While a large chunk of the digital and social media world were networking it up at SXSW (and believe me, those left behind or who decided to leave early were quite jealous), a smaller but just as voracious group of unique storytellers and academics gathered at USC for the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the UCLA Producers Program, School of Theater, Film and Television co-sporsored one-day conference Trandsmedia, Holywood.

Lead by Denise Mann, Associate Professor, Producers Program, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and Henry Jenkins, Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts, Annenberg School of Communications, USC, the conference was a one-day affair packed to the gills with panels discussing everything from how transmedia is reconfiguring entertainment to tips and tools on designing your own transmedia stories, to where the future of marketing utilizing transmedia may be heading.

Although an entire article onto itself could be written about “What is Transmedia?”, and the term itself is heavily debated (one of my collegues instead refers to himself as “Platform Agnostic” while others think the term “Cross-Media” is simpler and more accurate), but the general consensus is that it is telling a story across numerous platforms. A simple example would be the Star Trek franchise, which began as a TV show and extended to movies, novels, video games, etc.

An especially niche example of this type of storytelling exists in the form of ARGs or Alternate Reality Games. These are generally described as a type of storytelling in which the audience members themselves are participants in creating the story and the world in which the story is taking place. One panelist at the conference described the process of participating in an ARG as “digging through sand to find shards of pottery. If you find enough shards, you can reconstruct the entire pot.” Through a process of tools such as puzzle-solving, clue-breaking, and live events, an audience is encouraged to piece together a world and ultimately, if the “game” is properly supervised, each player should feel as if they contributed in the overall story that will eventually unfold.

The third panel of the day at Transmedia, Hollywood focused exclusively on Alternate Reality Games and strove to answer the tough questions of whether they should be considered artforms unto themselves or could they be viably marketable as a type of advertising campaign. A wide array of experts in the field were gathered to discuss this issue, ranging from pure academics to those working for-profit in the field of ARG design. Moderated by Mann, the panel consisted of:

–Ivan Askwith, Director of Strategy, Big Spaceship (clients include NBC, A&E, HBO, EPIX, Second Life, and Wrigley)
–Susan Bond and Alex Lieu, 42 Entertainment (I Love Bees, Why So Serious?, NiN’s Year Zero)
–Will Brooker, Associate Professor, Kingston University, UK (Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture; The Bladerunner Experience; Using the Force; Batman Unmasked)
–Steve Peters and Maureen McHugh, Founding Partners, No Mimes Media (The Threshold)
Jordan Weisman, Founder, Smith & Tinker (The Beast, I Love Bees)

The discussion was a lively one, with widely varying views between those who felt ARGs should be looked at as pure artforms without the need to try to put marketing value on them, those that felt they should be valued on their academic merits alone, and those who were striving to prove they had marketability, and thus should be able to have a price tag put on them. Though all seemed to agree that at their core, ARGs are indeed a storytelling device and the artistry of that should not be understated. But as Jordan Weisman put it, “If we don’t figure out how to charge for them, we don’t have an art form.”

An audience member, who was clear to identify himself as Head of New Media at Vivendi as well as intellectually fascinated by ARGs, succinctly cut-to-the-chase of the argument by asking, “At what point does this move from intellectual masturbation into something that is actually successful and digestible and something that will perpetuate?”

“A lot of people are trying to get equity for their brand, to rise above the noise in their category. And an ARG can do that for you,” explained Susan Bond. “If we’re really talking dollars and cents on marketing terms here,” added Alex Lieu, “what is 18 months of engaging or 11 million people (the number of active participants of the Why So Serious? campaign) who are going to tell their friends, where the average length of engagement is 45 minutes or longer…what is that comparatively to a 30-second spot that you hope people will see and recognize and remember? That’s a very different argument in terms of Return on Investment and how much you are spending. So you can say that’s expensive but the expense should equal out what you’re trying to get.”

After this discussion, another audience member was quick to point out that if we’re talking ROI, then this is not an artform.

Obviously, there is still a lot to be discussed and discovered when it comes to ARG storytelling. Like “Transmedia”, even the term “Alternate Realty Game” was a debated topic, regarding how much of game theory should actually be included in their development and whether players or academics should be responsible for forming those theories. “Having played and now produced, it’s all about the story and the storytelling”, weighed in Steve Peters. “Of course you can use games to help catch people and obviously you need to do that and there are a lot of ARGs that you look at and say, they could have used this gaming technique…but at the end of the day it’s all about the entertainment just like with a great film or a great novel or a great book.”

