by Joshua Cohen on February 21st, 2011
Peter Shukoff uploads music video renditions of his comedic, singer-songwriter stylings to YouTube under the pseudonym Nice Peter. It’s something the Rochester-born, School of the Arts-educated actor and musician has done since October 2009 to more than moderate success.
Shukoff ranks amongst the Top 100 YouTube Musicians with 257,000+ subscribers and counting. Some of those individuals tune into catch his songs about a Santa who’s the product of a less privileged upbringing and how a 200-year foreign policy strategy of isolation could render the Japanese people a little weird, but a lot more come to watch the Epic Rap Battles of History.
It stared with John Lennon spitting rhymes of peace and love at Bill O’Reilly and his Right Wing machine. Next came the leader of the Third Reich vs. the leader of the Galactic Empire followed by unexpected historical and pop cultural pairings that first appear a little absurd, but are all the more awesome because in your countless, hypothetical who-would-win-in-a-fight arguments, you’ve never paired up individuals like Lady Gaga and Sarah Palin, Hulk Hogan and Kim Jong-il, nor Abraham Lincoln and Chuck Norris.
by Marc Hustvedt on February 18th, 2011
YouTube is playing in dangerous territory with the news this week that the company is going to spend millions for celebrity created content. New York Magazine is reporting the news—though Google and YouTube are unable to comment on it—that YouTube is offering up to $5 million per celeb-branded channel.
One insider is quoted as saying: “by offering a wider range of better-quality content, viewers are happier, Google’s advertisers are happier, and the talent is happier.” Oy. Breaking this apart, there’s first the shaky assumption that these traditional celebrities can actually offer ‘better-quality’ content on their own, as opposed to say the tens of thousands of YouTube natives that have mastered the art of luring viewers away from overpriced TV fare.
YouTube’s new CEO Salar Kamangar, who replaced co-founder Chad Hurley in the top spot earlier this year, is moving the world’s most popular online video site into a cozier position with Hollywood. There’s also the addition of Robert Kyncl from Netflix, the man who is credited with crafting that company’s booming on-demand streaming service as their head of digital content acquisition.
by Joshua Cohen on February 18th, 2011
When Lebron James isn’t playing basketball, isn’t invoking karma on Twitter about basketball games, isn’t denying that he invoked karma on twitter about basketball games, and isn’t filming commercials in which he makes ridiculous, hyperbolic assumptions about what millions of Americans want or don’t want him to be, he sometimes works on an animated web series and hangs out with Drake.
The Lebrons, a cartoon series created by Spring Hill Productions and Believe Entertainment Group starring the four versions of the Lebron James-based characters introduced in those Klump family Nike commercials, will feature an animated iteration of Drake, voiced by the Grammy-nominated artist. Drake, along with all four Lebrons, will convey life-lessons to children by way of family-friendly cartoon hijinkx.
The principals at Believe Entertainment Group, Dan Goodman and Bill Masterson, are no novices to the web series game. They’re the duo that put together Seth McFarlane’s Burger King-sponsored Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, but will they be able to make a successful and appealing children’s series based on an individual who’s fast growing comfortable with his role as super villain of the NBA?
by Marc Hustvedt on February 18th, 2011
There are, as it turns out, other reasons to make the annual geek pilgrimage to San Diego Comic-Con every summer besides convincing your friends to dress up with you in authentic Battlestar costumes. Producer J.C. Christofilis spent some time perusing the indie comics corner of the sprawling convention floor, finding comic artist Martin Shapiro and his graphic novel Chopper.
Months later, a teaser trailer for the upcoming Chopper web series is now out, and even a clothing line has come on as lead sponsor. To be sure, the actual series hasn’t been shot yet, but the recent addition of horror actor Tyler Mane (Michael Myers from Rob Zombie’s Halloween films) is helping with the early buzz. Mane stars as the titular ‘Chopper’ character, a headless horseman killer—who’s horse is a Harley—seeking vengeance on “mortal sinners.” This means killing and collecting his victims heads of course.
by Lon Harris on February 18th, 2011
Stacks is an 11-part web drama series from writer and creator Kathy Forti. We’re currently 6 episodes in at the time of this review.
