Tubefilter News

Back in November, a video collaboration between wildly popular vlogger Shane Dawson and web comedy originators The Fine Brothers hit YouTube. Within a week, it had gathered a whopping 2 million views. The video was a parody of the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, which would explain some of the success in terms of targeting a large and passionate audience. But what was interesting about the popularity of this video was the fact that it is over 10 minutes long and was actually viewed more often than the source material it was spoofing.

This weekend, a second video parody is going to hit the internet. Titled “Girls Gone Wild On Degrassi”, a sneak peak of the video reveals that the collaborators are going to kick it up a notch…by actually including a member of the Degrassi cast, Lauren Collins, who plays the girl girls love to hate, Paige. On how she became a part of this installment, Collins said: “It’s all thanks to the Twitterverse! I received a ton of @’s about Shane’s first Degrassi video so I had to check it out! I thought it was hilarious. Dirty, vulgar and slightly inappropriate…sure. But that’s what made it so much fun. Jokes aside…what impressed me the most was the amount of detail that went into the writing. I knew that Shane and the Fine Brothers were huge fans and really appreciated the show. So I tweeted Shane and we kept in touch from there. I happened to be in LA while they were shooting Part 2, which worked out nicely.”

The latest installment of our weekly web series critic column Pass The Mustard. No sugar coating, no doublespeak, no hand holding. Just brutally honest reactions from one guy: Ned Hepburn. We’ll throw a handful of web series at him each week. Agree, disagree, love him, hate him, but please don’t punch him. Got something clever to say in retort? Leave a comment below. He’ll probably read it and embarrass you later. His opinions are his own, so take them or leave them. See last week’s column here.]

POV
This College Humor series pretty aptly reminds me of college, high school and sort of every waking moment of every major meeting i’ve ever been in. Bravo, good sirs. Tada. College Humor is sort of the Scottie Pippen of bro humor. It’s might not pull Michael Jordan numbers but still deserves to be on the cover of the metaphorical box of Wheaties.

The New York Times’ longtime Art Director Steven Heller has a fascinating walk through (above) of the iconography of the Olympic Games over the years in his latest video. This one’s not just for design geeks either. [New York Times]

Win Streamys prizes: By now you know the nominees for the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards are being announced in a live streamed webcast on Monday at 9:30am led by Shira Lazar and thestream.tv’s Jim Festante. But in the meantime, fans have been counting down to the official annoucement with a “Guess the Nominees” contest on Facebook. Follow the @streamyawards on Twitter to see make your pciks and see what category is up for guessing. [Streamys on Facebook]

Neil Patrick Harris, speaking of awards, already nabbed a Streamy last year for his leading role in Dr. Horrible, so having mastered that he is trying yet another field, stepping up to direct the LA production of the Broadway musical Rent at the Hollywood Bowl. It will be NPH’s first theatrical directing gig. [LAist]

Venus Spa and its creators at Chad Media aren’t hiding their Canadian roots with their latest promo video—GO CANADA GO!!!—put out (below) to support The winning hockey team gets a free spa appointment at the Venus Spa. [YouTube]

NBC let out a sneak peek(below) of its latest companion web series for The Office this week. This one’s called The Mentor, with Angela (Angela Kinsey) stepping into the spotlight. The Mentor is set to debut Thursday on NBC.com. [NBC.com]

Fan favorite indie drama Anyone But Me released episode 4 (above) of its second season today with former Gilmore Girls star Liza Weil making a guest appearance as a pregnant shrink in “Girl Talk” along with two more episodes coming next month.

