by Marc Hustvedt on March 11th, 2011
The media savvy Jesse Draper, her uber-talented team at ValleyGirl.TV, the Los Angelinos in the know behind lalawag, and the good people here at Tubefilter are about to open up the doors at a Texas institution with over 35 years experience at serving Austin’s finest. If you’re at SXSW, be sure to join us at the Cedar Door tonight, Friday, March 11 at 7PM for some stiff drinks, good food, and great conversation. SAG New Media, blip.tv, RoosterTeeth, and other online video and digital media amateurs and professionals from around the globe will be noshin’ on some classic Texas cuisine, knockin’ back a few, and mixin’ it up.
Be sure to save enough energy to wake up for Tubefilter’s SXSW Interactive panel at 9:30AM on Sunday morning. Decision Trees: YouTube’s New Breed of Interactive Storytellers will delve into how some of YouTube’s most innovative content creators – including Rafi Fine of The Fine Bros. and Tony Valenzuela of BlackBoxTV – use the video sharing site’s annotation tools to make super creative Choose Your Own Adventure stories come to life.
by Logan Rapp on March 11th, 2011
I don’t think anyone has any illusions about it. If you’re looking for a weekly web series of news on just the upcoming The Hobbit film, you are a nerd.
It’s fine. So am I.
For fantasy nerds, you won’t find a better video series than Hobbit In 5, brought on by TheOneRing.net to provide the latest in news about Sir Peter Jackson’s next blockbuster. Little more than a green screen and host Rebekah Platt, it does the job of pulling every news tidbit that can be found about the film in a quickly digestible video.
I could go off and note issues with the production itself, and I even tried to when I was writing this, but you know what? Screw it. If you’ve read this far and you’re still interested in keeping up on The Hobbit, absolutely nothing I’m going to say is going to dissuade you.
by Marc Hustvedt on March 10th, 2011
Online video and web series news worth clicking today:
YouTube announced applications for its YouTube Creator Institute today which is the first initiative out of the newly formed YouTube Next. YouTube is looking for talented people in all fields—aspiring filmmakers, moms with cooking shows, teenage gossip vloggers, fantasy football commentators, ironing skydivers—and give them some in-depth training about how to make a real show out of their craft. Inaugural programs will begin at top schools like USC and Columbia College Chicago later this spring. Applications are being accepted from now until March 25 for anyone 18 and over in the US. [YouTube]
RedLever announced it will produce and distribute director Kevin Tancharoen’s ‘first-ever original online martial arts competition series’ The Chosen One, which Tancharoen will direct. This is not to be confused with the Mortal Kombat web series, Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, that he is shooting for Warner Brothers. In this competition reality web series, hand-picked contestants from martial arts schools across the country will compete to be “The Chosen One” left standing at the end. Think your high kicks are worthy? You can still apply online now to be on the show. [The Chosen One]
by Joshua Cohen on March 10th, 2011
I’m no Dr. Drew. I’m not hip on all the idiosyncrasies of celebrity drug addiction or acute manic episodes. I have no idea whether Charlie Sheen could or should be involuntarily committed for awe and OMG-inspiring traditional media tirades, online video rants, and a keen social media savvy.
The mantra among trained professionals giving opinions from beyond the therapist’s couch seems to be, “Dude needs help.” But then there are things like this Funny or Die video, the faux beginnings of another Charlie Sheen web series that make me wonder. Are people on a high-speed train towards self-destruction usually this self-aware?
If you listen to the Sporfkul, you know the hosts of food shows can never have enough catch phrases. Sheen may be the exception that proves the rule. In Charlie Sheen’s Winning Recipes, the Robert Downey Jr. of Generation Next hosts a classic cooking show peppered with #winning tag lines of his own invention. When it’s not tired and when Sheen’s not repeating quickly-becoming-hackneyed #tigerblood, #Warlock, and #AdonisDNA-like slogans, the show’s funny.
