by Joshua Cohen on June 9th, 2010
Absinthe and exquisite corpses are inextricably linked. When surrealists sipped anise-flavored alcohol in avant-garde Parisian parlors, the Green Fairy inspired Ernst, Breton, Éluard, and other like-mind-altered artists to collaborate on idle drawings. One would find a loose leaf of paper, doodle for a few, fold the paper on itself to conceal the soon-to-be masterpiece, and pass the work-in-progress along so the next man could continue with their collective creation. The final product was dubbed an “exquisite corpse,” which are inherently cool, sometimes beautiful, and always intriguing.
After undergoing some very bad PR for the better part of the last century, absinthe recently began trickling back into popular consumption. So too has the exquisite corpse. The collaborative capabilities of the internet make it the perfect medium for content creators to riff off one another’s work. Artists with disparate styles living far apart from each other can all contribute distinct chapters, creating a single, cohesive story. Dan Meth and Next New Networks’ Drinking and Drawing show what kind of exquisite corpse a handful of notecards, a box full of sharpies, and a room full of inebriates can create. Little Minx’s exquisite corpse highlights the talents of Ridley Scott’s production company. And now Berlin-based Christen Bach is tapping animators from around the globe to give the exquisite corpse some flash.
Titled Animation Tag Attack, Bech runs his exquisite corpse like this: “Each of his seven participants four weeks to produce at least five seconds of flim. When the time is up, the clip gets uploaded to the blog and the next one in line takes over. It is up to each individual creator to pick the style and media they want to work in – and to decide how they think the story should evolve…There are no rights or wrongs – just creativity. Good luck to us all…”
by Marc Hustvedt on June 8th, 2010
Just don’t call it an upfront. This is a more like a half conference, half show-off of influential content creators and celebs and all hoping to catch the eye of Madison Avenue brands. Digitas and its digital content arm The Third Act hosts its third Digital Content NewFront tomorrow at the Skylight Soho in New York.
Even though Shaq can’t be there in person, he still took time to make a video pitch of his web series ideas: Dunk’d, a makeover show with the NBA’s shorter players? Shaqalicious, a Shaq cooking show? Genius.
On a slightly more serious note, Daphne Brogdon, the Emcee for the NewFront, talks about FTC regulations and digital content in another video released in advance of the one-day event.
Last year saw speeches from Michael Eisner and Al Gore, and as expected this year’s speaker lineup is also fairly celeb and influencer heavy:
Dan Bucatinsky
Howard Friedman
Kiran Chetry
Teri Hatcher
Charles Hunter
Arianna Huffington
Lisa Kudrow
Dani Klein Modisett
Kevin Pollak
Ben Silverman
Sree Sreenivasan
Martha Stewart
Kara Swisher
Ricky Van Veen
Matt Wasserlauf
Michael Wayne
Pete Wentz (Fall Out Boy)
by Brady Brim-DeForest on June 8th, 2010
Fresh off of the launch of last year’s Road to the Altar, rumor has it that Jaleel White had officially caught the web series bug.
In a surprise move today, episodes 1-3 of Jaleel’s newest series, Fake it Till You Make, launched on Hulu. White’s boutique production shingle, Sweet Irony Productions, and New York based P3 Entertainment collabed on production of the 10 episode series, all of which were penned and produced by White.
White and his team were rumored to have been shopping the series around town, and early indicators of serious interest from online network Hulu, seem to have panned out. Sources from within White’s camp have confirmed that the distribution deal with Hulu is a kind of ‘rev share plus’ with a minimum guarantee and payouts per view.
Directed by web series vet Todd Pellegrino (Mayne Street), Fake It Til You Make It series stars White as entertainment mogul Reggie Culkin, and sports a supporting cast of Culkin protegés played by Betsy Rue, Steve Rifkin, and Chris Smith. Wayne Brady, Kurt Fuller, Tatyana Ali, and UFC fighter Rashad Evans are also rumored to be making guest appearances. The series is also scheduled to launch on DVD today but, as of yet, no distributor has been announced.
by Joshua Cohen on June 8th, 2010
America loves it some clips shows, at least when those clips shows air on TV. ABC recently renewed America’s Funniest Home Videos for the series’ 21 season, Comedy Central signed Tosh.0 up for its third year, and G4 extended Web Soup’s sophomore run.
Clip shows on the internet, however, are prone to fail. From NBC’s Dot Comedy or Jim Kirk’s The Clip Show, to The Daily Reel’s The Daily Reel or Yahoo’s The 9, piecing together online programming with pieces of other online programs simply hasn’t been successful. Clip shows operate effectively only when they are A) showing the viewer a piece of content the viewer hasn’t seen before, B) showing the viewer a piece of content the viewer has seen before in a manner that’s more entertaining than the piece of content itself, or C) a combination of both A and B. Simple concepts, for sure, but concepts no one on the web has fully realized.
