Tubefilter News

Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, the singer-songwriter comedy-folk duo better known as Garfunkel and Oates, signed a development deal with HBO.

Cynthia Littleton at Variety reports Lindhome and Micucci are writing the pilot with Richie Keen (the guy behind the web gem Tom Cruise is a Cock Block). The series will be based on the pair’s musical comedy act.
It’s about time.

Garfunkel and Oates has long beeen a favorite of online entertainment critics. Lindhome and Micucci’s soft voices and girl next door appearances provide a nice balance to their lyrics, which are smart, direct, sometimes dirty, and always display an intense irreverence for decorum.

The duo met at the the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in LA, collaborated on a short musical film Imaginary Larry, and began uploading excerpts to YouTbe in January 2007. Since then, Garfunkel and Oates tunes have been played on Scrubs, The O’Reilly Factor, and multiple times live and in-person on The Tonight Show and Jay Leno Show.

Kiefer Sutherland is taking a leap from the TV screen to the computer screen with his upcoming webseries, The Confession. Sutherland is the creator and star of the Brad Mirman directed series scheduled to premier in March 2011. The series will also star two-time Academy Award nominee, John Hurt, Michael Badalucco, and Sebastian Beacon. The show consists of ten episodes broadcast over Hulu and is distributed by the Digital Broadcasting Group, distributors of 2010’s Control TV. Other executive producers include Chris Young and Joseph Gomes of DBG and Maura Mandt of Maggie Vision.

The Confession begins on Christmas Eve, with a hit man (Sutherland) visits a priest (Hurt) for to confess his sins. Throughout the series, viewers will be taken on a journey of flashbacks revealing what has brought the hit man to this place and revealing both characters to be complex and multi-layered. The dramatic ending culminates with a dramatic climax where the man, thus far simply known as the Confessor, chance for redemption hangs in the balance. In the beginning, the series depicts the Confessor and hit man as a cold-blooded killer and the Priest as the source of good and righteousness, but as the series unfolds, both characters are revealed to be different than they appear.

You know that feeling when you forget which gadget you downloaded a certain photo, tune or video to? Did you save that special photo on your Android phone, camera, computer or maybe in an album on Facebook? No need to panic anymore. RealNetworks, the folks who brought us RealPlayer for video, has created UniFi, an exciting new way to save (and find) all of your photos, music, and video files across multiple gadgets – in one place. It’s an obvious solution to a growing challenge we mediaphiles have day-to-day. CNET editors were also fans and awarded Unifi a Best of CES show award, which is a big deal in the geek world.

This week, LonsTV takes a look at YouTube’s new talk show, Partners Project. The brainchild of creator/producers Damon Berger and Shira Lazar, Partner’s Project picks a different YouTube star each week and takes a look behind-the-scenes at their background and journey to cewebrity.

Past episodes have included interviews with iJustine, Dane Boedigheimer (the man behind Annoying Orange), Shay Carl and Mystery Guitar Man, with Kassem G and Freddie Wong both scheduled for forthcoming shows.

Lazar conducts the interviews herself, and brings the same enthusiasm and polish to Partners Project that she does to projects like CBSNews.com and, yes, my show, This Week in YouTube. The fact that she’s clearly a fan of these particular content creators and their work comes through in each discussion.

Even better for hopeful young YouTubers, each episode comes bundled with “Pro Tips” videos and behind-the-scenes footage that are basically like Film School for YouTube.

Every year an uber gathering of global geeks and media cognescenti convene at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to preview sexy new gadgets slated to roll out in the coming months. I couldn’t help but hum the famous FAO Schwartz song, Welcome To Our World of Toys as I walked into the expo halls to see these cool new gadgets, or toys as I call them. This year, over 140,000 industry insiders clogged Las Vegas and elbowed their way into the exhibit halls for exclusive sneak peeks (I still have bruises). And you know it’s a hip event when Lady Gaga shows up! With so much exciting news flying out of the show, I’ve pieced together some highlights for Web TV fans.

That’s right! The BIG vision this year is for everyone to be able to watch their favorite web originals, cable and broadcast shows on smart phones, smart TVs (Internet-connected), tablets and on any other gizmos with screens with a shared content library. A “connected” entertainment ecosystem is the ultimate goal. For example, if you buy a TV show on your smartphone and begin watching it, when you get home you can turn on your TV or tablet and pick up exactly where you left off. Vizio, a TV manufacturer, announced its new connected Vizio VIA Plus slate of devices, adding their first tablet and smartphone to build their entertainment ecosystem.

