Tubefilter News

By now you should have at least two Memorial Day BBQs under your belts, and what better time to embrace your bratwurst coma for a low-maintenance look at the week ahead in web series. Tomorrow is officially the start of June and with it comes the premiere of Squatters, a new comedy on Dailymotion from creator Brendan Bradley.

We had an early exclusive peek at Squatters, which hinted at its lineup of web series notables like The Guild’s Sandeep Parkih, Circle of Eight’s Austin Highsmith, and The Legend of Neil’s Tony Janning. Even NPR’s The Story took interest in the indie comedy.

“After The Guild, I was suddenly an ‘Actor,’ and I realized that was a career I wanted to further explore,” said Parikh. “With Squatters, I get the opportunity to play a very different character than Zaboo, and who could turn down the chance to improvise, slap asses, play drunk, and yell at people?!”

In a deal very similar to 2009’s breakout drama Compulsions, the series will get an exclusive run on the popular video site complete with front page placement, banner ads and a custom branded channel. It will be Dailymotion’s first original comedy web series.

In Their Boots documents the stories of troops coming home from the battlefield, the young wife whose husband never returns, the child who will never know her mother. Each episode is told form the first-person — there is no narrator. This makes for very compelling and, at times, gut-wrenching storytelling.

Now in its third season, the series is branching out to encompass more voices and tell different stories. This spring, five veterans were selected from over 100 applicants to have a chance at telling theirs. The five fellows attended a three day production workshop in Los Angeles and will be given a professional camera man, a $7,500 stipend, and a $10,000 budget. Their episodes will be released this summer.

A production of the of the Brave New Foundation, the series is funded by the Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund of the California Community Foundation. It is Executive Produced by documentarian Richard Ray Perez, and produced by Abe Greenwald, Amanda Spain, and Sandi Williams.

Earlier this week, Seann William Scott and Steve Conrad announced the launch of their new production shingle, Elephant Pictures, based in Conrad’s home city, Chicago. The actor and screenwriter, who met while working together on The Promotion, will pair up as a producing team, though rumors have it that Scott has also penned a new feature length project, Iceholes.

Officially founded in November of 2009 (although the company has been incorporated in California since February of last year), Elephant will produce shorts, features, and web television series.

In a statement to THR, Scott shared his motivation for teaming up with Conrad “We want to be able to do things that are a little subversive and something that a studio would be less willing to do.”

Chicago-based custom camera package sales and rental company Zacuto has put forth an interesting marketing model for its business: a slate of original web series programming focused on content creation which highlight the store’s products and resources. According to the “Content” page on the Zacuto website, “Not only do we provide excellent customer service for our customers, but we strive to be a information resource in general. Whether it be current topics of the day we discuss in our FilmFellas webisodes, or testing the newest cameras and providing real world results and experiences through many of our videos.”

Located in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, Zacuto was originally a production equipment rental house formed in 2000 by Director Steve Weiss and Director of Photogrpahy Jens Bogehegn, who expanded the business into a producer of high-end production equipment designed for independent filmmakers. In December 2008, they began to publish original programming.

The Zacuto web site features three original series among a collection of instructional videos and product reviews:

While web series are no stranger to the world of professional sports, there has been a noticeable dearth of programming catering to fans of America’s most venerable game, golf.

Sure, FoxSports.com picked up the bawdy animated golf series, Of Course in February (which was released on MSN) — but something tells me that die-hard fans of the game might be looking for something a bit more, well, serious.

Enter Behind the Greens, the PGA’s behind the scenes look at preparations for the 92nd Annual PGA Championship which is set to take place at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin, August 9-15.

“It’s a behind the scenes look at creating and constructing the championship,” said Scott Silvestri, executive committee member for the 2010 PGA Championship, “through the eyes of the course superintendent, the operations manager and the tournament director.”

With $7.5 million in the tourney pot, and the possibility that Tiger Woods might actually play, the stakes are set for a very dramatic week of play. The question is, will the one-camera series, with full behind the scenes access, satiate the appetites of golf’s legion fanatics?

All that was missing was Tim Gunn. In a show-off event this week in an unassuming Los Angeles art space known as Scion Space, three artists unveiled their mind-bending creations all built from working Scion cars. Like any good reality show setup, just making it this far was a win. This was Project Runway for car tuners—more fashion and function than torque and RPMs.

A nationwide call for ideas led to the six contestants on Scion’s branded web series Reinvent the Wheels, which debuted March 29. Of those six, only three would get paired up with one of the three high end car tuners tapped to actually craft the artists ideas.

Each artist was given a tight $55,000 budget to completely transform the Scion car they were assigned into their custom visions of expression. For Christine Daniels, a pastry chef by trade, that meant reworking the boxy xB into a mobile kitchen on wheels—the cars still have to drive—complete with a working gas stove, baking oven, running faucet and pantry. Aspiring filmmaker Stuart Arbury built out an all-in-one film production studio in a tC, with robotic jib arm, editing bay and even a push out “casting couch.”

Anthony Valadez ended up taking home the top honors on the series, which just wrapped up its run with a finale of the three finalists. The full-time DJ wowed the three judges with his musical creations. His winnings—$50,000 and a 2011 Scion—he says will help him further tranform his own career as an artist. Valadez, who hosts a radio show on KCRW just launched his own blog where he shares the latest exploits and even the playlists from his latest shows.

On monday Babelgum launched Real Men Real Issues, a fictional original web series following the lives of mischief makers Matt and Nick, two friends who met as kids in detention at The Tito Puente Education Complex in New York City. Now in their 30s, they’re still single and still trying to figure out the mysteries of the modern man.

Starring Matt Ferrucci and Nick Mouyiaris, the series tackles the burning issues that plague the minds of men: girls, gambling, premature ejaculation, homophobia, and boredom.

In the world of branded entertainment, major media buying agencies have carved out a very cozy niche pairing the lifestyle brands they represent with content targeted towards the highly coveted 25 to 40 year old female demographic. In Canada, they seem to have turned it into an art form.

Yesterday, Food Network in Canada announced Cooking Moments, the newest addition to its already impressive stable of 25+ web series.

The series, which soft-launched earlier this month, is sponsored in whole by KitchenAid, part of the Whirlpool home appliances conglomerate. The show is hosted by celebrity chef Rob Rainford, who also hosts his own show on Food Network, License to Grill, and will feature guests like husband-and-wife celebrity chef duo Anna and Michael Olson, and health advocate, Rose Reisman, and will run through the end of 2010 on FoodNetwork.ca.