Tubefilter News

This time of year the web is littered with countdowns, Top 10’s and predictions, everything from the year’s reality show meltdowns to baby names for 2011. Here at Tubefilter, we admit that we are not above such practices. (This is our second one today.) My rule however is if you’re going to make predictions, get specific and be prepared to suffer the sobriety of hindsight 12 months from now.

So here they are, my three predictions for the online video industry for 2011. Beg to differ? Let me know in the comments below and jump in with your own predictions. We can all dust off this article same time next year: case of beer to the winner.

Ever since early man discovered the concept of time, which he discovered before fire but after sex, he has been obsessed with predicting what the future holds. While anyone with a basic understanding of time travel knows that the future is unwritten, one can still make an educated guess by examining past behavior. Today, we want to examine five web TV predictions for 2011.

1. The Web Will Overtake Traditional TV

Streaming services such as Hulu Plus and Netflix have made major inroads into the cable dominated TV world in a trend that is likely to accelerate in 2011. As more and more people ditch their expensive cable TV providers, over the web alternatives will continue to gain momentum. In 2011, audiences will view more television programming over the Internet than broadcast and cable combined.

Furthermore, illegal downloading does and will continue to shift the balance toward web and away from traditional content delivery. In Europe, popular American programs air a season or two behind the U.S. Europeans, who no longer wish to wait, have turned to the web where programs are available within hours of the domestic release. Similarly, U.S. audiences have discovered foreign-produced programming that is equal if not superior to some American shows. In fact, my favorite new show of the year is a Canadian series currently unavailable in the U.S.

In our ongoing examination of the opportunities abroad for online video and digital entertainment, our focus in this second installment is on the foreign market. We’ll touch on major players in the space and the business structure of some of the deals done overseas.

THE PLAYERS AND MARKET OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD
Not many studios focused on new media have an overseas strategy, or are aggressively pursuing foreign sales. Currently, there are only a handful of companies that have an established and functioning business model in place to finance, produce, and distribute new media entertainment abroad. These companies include, but are not limited to, Michael Eisner’s Vuguru on the production and co-financing side, and Sony, Warner Bros., and Paramount on the distribution and financing end.

Larger media companies, like Warner, have been active, and are getting more consistent in securing foreign pre-sales. That means the company is able to sell entertainment properties to specific markets or territories overseas before said properties are produced. Those specific markets or territories overseas are willing to buy said properties because they’ve either seen a proof of concept or like the talent or production studio attached.

Recent announcements regarding foreign partnerships, financing, and distribution for web video have come from a major transmedia and Asia-Pacific-focused venture from the ex-COO and President of News Corp, Peter Chernin, as well as Vuguru and ContentFilm. The latter deal gives ContentFilm first-look rights to pre-sell foreign territories for Vuguru’s upcoming slate of digital entertainment projects. The model is similar to the one used by Lionsgate that made it a force in independent film and distribution, only for Vuguru the focus is digital content.

Fox International Channels has launched Single Dads, an original scripted comedy web series on Hulu created by and starring comedy duo Pete Karinen and Brian Sacca of Pete And Brian and NBC.com’s FCU: Fact Checkers Unit.

Single Dads chronicles the misadventures of two single fathers struggling with the responsibility of having kids:

The series features the characters Pete and Brian, who met when they’ve both got kicked out of a parenting class at the local YMCA. They quickly became best friends, bonding over the fact that they both have one-year-olds—Pete Jr. and Theodore—who they are raising without the help of their mothers. Each episode will show them tackling a new task, from changing nappies to going on a “playdate.” They always have the best intentions, but inevitably do something irresponsible or thoughtless.

Attention Span Media, the group behind Streamy Award nominated college mockumentary Dorm Life, is working with Fox as their social media agency and social media producer,much like their work with If I Can Dream, the groundbreaking real-time “post-reality” show created by 19 Entertainment and Simon Fuller (creator and producer of American Idol).

Single Dads is a part of Fox International Channel’s slate which, as reported by Variety last summer, includes Security 7, an animation series about a secret American military base hidden in the Middle East, and Dito, a stop-motion animation series.

