Tubefilter News

Break Media is one of online video’s growing powerhouses, now reaching over 140 million people a month through its network of sites firmly footed in the psyche of young male webizens. It may be easy to quickly cast Break in the corner of fail videos and puppy freakouts, still core canon over at its flagship Break.com.

But the business of Break Media is growing up, recognizing the incresing demand for premium content from the advertsising world still squeamish to commit TV-level dollars into online video projects. Slowly, Break is shifting to adapt and cozing up to the Hollywood production establishment that knows a thing or two about producing premium. And the company itself has bloomed to a headcount now over 200 employees, most based in Los Angeles where several video-heavy content startups (or once-startups) like Hulu, Maker Studios, Machinima and Mahalo call home.

The first move was to hire former Endeavour agent Greg Siegel earlier this year, as Break’s new SVP of Entertainment Development, bringing with him a deep roster of relationships with talent and production partners. The move mirrors YouTube’s hiring of Robert Kyncl out of Netflix to head up that company’s major Hollywood-driven premium content push.

Now this week comes word that Break has signed a content development deal with Reveille Productions to create original digital series for the network. Reveille, most know for its hit TV properties like The Office, Ugly Betty and The Biggest Loser, has its fair share of web series projects under its belt, like Subway’s Fit to Boom for MSN and daily show Who Knew? for Yahoo.

The trailers for never-made cinematic masterpieces Satan’s Alley starring Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus as Father O’Malley, The Fatties 2 starring Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy in a kinda Klumps reboot, and Scorcher VI starring Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman are the best fake movie teasers you’ve ever seen. You’ll remember [...]

Even today, when I mention I write about web series, I get nonplussed looks and requests for examples. But there is one series I see friends consistently cheer and evangelize: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. “Have you seen it?!” I hear. “You have to see it!”

It’s quite a feat for the low-budget indie from creator and star Issa Rae. “I love this web space,” she said in an interview. “This is fertile land. We can take advantage of it in any way we want to at this point.”

Rae is already on the leading edge of a rapidly growing wave of black web producers, alongside the likes of Al Thompson (Johnny B. Homeless, Lenox Avenue, Odessa) and Robert Townsend (Diary of a Single Mom). Recently she’s been everywhere. Arianna Huffington name-dropped her series when introducing Huffington Post’s BlackVoices – Rae wrote an inaugural piece. She’s been profiled in Essence, The Root, Madame Noire and Clutch. Her success caught the industry’s eye: now Rae is repped by UTA and 3Arts.

To top it off, Rae’s fans recently funded the rest of the show’s first season through a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. Rae asked for $30,000. She’s raised over $50,000 (and counting!) . It’s little mystery how she did it: the series’ Facebook page has over 11,000 fans, the campaign over 1,500 contributors.

Awkward Black Girl follows the story of J, played by Rae, as she tries to navigate uncomfortable personal and professional situations, from inappropriate coworkers to bizarre love triangles.

My Damn Channel Founder and CEO Rob Barnett recently told us to expect “more” online original programming to come out of his new media studio (aka the four-year-old home of such online video hits like You Suck at Photoshop, Wainy Days, and Gigi). Barnett and company just found the first of that “more” this past week at the Just for Laughs Comedy Conference in Montreal, Canada.

Toronto’s very own award-winning animation and production shop Smiley Guy Studios landed a development deal with My Damn Channel for winning a pitch contest at the conference. Their interactive cartoon comedy View U – “about four college friends who do anything and everything to get ten million clicks of fame” – impressed an esteemed panel of judges including Barnett, Ben Relles of YouTube Next, Spencer Griffin of CollegeHumor, and Eric Mortensen of blip.tv.

The five-minute pitch from Smiley Guy Studios Executive Producer Jonas Diamond beat out two other pitch competition finalists for the deal. Jeff the Chosen One, a situational comedy about “magic, destiny, and idiots” from Matt Alden and Paul Foxcroft, and Bill and Sons Towing, a dramatic comedy series from Ready, Set, Panic.

The ‘About Us’ section on the website for the new Gilt Taste (which is the latest offshoot of Gilt.com, which is an online provider of insider access to top deals on designer consumer products) begins with 3 simple words, “We love food.”

Everything about the Gilt Taste site supports that mantra, from the tangible passion for artisanal foods to chef-quality equipment. With the expertise of Ruth Reichl, Francis Lam, Melissa Clark and Barry Estabrook, this interactive online food magazine offers top of the line products and inspirational photos, features, and videos to help dedicated foodies bring their culinary dreams to life. Gilt Taste has quickly become the online shopping haven for food adventurers, from the the scotch and stout truffles made by Valerie Confections to La Quericia’s Porkucopia assortment, and everything in between. And (like Gilt proper) there’s video…

With the content ranging from Chef Daniel Boulud sharing his rare cookbook collection to whimsical videos of dancing salt shakers, the site is as entertaining as it is a helpful gourmet resource.

