Tubefilter News

The internet has made it clear our future will be filled with angry, amateur YouTube pundits. Technological advancements have given the masses the necessary tools of production and distribution to be get their opinions recorded and broadcast. It’s a beautiful thing, except for all the noise.

So when everyone has a virtual soapbox, how do you stand out from the chatter? The viral successes of sketch comedy and fake news have made it clear that if you want people to listen to your point of view, you have to entertain them while you do it.

Enter That’s Gay, a recurring segment on Current TV’s popular infoMania news show. Propelled by the charisma and sharp wit of host Bryan Safi (who conceived of the segment after being offended by Millionaire Matchmaker and Kathy Griffin), That’s Gay engages contemporary gay issues with refreshing honesty and insight, accompanied by a dose of devastatingly sardonic humor.

Like most infoMania segments, That’s Gay is driven by its host’s commentaries on news and pop culture, employing news footage, television clips, and the occasional skit to examine an issue. Unlike other infoMania segments, That’s Gay loads up on the satire and utilizes a more editorialized style, the bread and butter of which tackles how homosexuality is portrayed by the media. Past segments examined the gimmicky exploitation of lesbianism on soap operas, the lack of positive gay portrayals in film and television, and, most entertainingly, the suddenly widespread use of “no homo” as a disclaimer.

Mr. Safi, a regular at the Los Angeles UCB and a former staff writer at Funny Or Die, is consistently pitch-perfect in his role as host, eschewing easy punchlines or moral heavy-handedness for a frenetic, dexterous delivery. Each episode of That’s Gay delivers three to four minutes of pointed comedic commentary, but it does so without proselytizing or overselling its messages. After all, the show’s repeat viewers almost certainly share its opinions. That’s Gay embraces the choir it preaches to, and, as a result, can translate uncomfortable or sensitive topics into accessible and entertaining commentary.

Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf dazzled the crowd at the sold-out Tubefilter Web TV Meetup last night in Los Angeles. Nearly 400 web series creators, talent and execs braved the rain and hail to make it out to hear from the two esteemed web video veterans. Before getting into the Q&A, they debuted the newest episode (above) of their award-winning EPIC FU before it went live online late last night.

Early reviews of the new ’season’ of EPIC FU are positive, noting that the new, slightly shorter format (episodes are now about 5 min) made for a tighter, more focused show. But FU fans will get two more episodes per week, extending the series into a mini-network of sorts, adding “Music Mondays” and “Film Thursdays” to their weekly lineup.

The panel discussion delved into the show’s early days, when it first launched as The Jetset Show back in June of 2006. Back then it was primarily focused on getting 8 to 10 year-old kids to make web videos. It soon evolved into a more mature show tackling global issues and highlight creative people of all ages, eventually changing names to EPIC FU. “That’s the beauty of the internet,” Steve noted. “We had an idea, it wasn’t quite working and we didn’t just throw it under the bus, we iterated it.” The latest phase they are now calling the “fourth iteration” of the show.

We talked about their move from web studios Next New Networks to Revision3 and eventually back on their own as a fully independent show. In a nod to web video’s history, Zadi and Steve gave high props to vlogger Ze Frank—who was in the audience—and Rocketboom as two of their greatest inspirations for getting started and making this their careers. I asked them about how they might start today, from scratch, offering advice to newer web series creators. “Start with what you know and what you love,” said Zadi. Steve added that there is still “very little out there in terms of interactivity in new [web] shows that are being created,” pointing out an opportunity for web shows to stop trying to be like short television shows instead of really connecting with a community.

Questions from the audience, both in person and from the chat room on the live stream, ran the gamut. One attendee asked how to get past the lulls of the first few months after launching his independent web series. “You have to have a support system,” said Zadi, “knowing that’s there’s someone there that has your back is so important.”

Jokes were of course part of the night, not to mention a regular part of EPIC FU itself. When talking about shooting in their home-based ’studio’, Steve joked, “our neighbors thought that we were making porn when we told them we were making web videos.” “No,” he said, “we don’t do porn because we’d be driving a better car.”

There’s a sort of May-December romance going on between two news outlets, and it’s kind of adorable if you’re into that sort of thing. Even the cool kids have to grow up some time, and with the recent news of the pairing between CNN and Vice, it becomes none more apparent. It happens to everyone, we get older, we all become our parents, yadda yadda yadda. But this pairing (pairing? what is this, Starbucks?) between the two makes a ton of sense for both parties. Vice is looking to branch out from just being the (self-proclaimed) hipster bible and looking to be come something a little more—how can we say— legitimate. And CNN is looking to appeal to a younger audience. I mean, Larry King, anyone? Insert dinosaur joke. That guy is old.

What’s happening is that VBS.TV, the Spike Jonze helmed internet video arm of the Vice empire, is going to be showing some of their more newsy videos on CNN.com. This is suprisingly good thinking on both of their parts: CNN has been known to be a little too self-congratulatory and Vice has been known to be a little too self-referential. Together, though, they bring the social legitimacy that both parties seem to have been aiming for the last couple of years.

Want to be in an upcoming Weezer video? Barely Digital’s music parody web series Key of Awesome announced a contest today with Weezer’s River Cuomo (above) scouring the web for the funniest music videos (made for the web) of 2009. There are some pretty lengthy contest rules to look at, but basically they require entrants to actually submit their videos, which should mock or parody a popular music video. So I guess that means The Guild’s “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar” video isn’t eligible, but maybe a parody is?

