Tubefilter News

Snowy greetings from Park City, Utah, home of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival!

This year, in addition to introducing the world to many of the independent films we’ll be talking about for the next 12 months, Sundance embraced new media. Through official programs and partnerships as well as non-official events, the possibilities and promise of the Internets as a creative and distribution medium was the subject of much discussion.

On Friday, January 22nd, the fest kicked off with Digital Dive, an all-day, immersive event aimed at upping the digital media literacy of attending filmmakers. Jigsaw Global produced the event in tandem with the Festival. Panels were held at the New Frontier on Main (NFOM), the home venue for the New Frontier strand of the fest, which focuses on experimental work that “explores the limits of traditional aesthetics and the narrative structure of filmmaking.” In other words, the section features lots of cool, site-specific pieces that embrace everything from art installations to Google Earth to multimedia performances.

Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival senior programmer and curator of the NFOM exhibition, told me that Sundance decided to do the Digital Dive in response to Festival filmmakers’ queries about new media. She said that in talking with them, many were curious about taking advantage of online opportunities, but didn’t feel they had a proper understanding of the digital tools at their disposal.

Panels focused on building websites, using social media, iPhone apps and the digital development process. Lisa Osborne, founder, Jigsaw Media, was thrilled with the turnout for the event, and with Sundance’s commitment to keeping the festival relevant and modern. “A snowstorm hit the night before the workshop, so we were shocked when we opened the doors at 10:30 am the next day and there was a crowd of people waiting to get in,” says Osborne. “By the time the social media panel started at noon, we had to add more seats to the 115 that were already in the room and turn away a long line of people. So, yeah, I think that filmmakers are hungry for digital media training and advice. They want to know what works, how much it costs, and who are the best in the business. I can’t wait to do this again at another festival.”

I attended “Cross-Platform Storytelling for Filmmakers,” which showcased several innovative projects that made use of both online and real-world elements. Julia Oh and Rudy Adler from Wieden + Kennedy presented the marketing strategy for Focus Features’ Coraline; MTV’s EVP of New Media David Gale gave us a sneak peek at Season Two of the channel’s $5 Cover; and Jason Yim, President and Executive Creative Director of Trigger LA, shared the process of creating cutting-edge content for District 9 for Sony Pictures.

One of the biggest concerns amongst web content creators is that branded entertainment will destroy artistic expression as product integration increasingly compromises story and vision. However, producer/directors Alex Johnson and Lance Weiler of the Workbook Project (WBP) are attempting to do just the opposite with RADAR, which premiered on yesterday on Babelgum.

RADAR, produced by WBP Labs, is a weekly three-minute, made-for-mobile and web series that goes behind-the-scenes of innovative projects and events across different creative disciplines. Season Two highlights include episodes about the live art event Art Battles, 3D printing startup Makerbot/NYC Resistor, performance artists Undetermined Measurements and Mark Horowitz’s Google Maps Road Trip. 

Johnson, a former interactive strategist at Adventure Pictures and advertising agency Deep Focus, is taking the lessons she learned there and using them to support and showcase cutting edge work. In the case of RADAR, the brand is the art itself. Says Johnson, “My background is in branded content and in advertising, so it’s really working with the contributors to put their product on a pedestal and ask ‘How can we help you?’”

By contributors, Johnson means the subject of each piece. RADAR refers to them as such because each is integrally involved in the making of their episode. By treating each subject as a collaborator, RADAR directors are able to go deep behind the scenes of the creative process, share material with the contributors and work out the best way to showcase the group or event. Explains Johnson, “Rather than being reportage or news, where we just cover something that’s happening, we try and talk to the contributors and figure out how do we take this to the next stage in terms of representing what they do in an interesting and visually engaging way. And sometimes that’s actually putting on an event ourselves or helping them do that.”

I’ve been to a ton of panels on the Future of Web Series Production, but most of them take place at conferences like Digital Hollywood, which are dedicated to new media. On Sunday, October 11th, independent film organization Film Independent (FIND) got into the act at the FIND Filmmaker Forum with a panel entitled “Going Online: New Stories for New Media.”

In the midst of a weekend filled with sessions covering the art and business of indie film, the panel gave the producers, writers and directors in attendance a look into the possibilities the smallest screen has to offer. The session was specifically focused on creating content for the web, as opposed to using the web as a means of distribution for feature films. Producer Ami Armstrong (Mr. Nice) moderated, and panelists included Jonathan Stern (Producer, Centrifugal Films), David Worthen (Sr. Vice President, Fox Digital Studio), Scott Sanders (Director, Black Dynamite) and Mike Farah (Producer, Funny or Die).

Armstrong kicked off the session with the question, “Who’s actually watching all these videos online?” The general consensus was that while so far the young male demo has dominated, there is an emerging female audience for web content. Panelists cited breakout shows In the Motherhood, an MSN online original that was picked up for broadcast television by ABC, and Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy.

