by Marc Hustvedt on August 16th, 2011
It’s already time to start thinking about SXSW Interactive again—even if we’re still a full seven months away from Austin and our favorite annual internet-junkie fest. We tend to obsess over this one, calling it “summer camp for the internet,” and shouting about why your web series should have gone to SXSW. Heck, we even threw a party last year.
So now it’s time to seriously start planning your March 2012 travel plans.
Over 3,600 panel proposals were submitted for the 2012 SXSW Interactive Festival, according to organizers, with just a tight 500 slots open this time around. Quick, that’s what, a 13.9% acceptance rate?
We have literally scoured through hundreds upon hundreds of submissions and today we’ll try to help cut through the clutter of blah-blah publicist-submitted panel proposals about online video and find some actually intriguing ones to vote up. While fan voting on the submissions makes up just 30% of the overall determination of whether it makes the elusive SXSW cut or not, it can’t hurt to score high with attendees. The other 70% are determined by the Advisory Board and SXSW staffers.
First things first, do us a solid and head over to the PanelPicker and vote up our Tubefilter entry:
by Joshua Cohen on August 16th, 2011
It’s the middle of August. We’re a good 10 weeks from the autumnal equinox, three months from Thanksgiving, and less than 45 days past the halfway point of 2011. The Ricky’s stores in NYC haven’t yet changed the clothes on the ridiculously proportioned mannequins in their storefronts from whatever the sexually active kids are wearing these days to Halloween costumes geared towards post-college females. Still, Time Magazine thought today was a good day to proclaim the best websites of 2011. We can fault the publications odd exuberance to see the end of the year, but we can’t fault a handful of their choices.
My Damn Channel, Howcast, Big Think, and The Escapist all made Time’s list of top 50, to reside alongside other such web gems as Dear Photograph, turntable.fm, and Grantland. Big congrats to the good people at some of online video’s finest companies. Here’s to some readers of Time tuning in the four-and-a-half months left in 2011 and beyond.
by Joshua Cohen on August 16th, 2011
You want to watch a live stream of The Big Lebowski reunion? I can get you a link to the live stream of The Big Lebowski reunion, believe me. There are ways, dudes. You don’t wanna know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a link to the live stream of The Big Lebowski reunion right now in time for the 6PM EST Pre-Show with…Jeff “The Dude” Dowd, which will be followed by an 8PM EST Q&A with the cast, including Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore and T Bone Burnett.
Lebowski Fest and Universal Studios teamed up for the big event at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom to market the August 16 release of The Big Lebowski Limited Edition Blu-Ray. The above live stream powered by Livestream (which really ties the post together) is for all the amateurs in the room who weren’t able to score a ticket before they sold out and all those dudes that abide but live outside the Tri-State area.
by Joshua Cohen on August 15th, 2011
I was getting around Los Angeles on Southern California’s most favorite form of transportation (I’m joking…LOL!), when, during a break from the Spanish language noticias, I noticed a couple of familiar voices. I looked up to see Jace Hall and Felicia Day talking shop on Transit TV in one LA County’s 2,000 or so buses equipped with the digital network’s screens.
“Pretty cool,” I thought to myself. Apparently someone at the city’s METRO bus system and Transit TV thought showing web series to the 1,184,224 Los Angelinos who make daily use of the city’s public transportation services was pretty cool, too. The two entities today announced they will screen the online original series Los Americans on LA METRO bus routes.
Created by One Economy (a “global non-profit that uses innovative approaches to deliver the power of technology and information to low-income people”) and distributed by One Economy’s Public Internet Channel (aka www.pic.tv), Los Americans is the eight-episode dramatic story of a “multi-generational, middle-income Mexican-American family” living in in Los Angeles (and verbally happy to not be living in Arizona). The program stars Esai Morales (Ritchie Valens fans know who I’m talkin’ ‘bout!), Lupe Ontiveros, Tony Plana, and Raymond Cruz (Breaking Bad fans know who I’m talkin’ ‘bout!) and takes a self-proclaimed “realistic and complex” look at many of the problems with which today’s American and Latino-American families struggle.
by Marc Hustvedt on August 15th, 2011
Jenna Marbles gained more subscribers this past month than any other YouTube channel, including the current overall top dog force that is Ray William Johnson.
