Tubefilter News

It was merely three years ago that the RED Camera was first released, driven by the maverick inventiveness of Jim Jannard. Parallels to the iPhone can be easily made, as both revolutionary products took the world by storm in 2007, changing the landscape of their respective fields. Within a very short time, both the RED and the iPhone have become leading brands, even more so because they constantly strive for improvements and innovation to remain ahead of the curve.

RED has continued to evolve with its recent releases of the Epic X S-35 and the Scarlet, skewed towards the ‘Prosumer’ market.

LightIRON Digital’s Michael Cioni is a valuable resource in the arena of ultra high resolution and has overseen post on hundreds of RED projects at his offices in Culver City. He is aware that the ‘4K market-place’ has fully arrived on the landscape and foresees some steep competition by other major players in the industry at NAB 2010. Still, Cioni recognizes “what keeps the Red ahead is that it has over 200% more resolution than any competition with five to six times higher res[solution]. Forward thinking is future proof.”

Director of Photography Rick Robinson starts his day ahead of most of the industry, at Bigfoot Studios and its education-affiliate, the International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT) in Cebu, Philippines. Robinson is a seasoned user of the RED, shooting films for Bigfoot Entertainment, who were one of the pioneers to integrate the camera system into their filmmaking process. Like Steven Soderbergh did when shooting Che, Robinson has taken the RED through its paces. In almost every possible condition be it on land, air, sea and underwater on a variety of Bigfoot projects shot in the US, China, Vietnam and Philippines, RED has succeeded.

At first look, it might seem strange that a celebration is scheduled for Tax Day, which still in times of economic hardship would seem like a time to reflect on where one went wrong. After all, celebrations are rewards, aren’t they? We’re not paying anything (bar tabs aside).

Tonight, though, we’re paying our Respect Tax. To the web, to ourselves, to each other.

I’m not going to get sappy – partially because as I write this a raging of a hangover is on the horizon (look for that as a metaphor later in this piece!). However, in her acceptance speech at the Celebrate the Web, post-Streamys gathering, Felicia Day said, “We want to be authentic to ourselves,” as why we work on the web. So I’m going to pound a Red Bull and write this with the honesty it deserves.

I hate crowds. It’s my lot, because I am destined to always find myself in them. Walking into the event at the ACME Comedy Theatre, I couldn’t help but feel like I’m waiting for the next Big Disaster to hit. We’re not going to rehash the Streamys – “what happened, happened,” as Jesse Warren bluntly said in his speech. But what happened at the Streamys served as a catalyst for the creation of this event.

There was a lot of potential energy in the half-hour mixer pre-show. I think some of the winners were still considering what it was they had to say. It’s become clear to me, in the bleary-eyed morning, that what I interpreted as trepidation over What Might Happen was in fact myself projecting onto everyone; the truth is, the industry last night realized we’d all just stepped onto a ledge with Sunday, and over the subsequent 72 hours, we were spitting over the edge, measuring the fall. Thursday night, we took a step back, and with the giddy high that first breath of relief brings, the emotional adrenaline had yet to drain.

This all might seem a bit dramatic, but for many in this industry, there isn’t anywhere else they could go to tell their stories. Not in the sense that they couldn’t make it in another medium, but that the stories they want to tell would never belong there. And as storytellers, writers, directors, that desperate search for an outlet strangely becomes more frantic when we find it.

Rum can help with this feeling.

The actual event in the theatre felt very similar to the awards ceremony for Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab’s Channel 101 – a group of friends in a semi-structured function sitting in a theatre in various states of inebriation, trying to stay a little professional for the sake of the common goal. Also, because the Internet was watching.

In the end, the event (which you can see at the Celebrate the Web site) clung to the tone of community, with the humility and passion and humor it needed. While all the quick speeches were honest and from the heart, the celebration and the state of where our industry leaders are standing can be summed up quite nicely through that of Sean Becker’s love letter to the Internet, and Jeremy Redleaf’s hilarious run-on sentence video incorporating the titles of most if not all of the Streamy winning shows.

On April 15, 2010 a varied group of online entertainment creators gathered at the Acme Comedy Theater to do something they felt needed to be done, to celebrate the innovative and creative content that is being produced and distributed throughout the internet. The event, organized by Kim Evey and Jenni Powell, was designed as a Post Streamys Celebration to help get the web community back on track after a disillusioning weekend.

In order to insure the integrity and spontaneity of the evening speakers were selected randomly from names drawn from a Streamy Award itself. This playful attitude set the tone for a fun and uplifting evening. Common themes that were mentioned included the fight for net neutrality, the freedom of the internet, the ability to reach audiences that you may not otherwise be able to, and the ability to be true to your self.

After listening to the Streamy winners speak it was obvious that they deeply love what they do. The ability to not only create something from nothing but to share that with the world just by uploading it to the internet was a privilege honored by all.

With an open, neutral network – the internet – every single person, regardless of age, race, class, religion, or any other distinction – has the exact same access to give and receive information. The internet was founded upon this principle, and it is the purest form of democracy – true equality. Net neutrality guarantees that your website featuring a comedy series about 20-somethings living together in one apartment, my website featuring a mystery series about a young woman who will be killed by one of her seven friends, and a website owned by the largest telecommunications company in the world, are ALL EQUAL in the eyes of the internet. Because of this net neutrality, one website cannot be discriminated against so long as it adheres to the law, and does nothing to harm the network.

