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The teen drama has a rich and varied history in the web series world (anyone heard of lonlygirl15?) so it’s no surprise that the genre has been taped over and over again. The demographic is internet savvy, has a great number of hours of free time (when they aren’t doing homework of course, which in and of itself often requires internet research), and have a great need to be social, which the openness and accessibility of the internet taps into nicely.

But it isn’t often that these web series (or social shows, to borrow a term from EQAL, who created wildly successful teen dramas lonelygirl15 and KateModern) are influenced heavily by having actual teens involved in their development. Sure, we’ve all been (or will be, for our pre-teen readers) teenagers, but most of us block that part out of our lives once we reach our twenties. There is something inherently unknowable about being a teenager unless you are in the middle of it and all it’s awkwardness, emotions, and just downright uncomfortableness.

The upcoming series Miss Behave strives to take the teen drama and inject it with not only a star-studded cast (most of the cast members are soap opera veterans) but by having an actual teenager a part of its creative team. Jillian Claire is an establish actress best known for her award winning performance as pre-teen Abby Deveraux on NBC’s Days of Our Lives, as well as a recording artist, philanthropist, and co-executive producer of Miss Behave. She is also 17 years old.

At the Digitas Digital Content NewFront we’ve seen content pitches from Dan Bucatinsky and Dani Klein Modisett for their parenting-gone-good-and-bad web series, Afterbirth, and Amy Brenneman’s presentation for her story of arrested development, The Procrastinators. Then came the super secret “Suprise Guest Content Pitch #3,” since Shaq couldn’t make it, with Will Arnett and Jason Bateman took the stage. Finally there was funny man Seth Green, who contrary to his jerkish image, was quite cordial in dazzling Madison Avenue’s finest.

Here’s his pitch:

Presenter: Seth Green

Show Name: URule

Logline: The Truman Show, except that Truman is a willing volunteer.

Synopsis: “Adam is a typical 20-something male. Single. Unemployed. Figuring it out. Except Adam makes no decisions of his own.” He’s monitored 24/7 and every decision, from what underwear he puts on in the morning to which potential sexual partners he should encounter, are made by a live, internet audience. Binary or ABC choices are thrown up on screen in real-time. Viewers vote in a matter of minutes. The results are sent to “Adam.” He does whatever the audience decides, and any free will or dignity that remains is lost in the process.

Talent attached: Seth Green as the Executive Producer.

At the Digitas Digital Content NewFront we’ve seen content pitches from Dan Bucatinsky and Dani Klein Modisett for their parenting-gone-good-and-bad web series, Afterbirth, and Amy Brenneman’s presentation for her story of arrested development, The Procrastinators. Up next is the super secret “Suprise Guest Content Pitch #3,” and since Shaq couldn’t make it, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman took the stage. Here’s their pitch:

Presenters: Will Arnett and Jason Bateman

Show Name: N/A – They briefly talked about their sponsor-driven advertiser production company, DumbDumb, which recently teamed up with Electus.

Logline: If you’re a brand, you should do projects with Will Arnett and Jason Bateman because they’re hysterical and don’t need no stinkin’ pitch decks.

Synopsis: Arnett and Bateman spent maybe an aggregate 90 seconds of their 10 minutes talking about their online production company, DumbDumb, and their strategy for web entertainment. “In our case,” Bateman says, “we go to the brands, and we say, ‘Do you have a slogan or a product?’ and they say, ‘We have x,’ and we go away and bring them back Y.” It’s kind of like and improv session where people in the audience shout out “banana,” “combover,” “Barry Bonds,” and then comedians make a sketch that incorporates all of those things, except the audience are international, consumer-facing companies, and the comedians are Arnett and Bateman. Bateman also noted that he thinks the style of online media must be different. “I think you have to be a little more obvious with humor on television. On the internet, they’re willing to find the funny. that’s the stuff that makes us laught a little bit more. People are more predisposed to find that or look for that online,” he said.

Dan Bucatinsky and Dani Klein Modisett gave the first of four content pitches at Digitas’ Digital Content NewFront. Their 10-minute comedy routine showcasing the web series Afterbirth seemed better fit for the stages of vaudeville than a room full of a Fortune 500 brands. Second up was Amy Brenneman of NYPD Blue, Judging Amy, and Private Practice fame.

Here’s her pitch:

Presenter: Amy Brenneman (Emmy-Award Nominated Actress and Producer)

Show Name: The Procrastinators

Logline: It’s a Failure to Launch where Matthew McConaughey has a lot of hobbies and is a woman.

