Tubefilter News

A Cinderella story. The American Dream. A jackpot. Call it what you want, but Aarti Sequeira has parlayed her warm smile, charming personality and delicious recipes into a thriving career in front the of the camera.

Sequeira’s self-produced cooking show web series, Aarti Party helped her secure a coveted spot on The Next Food Network Star show to compete for a great grand prize, her own Food Network show. By surviving several exhausting challenges, cooking great food and winning the hearts of the judges, she won.

Her food pays homage to her family’s roots in India and other cultures around the world that have influenced her kitchen technique. Through all of the excitement, Sequeira hasn’t forgotten the web fans who encouraged her along the way. She continues to create webisodes for the Food Network site and consistently updates her personal blog.

Sequeira’s television show enters a second season on Sunday. Tubefilter caught up with a very busy Sequeira to find out about the new season on the Food Network, how her web series influences her TV show, and her advice for people who want to create a cooking program online.

Tubefilter: Your show started as a web series and became a Food Network Show after your won The Next Food Network Star. Now that you are going into your second season on Food Network, how much do your original webisodes influence how you approach the half-hour TV programs?

Sequeira: Having done a web-show helped tremendously. I mean, first off, I can look at it whenever I want and see what I’m like when I’m entirely comfortable, shooting in my kitchen with my husband behind the camera. I mean, talk about no pressure! That’s when the gold comes out. Then, I try to bring that same level of comfort and familiarity when I’m in front of the kazillion cameras in the big, daunting studio.

Also, having edited those webisodes myself, I’ve literally watched hours of myself on camera, so I know what works, and what doesn’t. How you need to almost unnaturally look up at camera every few seconds – even if you have nothing to say – just to stay connected, how I grimace when I’m focused, etc. Basically, the webisodes have made me a much more polished host.

Tubefilter: You are also filming new webisodes for the Aarti Party page on the Food Network site. Why is it important to you to continue to create video content?

Sequeira: The web videos were actually the prize for my winning the fan favorite vote during The Next Food Network Star. I believe in staying true to what got me here, and that’s the internet!

I like to think that it sets me apart, since I know how to create web content because I did it for so long. Web viewers are different to me than TV viewers… they’re looking for something a little more raw, a little quirkier, a little more natural I think, than what we have grown to expect out of the television set. Plus, I didn’t have cable for a few years and I still know tons of folks who get their entertainment online. It’s important for me to have a presence online for those people who have given up on TV.

Tubefilter: When you are developing new recipes, how do you know one will be right for the show? How did you decide what recipes to include in the new webisodes?

Sequeira: See, that’s where doing the web version of Aarti Paarti was so handy. I literally know which episodes were hits because those are the most viewed ones. I learned that people are really interested in India’s famed dishes; that’s how you get people to watch your channel on YouTube. My samosa episode was the first one to really garner some eyeballs that didn’t belong to my friends and family.

So this season, I’m doing an episode dedicated to a few of Indian cuisine’s “greatest hits” so to speak: Chicken Tikka Masala and Mango Lassi… and an episode dedicated to demystifying the curry. Then there’s Facebook: I asked members on my fan page what recipes they’d like to see and I got 300 responses within 20 minutes! 

I get a lot of the same questions over and over again, so we decided to focus on answering those in the web videos. There’ll be episodes dedicated to the spices I always have on hand, and another on what exactly makes a curry… there’ll be a few recipes in those videos, but they will focus mostly on educating people about a few Indian food basics.

Tubefilter: Is there a different approach to filming the show and the webisodes? Or is it the same camera and crew?

Sequeira: The webisodes are pretty similar to the show – a different crew but similar feel. Actually, the crew who shot the webisodes shoots Giada’s show so it was cool to see how another crew does things. One day, I’d love to resurrect the original ambience and timbre of Aarti Paarti (the web show); I love the quirkiness of those videos, and how they invited other people’s talents to shine including jugglers, singers, and belly dancers.

Tubefilter: What can your viewers looking forward to this season on your show and it your new videos?

Sequeira: Tons of great recipes! I’m really proud of the recipes this season because I expanded beyond just the Indian flavors people know me for. See, if you came over to my house for dinner, you might be surprised because I don’t cook Indian food every day. That’s why this season you’ll find recipes for things like Thai Curry Mac & Cheese, or Lebanese Meat Pitas (Arayes) or heck, the Vanilla and Black Pepper Pork Loin that kicks off the whole thing.

Oh, and I’m doing a Beer Tasting episode too, with beer sommelier Christina Perozzi. She brings the beer and I bring the food to match!

 Also, you’ll see some of my friends and family on the show! The biggest motivator for me when it comes to cooking is whom I’m cooking for. I’m so excited to share the magical people in my life who have motivated me to make great food! And you’ll find a little taste of the old Aarti Paarti when a belly dancer surprises my friends at one of my parties – super fun!

Scream 4 doesn’t hit theatres until April 15, 2011. If you want to brush up on your horror film rules before Wes Craven rewrites them, you can attend Fearnet’s special, 12-step, holiday education program. It’s an online course called Fear Academy.

The e-class illustrates classic rules of slasher flicks. Fearnet is releasing the curriculum as animated, one-minute video lessons, one for each of the 12 days of Christmas. Instructional videos teach you “the hazards of sex and booze, the dangers of trusting dolls, techniques for defeating serial killers,” and many more pieces of practical wisdom and mortal importance derived from watching too many John Carpenter movies. It’s a lot like CBS’ How to Survive a Horror Movie, but with stick figures and scare tactics.

