Tubefilter News

The announcement of a new web series often generates a great deal of excitement. From the die-hard fan looking for a new obsession to the casual viewer hoping for a few minutes of entertainment, the launch of a new web series brings hope and promise to its viewers. However, what happens to that prerelease excitement when there is a failure to launch? Today we want to look at some of the ramifications of missing one’s launch window, as well as update the progress of a few of the web series that you have not missed.

Very few web series receive any prerelease attention; those that do cannot afford to waste it. Last week, we discussed the various steps that a series can take to create the all important buzz. However, perhaps the most important step that a creator can take is to actual release the series in time to capitalize on the hype. When asked about the importance of launching on time, Compulsions creator, Bernie Su stated, “When you have pre-launch buzz, the press/public has bought into your hype.” He continues, “If you squander it, you’ve lost the opportunity to hook in that initial group of devoted fans. Once that chance is gone, it becomes so much harder to bring them back.” Audiences have long memories, promising something and not delivering it is a guaranteed way to alienate one’s potential fanbase.

Originally scheduled for release last October, the horror web series, Camera Obscura has yet to debut. The series received a great deal of attention including being featured in the Halloween episode of The Web.Files. However, eight months later, there is still no set release date. In fact, back in November, Tubefilter’s Marc Hustvedt wrote an article about Camera Obscura’s prerelease buzz and subsequent failure to launch. As he points out, “you can’t bait and switch would-be fans like that.… [T]his kind of misstep may have squandered the show’s early buzz and chance to break through.” Recently I asked series creator Drew Daywalt for an update on the series and he stated that the series was scheduled to come out this year sometime and as soon as the studio would let him, he would announce a release date. I guess even web series are not immune to studio politics.

Today Babelgum announced a partnership with Canadian-based online and mobile video producer and distributor iThentic, which brings two newly created channels on Babelgum’s integrated online and mobile platforms: ‘Best of iThentic’ short films and ‘iThentic Originals’ original web series and mobisodes.

The eclectic collection of shorts and original series such as Office Pranks, Green Minutes, Today on Earth, and World of Bruce McCall will be featured on the channels curated by iThentic’s editorial staff. Babelgum has been partnering with short-form content aggregators such as the Canadian Film Centre’s (CFC) Worldwide Short Film Festival earlier this month.

To grow up with a last name like Gethard, you either have to be jacked, in porn, or very funny. Chris Gethard is the latter.

The New Jersey native and Rutgers alumnus has built up a comedy following and strong reputation by being hysterical. A UCB regular, Gethard’s schtick revolves around telling his mother illicit, inappropriate anecdotes from his childhood, tales from the bayous of the Garden State, and geeking out on everything from X-Men to amateur wrestling to Daryl Strawberry. If you’re unfamiliar with Gethard, you can wait to see him star in Comedy Centrals upcoming new TV series, Big Lake, or check him out on Comedy Central’s just launched web series, Portable Lounge.

Sponsored by Sobe, Portable Lounge is a roving online talk show featuring “rising, as well as established, comedians riffing on technology and pop culture.” The producers set up a portable set in everyday venues (bowling alleys, laundromats, barber shops), two funny people sit across from one another, sip on cocktails, and have free-flowing, hopefully hysterical conversations. Pre-planned segments like ‘Tweet of the Moment,’ ‘Whodya Rather,’ and ‘Delete a Friend’ break up the small talk and give the comedians material with which to guide their conversations.

The first episode features Gethard alongside SNL’s Bobby Moynihan inside a Bronx bowling alley discussing Star Wars, Rowdy Roddy Pipper, and non-sexual fantasies. The premiere has it’s moments, for sure, but this type of material isn’t going to attract too many viewers outside of UCB’s 9:30PM Sunday Night (aka Free Show) regulars and those that have The Apiary on their RSS feeds.

Quiet Desperation bills itself as “a reality sitcom about struggling artist types in the Greater Boston area doing what they need to do to get by.” Right away I’m interested, but the word “reality” is troublesome. Within the first couple minutes of the pilot, that word is shown to be false – utilizing many tricks of the “faux-documentary” trade as mastered by The Office and Parks and Recreation. Even if it’s unscripted, there’s no sense of “real” people doing “real” things.

