Tubefilter News

Back in January, we reported on the public beta of the Vpype Live Broadcaster, a live interactive video application for Facebook. On March 15th at the Social Media World Forum in London, the social video company officially announced the release of the application, which is now available to all 400+ million Facebook users.

The application boasts several features, most of which mirror those available through comptetitors such at Ustream, Stickam, and Livestream, but of course limited to Facebook users. This may on the surface seem like a limiting factor, and yes, those without Facebook profiles may not find the service as useful, but within the Facebook structure, the application requires nothing but a click to setup and is particularly useful for creating live, interactive events on fan pages. It can even create a tab on your profile for easy organization and accessibility.

I decided to try out the app yesterday evening and made a few notes on what I liked and didn’t like. These are by no means an exhaustive list as I have not yet had a chance to try out all it’s functions, but it will give a basic insight into what a first-time user might expect.

On starting a broadcast, you are asked whether or not you want to post that you started a broadcast to your profile and I liked having the option. There was also a list of information such as how long you wanted the broadcast to be (15 minutes was the minimum option) and how many people would be viewing (maximum was 300). I wonder how this would effect, say, 1 hour shows thast happen to go long or shows that wish to have more viewers than 300.
I was using my internal microphone and the volume on my computer was turned on. This resulted in horrible feedback upon starting my broadcast. Once I muted my speakers, it was fine but I was afraid that I was not recording sound. Upon playback, I discovered I was. So when I broadcast next, I will have to remember to mute my speakers ahead of time.
Recorded shows are automatically archived ALONG WITH chat. I really like this feature as often a lot of valuable information gets discussed in chat that isn’t always referenced in broadcast.
The application boasts several features, most of which mirror those available through comptetitors such at Ustream, Stickam, and LiveStream, but of course limited to Facebook users. This may on the surface seem like a limiting factor, and yes, those without Facebook profiles may not find the service as useful, but within the Facebook structure, the application requires nothing but a click to setup and is particularly useful for creating live, interactive events on fan pages. It can even create a tab on your profile for easy organization and accessibility.

I decided to try out the app yesterday evening and made a few notes on what I liked and didn’t like. These are by no means an exhaustive list as I have not yet had a chance to try out all it’s functions, but it will give a basic insight into what a first-time user might expect.

Tongal jumped on board the MacGruber buzz bus this week at SXSW, launching a video contest for user-generated videos linked to the ROGUE Pictures film based on the popular SNL character “MacGruber.”

A panel of judges will then select five winning pitches that will be announced on tongal.com/macgruber on March 30 to move on to the next phase, which asks participants get to film and submit a 90-second video segment based on the top pitches. There is additional chance for prizes for watching and predicting the five winning video submissions. The grand prize for the top video is a ‘Hometown Screening’ of MacGruber as well as the five winning videos receiving cash prizes.

“We had been talking with Randall (Cox, EVP International Business and Corporate Development of Relativity Media) for a while about how to use Tongal as a social media platform to compliment Rogue releases,” said James DeJulio, co-founder and president of Tongal. “Especially if the campaign would result in user generated content. MacGruber was a perfect fit because of the overall level of awareness and enthusiasm for the character.”
Their latest foray into their unique brand of reward-based user-generated content, announced at SXSW, is a partnership with ROGUE Pictures, specifically, the feature film based on the popular Saturday Night Live character MacGruber. “We had been talking with Randall (Cox, EVP International Business and Corporate Development of Relativity Media) for a while about how to use Tongal as a social media platform to compliment Rogue releases,” said James DeJulio, co-founder and president of Tongal. “Especially if the campaign would result in user generated content. MacGruber was a perfect fit because of the overall level of awareness and enthusiasm for the character.”

After shutting its doors last spring and then being resurrected by original founder Drew Massey, maniaTV is ready to get back to its roots: producing original celebrity-driven content. After having past success with talk shows that featured the likes of Tom Green and Dave Navarro, the site will be releasing at least three new original series this summer starting with frat-brother friendly Celebrity Rush.

Hosted by ExtraTV star Jerry Penacoli, he describes it as: “imagine Animal House meets Inside the Actor’s Studio. That’s Celebrity Rush.” The show is a weekly interview series taped live on the UCLA campus and will feature live audience participation. It is scheduled to being airing in August.

Some other projects in the works include Comedy Club Live, which will feature known as well as undiscovered comics and hosted by celebrity comics such as Jamie Kennedy, Wee-man’s Wrecked, a 10 episode series featuring Jackass star Jason Acuna, as well as new seasons of Tom Green Live and Navarro’s SpreadTV.

In a constant effort to improve the accessibility of Streamy-nominated content to members of not only the voting body of the IAWTV but to the public at large, the International Academy of Web Televison hosted bi-coastal Streamy Awards finalist screenings on March 11th, 2010, with one occurring in New York and the other in Los Angeles (which was also streamed live via Stickam). Each screening included a viewing of finalist nominees of 11 of the overall Streamy Awards categories and a presentation of various New Media professionals and creators.

Held at NYU’s Cantor Film Center and supported by NYU Tisch School of The Arts, The Writers Guild of America East, The Producers Guild New Media Council, and The New York Television Festival, the New York screening included a discussion with MyDamnChannel Founder and CEO Rob Barnett. Barnett presented his experiences in successfully providing popular entertainment content to the web including Wainy Days, The Iceman Commeth, and distributing Easy to Assemble, just to name a few. He revealed that beyond picking out the content to be developed, he takes a very hands off approach to the actually creative process, instead choosing to let the creators of the shows do what they do best: create. The audience of the New York screening, which was open to the public, consisted of a wide range of enthusiastic content creators, IAWTV members, and NYU students.