There Will Be Brawl, the noir comedy spin on the world of Mario Brothers is hosting a wrap party with six—yes six—DJs at Club Good Hurt in Venice, CA on Saturday March 13. The $10 event organized by the web series’ co-creators Matthew Mercer and Zach Grafton promises live performances from The Megas, a band taking inspiration from Nintendo’s Mega Man series, and The Yuki Shundo Dance Crew. The complete series of TWBB can be found on The Escapist. [Bubble Punch]

AfterEllen.com is asking readers to help them pick Top 50 Lesbian/Bi TV, Film, and web series characters of all time. They are looking for the best fictional characters—votes for reality stars or other “real” people won’t be considered, according to the poll. [AfterEllen.com]

Woody Tondorf, creator of the long running hit series Elevator has left Break Media, the company that acquired his team from HBO Lab last year. The fate of his series Elevator remains in flux, as Break still holds rights to the series, which they have decided to discontinue. They would be will to part with them for a sizable (and as of now undisclosed) price. [NewTeeVee]

More Werner! William Maier is back with his spot on impersonation of director Werner Herzog. In the follow up to last year’s Cooking with Werner and Auto Maintenance with Werner, comes Speed Dating with Werner. [Funny or Die]

This is the latest installment of our weekly web series critic column Pass The Mustard. No sugar coating, no doublespeak, no hand holding. Just brutally honest reactions from one guy: Ned Hepburn. We’ll throw a handful of web series at him each week. Agree, disagree, love him, hate him, but please don’t punch him. Got something clever to say in retort? Leave a comment below. He’ll probably read it and embarrass you later. His opinions are his own, so take them or leave them. See last week’s column here.]

Spade

A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style show on YouTube? This works. This works fairly well. This could work better. I’ll spare you the details on what the show is about as I’d recommend you get a feel for it yourself – but for what the show lacks in production cost it makes up for in inventiveness. The great thing about watching these web shows is that you get a sense of what it must’ve been like 100 years ago in the movie industry – a hell of a lot of 10 minute shorts that don’t make sense – some rising above others – and occasionally someone doing something new. Well, this is something new done very well on such a low budget. I’d love to see this with a major league budget, and I applaud them for their originality.

It takes a village. Or in some cases, a whole city. Chattanooga, Tennessee loves to rally to support its own, especially the talented creatives who call it home. Dylan Kussman is one of those that the city wants to keep around, and to keep shooting his works locally. So in what could a model to watch for independent web series creators around the country, Kussman and his team have pulled together their series with help of all kinds from their native city— financial and a whole lot else.

Tonight at a live premiere screening, indie drama, or as they call it, “noir mystery” web series The Steps will debut to a sold-out audience at what they are calling a “Device Party.” Guests are encouraged to bring out their laptops, smartphones and other internet devices to watch and share the show with peers. Sound like a big virtual street team rally. The event will also live stream on UStream tonight starting at 9:00 PM EST (6p PT).

While the specifics of the budget weren’t shared, they did tell us that the series used all local Chattanooga cast and crew was funded by production partners in concert with a financial grant from Create Here, a local program to build Chattanooga’s cultural economy through arts, economic and cultural development initiatives.

The Steps is a noir mystery web series that tells the story of Charlie Madison, a lowlife private investigator from Los Angeles who’s forced to live under an assumed identity in middle America to escape his criminal past. A key player in the blackmailing enterprise of Dante Pelinsano (based on the infamous “P.I. to the Stars” Anthony Pellicano), Charlie has to split town when the Assistant D.A. who put Dante in prison seems to determined to take him down as well. Charlie takes on the name “Ron Harlin” and starts driving east, stopping when he feels he’s gone far enough, which happens to be the midsized city of Chattanooga, TN.

Academy Award winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects)—himself a commented on the independent nature of the project: “It was only a matter of time before someone realized you don’t need anyone’s permission to make a good series. The Steps is the future.”

The marketing and promotion of the event is one of the most ambitious we’ve seen for an independent web series, using a number of traditional entertainment media buys and outlets to make a splash this week. Radio interviews, local TV crews, pre-roll on Hulu videos, even local bus wrap ads are in the mix. Can you name another web series that launched with bus ads?

