by Marc Hustvedt on August 3rd, 2010
One thing I love about ITVFest—which is still in full swing here in Los Angeles—is meeting new indie creators. At the Tubefilter / ITVFest Web TV Day After Party last night one such creator was Brandon Walters of Mother Approved Comedy. He carried some snappy postcards for his festival entry Phobias, a short comedy series screening as part of the festival’s Mobisodes track on Wednesday.
In minute-long sketches, the indie series explores actual phobias, those little quirks of the human condition that when observed in multiple cases, no matter how bizarre, get their own pseudo-scientific name. In fact there’s even a site dedicated to listing all of the known phobias (current count over 500).
Take Arachibutyrophobia, for example. Apparently there is a documented fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Really?
Each episode is set up for guessing the phobia by the viewer, much like a classic improv theater game, but brief enough not to belabor the joke. Even the stick figure monster attack in the animated intro is a phobia to be guessed. So far there are five episodes released, with new ones on the way every week from Walters and his co-creator Kasi Brown.
by Drew Baldwin on August 2nd, 2010
David Nett is heading to the dark side. The creator of Streamys-nominated series GOLD has released the trailer for Night of the Zombie King, the first in a series of “companion adventure” spin-offs that explores the world of GOLD through the character of Jaz, leader of the Dangerous Gamers (from Episode 4).
by Marc Hustvedt on August 2nd, 2010
And it begins. Revision3 is beginning one of its boldest experiments to date today as the previously announced fan-driven vlog series Dan 3.0 debuts on the internet TV network. For one year straight, with no breaks or time off, Dan will post videos doing whatever his fans want him to do.
20 year-old Dan Brown already has a sizable following—nearly 250,00 subscribers on YouTube—with three years of vlogging under his belt and a few breakout hit videos. Smartly, the series is also released through Dan’s well established YouTube channel: pogobat.
The custom Dan 3.0 channel on Revision3 sports a Digg-style “decision engine” which lets viewers submit ideas of tasks for Dan to accomplish. The ideas that get the most votes will actually get performed (or at least attempted) by Dan himself in the subsequent episodes.
by Joshua Cohen on August 2nd, 2010
The 5th Annual ITVFest is well underway in sunny Los Angeles. Originally conceived by Executive Director AJ Tesler as a way for “people who have had little or no access to television decision makers” to showcase their projects in front of industry professionals, the festival has recently grown outside the confines of TV. In the past few years, ITVFest has done its part to shine a spotlight on the burgeoning web TV space and highlight projects from its top up-and-coming independent talent.
Which brings us to August 2, 2010, aka Web TV Day at ITVfest. Live from 8000 Sunset Boulevard, a web-centric day of panels and screenings begins at 12:00PM. A new media overview and informational session kick off the educational portion of the event, followed by top selections from the festival’s pool of web series applicants. Here’s the full schedule:
12:00 PM – Seminar: Let’s Do Coffee with New Media
1:15 PM – Screenings: Concierge: The Series / Birds of a Feather / The Hairdos
3:30 PM – Seminar: Developing for the Web presented by Atom.com
5:30 PM – Screenings: Rhyme Animal: The Web Series / Suck and Moan
6:45 PM – Screenings: Anyone But Me / Hamilton Carver: Zombie PI / Passenger
8:30 PM – Screenings: Odd Jobs / Squatters / The Super Man
Don’t live in LA or can’t leave your day job, but still want to check out the panels? No problem! Both seminars will be streamed lived thanks to Stickam. You can check them out on the official ITVFest Stickam channel.
And after a half-web-day of ITVFesting, there’s nothing better than mixing with fellow festival goers, members of the web TV community, Stella Artois, and Tubefilter. Please join us for the Web TV Day After Party at Libertine. After Party tickets can be purchased here. We’ll see you there!