While it’s great to see the Boston music/art scene (centered in Allston, a neighborhood in the western part of the city), and I will never say that there’s no worth in a show taking place in a distinct but underutilized (for web) locale, it falls victim to forced comedy. There are plenty of jokes in Quiet Desperation that are funny, but the delivery – such as the flamboyant Mehran character – is very over-the-top. It feels as though the writers are commanding you to laugh.

Instead of a “reality sitcom,” I would’ve liked to have seen the show actually go true documentary. This is an interesting place with interesting and outgoing people – why try to force us to acknowledge that? When I wrote about Squatters, I wrote about confidence. With Quiet Desperation, I expected there to be more melancholy, buoyed by the humor of the typical struggling of artists – but these artists are playing other characters than themselves.

For over two years now, eGuiders has been using human curation by entertainment professionals to try to slice through the internet clutter and allow casual viewers to be exposed to not only the best and most popular of videos the ‘net has to offer, but also undiscovered gems of entertainment gold. Not only that, but they have their own studio, which showcases the eGuiders themselves as well as content creators that the eGuiders community have asked to see.

Tubefilter sat down with Marc Ostrick, CEO of eGuiders, and Brian Rothe, Director of Content, to talk about why the site and studio work together as to expose consumers to internet content in a rewarding and entertaining way. Ostrick gave us the lowdown on what eGuiders has been up to for the past two years plus: “We have our three shows (eGuiders Live, The B Side, and The Untitled Series). We have a deal in place with Tribune Media Serivices, which has been syndicating the eGuilders website. We have a really dynamic app on Boxee and we’re actually going to be doing some more stuff with Boxee.”

“The studio has been great in the sense that it shows what we’re doing and gives a deeper experience for the website and gives a chance for our eGuilders themselves to shine”, continued Ostrick. “The main focus of eGuilders Live it to either focus on a specific eGuilder or some type of creative or specific creatives that the audience are recommending.”

There are two ways the makers of male-oriented personal care and beauty products market their goods to consumers.

First, there’s the Axe Effect. It’s the highly persuasive method of playing on average everyday man’s insecurities about unbelievably attractive women, advertising unrealistic beauty ideals, copious amounts of skin and sex appeal, and the importance of getting a lot of action. Second, there’s the Platonic Ideal of the American Male. He’s a stand-up, down-to-earth, man with a rags to riches story, a work ethic the size of Paul Bunyan, a devotion to family with which the religious could find no fault, and happens to care a lot about skincare.

Dove, a beauty brand that ostensibly fights against superficial stereotypes and campaigns for real beauty, does not employ the Axe Effect. In it’s online ad campaign for the new Men+Care product line, Dove hopes to increase its market share among American males with a web series featuring the real men who are comfortable in their own skin. St. Louis Cardinals superstar, Albert Pujols, New York Yankees ace, Andy Pettitte, and Yankees skipper, Joe Girardi all share their “Journey to Comfort.”

Amidst all the fictional drama in online video, even the really sadistic stuff like Compulsions, every now and then there are those videos that hit the web revealing the very real violence that goes down all over this country. Hard crime news is of course daily fodder for local TV, but when a print media outlet dives deep into these stories, in the way only real journalists can, and then harnesses online video’s uniquely disseminating nature, you get something powerful. Something terrifying.

The LA Weekly isn’t afraid to go there. In an online-only supplement posted yesterday to their current cover story, “East Los Angeles Hit Man Trained by Mexican Cartels” —the terrifying saga of an LA youth turned gang hitman who would become one the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitives—they ran surveillance camera footage of Jose Saenz’s execution of his “buddy” Oscar Torres.

Tuesday marked the launch of indie drama Alpha Planet, a science fiction web series taking place on a post-apocalyptic earth 250 years in the future.

With the entire human civilization living on a refugee ship for 200 years, supplies are running short. Four explorers (Michael Sweeney, Don Jeanes, JD Mendonca, and Jen Sweeney) are sent back to Earth in search for signs of new life. The series logline, “They know the risks, but not the truth,” suggests a high-stakes conspiracy that involves the fate of humanity itself.

Executive produced by Mike Darling, head of Rena’sance Robot, an independent production company that produces low-budget short films, sketches and web series, Alpha Planet looks like a cross between Brett Register’s The Crew and After Judgment, with a dash of Battlestar Galactica.