Tubefilter News

The Tubefilter Hollywood Web TV Meetup is back! And for the August edition we’re teaming up with Machinima.com to take an inside look at the booming intersection of web series and video games. In case you haven’t noticed, video gaming is big business.

And this intersection of innovative storytellers, some cool software tools, and jaw-dropping cinematic video game franchises have ushered in a booming medium known as “machinima”— loose hybrid of the words “machine” and “cinema,” used to describe the process of creating real-time animation by manipulating a videogame’s engine and assets.

Bill Cosby does the darndest things. Yesterday the 73-year-old comedian stopped by the Today show. Between repudiating rumors about his death and accusing Meredith Vieira of not being in full control of her lower intestine, Cosby talked about his upcoming web series, OBKB.

The weekly, 10-minute, online program is basically a redux of Cosby’s family-friendly, short-lived CBS series Kids Say the Darndest Things (which itself was a redux of Art Linkletter’s original). Children in kindergarten through fourth grade are screened by OBKB producers. The most gregarious end up sitting across from the real-life star of Little Bill. He asks them questions, guiding them through a conversation trying to find the funny and/or adorable. The kids say something funny and/or adorable. Audiences go, “Awww.”

The name for the web series comes Mushmouth, a linguistically-challenged character from Fat Albert’s and the Cosby Kids who has trouble saying the word, “okay.” The money for the web series comes from Jell-O, a brand which had Cosby as its spokesperson for nearly 30 years beginning in 1974. OBKB is set to debut before the end of the year as part of a multi-million dollar rebranding effort by Kraft Foods’ gelatinous dessert.

On AMC, the television show Rubicon – through some clever promotional release tactics – managed to have the largest original programming premiere in the history of the cable network. It is also one of the slowest-moving shows I’ve ever seen, but it’s somehow managing to gain an audience and receive a good dose of critical love. In short, it shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

Trying to make “TV on the Web” has frequently been the kiss of death. Many have tried, and so far the best long-form show out there was and is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with a runtime of up to fifteen minutes. So, imagine my surprise when I see the run time for Pioneer One’s pilot episode to top out at 35:32 (according to their VeeHD release).

Funding completely crowdsourced for over $7,000 via Kickstarter, the show has to date acquired $27,449 of its $30,000 goal for an entire 7-episode season, distributed by VODO.

So, let’s recap: a thirty minute political thriller/science fiction pilot production on a $6,000 budget, to be released primarily through the VODO network, with the hopes of getting people to donate $30,000 for six more episodes. They’re not releasing on any of what we in the industry would consider “normal” channels. Not on YouTube (though someone’s posted it unofficially, somehow), not on Koldcast, not Blip.tv. When you look at the articles that we and others have posted about how pilots are typically made and sold, there’s no way this should’ve worked.

According to Comscore, AOL is the fourth most-trafficked online property with over 107,477,000 unique monthly visitors. In the advertising category, AOL’s ad network generates more than 184,160,000 monthly uniques, putting it in sixth place between Yahoo and YuMe. From a company that was pronounced dead by media pundits only two years ago, that’s some massive reach. David Eun, president of AOL’s media and studios division, wants to put that reach to work.

Last month Eun told Michael Learmonth his plans to package all of AOL’s properties into 17 advertiser-friendly verticals dubbed “super-networks,” and become “the world’s largest producer of high-quality content, period.” Eun plans to do that by hiring a helluva lot of content creators. “We are going to be the largest net hirer of journalists in the world next year,” he said.

So, what does that mean for AOL web series? Expect to see some.

Aside from its music-oriented online programs (AOL Sessions and The Interface, both filmed in the company’s own studios), AOL has so far been conspicuously absent from the web series space. One of its main competitors, however, is killing it. Similar to AOL, Yahoo is on a mission to leverage its massive audience and expand its original content production across a number of ad- and consumer-friendly verticals. In relation to original online video, that expansion translates to a production deal with Ben Stiller, over a half-dozen web series released in the past 18 months, a partnership with the world’s largest advertiser, and a few billion views.

It’d be naive to think AOL hasn’t noticed Yahoo’s success and doesn’t want it on the action. Plus, there’s some evidence. This week, Stick Figure Productions put out a casting call to Tri-State area moms for “a new web series for AOL that features that features everyday moms putting their best dish up against New York’s master chefs and letting their family decide whose is best.”

This casting call is the first of many, many more. Eun’s only been at the job six months. Within six more I’d expect to see formal, mass media announcements of AOL’s entrance into the web series game.

