Tubefilter News

In case you haven’t noticed, Machinima is booming lately—and starting to look pretty darn cinematic to boot. Those stories built entirely in video game platforms have come a long way since those early Quake movies or that couple of guys in Texas who spent way too much time with their copy of Halo and through their Red vs. Blue series introduced millions to this new storytelling format. Now the things in machinima land are getting epic.

Over the weekend, Machinima.com launched what could be their most ambitious machinima web series to date—Dragon Age: Warden’s Fall. After launching the 7-minute first episode (above) on Saturday, it already racked up over 130,000 views on YouTube.

Writer-director Andrew Will was tapped to create the story of a Grey Warden player’s encounter in the dark fantasy game Dragon Age: Awakenings DLC from BioWare, using the game’s toolset. Machinima.com worked closely with BioWare, and while the series is original it borrows from the fiction of the game’s already epic story.

A few months ago, a mysterious Twitter account appeared called Eight Thirteen with the bio “Horror Genre Web-Series, New Media Zombies!” and link to a Tumblr site. Up until two weeks ago, that site had only a logo design and the quote: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” -Romans 8:13.

And then…the teaser trailer appeared. A creaky door opening, a few drops of blood on the floor, a dead body. Sure, these are things you expect from a zombie-related trailer.

But then there she was, the creepy bloody baby.

It seems that in the last several weeks, I have have been inundated with news tips about web game shows. Just last week I wrote about the racy Italian web game show Quiz and Wax. Perhaps this is a sign that this underrepresented format on the web is starting to get it’s day in the sun. The trick is parsing down this format, which generally consists of several rounds of activity, into the generally quick, attention-grabbing, instantly gratifying nature web entertainment is generally known for.

Red Carpet Run, created by Avignon Bound Media International and hosted on Blip.tv, is one of the brave few attempting to grow out this format. Based on the popular concept of pop culture trivia, this show then adds an interesting gimmic for it’s final round: the contestant must answer questions in awards show attire (tuxes for the guys, dresses for the ladies)…while running on a treadmill.

The difficulty level of the questions is minimal, with categories such as “One Word Titles”, “Hookups and Breakups”, and the slightly more esoteric “Quick Change Artists” (described as “questions about actors who specialize in playing multiple roles”), which may be offputting for hardcore trivia fans. But for me personally, who is definitely not the most informed in pop culture, being able to yell out the answers to questions (which I did, often) gave me a sense of excitement and participation.

We get it, HBO. The third season of True Blood premieres Sunday, June 13 and your marketing department is doing its best to make sure everyone who enjoys programs with premises based around mythological creatures and at least one softcore sex scene per episode tunes in. Your crew did an amazing job promoting the series last year. That “Gawker buys Blood Copy” campaign was genius. It was a brazen attempt to shake up the intersection of advertising and journalism and got you a ton of press in the process. But given all the heat you took, I can understand wanting to tone it down and rely on the basics of billboards, bus ads, and minisodes. The only problem with that tactic is your minisodes suck.

You’re promoting your weekly, six-episode A Drop of True Blood series as a way to lead viewers into the new season before the premiere. You’re not shy about saying all the minisodes are written by showrunner Alan Ball and feature Alexander Skarsgard, Anna Paquin, and the rest of the main cast. But let’s be honest. The minisodes have nothing to do with season three. And the reason you’re able to say they’re written by Ball and star all familiar faces is because they’re deleted scenes from season two that were only picked up off the cutting room floor when an intern found an opportunity to put them online.

$1 million isn’t what it used to be, but in the web series culture of “favors and waivers,” it’s a small fortune. Even Joss Whedon’s widely popular Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with its cast of Hollywood notables, came in with budget just under $300k. To scrappy indie web series creators, Madison Avenue’s ad agencies and their branded entertainment series don’t even seem to be playing in the same league.

But some of the lucky creators have embraced this new flood of ad dollars in online video, and found there’s a living to be made crafting these sponsor driven, heavily product integrated made-for-web originals. Yuri Baranovsky, creator of the 2007 hit indie comedy Break A Leg, he and his team at Happy Little Guillotine Films were one of those lucky crossovers. After pitching their concept to 7-Eleven’s ad agency with just a promo video, they were tapped to produce, write and direct 7-Eleven Road Trip Rally which launched May 10th in partnership with blip.tv.

The series tracks two pairs of contestants racing across the country to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500—with their only pit stops allowed are at 7-Eleven stores. Drew Lanning, an original Break a Leg cast member, hosts the series, with Baranovsky directing.

Jason Calacanis is betting big on the future of web shows, and this, as they say, isn’t his first rodeo with an online content company. When he launched his live web show This Week in Startups a year ago, it appeared to be a side project from his gig as CEO of his latest startup Mahalo, a social search engine.

Instead the web show turned out to be the seed for an online network of shows, many shot out of Mahalo’s Santa Monica offices. The company already had a small stable of web originals like Mahalo Daily and This Week in YouTube, but it wasn’t until Calacanis himself took the on camera spot that the idea of a separate company for this growing network of shows took flight.

Now officially dubbed This Week In with Mahalo’s former CTO Mark Jeffrey tapped as CEO, the upstart network now has 8 web shows under its banner and is looking to have as many as 30 by the end of the year. This Week in Startups (TWiST) and Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show are the two flagships, each besting 100,000 views (or downloads) per week. Its latest entrant, This Week in iPad, rocketed to #7 on the iTunes tech podcast list after launching just 5 weeks ago.

