting in Louisiana, Shreveport in particular, gives us so many incredible options for backgrounds,” continued Washington. “Shreveport has passed for California, New York, New Orleans, Texas, and many other states because of its unique structure and setup. It is the perfect location for a production like ours with a very limited budget. And Southern hospitality has been extended above and beyond.”

With over 15 million views, season 1 of Married on MySpace is the most watched web series MySpace has ever produced, according to numbers from the company. Endemol USA and MySpace are hoping to match and perhaps even surpass that success by bringing the popular, fan-driven show back for a second season.

The season premiered this week with the unveiling of this seasons couple, Graeham and Dehlia, as they begin their journey to the alter…and they are at the mercy of the viewers to choose every aspect of the ceremony. The audience is currently being asked to vote on the what wedding bands the couple will give each other to express thier lifelong devotion to ech other with (my vote is on the “White Gold Wreath”, it’s stunning!). Future episodes will have audience members choosing the dress, location, planning of the bachelor and bachelorette parties (someone better jump out of a cake, I’m just saying), etc.

With all these decisions needing to be made, the series is bursting at the seems with product placement opportunities. Current sponsors include include Hewlwtt-Packard, JCPenney, the FOX Searchlight film Our Family Wedding,The Knot, and Hearst.

From the trailer you get the idea that Tyranny is a distant relative of 70’s American thrillers, where corporations rule the world and your mind. From the three episodes I’ve screened, I was convinced it was another dystopic, post-apocalyptic thriller. Dystopia, I know, but I think timing wise, this is more pre-apocalypse. At any rate this series from creator John Beck Hofman is gripping while still competently executed for its scope.

Hofman plays Daniel McCarthy who in 1999 volunteers for a Berkley Grad student’s experiment that records his every thought and action throughout the day. Shortly thereafter he realizes he has lost memory of the last eight days and can now see the future from 2011 to 2013. And it ain’t pretty. Food shortages, bio-engineered pandemic, and picketers galore…future? Hmm, that sounds awfully similar to a certain planet I know right now. The rest of the cast is impressive, with Bond girl Olga Kurylenko starring alongside Hofman and web series standout Bitsie Tulloch from Quarterlife and lonleygirl15.

“Known as the last great race on the earth, the Iditarod is an 1150-mile sled dog race across the most dangerous and extreme terrain of Alaska. Fifty-eight year old Kathy Frederick is one of the oldest female rookie competitors to ever compete in this treacherous race and I, Leslie Morgan will be documenting her journey.” This is, in a nutshell, the premise for the unique documentary web series 1150 Project created by the one-woman producing dynamo Leslie Morgan. The series is literally unfolding right now, as Leslie follows Kathy currently racing in this year’s Iditarod. Tubefilter talked via e-mail (as she is currently still in Alaska working on the series) with this inspiring creator to get the inside scoop on this truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Tubefilter: What was the inspiration behind this project? How did you and Kathy meet?

I have been interested in finding a documentary project about someone living out a dream, Lemonade: The Movie and David Lynch’s The Interview Project inspired this web series. I met Kathy online after a mutual friend told me about her and her website. When I saw she needed a volunteer for three months to help her out managing her household I thought I could help her, but I also wanted to document her journey. I have been interested in producing a web based project for some time and thought rather than taking months to try and make a feature why not try to film and edit in Alaska, posting episodes as I go.