His Rayden-eyed super power and the line about how his “hands are rated by Zagat’s” gave me a chuckle. And the entire video gave me the impression there’s still some level of calculus and engineering going on inside Sheen’s incomprehensible mind that’s influencing his madness.
by Marc Hustvedt on March 9th, 2011
Web shows about food are becoming so common I think I’ve lost count—VendrTV, Food Star, Cooking with Nonna, 12-Second Cocktails—but scripted comedies about hard core foodies? Those were sadly missing until now. Thankfully one new series, Foodies, explores the conflicted machinations of a foodie culture emboldened by dozens of competition reality shows and celebrity chefs.
The American foodie is the modern derivation of the post-war French culinary zealot that infiltrated kitchens of a newly prosperous middle class. Only now it has anexed itself farther from “Anyone Can Cook” and Julia Child, morphing instead into a refined form of geek in constant distrust of the mainstream palate. This of course leads to a yuppie one-upmanship that finds even the sanest amongst us heading to Williams-Sonoma insisting on Mauviel copper saute pans instead of (gasp) that copper core nonsense.
Grant shot the project under the AFTRA new media contract, which helped seal the deal on his cast of working actors like Daniel Franzese (Mean Girls), Carlee Avers (Veronica Mars), Sean Hankinson (Prom Queen), Jeffery Self (30 Rock, 90210) and Anne Lane (Dorm Life).
by Drew Baldwin on March 9th, 2011
For those of you who haven’t seen the latest edition of Tubefilter Reload, our monthly newsletter, we’re having a little party at SXSW:
Ok I lied. We’re having a big party. Huge. Mega. Epic. We’ve teamed up with ValleyGirl.TV (the folks behind The Valley Girl Show and Lalawag) to throw a bash to kick off South By Southwest Interactive in celebration of our panel Decision Trees: YouTube’s New Breed of Interactive Storytellers on Sunday, March13 at 9:30 am.
We’ve booked downtown Austin hotspot Cedar Door, just a block away from the Convention Center. Starting at 7:00 pm, we’ll have three solid hours of free eatin’, free boozin’, and free mixin’ it up with online video makers from around the globe.
Jesse Draper and the team at ValleyGirl.TV attract fans of Ellen DeGeneres, Charlie Rose, Michael Arrington and everyone in between.
RSVP is required, so act now before we run out of tickets.
A special thanks to our community sponsors
by Drew Baldwin on March 8th, 2011
Major League Baseball and Endemol USA are teaming up to give one baseball fan the opportunity to move to New York to watch every single baseball game of the season and share his or her experience in a new web series.
Dream Job, the series is entitled, is set to launch by Opening Day, March 31, 2011. From the MLB site:
Major League Baseball is casting for an innovative new experience, which will require one lucky fan to eat, sleep, and live baseball for an entire season. If you’re a baseball fanatic and have an engaging, fun personality, this is the dream job for you.
Your new full-time job will be to literally follow baseball non-stop, as you will be charged with watching every single game of the 2011 season, blogging about all your thoughts and opinions, and discussing the hottest topics in baseball.
Applications closed last night at midnight. The project has received over 5,000 submissions since the online application was posted Feb. 17, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The lucky fan will be set up in an apartment in New York City with a live feed of every game, and will share his or her experience with baseball fans via social media, video blogs and web series episodes
by Marc Hustvedt on March 8th, 2011
Online video and web series news worth clicking today:
BlackBoxTV is back with another episode, “More Than You Can Chew,” of its scripted short-form Twilight Zone inspired creeper series. This time producers Tony Valenzuela and Philip DeFranco tapped film buff and Totally Rad Show co-host Dan Trachtenberg to direct the 12th installment. [BlackBoxTV on YouTube]
YouTube’s lip-syncing breakout Keenan Cahill, who has been known for some A-list drop-ins like 50-Cent, has broken 1 million views for his first branded web video today (see below). Jennifer Aniston may have helped of course. The company is Smart Water and Aniston plays the celeb-learning-the-internet bit quite well, sporting everything from puppies to dancing babies and the actual Double Rainbow guy. Verdict? This one worked—it’s the #1 Most Viewed video today in the entire world—though viral might not be the right word since Aniston is pretty sick to begin with. [smartwater on YouTube]