The following quote from Maureen McHugh, I feel, does a good job of summing up this lively discussion: “We are in on the ground floor of what in 200 years will be a dominant entertainment form. I am probably wrong about that, in 50 years someone will have invented the Holodeck and they’ll forget all about us.”

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.

There is a very wide array of embedding options to things such as Tumblr, LinkedIn, WordPress as well as sharing through e-mail…but there was, as far as I could see, no option to get a direct HTML embed code. I would highly recomend becoming a fan of the Vypye Fan Page if you are going to use the application. They respond quickly to questions and concerns.

All in all, I found the setup and broadcast to be relatively painless (besides that momentary feedback ringing in my ears) and while I don’t think it’s necessary for those without Facebook to rush to setup their profiles just to use the app, I can see the app having lots of appeal for the already existing Facebook community.

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The smart ones did.

If you are serious about creating online entertainment there is absolutely no reason that attending SXSW Interactive (SXSWi) shouldn’t be on your must-go list. The five day conference, which just wrapped up Tuesday night drew 12,000 of social media and web junkies for a non-stop, bleary-eyed bender of business cards, panels, free BBQ and new connections. It was like camp for internet people.

And that’s my point. If you’re making any kind entertainment on the web, you are internet people. Meeting other internet people is part of your job. The apps and tools that are emerging out of the developers at SXSW matter to your web series.

Entertainment on the internet spent the past 5 years learning how to go from crawling to standing up and making its first wobbly steps. Now it’s 2010 and mainstream eyes are gooing over this clever toddler of a medium. The really interesting stuff—like location-based interactive ARGs built around a web drama—is just getting started.

The tools and apps startups, many of which came in from San Fran, need the web creators and storytellers, and vice versa. The guys at Boxee didn’t throw their daytime kegger house party on Sunday just to throw back Shiner Bock. They wanted to meet the content folks.

Brands Came To Play With You

Case in point, Chevrolet. They weren’t just a SXSW sponsor, they came to get to know the internet and the people making and doing really interesting things with it. And their team came out in force. We’re not talking hired gun booth babes, but the actual decision makers that are figuring out how to best pair their brand with what’s driving attention online.

Chevy even shuttled a number of web video and social media creatives on a 30-minute ride out to a BBQ dinner at the Salt Lick just outside of Austin. They wanted to hear what these creators have in the works, and how perhaps they could get involved to support that.

And Pepsi teamed up with web show hub blip.tv to create the PepsiCo Podcast Playground, bringing in Epic Fu host Zadi Diaz to interview a number of web video people like Kenyatta Cheese, Tim Street, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brett Register, and yes, even me (see below). They care about this space, and it’s much deeper that slapping logos on signage and passing of free soda. They want to know what is coming next.

Web TV Super-Meetup

There’s only one place you’ll find a more concentrated gathering of decision-makers in online entertainment—that would be April’s Web TV Week in LA headlined by the Streamy Awards. (My bias duly noted.) But second to that is SXSWi. Let’s say you wanted to get to know the digital content studios and distributors, after five days in Austin you could have connected with the top brass at Revision3, Next New Networks, EQAL, Screen Actors Guild, Funny or Die, Babelgum, Digitas, Katalyst, College Humor, Boxee, Ustream, YouTube, blip.tv—all of whom had a serious presence (not to mention parties) here at South-by.

It’s not just the companies, but the vets of the video scene that are mingling around and are flush with lessons learned and advice on growing an audience online like Steve Garfield (he even wrote a book on it), iJustine, Kevin Rose, Phil De Franco, Taryn Southern, Leo Laporte, Amanda Congdon, Gary Vaynerchuk, Kent Nichols, Shira Lazar, Alex Albrecht, Amanda Coolong and Steve Woolf.

I even tweeted during the Packaging, Pitching and Presenting Your Digital Content panel that one of the audience members hijacked the panel during Q&A announcing that he was from Oscar-winning production studio Lakeshore Entertainment and that they are just now getting into web content and looking for pitches after the panel. Needless to say even a few of the super-agents on the panel went outside to meet him afterwards.

What about the Cons?

The cons? Cost. Sure, passes to SXSW aren’t cheap at around $500 (depending on when you pulled the trigger), and getting to Austin isn’t free either. So to combat this turn-off I’d suggest a two-fold plan of attack:

To help out, Tubefilter will sponsor a pass to 2011 SXSW Interactive for a web series creator who has never been before. We’ll have more details later this year about how we’ll figure out who to take, but feel free to leave a comment below with your name and an idea of how we should pick the creative one to join us.

