Human beatbox Rahzel (formerly of the Roots) just launched the six-episode web series Rahzel’s Rap Minute on Comedy Central’s Atom.com.
The new series features the talented performer’s take on the week in music, chock-full of his signature impersonations that spoof music industry news and celebrity musicians. In the first episode, Rahzel chats with Lady Gaga’s vagina, and asks Kanye West for a little divine guidance. Up next week: President Wylclef?
Ten episodes into the web’s first dance epic, we’re still really just at the beginning of the story of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (The LXD). Just over a month ago this thing debuted as Hulu’s first major dramatic web series, and weekly episodes (or chapters as they like to call them) would bring us the fictional origin stories of these formerly-underground hip hop dance styles.
So now we take a little pause in the story, a moment to breathe and catch up on some of those other web series we’ve been meaning to watch. But with Season 2 already shot and slated to return early this fall, and Season 3 in the works, we won’t have long to wait.
The latest episode (above) stars Christopher Scott—who is also one of the show’s choreographers—as Copeland, a lighting fast street tapper who we meet through the voice over of a blind street prophet. Yes, he too gets an LXD invitation, rounding out the crew that will headline the rest of the story.
In the past year, the WGA East has plunged head first into new media. Originally established in 1951 as a labor union representing writers in motion pictures, television, cable, digital media, and broadcast news, the organization signed 23 new digital media signatories to new contracts in 2009. In the first half of 2010, it doubled that number.
As the WGAE continues its progress on attracting digital media creators, it’s also expanding its outreach. On Saturday, August 28, in New York City, the WGAE is hosting its first Web Series Summer Camp. In short, it’s “a day-long event featuring workshops, a screening, and networking opportunities for web series writers and producers. The event is open to experienced web series writers and producers and also novices serious about creating original, quality content for new media.”
Ursula Lawrence, Strategic Lead Organizer at the WGAE, tells me the initial response to event has been “overwhelming” and that inspiration for the Summer Camp was twofold:
First, it provides excellent training for existing Guild members who have built careers in traditional media but are looking to transition to the digital space. Second, by admitting non-members, we are meeting a whole new group of web content creators – many of whom are interested in being WGA members or in hiring WGA members for their new media projects.
You can find a tentative schedule of the Web Series Summer Camp lineup here. Vital info on the event is below. If you’re in the NYC area, I hope to see you there!
WHAT: The WGAE is holding the first Web Series Summer Camp.
WHEN: Saturday, August 28, 2010
WHERE: WGAE, 250 Hudson Street, New York City
WHO: Leaders in digital media, the New York entertainment community, and the legal community will be among those leading the day’s workshops.
WHY: “Web Series Summer Camp” is part of the WGAE’s continuing Writers Guild 2.0 initiative, which includes seminars and events for current and prospective members, a job training program, and a sustained organizing effort in digital media.
REGISTER: “Web Series Summer Camp” is open to WGAE members, as well as non-members. For more information, contact Ursula Lawrence, WGAE strategic organizer, at ulawrenceATwgaeastDOTorg.
What happens when you cross Lost with Kid Nation (and add a touch of Tron)? eScape, a new teen-focused independent sci-fi series which launched earlier this month. Created by Mike Feurstein of New York-based MovieQuest Productions and co-produced by Bob Alpi of Runic Films, eScape tells the story of a group of kids who wake up one day at summer camp to discover all the counselors have abandoned them to survive on their own—the only problem is, they’re now inside a video game. The young campers soon realize that the game grants them amazing powers and abilities, though they are unaware of a larger conspiracy in the real world that involves a power struggle between major corporations and mysterious military interests. It’s sort of like like Inception: Salute Your Shorts Edition.
This week on The Web.Files, Kristyn Burtt interviews John Beck Hoffman creator of the web series Tyranny as well as the series DP and one man crew, Garrett Baquet. The series itself features a world-spanning collection of locations from London to Prague all the way to the Artic and boasts production values rarely seen in a web series. However as seen in the interview, much of the series was filmed in one location that Hoffman repurposed as necessary in a clever display of indie filmmaking. Hoffman, who works as a documentary filmmaker for NASA, financed the series independently.
Originally created as a feature length film, Tyranny made the festival rounds in 2007, before finding new life as a web series in 2010. The series centers on Daniel McCarthy, portrayed by Hoffman, as a struggling artist who, in 1999, volunteers for an experiment that results in him having a ‘flash forward’ vision of the future. The series follows McCarthy as he travels the globe seeking out those responsible for the coming doom prophesied in his vision and his efforts to thwart their plans. In addition to Hoffman, the series stars former Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko, and web series veteran, Bitsie Tulloch (Quarterlife).