We talked to Gilt Taste managing editor, Jennifer Pelka, who shared some insights into how the video content has become a creative outlet for filmmakers who love food and why the videos are so important to the success of Gilt Taste.

Tubefilter: Why was it important for you to include videos on Gilt Taste?

Jennifer Pelka: Pretty simply, they’re fun. We like to create many different ways for people to be inspired by food, and we feel empowered to work within many formats – scenic videos, music videos, stop-animation, illustrations, comics, infographics. Soon we’ll be doing downloadable audio podcasts and we’re working on a lot of interactive innovations for our mobile releases. With all of the video we create, we’re always searching for ways to make them beautiful, inspired, inspiring and authentic.

The Crystal Method have always been alchemists of sound, experimenting with tonal subtleties and electronic dance grooves since the early 90′s. That’s why news of the LA-based duo playing around with video game engines for their latest music video doesn’t really surprise me.

TCM’s Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland opted for an all-machinima based video for their new track “Play For Real” (which also features Heavy) and launched the video (below) late yesterday as part of Machinima’s (the network) new music video series.

As part of the distro plan, the track in the video, “Play For Real,” is available now for one week only as a free download for the fans directly from the band’s website, while a full digital EP including remixes of the song by Dirtyphonics, Le Castle Vania, Left/Right & Digital Pizza and Team Awesome will be released August 15 via TCM’s own Tiny e Records.

Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward launched Anyone But Me in 2008 under the umbrella of Strike.TV, the new media distribution company conceived in the Writers Guild of America picket lines. Since then, Strike.TV has found a new partner in MetaCafe and Miller and Ward’s original web series about the experiences of Vivian McMillan (played by Rachael Hip-Flores) – a postpubescent girl who likes girls living in a post-9/11 New York State and City world – has thrived.

In three years, the show has uploaded 25 installments across three seasons (the last of which was partially supported by fans), which all together across all the show’s distribution outlets have accumulated nearly 11 milion views. Not bad for an independent web drama!

Now that Anyone But Me crossed is now a member of the eight figure viewcount club, I thought it might be a good time to dive a little deeper into those numbers with Miller and Ward and figure out how the series got there. First off, I asked the pair if there was any one moment in the past three years they thought was especially significant in getting viewers and building a fanbase:

Tina Cesa Ward: Besides our initial boost from landing on AfterEllen.com in 2008, our numbers have continued to grow. Our presence on YouTube has gotten stronger which has given us a strong steady view count daily whether we are releasing new episodes or not. I also would think that the press and recognition we’ve received throughout the three seasons has contributed to our numbers growth as well.

Susan Miller: It’s never one thing. So many crucial voices rallied behind us. The first article Joan Lipkin wrote about us for ‘Windy City.’ Kate Clinton’s link to Anyone But Me on her widely read newsletter helped establish a niche audience in the gay community. The celebrity videos Zachary Quinto, Liza Weil, Eric Stoltz, Paul Adelstein & Hamish Linklater did on behalf of the show were great. And the talent of our actors brought them and the show even more recognition on the web. Every one of these contributions allowed us to stay in the game and build momentum. And staying is a slowly built, constantly attended, hard won thing.

Second, in case you’re curious, here are the views Anyone But Me’s received broken down by video hosting service. Note Anyone But Me was originally distributed via Strike.TV and Strike.TV’s YouTube channel. Also note blip.tv is AnyoneButMeWebSeries.com’s player of choice, as well as the embed of choice for high-trafficked sites that showcase episodes like AfterEllen.com.

At this point you have to really look at Machinima as a mega-network. There are so many shows and videos coming out of the 2.5 billion-view behemoth YouTube channel—plus another 8.5 billion from channels in its network—that this is one massive fire hose. Of course we’re talking about Machinima, the network with a big M, and not to be confused with litte ‘m’ machinima, the much broader term for game engine based storytelling that inspired the company’s name.

Their latest original comedy web series Supremium is anything but machinima. The live-action send-up of The Office, IT Crowd and Extras sets itself in a modest boutique gaming studio called Supremium, where the five leads illustrate their many oddball ways of avoiding working.

Creators Robert Welkner and Hailey Bright, longtime collaborators in web video land through their hosted gaming series COIN-OP TV, pitched the show to Machinima who has been hungry to expand beyond its core hosted game recaps and classic machinima fare.