Tubefilter News

Forget, for a moment, the three consecutive Emmy Award wins for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Any individual with the ability to play a modern-day Mr. Wilson father figure with a heart of gold in a zany live-action comedy for seven years, and then take on the role of a conflicted, morally ambiguous terminal lung cancer patient with a helluva mind and nothing to lose for three seasons and counting must be a fantastic actor.

Now, remember all those awards and accolades and you know Bryan Cranston is outstanding. That’s why I’m super jazzed he’s bringing his talents to the web.

Cranston broke the news in an interview with Sandra Gonzalez at Entertainment Weekly he’s staring in an upcoming web series for Comedy Central’s Atom. The Handlers is an Americanized version of the French short film Henaut President. It tells the story of an “ambitious group of campaign operatives determined to claw their way to the top of their game and do whatever it takes to get a hapless candidate elected to a post as State Senator, whether he likes it or not.”

YouTube has debuted a new experimental homepage (click here to try it out) and I, being a lover of design and its critique, feel like sharing my thoughts on it.

First, let me give you some details. This button will appear on your homepage if you’ve been selected to join the experiment:

Clicking that brings you to this page which details changes about to take effect on your homepage—what you see when logged in and viewing YouTube.com.

First, I like that the layout is focused on bringing things that fellow YouTubers like, comment on, or favorite to your attention. This information comes directly from your Friends and Subscriptions in to one “merged” list. If someone who you’re friends with likes, comments or favorites a video, it shows up here along with any new video uploads from users you’ve subscribed to.

That being said, I highly dislike that “Friend” activity is now merged with the “Subscriptions.” It’s helpful that if you click the Subscriptions tab that YouTube will remember your settings (hopefully) but even when you set that to the default there are more problems.

Comedy news satire site The Onion launched a brand new site for Onion SportsDome, the original web series that will premiere as a television show on Comedy Central in January.

The series offers a “30-minute rundown of the finest in sports news, analysis, scores, highlights, rumor-mongering and petty personal attacks,” according to Comedy Central’s fake press release.

The new Onion Sports Network site launched yesterday—nearly a month before the show premieres on television—and has plenty to offer the impatient (fake) sports nut. The site features archival sports related clips from the original web series Onion News Network, The Onion sports articles, a “photo finish” section, and more.

The Onion Sports Network promises to do more than simply supplement the show; it promises an entire universe of fake news, extending coverage featured in the show or previewing themes that may eventually air—a true parody of ESPN’s SportCenter and news website.

Onion SportsDome launches on Comedy Central on Tuesday, January 11 (1.11.11),

In some unexpected breaking news today, The New York Times is reporting that YouTube is in talks to acquire online video studio Next New Networks, according to two sources at the paper.

This is major news in the world of original web content, signaling the first major content acquisition by YouTube and validation that the number one video destination is in fact fully jumping into the content game. It would be a smart move picking up the network that gets some of the largest checks out of the YouTube partner program—estimated to be several million per year—due to its strong YouTube channels and shows like Auto-Tune the News, Indy Mogul, Key of Awesome and Barely Political.

In a recent email, NNN Co-founder Tim Shey pointed out how episodes from two of the studio’s web series—Auto-Tune the News and Key of Awesome—made YouTube’s Top 10 Most Watched Videos of 2010 list, also highlighting the astounding number of overall views they racked in across their lineup.

What do 138 artists, 18 customers and 39 staff members all have in common? Each of them has been interviewed by the camera crew at Amboeba Music for the record store’s series What’s In My Bag?

In a recent episode, Jason Schwartzman (a talented music maker in his own right) gathers up a pile of vinyl records and plops himself down on the floor in the cassette section to go through his discoveries. His mission that day was to find music to play for his soon to be born baby.

Practically giddy with excitement about the notion of sharing this music with his family, Schwatzman talks about how he chooses records in manner that’s half serious and half Christopher Guest. His bag reveals a diverse range of music, everything from Brian Eno’s Apollo soundtrack to Harry Nilsson’s playful songs. He adds albums by Rolling Stones and The Who for balance, along with some Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. (This kid’s in utero and post-birth music education will prepare him to go to Berklee.)

In other episodes, electronic music producer Thomas Fehlmann gravitates towards psychedelic sounds. Hip Hop MC Donwill filled his bag with 80′s pop hits, Herbie Hancock, and the Talking Heads DVD Stop Making Sense. Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing buys Alan Lomax in Haiti, a box set of films and recordings from 1936 and also some psychedelic Cumbias from Peru. Christopher Dennis, known as Hollywood Superman, picks up a copy of Cheech & Chong Still Smokin’.

In the form of podcasts, even beyond that of the video-based entertainment we focus on, an entire world that I’ve only recently become familiar with is alive and thriving – audio-based entertainment. Along with audio novels that allow writers to showcase the written word in a medium you can consume while working or driving, creative talents have proven that a medium older than television is still viable in the modern day – that of the radio drama.

Anyone who played or enjoyed the ILoveBees campaign after the fact can attest, radio dramas can craft emotional and explosive stories that, were they in visual form, would have the budget of Inception. Yet with a good sound recording setup, quality actors, great writing and plenty of ingenuity, the story of a zombie apocalypse has unfolded over the course of a year and a half (and is still continuing!) in the form of We’re Alive, a radio drama story of survival.

Former Indy Mogul personality and The Reel Good Show host Bobby Miller just launched a new series on MTV’s Next Movie, That Movie Show With Bobby Miller.

The series takes Miller, now a destitute peddling his Webby Award for web series work on the streets of New York, to sunny Los Angeles, where he stars in his own new series about movies. The show is full of familiar faces, including The Googling star Jeff Grace from The Vacationeers.

Miller had previously worked himself up the ranks at New York-based Next New Networks, starting as an editor on Backyard FX, then hosting The Best Short Films in The World, and eventually hosting his own show The Reel Good show under the Indy Mogul vertical.

That Movie Show With Bobby Miller picks up where The Reel Good Show finale leaves off, but, ironically, (or perhaps in fact autobiographically), in the final episode of The Best Short Films in the World Miller is tempted by a Hollywood deal that eventually falls through. Perhaps that deal was for a new web series for MTV’s quietly launched Next Movie?

This is an introduction to a series of articles meant to paint a picture and inform web video producers and content creators about the deals, partnerships, and opportunities available to them abroad. From pre-sale to distribution to foreign partnerships, we’ll explore and examine what international deals look like and how they can work for you.

We’re all aware we’re part of a rapidly changing media landscape. Creative entertainment opportunities are constantly evolving. The traditional business models that finance original TV and digital content have—and are—changing. In most cases, that change is for the better.

Web video is no longer a novelty. The industry has advanced to a point where it’s regarded as an incubator for next-generation creative talent. It’s a barometer for good content, and is evolving to a point where it could breed the world’s next Spielberg, Scorsese, Michael Jackson or Johnny Carson (it already discovered Justin Bieber and Fede Alvarez—the Uruguayan Director of YouTube sensation Panic Attack who inked a seven figure movie deal with Sam Raimi based on his YouTube Video).

The business models supporting that next-generation talent and their productions, however, have not always kept up.

It’s true that independent content creators have experienced a greater amount of financial success each business quarter. Many in the industry feel web video has turned a corner. Certainly, more consistent, stable revenue is an indicator that good times are upon us.

Yet despite all of the good news, more fundamental questions remain.

Is there another way for content creators to make money than ad revenue splits and branded content, while retaining more control and ownership? Is there a financing structure or revenue model that provides a form of consistent development and production for original web video and trans-media entertainment? Is international the answer to all of our problems?

The answers are at best, yes, maybe, and no.