Tubefilter News

With three seasons, 25 episodes, 11+ million views, a number of accolades (including a few Streamy Awards), and a helluva lot of ardent fans, Anyone But Me just may be the most successful (in terms of both audience and acclaim) independently funded and produced piece of online original dramatic programming. That’s why its creators want to make sure its sendoff is something special.

Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward are wrapping up the hit New York City and State -based web series about a girl who likes girls in a post-9/11 world, but they’re bringing back all the original cast for one last installment. The pair are securing funding for the series finale as we read, in hopes to raise enough cash to begin shooting in January or February.

It’s kinda bittersweet, right? It’ll be sad to see a seemingly perennial programming staple of the online video world cease production, but it’s exciting to think about what the finale may entail and what its creators will create next.

I got in touch with Miller and Ward to ask them about making tough decisions, the final episode, and the future.

Tubefilter: Deciding to end Anyone But Me must’ve been a hard decision to make. How’d you do it?
Susan Miller: After launching Season Three, we agreed to take a break from the show and table all of our decisions regarding its future until we could clear our heads and assess the options. Three of our cast members had moved to Los Angeles, and despite the well meaning intentions of people who wanted to help us get sponsorship, it never materialized. So we had to face certain realities.

Fits and starts, that’s where much of the past five-plus years of online dramas and sci-fi series have been stuck. Some notable and pushing things forward, while many dragged the medium sideways with only comedy getting mainstream praise. But it’s fall of 2011, and there are signs the good stuff is finally here. RCVR debuted today from Machinima, as one of its largest and most ambitious new original series to date.

Not only is it a sci-fi drama, a genre well underserved on YouTube, it’s a period piece set in 1973 rural Arkansas. There’s a definite X-Files vibe here, with the story centering around a covert organization, led by Luke Weber (Daniel Bonjour), investigating extraterrestrial encounters, or, specifically a set of RCVRs who’s bodies are vessels of alien communications.

Premiering this week exclusively on Dailymotion is Ben and Burman, a new web series from actor/producer Ben Giroux (Bones, Psych) and his longtime frenemy and Second City’s Scott Burman. The story highlights the pair’s height deficiencies and their Odd Couple cohabitation, which, I’m told, kinda sorta emulates their real life friendship.

“We became known as best friends who also hated each other,” said Giroux. “I’m a neat-freak who appreciates order and hygiene. Burman is a slob who appreciates chaos at all times. Together, people started referring to us as a modern-day Odd Couple.

Striking up a unique friendship and creating a style of comedy Giroux describes as “if The Three Stooges had sex with South Park,” Giroux and Burman produced the twelve episode series. Then they teamed up with Gary Randall’s Grand Productions (Saving Grace, The Glades). The partnership had definite benefits, as the duo quickly got WME representation and began pitching a live-action and animated version of Ben and Burman around Hollywood. After almost selling the show to a cable network last year, they decided to release the web series while continuing to pitch a TV version.

Featuring cameos from recognizable actors such as Josh Sussman (Glee), Whit Hertford (Full House) and Will Harris (Friday Night Lights), the series is a fast-paced comedy that ventures into the absurd and risque (the duo pokes fun at Nazis, child trafficking, and drag quens), while still maintaining at least some semblance of cartoonish reality.

Tubefilter has again teamed up with The Caucus for Producers, Writers, & Directors—an alliance of television and new media content creators—to present “Television: A Preview of 2011/2012 Season” at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday, September 21, 2011.

The panel will handicap the 2011-2012 schedule in the context of the program development and pilot production for this season, and will cover the increase in reality programs and their effect on the industry. Also on the agenda are digital cross-platform issues such as social networking and webisode production and distribution.

Panelists:
• Paul Buccieri, President & CEO, ITV Studios America
• Joel Gallen, The Sing Off, America’s Best Dance Crew
• Michael Lombardo, President of Programming, HBO
• Lizzy Weiss, Creator and EP, Switched at Birth
• Greg Yaitanes, Executive Producer, House M

Moderator: Brian Lowry, Variety

Remember AtomFilms? An icon ahead of its time. At this point it would have been pushing north of 80 in internet years, but the scrappy video startup from 1998 was one of the first to introduce a platform for uploading and sharing short films and funny videos, well before YouTube’s grand ascendancy. It spawned a [...]

Video game friendly network G4 launched G4 University Week, a video series designed to help job seekers crack into the video game industry.

G4U features a “Complete Guide to Landing a Video Game Job,” which includes school guides or programs like Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab in Boston, The Gnomon Workshop, and The Guildhall at SMU, and a How-To section on becoming a professional in the video game industry, such as a producer, journalist, community manager, game artist, game tester, and eSports commentator.

The comprehensive course also features job advice from Irrational Games’ Ken Levine, Adam Sessler from G4tv and X-Play, and Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk from BioWare, among others, and also informative testimonies from working professionals from Bethesda Softworks, Blizzard Entertainment, and Guerilla Games, as well as composers, level designers and game testers from top games.

And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a career resource guide to help the aspiring video game pro get started, included what blogs to read, basic software and other resources, networking opportunities, and

Oh Fred, he’s like our little brother who went off to boarding school. A TV movie for Nickeldeon—which ended up being the most watched movie on cable TV in 2010—then a yet-to-be-released sequel flick. But the creator of the former #1 Most Subscribed channel had been noticeably absent from YouTube, slipping down to #6 spot [...]

The ninth iteration of Bravo’s Emmy Award-winning reality culinary competition Top Chef will make its debut Wednesday, November 2. A new Top Chef online companion series that offers contestants who have packed their knives and gone an opportunity to still claim the coveted title of Top Chef and its associated prize money will premiere shortly thereafter.

D.M. Levine at Adweek reports Top Chef: The Last Kitchen features an “alternate round of cook-offs” for all the Top Chef Season 9 wannabes who will hear this tune. But the show won’t be any kind of low-budget online spin-off. The competition in the loser’s bracket will be shot in the same locations by the same production teams and hosted by the same soul patch-sporting, Diet Coke-consuming, celebrity chef Tom Colicchio as its television counterpart.

As online viewers watch to see which eliminated contestant will battle back to earn a place at the final Judges Table on TV, those viewers will be incentivized to stay tuned by way of prizes for participating in polls and other interactive programming components. Levine also notes long standing Top Chef sponsor Toyota will be along for the ride on the web.

We’ve seen a number of companion web series to dramatic television programs that further extend the storylines and give hardcore fans an opportunity to delve deeper into fictional worlds. In regards to reality programming, YouTube annualy parnters with America’s Got Talent for a special episode bringing basement-born online video stars into the competition. But Top Chef: The Last Kitchen looks to be the most serious and integrated effort from a television network to incorporate a companion series of any kind into its programming.