The apocalyptic end of the world drama is such a played out subgenre that there’s nothing left to do but make fun of it. And if you’re Woody Tondorf making fun of things is what you do best. This is after all the same guy that created one of YouTube’s most popular scripted comedy web series Elevator, that racked up over 20 million views in its 3-year run.

Tondorf’s latest comedy is aiming to do just that. Apocalypse WOW released their first trailer later yesterday evening, after screening it down at Comic-Con in San Diego last month. As of now the project is just a pilot episode and trailer, produced on what Tondorf says is “a tiny spec budget” in hopes of luring in investors or one of the online studios or networks to pick up the series.

Tondorf teamed up with Blue Movies creator Scott Brown, who directed the promo episodes, and cast the ‘Kevin Bacon of web series’, Craig Frank (Craig & The Werewolf, The Crew, Compulsions, A Good Knight’s Quest) along with Harper’s Globe star Melanie Merkosky, Ben Begley, McKenzie Westmore and GOLD’s David Nett.

The JetBlue flight attendant flip out has been all over the news this week—USA Today even put this guy on the front page—but there’s been a sore lack of good video showing just what happened on that fretful flight that set off 39 year-old Steven Slater on his expletive filled tirade and eventual escape down the plane’s inflatable slide. Luckily Chinese news service Next Media Animation has a nice reenactment for us. [NMA on YouTube]

Rocketboom, the long-running NYC-based web series that spawned a slew of offshoot series that would stand strong on their own, with Know Your Meme even overtaking the top spot. Well now the Rocketboom team is doing a little re-org on YouTube, breking out into Rocketboom Daily, RocketboomTech, Know Your Meme and Rocketboom NYC. And to be expected, they even made a video announcing the shake up. [Rocketboom]

The Legend of Neil poked a little fun at NBC’s The Office in the episode 2, (”The Gloffice”) of its new season which just got underway on Atom. The ep features features Steve Carell’s “replacement”…”With Neil back in Hyrule, Ganon and Wizrobe go back to the drawing board to plot his demise in… The Gloffice!” [Atom.com]

Fast Company showed some serious love for web series today as it released a slew of articles on this emerging medium for its September issue of the magazine. There are profiles on Next New Networks, Funny or Die, Babelgum, The Guild creator Felicia Day, Odd Jobs creator Jeremy Redleaf, Easy to Assemble and more. “New-media networks like Funny or Die and performers such as Felicia Day are producing imaginative shows that redefine must-see viewing — whether you watch on an iPad or a Web-enabled TV.” [Fast Company]

Do you wish you could hang on to your adolescence forever? Is Peter Pan one of your favorite childhood stories? Maybe you should rethink your goals. Yesterday marked the debut of KoldCast TV’s latest comedy web series, Man-Teen, created by Andy Lazarus, Tony Jones, and Brian Spitz of Take A Bucket Entertainment. The series, featuring Devon Gummersall (My So-Called Life) and Mimi Kennedy (Dharma & Greg), follows the misadventures of a 35-year-old “teenager” as he battles the conventions of modern society.

Happy Harry Toons is the online outpost for 22-year-old British animator, Harry Partridge. Citing “kids programming from the late 80s” as his biggest animation inspiration, Partridge is known for aberrant SNL-like shorts and irreverent pop culture send ups, all stylized in the manner of old school Hasbro cartoons.

Partridge posted his first video to YouTuve over three years ago (a 16-second He-Man inspired setup for a pretty sweet catchphrase), but it wasn’t until his Saturday Morning Watchmen (a re-imagination of Alan Moore’s magnum opus as a cheesy cartoon for pre-teens) hit the internet that the kid gained international acclaim. Since then, he’s been hired by the BBC for a set of satirical animations and continues to set his sights on mainstream media targets, including a juvenile depiction of Avatar and a dance remix for Nicolas Cage.

Now, Justin Bieber is the lastest to get the Happy Harry treatment. Partridge envisions the teen pop icon as the star of his own eponymous cartoon show. Bieber finds himself the center of attention amongst a cast of terrifying ragtag characters, sanitized for early Saturday morning television. With semingly violent themes bubling underneath a candy-colored veneer, the setting is more apropos for Gaga, but animated Bieber handles the situation with aplomb.

Here’s a plea for all you online video moguls reading: sign Partridge for a development deal. I would love to watch more of The Justin Bieber Show.