For the past month or so, I’ve been doing daily YouTube reviews of various things, from food and drink to movies to blog posts on my channel, LonsTV. Occasionally, these reviews have included web shows, mainly because there are so many good ones and so precious few outlets highlighting all this great new content. (Also because there are already a ton of YouTube videos alerting to exactly how much Clash of the Titans sucked, so this was a chance to make my own mark.)

And now, once a week, I will be bringing these reviews to you, the Tubefilter reading public.

This week, I’m looking at the new series Night of the Zombie King. It’s technically a spin-off of GOLD, the humorous slice-of-life take on the world of tabletop role-playing gamers, concerning a relatively minor character from the original series who has been dropped into a different setting with all new characters.

Night of the Zombie King (or NOTZK, for those in the know) comes to us from the fertile minds of executive producers David Nett (who starred in the original GOLD series as Jonathan), Rick Robinson (Richard in GOLD) and Andrew R. Deutsch (who played, well, Goldy). It stars James Ellis Lane, reprising the role of Jaz from GOLD and Jonathan Nail, known to web series fans as the creator and star of SOLO.

2010 hasn’t been the best year for movies (at least in terms of comedy), but it’s been great for the internet. For the first time in the history of the medium, the average American is surfing the web for as many hours as he or she sits in front of the TV and at least 172,343,000 denizens of the US are consuming some form of online video every month.

So, what have we all been watching? The following three videos answer that question with aplomb. Pieced together by some of the largest entities and most astute minds in internet pop culture today, here are the best videos that culled together the best videos uploaded to the internet in the past year. The Top 3 Viral Video Videos of 2010 are:

Mondo Media is known for creating cartoons not necessarily safe for kids. The company’s flagship online entertainment property features a rotating cast of adorable furry characters who have their mortal coils shuffled in the most gruesome, cringe-inducing ways depictable in candy-colored tones.

Since 2000, the good animators of Happy Tree Friends have killed a yellow rabbit named Cuddles, a pink skunk named Giggles, a dopey blue moose named Lumpy, and other cuddly, anthropomorphic animals more times than Cutty Rank could conceive.

The show’s developed quite a following over the past decade and evolved into a mini-franchise, spawning a lucrative merchandise arm, a branded production studio, an ad network, a lucrative merchandise arm and one crudely drawn, seriously entertaining web series about two stick figures with attitude.

Mondo Media’s Dick Figures is the latest iteration of one of the internet’s most lovable themes: making images originally designed for games of Hangman look awesome. The web series follows in the footsteps of Animator vs. Animation, Atom’s Stickman Exodus, and the genius that is XKCD, and features rough lines representing humans exhibiting very human characteristics in ridiculous situations.

Low budget horror group Creepy Six Films put out a trailer for an upcoming project, Catholic Cheerleaders for Satan, a seven-part grindhouse horror series debuting early next year.

The series, from Creepy Six’s Rob Carpenter, is written and directed by Vince D’Amato and stars Keri Horton, Laura Leone Hancock, Janessa O’Hearn, Jennifer Wright, James Tyce, Brian Tull, Julian Paul and Jeff Laurin.

The trailer promises a campy, 70s style horror b-movie filled with sex and violence. The synopsis:

So, there’s this detective named Roddy Tillinghast. He gets hired to find an old 70′s drive-in flick called Catholic Cheerleaders for Satan. He gets beat up a lot! We made a movie about him and his jaw-cracking, gun-slinging friends. This movie is called The Hard Cut Double/Feature and is coming out next year, in 2011.



But wait… we also found the real deal—the Catholic Cheerleaders for Satan movie from 1978. Timewarp! Only, the print was effed, we couldn’t really show anyone. So instead of letting people think we’re a bunch of liars, we went and remade this movie, like shot-for-shot, pretty much. Then we took the print and dragged it across the cement and some broken glass and shit… So it kinda looks like the old effed up print we dug up now.



Anyhoo, we’re going to send this thing out to the world, one reel at a time. Soon. Very soon. And then, maybe later, you can see what happens to the poor detective who tried to track this sister-loving drive-in flick down…