Tubefilter News

[This is the latest column from Tubefilter News' resident new media legal expert, James C. Roberts. Last time in Part 2 of a two-part series on ownership rights at major video sites he tackled reader questions on the legal rights of video uploading to YouTube. This week's is all about the world of seemingly simple, but sometimes confusing non-disclosure agreements.]

Q: A company has asked our company to sign an NDA that covers everything their management gives us or tells us and we cannot disclose any of it for five years. What do you think?

In case you haven’t noticed, this summer has been incubating a deep seeded angst in the web video community. And this week it seems to have boiled over. (Maybe it’s just the heat.)

What’s really going on here is an identity crisis.

A number of blog posts have popped up from web video folks in the past week, starting with The Fine Brothers rant (yes guys, it’s a rant) on how web series need to stop making bad short-form television. Then there’s spytap’s treatise on the subject that argued in another fashion a similar line of thinking.

I too have been preaching that people just getting into web series need to pay more attention to the YouTube community, despite taking some flack for it. It’s why I brought in a new columnist TheWillofDC to cover YouTube for Tubefilter News to give us the low-down on the moves of the week for the top 100 on YouTube–don’t worry he’s coming back after a little hiatus.

Learning From YouTube

Lets look at the YouTube community for a second—and for the sake of this let’s define it as the 350-400 or so active video creators who count YouTube as their primary source of income. They have done two things really well—one, they have leveraged an incredibly popular platform to build and maintain audiences for their channels through the built-in toolset of the site. And second, for the most part, they make something inherently different than what’s found on television.

When we look back years from now, Ask A Ninja will no doubt be part of that “greatest generation” of web shows—one of the early pioneering YouTube channels that created something so bizarre, delightfully interactive and inherently original that it stuck out of the onslaught of would-be video stars becoming a (digital) household name in the process.

Kent Nichols and Doug Sarine are the creative duo behind the series, which has charted the ever-changing waters of online video to carve out a not-so-shabby business for themselves that bring in revenue not only from ad revenues on their videos, but merchandising, touring and even a book and an iPhone game.

On October 4—just a month before the show’s five year anniversary— the Ninja is returning with new episodes five times a week. That by the way, is no easy feat, and Nichols and Sarine are veteran enough not to think they can do it all themselves. So the pair tapped another rising web series creator-director Brett Register (The Crew, A Good Knight’s Quest) to come on board as their in-house director.

I have written quite a few articles for Tubefilter on Transmedia and ARGs and still the quite a few questions seem to remain for quite a few people, “yes, but how do you play an ARG?”, “what is the EXACT definition of Transmedia?”, and “who makes ARGs?”

I may not have the perfect answers for the first two questions (and as you’ll soon read, those creative immersive storytellers haven’t even quite figured out all the answers yet, which is part of what makes doing what they do so exciting), but I can introduce you to one of the companies creating Transmedia content. I had the pleasure to collaborate with No Mimes Media (which was founded by Maureen McHugh, Behnam Karbassi, and Steve Peters) the past few months and took a few moments between all the craziness to shoot them some questions on what they do and how they came about, what they believe Transmedia is, and how to get started if you are a novice ARG player and just want to jump right in.

The crafting movement is alive and well and attracting some young creative innovators. Gone are the days when the idea of making craft conjured up images of shellacked mini bagel magnets with bow ties and googly eyes. Even web guru Mark Frauenfelder, editor of the venerable tech culture site Boing Boing, knows that crafting is cool. His book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World, touts the merits of the craft and DIY communities. Group of talented artists are sprouting up all over the country. Independent design shows like Unique LA and Renegade Craft Fair are filled with imaginative people who create hand-made treasures.

So where does this craft movement find a home in the fashion world? Ask designer, stylist, craft maven Kit Scarbo. A popular Season 4 Project Runway alumn (known formerly as “Kit Pistol”), Scarbo currently designs for Etnies, lectures on fashion, and works as a stylist and apparel designer. For more than a year, Scarbo’s web series Craft Club for Alloy Media on Teen.com has been offering fun style tips and the steps for creating fashion forward accessories. Tubfilter met up with Scarbo to find out more about her new design projects, shooting episodes of Craft Club, and what so fun about getting crafty.

It’s the not too distant future. Denton Sparks is an elite, covert, one-man assassin squad. He’s on a secret mission to rid both the on and offline worlds of the Spam King, a dangerous computer hacker responsible for the financial collapse and ensuing destruction of at least two island nations.

The assignment would be suicide for you or me, but for Sparks, it’s just another day on the job. He has the paramilitary training of a Jason Bourne and the Twitter presence of an Ashton Kutcher. Dude’s addicted to social networking.

So begins Status Kill, a brand new web series that premiered yesterday at a blip.tv screening and is set to drop online next week.