One of the best ways to break out of the “LA (or NY, or YourCityHere) Bubble” is to hop on a plane and leave it every now and then.

Top photo by Steve Garfield. Middle photo by George Ruiz. Bottom photo by laughingsquid.

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Conceptually clever 2 Girls 1 Cop, created and written by Erica Bardin and Susan Graham has two things going for it: hot girls and great production value…and that’s it.

Not that that’s a bad thing. I didn’t mind losing the three and half minutes to watching actresses Juliana Barninger and Daina Gozen eventually undress to their skivvies to avoid a parking ticket. However, I did find the comedy in this “comedy” to be lackluster and broad.

The basic concept is a spin on the car safety device, OnStar, only this one is called OnSluts which is designed to help hot girls get out of jams with the law. In the pilot, Cheerleaders 1 and 2 are pulled over by Officer Duda, played competently by Hal Rudnick. The girls are then instructed by the OnSluts, played by Bardin and Graham, via dashboard video, on various ways to convince Duda to throw out their ticket.

Structurally, we watch three scenarios which escalate in prurience and success until they finally force Duda to tear up the ticket by threatening to tweet a compromising picture they orchestrated with the help of the OnSluts. This final punch is the funniest bit and got a smile out of me, but nothing to write home about.

I like the basic idea of the show, it’s just that I didn’t laugh, due partly to performance and partly to writing. While clever in concept, the writing is just average and broad, unfortunately. There’s an abortion joke that falls flat, is not needed, and made me cringe; and then a smeared brownie moment that could have been funny (maybe?), but just plays as bad titillation.

And the performances aren’t terrible, they’re just…okay. Other than the big joke at the end, there wasn’t a single punchline that landed for me, though this could be due to direction because I didn’t find any of the actors to be bad per se. Like I said with Rudnick, everyone seems competent, but unfortunately ‘competent’ does not a good comedy make.

On the other hand, for what is basically a sketch, I found the production value to be pretty amazing. Nicely shot by Michael Elko Weaver this is as polished a production as any commercial on television these days. The OnSlut set is impressive and oddly believable, even the costuming is strong both here and with the cheerleaders.

The end of the pilot promises more OnSluts (spoiler alert) with the parting comment, ‘Look what’s up next…Nina took her top off at the airport.’ Yay! More sluts and what I’m assuming is mild, slightly offensive humor. Well, I’m guessing with over 230k viewings since an initial air date of March 2nd, episode two should do fine. Especially with the promise of more hot chicks in a crisp production, I just hope that this atom.com show exhibits more of the promised humor with better writing and funnier perfs.

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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.”

The contest itself has numerous involvement opportunities for participation and eventual rewards. Phase one of the campaign asks participants to pitch a new MacGruber scene using one line of dialogue from the movie (from a list provided) in 250 text characters or less.

Just for fun, here is my entry:

(In slow motion): MacGruber removes his soiled shirt. His biceps are amazing. The Commander mouths, “wow”. MacGruber responds: “Every day is a workout when you have to carry around a 20 pound python in your jeans.”

(Note: I’m not actually entering the contest…it just seemed like a darn lot of fun and I couldn’t resist)

Tongal has more campaigns in the works. “We’re really excited that we’re launching a campaign with a prominent NBA franchise this week to create fan video mashups,” DeJulio revealed. “The winners, in addition to cash get two luxury suite tickets and their video played on the Jumbotron (at the famous arena this team calls home).”

Our platform and approach is really taking off,” he concluded. “We just launched out of beta at SXSW this week and had an incredible response. By breaking down the creation of this type of content into different stages, we’re allowing people of all skill sets a chance to participate, earn money, and ultimately it’s creating higher quality output. If you’re good at ideas, or if you’re good at video production, or even if you’re good at watching videos, you can use Tongal to make money and have fun.”

After shutting its doors last spring and then being resurrected by original founder Drew Massey (who bought back the company from investors), maniaTV is ready to get back to its roots: producing original celebrity-driven content. “Our focus is really on helping original personalities in Hollywood unleash their creative energy online,” said Massey, who chatted with Tubefilter via e-mail. “We were the first to do so with Tom Green Live and Dave Navarro’s Spread TV and we’re continuing that focus.”

