by Marc Hustvedt on January 27th, 2010
A Comicbook Orange debuted Season 5 today (season 5!), with none other than Rick Remender getting honors for the first episode back. My how time flies, it was just yesterday that Season 3 pranced across our monitors. This season Orange creators Casey McKinnon (pictured right) and Rudy Jahchan have an excellent line up of guests for this new season, including Zack Whedon, Felicia Day, Brea Grant (Heroes), Bryan Lee O’Malley. [A Comicbook Orange]
Qik, the live online video platform popular amongst iPhone 3GS users, launched a private beta of its new live streaming desktop app, which amongst other things allows for some basci editing of live video streams. So you can finally trim those awkward intros, and get to the good stuff when sharing the video clips. [Qik]
MSN premiered Ultradome this week on its Parallel Universe sci-fi site from creator, and Heroes star, Milo Ventimiglia. Fitting with its geek culture face-offs, episode one (below) delivers a high-tech battle between Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. [Parallel Universe]
Apple unveiled the iPad today, its much anticipated new tablet computer today, which isn’t really news at all unless you were stuck shooting on location in Pyongyang (which has killer tax credits right now). Notably missing from the new device was a camera or any support for Adobe Flash video. So in terms of web video content, it’s not that revolutionary, with Apple still preferring users head to iTunes and YouTube for video viewing. There’s plenty of coverage around the web today, check with All Top for a round up. Also check out Mad TV’s gut-bustingly prescient iPad skit from 2007 (below). [YouTube]
by Marc Hustvedt on January 23rd, 2010
The Guild is heading to Netflix starting February 1st, with Seasons 1 and 2 of the über-popular comedy series edited together, and available for continuous movie-style viewing. So if you have a PS3 instead of an XBox, you can finally watch it on in HD goodness without loading up the browser. As for Season 3 (above), the DVD will be available for $14.95 on February 15 on Amazon, and presumably on Netflix not too long after. It’s also available on iTunes, with the first three episodes of Season 1 free of charge—as if you weren’t hooked already. [Netflix, WatchTheGuild.com]
Happy Birthday VendrTV – the darling web series of street foodies around the country is turning one year old next month and is throwing a birthday party on Feb 12 in New York City. Banging out 50 episodes across 12 states, and signing on with web studio Next New Networks, their first year has given plenty to celebrate. Naturally, there will be street carts at the party: “a delicious feast from some of New York’s hottest street carts, including Calexico Carne Asada, Schnitzel & Things, and Wafels & Dinges. Plus, wash that all down with free beer from The Brooklyn Brewery.” [VendrTV]
Comedian Andy Dick was arrested again, this time for alleged sexual abuse following a stand-up gig last night at the Funny Bone in Huntington, West Virginia. What’s funny about this is that he actually did a web series—House Arrest with Andy Dick—for Atom.com (remember that? see below) that actually poked fun at the fact that he actually was under house arrest. So does this mean Atom will be greenlighting Season 2? Or is is just not that funny anymore. [Punchline Magazine]
by Joshua Cohen on November 30th, 2009
Milo Ventimiglia wants to further intellectual debate for the Comic-Con crowd. Back in May, the Heroes’ hotshot told us about teaming up with Agility Studios for the web series Ultradome. The program pits comic and sci-fi fanboys against one another in a virtual octagon, where two individuals debate timeless topics like, “Would Harry Potter or Neo win in a fight?” and “Who’s the cooler vampire? Count Chocula or Lestat?”
It’s basically the same premise as a classic Van Damme flick, re-engineered for the online set. You can imagine Don LaFontaine’s voice explaining: “Two geeks enter. They Debate. One geek leaves.”
Last time we spoke with Ventimiglia, Ultradome was without a release date or distribution partner. Now that’s changed. MSN tell us they recently struck a deal to distribute the series and are shooting for a late-January premiere.
Joe Michaels, Senior Director at MSN Business Development, explained to me why picking up Ultradome made sense:
by Jenni Powell on October 27th, 2009
Halloween mayhem week is upon us and with it comes the infamous Halloween Special. Television has been tackling these for years, going back to 1966’s It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and now the web series world has jumped on this bandwagon, throwing out their spookiest, creepiest, oftentimes hilarious and even adorable fare of tricks and treats.
So in honor of this seasonal trend, we at Tubefilter decided to put together a list of some that might be worth the clicking…if you dare. Muhahahahaha.