Space Truffles Enterainment is handling the marketing and sponsor integration for the series. Space Truffles’ Gennefer Snowfield (who has been a guest author on Tubefilter News) shared with us a full run-down of the launch-week marketing plan:

The Sniper Twins (Barry Flanagan and Dax Martinez-Vargas) released their latest video Chocolate Shoppe, a follow up to their Stack the Memory breakout that scored nearly 700k views. This time it comes off like a rogue branded spot for Hershey’s, but turns out they had no real official contact with the company other than permission to shoot in their factory. [YouTube]

Budweiser is looking for the world’s biggest soccer fans for their new reality series BudHouse. The reality web series (with some international TV distribution) is casting 32 of the biggest fans from the 32 representing countries of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The lucky 32 will be flown to South Africa and live together under one luxurious roof for the five week tournament. [BudHouse]

Safety Geeks SVI is converting its entire first season into 3D in hope to sell it to distributors as the first fully three-dimensional live action web series—we’re talking polarized stereoscopic not in the old red-and-blue anaglyph style that YouTube’s 3D uses. The standard 2D version will be screened in its entirety this Friday for the public and Academy voters in Hollywood at Cinespace. [DaveandTom.com]

Let’s Get Laid premiered on Strike.TV (below) this week after first popping on the scene with a trailer early last year. The comedy web series stars two young Hollywood assistants—Melissa Hunter and Jennifer Cron—trying to find some action while juggling overzealous bosses and an underwhelming dating pool. [Strike.TV]

you ever wondered what it would be like if Sam Raimi had directed The Exorcist, then made it a Choose Your Own Adventure tale and put it on the internet, you might have a vague understanding about what you were about to get yourself into with Spade. Created by John Johnson, CEO of Darkstone Entertainment, an independent film company based out of Charlottesville, VA, Spade opens with a stark opening credits sequence overlaid with the original 1980’s theme from V, which whoever runs the company’s YouTube account assures a concerned commenter is “actually a YouTube friendly song. And since we are not selling this in any way or making a dime, we be safe.”

What follows is three parts of introduction to the world of Spade: eye-patched Jack Spade himself, who apparently saved the world fifteen years ago and has nothing to show for it but a penchant for drinking himself into a coma, his younger, hotter, ass-kicking wife Lena, a Masonic assassin, a preacher who can hurt with the power of his mind and enjoys cursing, and an innocent fast-food waitress who apparently is the new key to saving the world…again. Follow this up with horrific visions of possessed girls who make you bleed green when they get inside you and a spectacled, well-dressed host named Mr. Lobo who greets you at the end of part 3 to give you the options for where the show can go next based on what you decide.

The series is shot very lo-fi and while the actors may not be seasoned professionals, they clearly know their roles well and have chemistry with each other. And while I’ve seen other series that have attempted to take use of the YouTube annotations as a way to do a Choose Your Own Adventure storyline, this is the first time I’ve come across the narrator used having his own distinct character with an interesting presence and personality. He almost makes you hesitate to click a choice just to see how he will chastise you (and let me assure you…he will).
What follows is three parts of introduction to the world of Spade: eye-patched Jack Spade himself, who apparently saved the world fifteen years ago and has nothing to show for it but a penchant for drinking himself into a coma, his younger, hotter, ass-kicking wife Lena, a Masonic assassin, a preacher who can hurt with the power of his mind and enjoys cursing, and an innocent fast-food waitress who apparently is the new key to saving the world…again. Follow this up with horrific visions of possessed girls who make you bleed green when they get inside you and a spectacled, well-dressed host named Mr. Lobo who greets you at the end of part 3 to give you the options for where the show can go next based on what you decide.

The series is shot very lo-fi and while the actors may not be seasoned professionals, they clearly know their roles well and have chemistry with each other. And while I’ve seen other series that have attempted to take use of the YouTube annotations as a way to do a Choose Your Own Adventure storyline, this is the first time I’ve come across the narrator used having his own distinct character with an interesting presence and personality. He almost makes you hesitate to click a choice just to see how he will chastise you (and let me assure you…he will).