Though the website has been up before now with a few behind-the-scenes videos, yesterday marked the official launch of BlackBoxTV, as their first episode went live in the afternoon.
The brain child of Philip DeFranco (The Philip DeFranco Show) and director Tony Valenzuela (Zombiez, 2009: A True Story, Harper’s Globe), the official website describes BlackBoxTV as “a series of video short stories that reach into the subject of fear. The things that terrify us and the things that make us want to curl into a ball and call out to our mothers or God or whoever we believe can save us.”
If the first episode is any indication, the description is apt, and we may have the web heir-apparent to The Twilight Zone—a smart, dark speculative fiction anthology with a premise that seems versatile enough to jump from straight-up horror to thriller to sci-fi from episode to episode, with “Do Over” (episode 1) falling very much into Hitchcockian psychological thriller territory.
Volkswagen is behind some of the most iconic and innovative advertising campaigns in human history.
The German automobile manufacturer’s 1959 Think Small advert was conceived by hallowed copywriter Julian Koenig and is #1 on the list of Advertising Age’s top 100 ads from 1900 to 1999. Lemon, Volkswagen’s follow-up campaign to Think Small, was the object of attention on the third episode of Mad Men. And if those aren’t accolades enough, both campaigns are referenced in Wikipedia’s 7,900+ word entry on “Advertising.”
Given Volkswagen’s revered status in the industry, its disappointing to see the company make safe, familiar advertising decisions. And their latest partnership with TLC.com for the the original web series, The Great Getaway is nothing but safe and familiar.
Produced by TLC, the five-part web show follows the seven-member Woods family on their road trip to Sedona, AZ and features the comfortable stylings of the VW Routan all along the way. Video journals (many of which were shot by the Woods themselves) are strung together in an attempt to document the vacation happenings of a well-behaved, affluent, white-washed, loving familial unit from Suburban, USA. Shots of the Routan, the Routan’s accessories, the family packing and unpacking the Routan, and the family getting in and getting out of the Routan are routine. It’s like your typical 30-second car commercial, except with added exposition and almost 40 times as long.
I get it. Brian Thomas, General Manger of Brand Marketing at Volkswagen of America, wants to sell the Routan to well-behaved, affluent, white-washed loving families from Suburban, USA. That’s okay. That’s his target audience. And maybe the best way to hit that target audience was to cast its perfect embodiment, aka The Wood Family.
On a lot of levels it makes sense. It’s just that when Volkswagen has such a distinguished advertising history, you’d expect one of their first efforts into the burgeoning world of branded web series to have more brass. In The Great Getaway, VW thinks safe. Next time, the company should take a page from Apple’s advertising playbook and think different.
The word “Machinima” is a loose hybrid of the words “machine” and “cinema” and is used to describe the process of creating real-time animation by manipulating a videogame’s engine and assets. Machinima.com is a website that produces and distributes original online machinima series. It generates more than 120 million video views per month across its network, making it one of the top all-time entertainment channels on YouTube and the ultimate destination for video gamers.
Tonight, live, right now, at the Hollywood Web Television Meetup, we are teaming up with Machinima.com in order to get a closer look at the cutting edge of storytelling and entertainment told through video gaming.
Whether it is the production of a game trailer, episodic series, short film or empowering the community to develop user generated content, machinima has proven to be a valuable and revolutionary tool that allows future filmmakers and animators to produce and create content they otherwise couldn’t create independently, and with unprecedented success! At a time when live-action web series are becoming the way of the future, machinima offers creatives a viable vehicle for creating highly visual, animated online content.
Watch to see some of the best in the machinima business talk about how they make the video-game-engine-powered-cinematic-magic happen. Tonight’s panelists will take you through the techniques of using games as a way to make compelling machinima content, the technical aspects of using games as a medium, and the business of online video. Here’s the lineup:
Rob Jones (VP Gaming Programming),
Jeremy Azevedo (Director of Entertainment Programming),
Matt Dannevik (Sr. Segment Producer),
John Yniguez (editor, Inside Gaming),
Seananners (Segment Producer)
Watch LIVE now at stickam.com/tubefilter Want to ask the panel a question? Head to the chat room on Stickam or tweet us @tubefilter with the hashtgag #tubefilter. And a very special thanks to our good friends at Stickam for making tonight’s live stream possible.
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