LA-based production house Liquid Theory provides the animations for this Fearnet uber-short-form original series. The black, white, and red all over interpretations of killer tropes are smart, stylish, and educational. Be sure to check them out at Fearnet.com.

Soapbox Films, Webby Award-winning viral video producer behind “Bohemian Rhapsody” starring the cast of the Muppets, is teaming up with Disney Online to produce a “new internet webisode series,” according to a recent casting notice.

YouTube today has extended the video upload limit beyond 15 minutes for selected users, following a move back in July that saw the upload limit raised for all users to the 15-minute mark.

It’s a sign of a shift in tolerance to longer form video content on YouTube, particularly from the site’s vast user-creators who make up the bulk of all its video uploads. So this might mean eager creators start exploring more traditional TV-style half-hour programming, though it’s not clear that’s what the audience is demanding quite yet.

“Starting today, we’ll begin allowing selected users with a history of complying with the YouTube Community Guidelines and our copyright rules to upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes,” wrote YouTube Product Manager Joshua Siegel on the news. This essentially boils down to include all those who aren’t ripping copyrighted content and throwing it up on their accounts.

One of the latest entries into the lovable loser genre of web series, The Unemployment of Danny London centers on Danny London (Danny Lippin), a middle man in every sense, who inexplicably finds himself out of work when his boss and friend fires him from the public relations job that has been his life and identity for the past eleven years. Left with no other option, Danny must rebuild his life while facing obstacles from unlikely places.

The first four episodes of Danny London are currently available online and the producers plan to release new episodes every two weeks for six weeks resulting in a 12-episode first season. The premiere features cameos by Tom Konkle (SafetyGeeks SVI) and the lovely and talented host of The WebFiles Kristyn Burtt. While the first episode starts a little slow and could benefit from a tighter edit, but it certainly does have it’s moments.

The failing economy and its effects on the unemployed is a topic rich with comedic potential. Much like the Streamy Award-winning web series, Odd Jobs, The Unemployment of Danny London looks for the humor in what can be a difficult situation.

Every year, The New York Times Magazine publishes an Oscars issue. This year, the publishers wanted to do something a little different.

Kathy Ryan (the magazine’s photo editor) hired Solve Sundsbo (renowned Norwegian fashion photographer) to shoot 14 Hollywood actors who “defined cinema in 2010.” And Sundsbo shot them with a video camera.

Ryan told the New York Times’ Lens blog she knew from the beginning she didn’t want the talent to simply sit for still images.”Celebrity portraiture,” Ryan said, “demands reinvention.”

The actors in the series include Javier Bardem, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Jesse Eisenberg, Chloe Moretz, Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Jennifer Lawrence, Noomi Repace, Vincent Cassel, Anthony Mackie, Robert Duvall, Lesley Manville and Tilda Swinton. After Sundsbo captured their likenesses in still images, he captured them on video. Each actor was given 60 seconds to create a narrative, to “create something like a poem that can lead your imagination.”

Esmee Denters was one of the first. The teenage singer-songwriter from the Netherlands built a YouTube following by being easy on the eyes and covering Justin Timberlake tunes. Then Timberlake signed her. Justin Beiber is the most successful. Music manager Scooter Bruan stumbled upon a YouTube video of the then 13-year-old and had him flown out to Atlanta to sign a record deal. Now Bieber’s in the running for a Grammy for Best New Artist.

Discovering the latest, greatest undiscovered talent on the internet is nothing new. Ever since would-be entertainers figured out how to operate webcams and YouTube, they’ve been recording and uploading unsolicited audition tapes for the entertainment industry to see. Documenting that discovery process, however, is new entertainment territory, at least when it’s done online.

Johnny Wright is one of the most successful music managers in the business, with an uber-popular pop star and boy band pedigree. His resume includes management gigs with New Kids on the Block, the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, the Jonas Brothers, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, and Britney Spears. And he’s looking to discover his next act online.

Wright’s partnered with Cambio (the Jonas Brothers’ online, MTV killer) and AT&T’s U-verse for a 21-episode web series, On the Spot: Johnny Wright’s Quest for the Next Pop Sensation. Wright will accept audition tapes from aspiring musicians between the ages of 16 to 30, eventually selecting one individual or band in June 2011. He’ll pare down the playing field by way of time tested, Making the Band-like, reality television techniques of discovering pop stars. Basically, there will be a series of online challenges followed by a boot camp in Los Angeles.

Revision3 announced the launch of its latest series, Death Battle!, which places two or more characters from video games, cult movies, and pop culture in an all-out, no holds barred slugfest to the death.

The series, created by Ben Singer and executive produced by Craig Skistimas of ScrewAttack, feature fictional hosts, Wiz and Boomstick, who guide viewers through each combatants’ arsenal and skill-set before the battle begins. The first episode pits Star Wars’ Bobba Fett against Metroid’s Samus Aran—two of the most well known space bounty hunters.

“We couldn’t be more happy to be working with ScrewAttack,” said Ryan Vance, Vice President of Programming and Production at Revision3. “Craig and Ben, and their team, have created an extremely original and entertaining show. We think Death Battle! is a perfect fit for Revision3 and we’re excited to bring the show to our viewers.”

“Death Battle! is a show that is all about kicking ass and we think people will be talking about what happens in each episode for a while,” said Craig Skistimas, Program Director of ScrewAttack. “Ultimately we want people to be so entertained by Death Battle! that whatever they thought was entertaining before watching it will no longer bring them enjoyment.”