It’s Monday, and that means time for our weekly Tubefilter video blog—now in its third week—of online video new worth knowing. In it we cover the lighting rise of Boston-based Jenna Marbles into the Top 100 most subscribed channels, adding over 630,000 subscribers in just the past four months alone. She now sits at 63rd most subscribed (for now) with 843,127 subscribers. Our full interview with Jenna is coming out this week on Tubefilter’s YouTube channel, so be on the lookout for it.
We also recap the sold out (and standing room only) Tubefilter Meetup with Dane Boedigheimer, Dan Weinstein, Wilson Cleveland, Barrett Garese and Jason Calacanis from last week—a thorough recap, including the full recording of the panel can be found here.
We also review scripted comedy web series Leap Year on Hulu and feature our director to watch of the week, Sam Macaroni. Check it out, let us know what you think in the comments and if you have a video creator or show you think we should profile, just let us know.
by Joshua Cohen on August 15th, 2011
It’s back to school season! And all you K-12 graders and parents of K-12 graders know what that means. Time to get your back to school supplies on!
Even in this economy financial forecasters predict July through September retail sales will reach $467 billion, a 6.2% gain over last year. Target (aka Tarjay) is looking to cash in on the season with an original web series marketed towards artsy and craftsy school kids and their family members who hold the purse strings.
He Made, She Made is the latest online program from Disney Family and Disney Family’s FamilyFun.com featuring “every family’s Aha-inspiring guru,” Courtney Watkins. Developed in collaboration with and sponsored by Target, the program features Watkins and fellow DIY designer extraordinaire Jonathan Fong, showing you how to make budget-conscious, elementary school-friendly creations with a lot of imagination, a little elbow grease, and supplies from your friendly local neighborhood American retailing company.
If Watkins looks familiar in a DIY show geared towards pre-teens produced by Disney, that’s because this is the second such project in which she’s starred. The Possibility Shop aired its second season Clorox Company-sponsored season with Watkins as host in late 2010.
by Marc Hustvedt on August 15th, 2011
At this point, I’m of the camp that really digs the concept of pairing universally renown music artists with up-and-coming web video creators—especially in the mind altering worlds that machinima lets you play in. The profiles of the creators are certainly raised—lending some mainstream hooks to their otherwise niche style of filmmaking.
Last Monday The Crystal Method kicked off the new series with a music video collab from Kootra, notching a respectable, though not astounding, 420,000 views. This week it’s another rising star on Machinima’s deep bench of young filmmakers, Myoelectric—Dustin Valcalda and Justin Loebel—known for dozens of graphic, high energy machinima vids like the Super Death Montage (below).
Trance DJ Paul Oakenfold (above), an artist emerged from the edge of pop culture himself, lends his track “Tokyo” off his to-be-released album Pop Killer to the series. Tokyo is a apt choice for this experiment with machinima, the track signals a return to Oakenfold’s mid-90′s Goa trance style that vaulted him to the plateau where Hollywood came courting. That meant producing pop acts from Madonna to U2, and scoring adrenaline films like The Bourne Identity, Collateral and Swordfish.
by Joshua Cohen on August 14th, 2011
I get it, Puma. You want to be more social. You’re an 87-year-old German corporation known for manufacturing high-end athletic shoes, but looking to become more of a lifestyle brand for the active and attractive kids these days. So you signed Grammy-nominated Keri Hilson to promote your wares, hoping association with a hip R&B singer would make you a touch cooler to the 13 to 35-year-olds. The youngins absolutely love her and she’s sporting Lil Wayne’s seal of approval, so why not?
Maybe it’s worked, too. Maybe the Hilsonheads are showing off their “formstripes” instead of Nike swooshes and whatever you call Adidas’ pyramidy and shamrocky logos. But I’ll tell you what doesn’t really work. This original web series you’re making featuring Hilson’s European promo visit for her upcoming No Boys Allowed album.