In the realm of New Media, this kind of freedom has allowed for an explosion of innovative, independent new voices, searching for different ways to tell stories, to connect with their audience, to build a brand and make a career. A genuine meritocracy, the open internet allows any individual to create a web presence with global significance, reaching farther than a TV or radio network could ever travel – all predicated on a single GREAT IDEA. Felicia Day and The Guild are a shining example of this – a single idea powering an entire community, building a dedicated audience of millions. Other terrific examples are Ask A Ninja, lonelygirl15, and Rocketboom, as well as one-person phenoms such as Phil DeFranco, Shane Dawson and Michael Buckley. Whether or not you personally watch or like any of these shows – their unique voices endure, through the power of an open, democratic internet, bringing a new form of entertainment to the world. In the words of Steve Jobs – pretty cool, huh?

But…

Giant telecommunications companies such as Comcast would like to do away with Net Neutrality, in favor of a tiered system in which content creators like you and me would have to pay – above and beyond what we already pay – to maintain the same level of service that the partners of the Internet Service Providers enjoy. Their outward motive is profit – which is not terrible, they’re a business after all. The biggest issue is that they wish to extend total control over the network – a network whose construction has been greatly subsidized with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars. These companies would effectively become the gatekeepers of the internet, and they would have great latitude in slowing down, discriminating against, or even blocking some websites, including their competitors. Which sites you could access would fall under the authority of massive corporations, more interested in their bottom line than the open transmission of information over the worldwide system of interconnected computer networks known as “the internet.” Pretty scary, huh?

At the root of web series creation, there is the old adage “find your niche”. It is something that has shined through again and again in series from The Guild, The Legend of Neil, and GOLD: The Series (Gamers) to The Crew and Date a Human (Sci-Fi), Vamped Out (Vampires) to Riese (Steampunk), series catering to a specific community of people tend to find popularity (as well as containing an easy jumping-off point when it comes to markerting).

The Nightly News at Nine with Phil and Sherry is almost a niche within a niche: it’s a parody of news shows on the one hand…on the other, it’s a stop-animation where the characters and sets are completely made of LEGO building blocks. Tubefitler spoke with the show’s producer, David Pickett, via e-mail about this unique and fun series: how he choose the format, it’s popularity among LEGO fans, and his plans for it going forward.

The Battery’s Down is kind of like the Glee of web series. Today the New York-based musical comedy series created by Jake Wilson announced the release of The Battery’s Down: Season 2 Soundtrack on Ghostlight Records. The 21-song album is now available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon and the Ghostlight website, featuring the works of recent Pulitzer Prize-winning Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, along with Michael Arden, Nick Blaemire, Eric Day, Ryann Ferguson, Connor Gallagher, John Hill, Lance Horne, Kirsten Guenther, Steven Jamai and many more. [Ghostlight Records]

The Guild announced that their much rumored Season 4 is now officially picked up by lead sponsor Microsoft. Creator-star Felicia Day is “putting the finishing touches on the script” for the new season, according to their announcement, which will pick up where Season 3 left off. “Pre-production is underway, keeping producer Kim Evey and Streamy Award winning director Sean Becker very busy as cameras are set to roll sometime in May.” [The Guild]

Who Knew? launched this week, a new web series from Yahoo News and Reveille, part of a broader partnership between the two companies. The series takes a quick under 3-minute look at “out-of-the-ordinary facts and information” in a jumpy, graphics heavy primer on a subject. First up was the historical mystery of the Shroud of Turin (below). Toyota Avalon is the lead sponsor. [paidcontent.org]

I want to start off this post with a few warnings: 1) it is very long. 2) I am in no way speaking for Tubefilter as a whole but in my own words in an attempt to offer a fair and balanced critique of all that occurred at the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards. I just have the unique benefit of being able to do it as a member of the Tubefilter staff as well as a member of the IAWTV, as someone who has attended both iterations of the Streamy Awards thus far, and as someone who is a creator, producer, and just general fan of all things New Media.

Knowing I needed to cover the Awards ceremony, I struggled with a fair way to put a voice to so many of the concerns, disappointments, confusion, wonderment, and all the other array of emotions a lot of us were feeling, whether we watched the ceremony live or from various places across the world via the livestream or iPhone application. So I came to the decision that the best thing to do would be for the community to speak for itself. And so I reached out and invited people via e-mail and Twitter to provide me with feedback as well as researching blogs that were commenting on the evening’s events.

The response was immediate and varied but in general, the concerns seemed to sum up to four key issues: 1) Technical issues 2) Content issues 3) The level of self-deprecation presented and 4) Concerns about effects on New Media as a whole.

The past 2 weeks we’ve had fun asking questions about how to get big on YouTube and what’s the best way to get big. This week I want to introduce you to 5 users you might not know but whose names you better learn quick. These 5 are the next users ready to crack into the top 100 and climb it quickly. This year begun with the top 100 still dominated by the old school YouTubers, who rose to fame in a much different YouTube with much less competition. Recently though the next generation of YouTubers have started breaking through and commanding audiences of their own. One of my main rules for YouTube success in today’s YouTube is networking to the extreme so don’t be surprised if you find some of these names familiar from work they’ve done with already established YouTubers.