“While MTV sadly continues to sell its soul with shows about Guidos, rich kids’ cribs, well-hung guys and raunchy puppets, maniaTV is unleashing the creative energy of Hollywood’s most original personalities to deliver a new lineup of Live and Original Celebrity TV Shows,” continued Massey. “Although we’re a gnat compared to MTV, and we’re still in the early days of TV online, we have dozens of personalities wanting to work with maniaTV. Celebrities appreciate the fact that maniaTV is a creative show factory for Internet TV that empowers them to produce their own shows and to work directly with top youth brands as sponsors—effectively cutting out the bigwig red-tape and overhead.”

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.

maniaTV is also developing some original concepts, including action sports show the Next Tony Hawk as well as several other of their special brand of celebrity-headed talk shows. “We broadcast on maniaTV and distribute as well,” concluded Massey. “We are big believers that the market needs one big network for original premium shows created for this medium. So that’s our core focus.”

The spiked hair and fire breathing magic skills of Scam School’s Brian Brushwood primed the crowd, in an opening act that probably could have its own Vegas offshoot some day. Then there was the #OMGConan hoax, an organized prank led by Rev3 co-founder David Prager that generated 426 tweets from the audience blasting out that Conan O’Brien is joining Revision3. This was of course full-circle to the web network’s credulous offer back in January for Conan to have his own Rev3 show.

Oh, and the crowdsurfing. Alex and Kevin floated over the sea of outstretched arms. Even live streaming TWIT.tv’s Leo Laporte joined in on the fun to cheers of “Leo! Leo! Leo!” as he was whisked up while carrying his lighted unipod to stream his ride. Was this the first live streamed crowd surfing shot first person?

In the parlor game of us spectators, one of the questions batted around was just how much PC-maker Alienware paid for the ultimate product integration—swapping out Kevin and Alex’s usual laptops for two of theirs. Best bets from those in the know seemed to say it was at least $50k for the privilege of that placement. Some speculated it was a six figure deal. Either way, not cheap to free known Apple-lover Kevin Rose from his MacBook Pro.

Spotted up in the VIP section were a number of web series vets like Taryn Southern, Tim Street, Brett Register, iJustine, Phil DeFranco, Shira Lazar, Tony Valenzuela and others—all there to witness first-hand just how big this video space has actually become. It left us all thinking, who needs Conan when you have have these guys?

The episode was shot live, but to tape, meaning the edited version won’t be up until later this week.

Photos by George Ruiz.

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In a constant effort to promote Streamy-nominated content to the public and members of the voting body of the International Academy of Web Televison, the IAWTV hosted bi-coastal Streamy Awards finalist screenings on March 11th, 2010. The events took place in New York and Los Angeles (the LA screening was also streamed live via Stickam) and included clips from nominees in the 11 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 discussed his experiences in successfully bringing popular entertainment properties to the web, including Wainy Days and You Suck at Photoshop, and how and why he distributes shows like Easy to Assemble. He revealed that in addition to being very choosey about the content he develops, he takes a very hands off approach in the creative process. Barnett chooses to let the creators of the shows do what they do best: create.

The Los Angeles screening was presented to IAWTV and Screen Actors Guild members as a part of the the Screen Actors Guild LifeRaft Live Stream series, a professional development program that provides insight into the business of acting through seminars. A panel discussion with Streamy nominated producers and creators – all of which were part of SAG signatory shows – followed the screening. Drew Baldwin, Co-Founder of Tubefilter, moderated the panel, which 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 the audience in attendance and online viewers (the Stickam live stream view count exceeded 73,000 views!).

The IAWTV and the Streamy Awards are still very much growing organizations. The success of these types of events is vital to continuing to expand their exposure and engagement beyond the two coasts. But most importantly, they’re great opportunities to expose more people to great web shows, and they provide the kind of face-to-face dialogues and interaction that can be lost when you create and watch content that mostly lives online.

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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 heavily 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.”

The show is two episodes into its run and is quickly establishing an audience. “The sky is the limit as far as goals for the series,” explained Washington. “In our first week we were contacted by KoldCast TV to distribute our show on their network. Our fanbase is growing everyday, and other professionals we have met in the business are asking to help out any way that they can. Our production value has grown by leaps and bounds.”

“Our first season is twelve episodes, and we’re going to break it up into arcs,” continuted Barto. “Each set of three we’ll present to you with pretty much one full show. Kind of like a comic book back in the day.”

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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.

Married on MySpace: Season 2 will have a 13-episode run that will conclude with a wedding ceremony that will reveal which details were chosen by the audience. Three words people: White Gold Wreath.

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