America’s Funniest Home Videos operated for the better part of its 21 years in an economy where funny homemade movies were a scarce commodity. It survives today because it works off a brand name that successfully supplied that scarce commodity to the marketplace. YouTube, your Twitter stream, and Urlesque are now the suppliers, effectively eliminating funny homemade movie scarcity. Tosh.0 and Web Soup realize this. These programs aren’t successful because they’re brining unwatched online video awesomeness to the masses, they’re successful because they’re awesome shows in and of themselves. Their added context and clever commentary makes the clips more entertaining to watch. When viral videos are just a click away, you must give your clip show a Daniel Tosh or Chris Hardwick-like treatment to make it more watchable than the viral videos themselves.
by Marc Hustvedt on June 8th, 2010
Crackle just got a few more passport stamps today. Sony’s online entertainment network, which until now had geoblocked its collection of original web shows, TV and movies to US audiences only, is opening up a bit, adding access to viewers in the UK and Australia.
A recent reorg within Sony, moved Crackle, the three year-old it rebranded from Grouper, under Sony Pictures Television, signaling a shift towards a more global aspiration for the network. Already Crackle had penetrated a pretty broad reach domestically, with distribution deals with dozens of partners across numerous platforms like mobile devices (FLO TV, Verizon VCast), TVs (Sony Bravia), set-top boxes (TiVo, Boxee), gaming platforms (PS3) and even online powerhouse YouTube. The next step was taking the model abroad to other English speaking countries.
Until now, complicated international licensing deals limited the network’s ability to open up caret blanche to all territories. And this was mostly by design. The idea for its popular original web series like Angel of Death, The Bannen Way and Urban Wolf was to drive interest online in the US through free ad-supported viewing while simultaneously using Sony’s international distribution arm to shop them for foreign DVD and TV deals.
by Marc Hustvedt on June 7th, 2010
Jane Lynch drops into Take180’s Electric Spoofaloo for a little parody of the new Apple iPhone 4G which was officially announced today at Apple’s over-covered WWDC in San Francisco. YouTuber Kassem G joins the Glee star Lynch for a familiar back and forth—Mac vs. Jane Lynch—that takes a raunchy turn. At the end of the video, Take180 asks viewers to submit their own versions of Lynch’s Electric Spoofaloo plug. [Take180.com]
Streamy-winning drama Anyone But Me caps off its second season tonight at midnight (ET) with “Curtain Up,” the season finale. “Viv & Arch’s comic strip makes its controversial debut with the introduction of the Lesbian Reporter Chick. And passions are stirred when friends rallying to help one of their own out of a jam end up creating emotional havoc.” Creators Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward have confirmed that Season 3 is in the works. [Anyone But Me]
Larry David teamed up with Stun Creative for a sufficiently awkward web video campaign for the premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm on TV Guide Network with interviewer Rob Huebel not pulling punches. [Stun Creative]
Alpha Planet, a new sci-fi drama web series set to debut on KoldCast TV later this month, released its prelude trailer (below) and today. From what we’ve seen so far, it looks part Battlestar Galactica, part After Judgment.
by Drew Baldwin on June 7th, 2010
Yesterday marked the culmination of the Canadian Film Centre’s (CFC) Worldwide Short Film Festival, which partnered with Babelgum to create three online video channels showcasing selections from the festival for attendees and enthusiasts around the globe.
As the leading venue for the exhibition of short film in North America, the festival offers one of the largest prize packages for short films in the world (with over $80,000 in cash and prizes) and winners are eligible for Academy Award consideration. Now in its 16th year, the Toronto-based WSFF took place over six days starting on Tuesday, June 1, presenting 281 films from 34 countries.
Babelgum created three individually themed channels to cover the event:
Roving Curator, which “provides a journey through the WSFF archives” showcasing 10 different titles four times a year
Festival Picks, which plays 15 fan-favorite short films from this year’s festival.
Shortsnonstop which presents a lineup of the festival’s most recent finalists.
by Brady Brim-DeForest on June 7th, 2010
Yes, you read that right. Online video institution Tim Street has joined Toronto based mobile video and in-stream ad management startup, mDialog. Street, who launched one of the very first video podcasts on Apple’s iTunes platform in 2005, will serve as mDialog’s Vice President of Mobile Video.
As an early pioneer in content designed for mobile distribution, Street brings with him an intimate understanding of both online video monetization and branded entertainment content. Through his French Maid TV series, Street has teamed up with brands like GoDaddy, DimDim, and in early 2009, mDialog itself. As part of his new job, Street will be showcasing mDialog’s mobile video content delivery platform to content owners and creators in the entertainment industry, with a focus on HTML5 adaptive streaming video service to studios, networks and large video content owners who want dynamic video ad insertion on Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch mobile video platforms.