Created by Jesse Cowell (who online video fans will recognize as the creator of the mixed live-action/animated series, Drawn by Pain, and Red vs. Blue forum members will recognize as Jeskid), the show is equal parts action flick, clever comedy, and social commentary.

In the world of Status Kill, special operations units are given access to TweetFacester, the world’s biggest social network. It’s the government’s attempt to keep isolated individuals sane with at least some semblance of human interaction.

Sparks (played by Ayinde Howell) logs into the social network via a portable user interface. With a simple voice command, a Minority Report-inspired screen (designed by Chris Dimino) automagically appears before Sparks’ eyes, illuminating his friends list. Sparks beams in the glow of this holographic display, content to immerse himself with the fickle obligations of a virtual world while at work and under heavy enemy fire.

It’s a fantastic premise that stems from Cowell’s own internal struggle with how to approach the ever-evolving rules of communication in a digital age. His love/hate relationship with Facebook and Twitter spawned a character that takes social network obsession to an extreme. When you watch the show, you can’t help but think about and evaluate your own real world and virtual connections.

I’ll be surprised if the show doesn’t gain any traction. It’s too relatable. As Cowell says, “You either are Sparks, you know a person who is Sparks, or you hate Sparks, but like the show’s critique on social networking.” If the show does do well, expect to see further installments focus on other hot button technology topics, like privacy or contextual advertising.

Before the official online debut next Wednesday, be sure to connect with Status Kill on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. And yes, Cowell understands the “hypocrisy of ‘discussing’ all that’s right and wrong” about social networking and then asking you to become fans of or follow his show on those very same social networks. As I said before, Cowell has a love/hate relationship with modern methods of virtual communication.

It’s back. Embassy Row, the producers behind Google original series PopTub Daily and FAILBlog, have launched the second version of Win/Fail, a YouTube trivia-based interactive game show. The Win/Fail reload will feature former child star Dustin Diamond, better known as Screech from Saved By The Bell, as the show’s narrator and host.

Seth Green is producing a web series.

ControlTV

In June, at Digitas’ Digital Content NewFront, the Emmy Award-winning creator of Robot Chicken pitched his idea for an online original program to Madison Avenue’s finest.

At the time, he called the project URule. Green billed it as “The Truman Show, except that Truman is a willing volunteer,” which basically means Green and co-creator Matthew Senreich would cast a typical, single, unemployed 20-something male and then monitor him 24 hours a day for a six week period. His every choice – from what underwear he puts on in the morning to which potential sexual partners he should encounter – would then be decided by online, real-time voting mechanisms and a live, internet audience.

Within the past three months, the name’s changed from URule to ControlTV and the show’s been greenlit for production. The Ford Motor Company and Sprint Nextel are footing the bill. While ControlTV’s yet-to-be-named star looses his free will, he’ll be driving the 2011 Ford Fiesta and talking on Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G Phone.

Voyeurs will be able to watch ControlTV anytime, but highlights of each day’s events will be edited into an episode of the ControlTV web series. Digital Broadcasting Group (who’s also listed as an Executive Producer of the program) will then distribute the episode across its video network. Production is slated to begin this Fall.

Dan 3.0

If the premise of the show sounds familiar, that’s because it is. At the beginning of August, YouTube Rubik’s Cube sensation, Dan Brown and new media studio, Revision3 launched Dan 3.0. For a full year, Brown will be bound to attempt whatever feats the Revision3 community at large desires. Viewers propose tasks on the Dan 3.0′s channel, Brown accepts the ones with the most votes, and documents his efforts in daily videos.

So far the series is doing well, racking up over 40,000 views per episode on Brown’s YouTube channel and, according to sources, at least as many views on Revision3.

The Hollywood Approach vs. the Web Approach to Online Video

ControlTV and Dan 3.0 certainly share some similarities, but it’s more interesting to look at their differences. They’re approaching online video from two distinct production ideologies.

ControlTV clearly comes from Hollywood. The show was pitched, refined, and pitched again to potential sponsors for at least a year before any type of production took place. Its star hasn’t yet been announced. The series will last for six weeks. Distribution, promotion, and all other media efforts will treat the program like a theatrical release, trying to get as many view counts as possible within that 42-day window.

Dan 3.0 is born and bred on the web. One day, Brown decided to create the show, using mostly his own resources to make it happen. Before he launched, he pitched the program to Revision3. They saw an opportunity and decided to come along for the ride. Brown has a sizable YouTube following that guarantees him tens of thousands of views per episode. The show is inexpensive to produce. It will be produced for 12 months, giving it more than enough time to grow organically and bring relevant sponsors in along the way.

I’m not saying either one of these approaches is better or has the potential to be more successful than the other, and it’s certainly not a zero sum game. ControlTV and Dan 3.0 could both become case studies on how to create a hit online video show. But the dissimilar origins and execution of each program are worth noting.

Come the conclusion of Dan 3.0 in August 2011, we’ll have a better idea of which show came out on top.