Elevator: Harold the Vampire
Everyone’s favorite janitor has received his 25 years of service award…but how is this possible when he doesn’t look a day over 30ish? He’s a vampire of course. Break.com’s Elevator gives us this four-part epic featuring LG15 alum Jackie Jandrall.
The Guild: Halloween!
The Guildies take to the streets for some real-life looting. Hightlight: one of Clara’s kids in a chicken suit. Prepare to melt from the cuteness. The episode was written by Guild producer Kim Evey and guest directed by her hubby, Mediocre Films’ Greg Benson.
by Adam Wright on October 6th, 2009
The majority of NYTVF was dedicated to screenings including everything from in competition pilots, web series premieres, and even specialty screenings like Channel 101 NY. A good portion of the in competition pilots can be found on NYTVF’s MSN Video channel. They will host the pilots for the next few weeks, including the festival winners. To wrap up our coverage of NYTVF, we thought we would share six unreleased web series you may have missed that should be popping up online soon.
Johnny B. Homeless, the people’s choice winner at the festival, follows creator and star, Al Thompson, playing the titular Johnny B., “The world’s Greatest Couchsurfer.” In the pilot, Al’s friend and SNL star, Kenan Thompson, plays Johnny B.’s arch-rival. The show follows Johnny as he attempts to win back a coveted spot on his friend’s couch while being constantly sabotaged by Kenan’s character. This series hit home for me as while in NYC, I, of course, couch surfed my way through the city from friend to friend. Expect this series to do big things very soon, I’m told they are currently weighing a number of online distribution offers.
by Adam Wright on September 28th, 2009
Fellow Tubefilter contributor Gennefer Snowfield (@Gennefer) excitedly tweeted on the closing night of the NYTVF, “+1 for web series!,” in response to the Jeremy Readleaf’s pilot, Odd Jobs taking the coveted FOX/15 Gigs development deal. Really though, this accomplishment is a footnote in a festival that has already gone to the web. The floodgates have opened, and Web Television is firmly in place as the stop for independent television.
Of the pilots presented, whether or not they had expressly identified themselves as a web series, well over half have already been distributed on the web, or have plans for distributing over the web in the near future (many looking for distro deals with major content networks). Ironically coming off of Industry Day, where panelist Rick Rosen explained “we just can’t make money off the web!”, the epoch of all this Web TV fever was the jam packed Digital Day. A number of companies and content creators discussed all of the ways in which they have been successful and made money off the web. In fact, at one point, after seeing both MSN and EQAL pitch products, I thought to myself, “have we gone too commercial?”
by Tubefilter News on September 4th, 2009
Labor Day weekend is here. Joy! (Now you know why we’ve been wearing our whites all week.) Despite its very American traditions—BBQs, boating, parades and football season kickoffs, this holiday is one we have the Canadians to thank. Yep, it was a printer’s strike in Toronto back in 1872 that started this whole Labor-loving end-of-summer trend. So go for it, hug a Canadian this weekend!
Web series news was steady this week, though a few places held off major show releases until after the Holiday. So count on Tuesday being full of flurry of new goodies.
The week started with news that MSN is wising up the the social internet, and finally is allowing open embedding of the new season of The Guild, which debuted on the network this week. Tech blogger Shira Lazar kicked off the new Stylit.TV giveaway web series TechStyle with plenty of geek gear from MacWorld. And Asthon Kutcher’s inside the production company web series, KataylstHQ, bowed its second season this week, releasing exclusively on Facebook via the Slide FunSpace app.
by Marc Hustvedt on September 1st, 2009
Nothing too groundbreaking in the news today of The Guild Season 3 premiering on MSN’s Parallel Universe after last week’s roll out just for XBox owners. That is, except for the fact that MSN is now allowing embedding of The Guild episodes after being notoriously closed off last season and forcing viewers to head to the cluttered video.msn.com site.
This is a savvy move for MSN, and a necessary response to the significant amount of attention that Season 2 received once it was released on embed-friendly YouTube earlier this year. Fans of the web series are known to share and post videos on blogs and social networking sites all over the world. And let’s face it, web series need to free to live where people are out discussing and congregating around them.
It will be interesting to see the difference in total views on MSN this time around. Of course we’ll have to account for the unrelated spike in the web show’s popularity after its viral breakout “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar” music video, starring creator Felicia Day, and the addition of notables Wil Wheaton and Mike Rose (The Legend of Neil) to the cast.