The Los Angeles screening was presented as a part of the the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) LifeRaft Live Stream series, a professional development program that provides insight into the business of acting through seminars. Following the viewing panel discussion with nominated producers and creators, all of which were part of SAG signatory shows, was presented to an audience of IAWTV and SAG members. Moderated by Drew Baldwin, Co-Founder of Tubefilter, the panelists included Aaliyah Williams and Anastasia Ali (producers, Buppies), Ernest Vecchione (creator, Sex Ed), Sandeep Parikh, (creator /writer/director, The Legend of Neil), and Jonathan Stern (producer, Wainy Days). Panelists shared their insights across a wide array of experiences; from how funding and distribution effect production, to the importance of social media tools such as Twitter; and fielded questions from not only the audience in attendance but from the internet viewers, with the Stickam feed count exceeding 73,000 viewers, with a peak concurrent audience of 3,266 (per Stickam).

Inspired by the Playstation video game of the same name, Infamous shows us a world where everyday people have the regular occurance of having to deal with the fact that they are suddenly shooting lightning out of their body or hearing someone’s thoughts. A world where anyone can suddenly find themselves with superpowers and have the tough decision of whether to use their abilities for either good or evil…or sometimes a little of both. “[Co-creator] Greg [Washington] and I are both avid comic book readers,” said co-creator Joey Barto. “So, the story is kind of an extension of that. We love revenge stories, we love dark stories, we love anti-heroes, and this is a really great story about a very dark, dark anti-hero.”

Created by Barto, Washington, John Chambers, Harvard Taylor, and Travis Barth, produced by Newborn Productions and Cultivate Media Productions and shot locally in Shreveport, Louisiana, the series sets out to prove you can create high-quality, complex, and visually stimulating content outside of the heavilly debated “Los Angeles Bubble”. Said Washington: “We have built a great relationship with two local studios here in Shreveport; Fairfield Studios and Crain Video, that have donated equipment and studio space for the production of Infamous.”

“Shooting in Louisiana, Shreveport in particular, gives us so many incredible options for backgrounds,” continued Washington. “Shreveport has passed for California, New York, New Orleans, Texas, and many other states because of its unique structure and setup. It is the perfect location for a production like ours with a very limited budget. And Southern hospitality has been extended above and beyond.”

With over 15 million views, season 1 of Married on MySpace is the most watched web series MySpace has ever produced, according to numbers from the company. Endemol USA and MySpace are hoping to match and perhaps even surpass that success by bringing the popular, fan-driven show back for a second season.

The season premiered this week with the unveiling of this seasons couple, Graeham and Dehlia, as they begin their journey to the alter…and they are at the mercy of the viewers to choose every aspect of the ceremony. The audience is currently being asked to vote on the what wedding bands the couple will give each other to express thier lifelong devotion to ech other with (my vote is on the “White Gold Wreath”, it’s stunning!). Future episodes will have audience members choosing the dress, location, planning of the bachelor and bachelorette parties (someone better jump out of a cake, I’m just saying), etc.

With all these decisions needing to be made, the series is bursting at the seems with product placement opportunities. Current sponsors include include Hewlwtt-Packard, JCPenney, the FOX Searchlight film Our Family Wedding,The Knot, and Hearst.

“Known as the last great race on the earth, the Iditarod is an 1150-mile sled dog race across the most dangerous and extreme terrain of Alaska. Fifty-eight year old Kathy Frederick is one of the oldest female rookie competitors to ever compete in this treacherous race and I, Leslie Morgan will be documenting her journey.” This is, in a nutshell, the premise for the unique documentary web series 1150 Project created by the one-woman producing dynamo Leslie Morgan. The series is literally unfolding right now, as Leslie follows Kathy currently racing in this year’s Iditarod. Tubefilter talked via e-mail (as she is currently still in Alaska working on the series) with this inspiring creator to get the inside scoop on this truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Tubefilter: What was the inspiration behind this project? How did you and Kathy meet?

I have been interested in finding a documentary project about someone living out a dream, Lemonade: The Movie and David Lynch’s The Interview Project inspired this web series. I met Kathy online after a mutual friend told me about her and her website. When I saw she needed a volunteer for three months to help her out managing her household I thought I could help her, but I also wanted to document her journey. I have been interested in producing a web based project for some time and thought rather than taking months to try and make a feature why not try to film and edit in Alaska, posting episodes as I go.

Included in President Obama’s commencement address at Note Dame University last year was a desire to find ways to communicate about a workable solution to the problem of unintended pregnancies. A Southern California-based independent media company called Yellow Line Studios wanted to help give that desire a voice. And so they created Bump+.

Using the device of a fictional reality show, Bump+ follows the stories of three women, all in their first four weeks of pregnancy, as they weigh the pros and cons of continuing to full term. Denise is almost a child herself, though this is her third pregnancy with signs they were results of domestic abuse, Hailey is a sorority girl who seems to care more about what being on the show can do for her than her pregnancy, and Katie is facing the tough decision of what to tell her husband when he returns from Iraq…because the father isn’t him.

Launching on the eve of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the show has been releasing 2 episodes a week since February 1st, all the while fostering an open and honest communication with and between its audience. Though the production itself is clearly not trying to present itself as a true documentary, the comments show a sincere desire to communicate with the fictional women involved and in the end, the audience influences the final decisions of the women. Several alternate endings were shot and however the story is lead, the project intends to follow-through with it. One of the women may decide to keep their baby while another opts for abortion…one may choose an entirely different option altogether.