Stern, producer of Wainy Days, Children’s Hospital and Hot Sluts, says that he is starting to put together a few shows created by women over 30. “It’s almost easier to get a female-driven show going right now,” says Stern, “because the sponsors are looking for it. The Axe’s of the world already have a foothold in that space.”

I woke up Sunday morning, slid into my skinny jeans, a low-cut, tight black shirt, and stilettos; and slipped on a pair of shades. There’s something about going to visit the set of a series that has been labeled “slick,” “sexy,” and “dangerous” that just makes a gal want to look good…even at 7:00 a.m.

And just why was I dragging myself out of bed at such a god-awful hour on a weekend? To get a first-hand glimpse of the shooting of The Bannen Way, the highly anticipated new web series from Sony Pictures Television set to debut on Crackle.com this January. In case you missed the story: Jesse Warren and Mark Gantt debuted the trailer last August, the cybersphere went wild over the racy action series, ICM signed the duo and then Sony snatched up the project based on the strength of the trailer and the scripts the pair had written. Plus, they landed a group of high-profile sponsors, including Jaguar, Ray-Ban and Apple.

Fast forward to October 6th, 2009. It’s the second to last day of the 19-day shoot near downtown Los Angeles. As I head into Lacy Street Studios, the door to the stage is slightly ajar. All I can see is a plaid-clad arm in flannel stretched across the opening, beckoning to a dark space beyond. My blood starts to race in anticipation of what I’m about to see. I expect cool, sexy, high stakes…instead, I get the most mellow action shoot ever.

U.P.M Shea Farrell walks me through the maze of a stage over to the monitors where director Warren is watching a hospital scene play out between Gantt, who plays title character Neal Bannen, and Michael Ironside, who plays Chief Bannen, Neal’s father. Extras in hospital scrubs and stethoscopes chill on the side while Warren calls out direction to the dolly crew and the actors. It’s one of the simpler shots – no sassy vixens or Jaguars here – but both Warren and 1st AD Andy Flinn are quite particular about the framing and movement. Flinn has earned the right to be specific – he’s AD’d hundreds of hours of episodic television, including The Practice, Gilmore Girls and Hawthorne.

Gantt is grateful that this project has given him the opportunity to work with talent such as Ironside and Robert Forster, who plays his mafia boss uncle. “Working with Michael and Robert raised my game. They are mensches – they care about the work. The bring 150%. It doesn’t matter to them whether it’s on the web or on TV.”

To create the entertainment of the future, writer-director Drew Daywalt reaches back into the past to fuel his imagination. The creator of Camera Obscura, the upcoming supernatural thriller web series from MWG Entertainment, draws much of his inspiration from the short form storytelling of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the horror of anticipation. Camera Obscura shares the sense of dread prevalent in such literary classics as Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” and the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

The series follows Clara, an orphan brought up by her alcoholic, absent grandfather. After he dies, she finds a camera that belonged to him, and discovers that it can capture demons. She also discovers that her grandfather’s work was not done, and it falls on her shoulders to complete his task. It’s a nice little family story with a whole lotta’ scary going on.

The cast features familiar faces such as Reagan Dale Neis (Malcolm in the Middle) as “Clara,” Timm Sharp (Till Death), and three-time Emmy winner and Golden Globe winner Jack Klugman as “Grandpa Sam.” Daywalt had previously worked with Neis and Sharp on his feature debut, Stark Raving Mad, and he wrote the parts in Camera Obscura with them in mind. He was thrilled when Klugman agreed to do the series, excited by the sense of weight and history the performer would bring to the role.

In 2007, with the writers strike looming, Daywalt, writer-director David Schneider, former Newmarket exec John Crye, and actors Paul Hungerford and Kirk B.R. Woller decided to join forces. Says Daywalt, “We were all looking at six months of being completely unemployed. We knew the strike was going to last, and we needed to do something. We also wanted to reinvent ourselves. All five of us are big fans of genre.”

Keith Quinn, Paramount Digital Entertainment Senior VP of Creative Development and Production, is a big fan of LOST and lightweight ARGs. So it’s not a big surprise that the new web series coming out of PDE is a supernatural thriller that incorporates interactive gaming elements…along with a heck of a lot of Mountain Dew. The brand has signed on as a sponsor for the series, and will be tightly integrated into both the storytelling and gaming experience. Circle of 8 will debut in October exclusively on MySpace and a mobile partner, followed by distribution via a variety of outlets and formats.

As web television continues to develop, one of the key questions for show creators is cracking the mystery of how the business actually works. Where do deals originate, how does one get a sponsor on board and how does web video generate revenue? Though Circle of 8 is a show with a lot of suspense, I was able to get Quinn and Mountain Dew Director of Marketing Marisol Tamaro to spill some of the secrets about the anatomy of this deal.