Synopsis: Produced by Electus, The Procrastinators is the well-shot story of two sisters. Lila Cox (Brenneman) is a 40-year-old who finds herself in graduate school trying to obtain a writing degree and manage her teenage lifestyle. Her sister has a more stable, traditional existence with kids and a white picket fence. Naturally, she’s incredibly jealous of her sister’s freewheeling ways, especially when Lila puts off actual work in favor of learning the citar, having an affair with the maintenance guy at her institution of higher learning (which Brenneman says may or may not be autobiographical), and generally doing things that she’s not supposed to be doing. Hence the name, The Procrastinators.

Talent attached: Amy Brenneman and her loving, director husband, Brad Silberling.

Now in its third year, the Digital Content NewFront is a half conference, half dog and pony show bringing together “content creators, distributors, talent and brands to harness digital creative media opportunities in a post-advertising marketplace.” Hosted by digital marketing agency, Digitas and its branded content arm, The Third Act, the event gives Digitas a very public stage form which to show off its new media expertise, remind current clients why the agency is awesome, and show potential brands the large percentage of mindshare Digitas owns within the industry. The NewFronts also give online original programming a large stage from which to spur curiosity and court potential advertisers.

At the end of the day half-day event, though, it’s all about making deals. With that in mind, Digitas has scheduled four Content Pitches throughout the 2011 NewFront. I’ll be covering them live. Here’s the first:

Presenter: Dan Bucatinsky (Actor, Writer, Producer, and Partner, Is or Isn’t Entertainment) and Dani Klein Modisett (Creator, Producer, Director, and Author of Afterbirth)
Show Name: Afterbirth
Logline: “A cross between Modern Family and Def Poetry Jam,” or “Parenthood meets American Idol, without the voting or the music.”
Synopsis: Dani Klien Modisett wrote Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine. It’s a compilation of stories from parents about that “Aha!” moment when new mothers and fathers realize, “Omigod, I have a child to take care of.” The premise for the Afterbirth web series is to take the book on the road into a comedic evening of funny storytelling a la Mortified or The Vagina Monologues. Get famous personalities (i.e. Mike O’Malley, Dana Gould, and Andrew McCarthy) to tell scripted stories in front of a live audience. Film the good and bad tales of parenting, insert relevant cutaways, package it nicely, and let the view counts

When I met Greg Ng at SXSW this spring, he had just finished up a rousing fast-paced primer on how he grew his audience for his exceptionally niche web series FreezerBurns. The 10-minute overview was met with laughs from the bleary eyed conference crowd, and it was clear that this guy really cared about frozen food. Suddenly there was someone brave enough to be our royal taster of the freezer aisle, guiding us away from lazy dinner fail. (Admit it, we all eat frozen meals.)

Ng was a one-man band, able to lock down his own sponsor deals—by choice, never from the frozen food makers—turning a webcam hobby into something more. It caught the eye of Next New Networks, who have a knack for bringing in talented web show personalities into its growing stable of content verticals like food (Hungry Nation), DIY Fashion (Threadbanger), filmmaking (Indy Mogul) and politics (Barely Political). The frozen food review series will be joining Hungry Nation network, alongside other passionate web foodies like street food star Daniel Delaney’s VendrTV.

Dan McNamara’s animated comedy The Bear, The Cloud and God, which should be familiar to Tubefilter readers, joins NNN’s animation hub Channel Frederator for a June 10th premiere. In true Frederator style, the show is taking submissions from fans for story ideas on the site.

Today marks the launch of Mr. Vicarious, a new reality comedy web series emerging from the recently announced partnership between CollegeHumor and PepsiCo’s SoBe. “SoBe Studios,” as the new enterprise is called, is a content factory that will produce a steady stream of brand-relevant videos for distribution across multiple media platforms, including TV and the web.

CollegeHumor CEO Ricky Van Veen announced the partnership at yesterday’s Mashable Media Summit, along with the launch of the three part series premiering today. Sort of a snack-sized reality version of Cyrano de Bergerac (or Roxanne for you Steve Martin Fans), Mr. Vicarious features comedians Nick Kroll and Paul Scheer (host of this year’s Streamy Awards), who use radios to whisper dialogue into the concealed earpieces of actors pranking attendees at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

SciFinal has established itself as a web directory focused on providing information and links about independently produced science fiction web series. What began as a response at frustration at the lack of opportunities to promote their own series, Steve Lettieri, Rob King, and Chris Conway started with a platform that showcased 10 shows and now, less than a year later, includes over 120 shows. The SciFinal team has always been an advocate of independent production, specifically when it comes to the promotion of scifi.

Tubefilter had a chance to chat with Lettieri about the beginnings of SciFinal, it’s latest foray into series production as well as Lettieri’s recommendations for some great scifi series fans may not yet be aware of.