With news this week that the company, co-founded by Calacanis, Jeffrey and Kevin Pollak, raised $300,000 in angel funding this week from Matt Coffin, Sky Dayton of course Calacanis himself, we decided catch up with the man that is looking to emulate his past winner Weblogs Inc, a network of over 100 blogs like Engadget, Joystiq and Autoblog, which sold to AOL in 2005. “Try a bunch of different shows, recruit tons of talent and double down on big winners,” he quipped. “It’s blogging all over again… the land grab is on!”

Your favorite 6’6″ Libertarian magician with a home modeled after a correctional facility and one helluva ponytail is joining your favorite technophilic internet television network. Coming May 24, Penn Jillette’s shiny new series, Penn Point will be part of the programming slate at Revision3.

Ryan Vance, Vice President of Programming & Production at Revision3, tells us Penn Point will deliver “an unfiltered look at the world through the eyes of Penn Jillette.” Bryan Curtis, writer for Slate, tells us Penn Jillette is a public intellectual, “always on the verge of another revelation,” a devoted skeptic, atheist, and avowed enemy of Michael Moore and Mel Gibson. So, what does that information tell us about how Penn Point will look and feel? Jillette will get in front of the camera, discuss whatever’s on his mind through with obvious biases towards maximizing individual liberties and minimizing government, and Revision3 will take the homemade footage and make it look pretty. It will be pointed political commentary fit for the reason.tv set with just enough current events and pop culture thrown in to pique the interest of your average Revision3 fanboy.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Jillette’s Penn Says – a videoblog where Jillette discussed whatever he wanted to discuss, from Katy Perry to the Tea Party – had been airing on Sony’s Crackle from January 2008 through December 2009. A recent post on Crackle’s blog wished Jillette a heartfelt goodbye, but didn’t leave any details as to why the magician was leaving to do a very similar show for a different online studio.

Sure why not, in the midst of all the pomp around TV upfront season with networks announcing their fall lineups, web TV network Atom.com unveiled its shiny new slate of comedy web series today. There’s a lot to digest here, so we’ll start with just the news. As we reported earlier Atom’s flagship comedy The Legend of Neil returns for its 7-episode third season this summer and NYTVF-winning series Johnny B. Homeless has a 9-episode pickup starting June 15.

The slate actually begins today, with the premiere of M’Larky from creator Dan Fogler who stars as detective Black in a cop show well past its prime. Josh Warren stars as Detective John M’Larky, who with “his maniacal colleagues who go undercover in their pursuit of booze, broads and Colombian drug runners.” Also set to appear in the series are Gilbert Gottfried, Jeffrey Ross and Tony Hawk.

Scheduled web series:

Johnny B. Homeless: (9 episodes, debuts June 15, 2010) – Winner of the 2009 People’s Choice Award for best pilot at the New York Television Festival, Johnny B. Homeless is the saga of the ultimate partying couch surfer. Created by and starring Al Thompson (The Royal Tenenbaums, A Walk to Remember) and co-starring Kenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live).

Legend of Neil – Season 3: (7 episodes, debuts summer 2010) – The Streamy Award-nominated and hit Atom.com series returns for its third and final season. Season 3 follows Neil (aka Link), as he navigates through the latter stages of the classic video game “Legend of Zelda™” in an attempt to save the princess. Created by Sandeep Parikh and staring Tony Janning, Mike Rose, Scott Chernoff and Felicia Day.

Munchie the Agent: (8 episodes, debuts summer 2010) – The world’s worst Hollywood agent (a cat, naturally) shreds his celebrity clients when they come in to gripe about their careers, personal lives and his services. Each episode features a different guest star, including Tom Arnold, Rick Yune (Ninja Assassin) and Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight, Entourage). Created by David Weinstein, former writer at Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Dan Levy’s: Laugh Track Mashups: (4 episodes, debuts summer 2010) – Dan Levy returns after his series of hit Atom shorts in 2009 to mash up familiar sitcoms from the golden era of TV such as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Mr. Belvedere.

Scott Gairdner Sketch Comedy: (5 episodes, debuts summer 2010) – Fresh off his hit Insane Clown Posse spoof Juggalo News, Gairdner comes to Atom as “comedian in residence,” offering a steady stream of exclusive videos and blog posts.

Rahzel’s Rap Minute: (6 episodes, debuts fall 2010) – World renowned human beatboxer Rahzel of The Roots (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Teenage Dirtbag) brings us the latest in the most ridiculous music news through his beatboxing and celebrity impersonations.

Tommy Wiseau Untitled Horror Parody: (3 episodes, debuts fall 2010) – A creepy comedy starring cult horror director Tommy Wiseau (The Room) as the unfortunate Alex. From Studio 8 and Brock LaBorde.

Additional upcoming Atom releases, currently unscheduled:

Angry Old Man and Gay Teenage Runaway – Featuring Lonny Ross (30 Rock) and Fred Melamed (A Serious Man)
Ham Sandwich Time Machine – Written and directed by David Green
Hit of the Party – Created by Archie Gips (Blind Date) and Dennis Anderson (American Beauty)
Jason Nash Is Married” – Created by and starring Jason Nash (The Shaman)
Patriot Dog – Created by and starring Natasha Leggero (Ugly Americans, judge on upcoming season of “Last Comic Standing”) and directed and co-written by Duncan Trussel (”La La Land,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm”)
Stay At Home Dad – From David Title (My Best Friend Is My P*nis)
The Fuzz – Created and written by Waverly Films (Chris Ford, Duncan Skiles and Jon Watts), COMEDY CENTRAL’s splittingly hilarious and gritty puppet world comes to Atom in the form of five Webisodes
Top Rope – Directed by Web Emmy-nominated director Dave Seger (Webisodes for The Sarah Silverman Program” and “Community”)
Untitled video mashup series – Topical parodies from Scott Chernoff, formerly of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien video team