by Drew Baldwin on March 2nd, 2011
Last friday Jon M. Chu and LXD Ventures released two new short films from the The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers: Game On and Matched.
Both shorts are based on The LXD’s unique brand of storytelling through dance and movement.
Game On, shot in 3D, will be presented in movie theaters at the start of Paramount Pictures’ Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Director’s Fan Cut, and stars The LXD member Chadd “Madd Chadd” Smith and Kendra Andrews.
Matched, starring Harry Shum, Jr. (Glee, The LXD) and featuring performances by several LXD members, will be released on Hulu.com and Joost.
The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers is produced by Chu and Hieu Ho in partnership with Agility Studios. Since its debut on Hulu.com in 2010, The LXD has been listed as the most popular program in the action and adventure channel with episodes frequently ranking #1 most popular videos. The series was recently honored at NATPE’s Digital Luminary Awards (co-presented by Tubefilter) for Best
by Marc Hustvedt on March 2nd, 2011
Parody, video games and the internet have always been a three’s company of buddiness. CollegeHumor’s Dorkly, YouTube 8-bit parodies, and of course Atom’s long-running and recently ended Zelda spoof, The Legend of Neil all feasted from the table of viewers nostalgic for the video games of their youth.
Creator Matt Lewis still saw plenty of flesh on this comedy bone, crafting an elaborately detailed parody of over a dozen video game characters in what would become his first leap into web series with Video Game Reunion, set to bow March 8th on Atom and GameTrailers.
The series opts for the lighter, familiar mockumentary riff on the idea of the real lives of game characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser and Mega Man—not as dark as the neo-noir sendup of the Mario Bros. and the Koopa Kingdom in 2008’s There Will Be Brawl. The main conceit of the show being that all of those iconic game characters were actually played by actors on sound stages. So now, years after their games were dumped into bargain bins, the cast are getting back together for one big public reunion in Las Vegas in hopes of rebooting their careers. “Of course, things go completely bonkers,” added Lewis.
Lewis cast a mix of recognizable faces in web series like Brendan Bradley (Squatters), Woody Tondorf (Elevator), Craig Frank (Compulsions) and Haley Mancini (Prom Queen), with new-to-web names like Britain Spellings, Bonjah, Amy Bloom and Courtney Merritt.
by Drew Baldwin on March 1st, 2011
In celebration of its 500 millionth stream, Yahoo! TV’s most popular web series Primetime in No Time is tapping web celebrities Michelle Phan, DeStorm Power, and Soleil Moon Frye to guest co-host the show between March 28 and March 30.
Primetime in No Time offers a comical three-minute roundup of the previous night’s primetime TV shows. Host comedian Frank Nicotero (former host of comedy game show Street Smarts) will hand over the reins to the guest hosts, who are promoting a contest starting today on the Yahoo! Facebook page in which fans can enter to win a trip to Los Angeles to watch the special episodes being made.
Phan, the make-up and beauty guru whose YouTube channel has racked up 1.2 million subscribers with over 333 million video views, is the #1 most subscribed female on YouTube. Singer, songwriter, and video editor DeStorm Power is another YouTube powerhouse whose music has been featured in national commercial spots for major brands. And Frye, who starred in the 80s NBC sitcom Punky Brewster, now
by Joshua Cohen on March 1st, 2011
Zach Anner’s journey to winning his very own show on Oprah’s OWN cable television network and soon becoming the Winfrey of Generation Next hadn’t quite begun in 2008 in a convention hall at SXSW in Austin, Texas with an interview from yours truly about Anner’s mockumentary web series, but I’m mentioning all that as a selfish way for me to be able to say, “I knew the guy when…”
Anner’s journey from Austin-based comic to cable television host actually began in June 2010 when he uploaded a video submission to be a contestant on the reality TV program Your OWN Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star. 4Chan, Reddit, Jon Mayer, and then the internet at large almost immediately endorsed the video and championed Mayer as their feel-good TV host of the future.
Your OWN Show included a series of elimination tests, all of which Anner obviously aced, until the pack was whittled down to two finalists. Yesterday, in true she’s-full-of-heart-warming-surprises Oprah fashion, the Queen of all media announced both finalists won the grand prize.
Kristina Kuzmic-Crocco will be the star of her own cooking show Fearless Kitchen, while Anner will take viewers around the globe in the travel show Rollin’ Around the World. Mark Burnett Productions will produce at least six episodes of both series and is scheduled to begin shooting within a few months.
by Logan Rapp on March 1st, 2011
The focus on masculinity (and super-sizing it), the creation of Spike TV, and just about anything that demands you say “man” two octaves lower than your normal voice – it all can be traced back to 1999, with a single quote from a movie you guys probably didn’t watch:
We’re a generation of men raised by women.
It’s from Fight Club. At the time of its release, the film battled nancy-boy movies like Shakespeare in Love (which won Best Picture – Fincher yet again doesn’t get his due), and held onto the torch passed down from the middle-aged-oriented Home Improvement and delivered the fire of machismo to the masses.
There’ve been dozens if not hundreds and thousands of hyper-masculine shows and films, so the web series Masculathon has quite a bit of baggage to carry from the very start. Taking “a demented look at the many issues afflicting modern men,” it starts Paul Bellini (writer/actor, Kids In The Hall) as ‘The Man,’ who brought together a number of average men to compete and carry on the torch to claim his title.
So far, there’s only one main episode, but plenty of extras. The pilot, ‘Eat Fist and Die,’ has a quirky sensibility to it, and the technical side of things are well done, but there wasn’t much to it. It was a simple announcement of the competition (after, quite possibly, the most un-manly fight ever) and that was it.