Sounds fabulous, right? Well, unless you’re Apple with a closed garden of devices (Apple TV, iPhone, iPod, iPad) and licensed content (iTunes, App store), you’ll be waiting a while for this to really happen. Why? Lawyers. Content creators control and protect their content, and a multi-screen world is still somewhat new. So the entertainment lawyers and device manufacturers’ lawyers are scrambling (some faster than others) to make this vision a reality. This is a radical vision for traditional Hollywood studios and distributors, upending its comfort zone from one screen to license to (the TV) and there are always piracy concerns. That said, this forward progress is great news for all of us who love our shows. Netflix has been the leader in accommodating subscribers to watch content across multiple screens, with Hulu Plus and everyone else on its tailcoats doing the same thing.

Marble Hornets is a YouTube and Twitter-based ARG-mockumentary that has been ongoing since the first video was posted on June 20, 2009. The channel has, in a year and a half, gained 41,741 subscribers and has racked up an impressive 8,943,042 upload views. The ARG is on its second season, with the first ending on April 19th, and the second beginning with three pictures posted to their Twitter account over several days in October and November. The protagonist, called simply “J”, soon after uploaded a new video beginning the season in a new location with a continuation of the story in a new mystery.

The plotline and antagonist are based on a thread at the SomethingAwful forums where the myth of the “Slender Man” was created from a series of images manipulated with Photoshop to include appearances of a tall, slender figure with a suit and a faceless appearance. Creators Troy Wagner (director/”J”) and Joseph DeLage (Alex) are film students and members of the SomethingAwful forums and have done a radio interview on the project.

In the past four months, AOL’s signed original content development and distribution deals with new media studio Next New Networks, Ben Silverman’s Electus, and Michael Eisner’s Vuguru. Now you can add Endemol to the list.

The production company behind television hits Deal or No Deal, Big Brother, and Jerseylicious (among many others), as well as web series Married On MySpace 1 & 2 and Coupon Mom will create programming targeted towards “AOL’s growing women’s audience” and the online destination’s 114 million unique monthly visitors.

AOL’s billing the first series to come out of the new partnership as “built-if-sold,” which means an advertiser will have to come on board for the programs to be produced and distributed. When that happens, AOL and Endemol’s initial two web shows will be:

Re-Dressed By America: an interactive web series where online users make over subjects facing a life-changing event (high school reunions, first dates, etc.) by voting on their hairstyles, fashion, accessories and more. The series will be featured on Stylelist.com and MyDaily.com.

Mamá’s Recipe: US families compete for the best family recipes and share their secrets with the AOL audience. The series will be featured on KitchenDaily and AOL Latino.

Earlier this year I received an email from a press rep for a surprising series, In Between Men. What was so surprising? The show was holding a red carpet premiere at TriBeCa Cinemas in New York, had enlisted minor stars like Michelle Clunie (Queer as Folk) and Chase Coleman (Boardwalk Empire), and boasted a sleek look, with glamorous New York locations and a kick-ass wardrobe from Marc Jacobs.

And I’d never heard of it, or its creator. Why hadn’t I heard of this show?

In Between Men is truly an anomaly in the web series world. A well-funded gay buddy soap, the show was written, shot and released in just a year by a virtual unknown in the industry, creator Quincy Morris. Since releasing its first two episodes, IBM has been covered by Queerty, Jezebel, Têtu, among others.

How did a New York professional and first-time filmmaker corral enough talented people for such a series, eventually inviting interest from premier gay network Logo?

“I know it’s amazing. But because I didn’t make films for a living prior to this, I don’t have a perspective how really amazing it is,” Morris told me in an interview. “Everything that’s happened to it since its inception has come fairly easily. I’m getting a really bad first experience.”

In Between Men tells the story of four young gay men in New York City as they deal with professional and personal struggles. The star is Dalton, an event planner who’s professionally successful but romantically not so much. His attractive friends, one of whom is bisexual, all have their issues (promiscuity, lack of self-esteem, etc.), but are linked together by being “in between,” not “straight-acting” or effeminate.

“Whenever I’d go out, or whenever I’d turn on a movie or TV, I’d never see the kind of men I identify myself with,” Morris told me about the impetus for the show. “I’d always see a one-dimensional, caricaturish, flamboyant, there-for-comic-relief gay guy, who’s not really the focus of the show but is somebody’s friend.”