The story follows struggling writer Cali Cavaleri (played by Jackie Tohn), who discovers a portal to an inter-dimensional repository of knowledge known as the “Library of Truth” after stealing a dead guy’s phone. Why does she steal a dead guy’s phone? It’s not entirely clear…
The show has an admirably far-out premise and definitely goes for broke, working in elements of action, science-fiction and comedy all within the first episode. However, issues of believability pop up right away and persist throughout all 6 episodes I watched. The whole narrative leans on a pretty unbelievable set-up:
The protagonist, a reporter no less, finds a dead body in a parking garage with teeth marks in his neck, steals his cell phone and then takes off because she urgently has to go to…the library. First off, what reporter is doing research in a library in 2011? (The fact that her article is supposedly a tabloid piece about an “alien baby” doesn’t help matters. Do they have an entry on that in Funk & Wagnalls?) Also, that whole “body with teeth marks” thing doesn’t seem like a good tabloid story?
Even more problematic is the overuse of voice-over narration, combined with scenes featuring Cali speaking directly into the camera at her audience. (At times, she’s interrupting her own voice-over to comment into the camera. Which is just confusing.)
by Marc Hustvedt on February 17th, 2011
There was a unique energy of optimism in LA at last night’s Tubefilter Meetup, with a packed room full of video creators of all types came together to check in on where the state of web video is today. The terminology have changed over the years, with some terms serving to define subgroups like the ‘web series crowd,’ the ‘livestreamers,’ the ‘YouTubers’ and the podcasters. But ultimately we’re all talking about the same thing—social video.
It’s the concept of creating video for an audience and truly connecting with them using the tools of the internet to do so. That’s the common thread that made last night’s discussion so relevant. It’s hard to ignore the network that does 147 million unique visitors a month.
The title was glib—“So You’re a YouTube Partner, Now What?”—a potshot at the myth of overnight millions just by making into the ranks of the 15,000 or so YouTube channels in the ad revenue-sharing Partner Program. For the first time we decided to focus the panel session entirely on one platform, diving deeper into the nuances of the mothership of online video.
Rafi Fine of The Fine Brothers stressed the importance of experimentation, of trying many different video formats and concepts all on one primary YouTube channel rather than all over the place. The idea being that your are building an asset that grows in value with each new subscriber, rather than starting over with separate channels for each new series idea.
Jason Schnell, one third of the popular comedy channel Reckless Tortuga, which just cracked into the Top 100 Most Subscribed, echoed this, sounding like a modern take on a network executive. “If it’s not working we just cancel it,” he said of the many “mini-pilots” that they have launched on their channel.
by Joshua Cohen on February 17th, 2011
ComScore released its January 2011 US Online Video Rankings earlier this week and the main takeaway is Vevo is hot and the general population’s New Year’s Resolution was to watch slighty less online video.
Vevo snuck into the number two spot behind Google in the category of Total Unique Viewers, with 51,025,000 for the month, a slight increase over its December numbers of 50,594,000. The music video mecca was one of a handful online destinations (along with Facebook, Viacom, Microsoft, Turner, and Fox) on comScore’s top 10 list to make viewership increases in January, but those gains couldn’t make up for the overall bump in online video’s solid upward trajectory.
The total US internet audience 4.9 billion viewing sessions in January, down from 5.2 billion in December. And after the big holiday marketing and advertising boom, video ads are predictably down in January to 4.3 billion from 5.9 billion in December. Hulu maintained its position on top of the Video Ads Viewed chart with more than 1 billion over the course of the month, more than twice that of Tremor Media Video network, the next closest competitor.
by Joshua Cohen on February 17th, 2011
Web starlet and independent online video sensation Felicia Day appeared as a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon late last night in New York City.
Day took her time on the couch to fight static cling, show off her guns, and display some sick knife skills by way of premiering the trailer of her just announced Dragon Age: Redemption web series live on the air. By the looks of the 30-some-odd seconds of footage, this one’s going to be good.
BioWare approached Day to create an online original series in promotion of the video game publisher’s upcoming release of Dragon Age 2. Day, a huge fan of the original Dragon Age title, immediately accepted the quest. She wrote, co-produced, and stars in Redemption, taking on the role of Tallis, an elvin assassin with enormous ears and a bad attitude.
There’s no word on how much acquring Day’s writing and acting talents and marketing appeal cost BioWare, but by the looks of last night, the company certainly got its money’s worth. Fallon plugged the release of Dragon Age 2 along with The Guild’s Season 4 DVD.