The Video should not simply reproduce the original video(s) but should mock, comment on, or poke fun at the original music video or videos, including the music video’s subject matter, sound, style, musician(s) or actor(s) depicted therein, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation.

The web series, hosted Mark Douglas, launched this past fall as the latest addition to Next New Networks’ Barely Digital channel, which itself is a spinoff of Barely Political channel which shot to notoriety in 2007-08 with Obama Girl. Already Key of Awesome has racked up over 12 million views, according to NNN, with Barely Digital notching over 250 million on YouTube.

Submissions run for a week on the show’s site, and the winner gets a cameo in an upcoming Weezer video off their new album “Raditude.” Presumably none of Key of Awesome’s parodies are eligible in this contest, like their recent Jersey Shore rip (below) which incidentally made it on to MTV. Other targets : Twilight, Kittens on the Web and Lady Gaga.
The web series, hosted Mark Douglas, launched this past fall as the latest addition to Next New Networks’ Barely Digital channel, which itself is a spinoff of Barely Political channel which shot to notoriety in 2007-08 with Obama Girl. Already Key of Awesome has racked up over 12 million views, according to NNN, with Barely Digital notching over 250 million on YouTube.

Submissions run for a week on the show’s site, and the winner gets a cameo in an upcoming Weezer video off their new album “Raditude.” Presumably none of Key of Awesome’s parodies are eligible in this contest, like their recent Jersey Shore rip (below) which incidentally made it on to MTV. Other targets : Twilight, Kittens on the Web and Lady Gaga.

Back in July, we shared 4 Ways To Get The Most Out of the Tubefilter Web TV Meetup. But that was July, when 4 was all you needed. This is 2010 people and its all about 6 Ways now. (Trust us, we’ve done the research.)

Now as we count down to the January Tubefilter Hollywood Web TV Meetup on Thursday January 21—it’s all about the FU—EPIC FU that is, as creators Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf join us to launch the EPIC FU Network! They are extending their award-winning web series brand into a network of like-minded series, all under the EPIC FU banner. And to see them first, before anyone else in the world, you’ll have to be at the Meetup.

And HP and Intel is sponsoring the evening, providing free beer and wine for Meetup attendees and giving away and HP Envy laptop and HP DreamScreen. And The Bui Brothers will be shooting some of their signature high end photography of web video’s finest, so make sure you’re looking good. Tickets are still available, though we have a good feeling they will be sold out very soon. (Remember last time we had free beer and wine?)

A Special Evening with EPIC FU
Thursday, January 21, 2010
7:30 pm – Panel / 8:45 pm – Mixer

Location:
Busby’s East (Mid Wilshire)
5364 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90036

So we’ve taken the four tips from last time first, updated them for 2010, and added two more that will come in handy.

1. Do Your Homework!

This time you have a lot of homework to do, since EPIC FU traces its origins to the early days of online video series in 2006. Back then the ‘hyperfast-paced pop culture newscast’ series was called JETSET, scored a deal with Next New Networks, was then poached by upstart Revision3 and eventually went off on its own once again. To get a feel for the series make sure to watch at least a half dozen episodes from throughout their history. Pay attention to how the show evolved, added new features and became the well-known (and well-watched with over 35 million views) indie web series brand that it is today.

Global environmental outfit Live Earth hit the scene with a bang back in summer of 2007—07/07/07 to be exact—with a worldwide live concert event with more than 150 musical acts in 7 continents. Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson all headlined the event that drew awareness for the world’s emerging Climate crisis. Now Live Earth is prepping their latest global event—Run for Water with lead sponsor Dow—taking aim on the worldwide water crisis an international (think 192 countries!) series of 6km run/walks (the average distance women and children walk everyday to secure water) with local concerts and water education events on April 18, 2010.

To build awareness for the April event, they launched LiveEarth TV today, a hosted web series acting as a hub for all of the celeb-laden build up. Jessica Biel, Pete Wentz, Alexandra Cousteau, Angelique Kidjo and Jenny Fletcher are all attached and took part in the kickoff event in episode 1 (above). We’re not sure how they managed to snag internet citizen-journo Shira Lazar away from her insanely booked schedule, but they did. Lazar aims to be a informed voice for the millennial set and this fits right in line.

Live Earth’s Interactive Director Andy Sternberg said they plan to produce 8 to 10 episodes of the series leading up to April. The opening episode gets its share of one-on-ones with the celeb activists, but also ends up dishing some gripping facts about that state of water these days:

“1 in 8 people don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That leads to 1.8 million deaths each year, mostly in children under 5.”

Blip.tv has around 38,000 web shows on its site, according to their team, so it’s not every day that they put out a press release when a show signs on with the New York-based video site. But this one today, the news that Gary Vaynerchuk’s Obsessed with Samantha Ettus web talk show has jumped from Viddler over to blip.tv seemed to warrant one.

The 30-minute hosted web series features Ettus, a bestselling author and co-creator of Obsessed TV, interviewing celebrities and other interesting people she finds captivating. She casts a pretty wide net in terms of who she sits down for her one-on-ones with—TV weatherman Al Roker, NY Jets running back Thomas Jones and designer Frederic Fekkai. The format is a bit more high energy and motivational than say Kevin Pollak’s web chat show, which stays more in the comedy world with its guests. Not exactly a surprise with internet’s ’social media sommelier’ Gary V behind it.

“We’re creating the online version of Charlie Rose, but we realized quickly that a successful web show can’t live as a destination alone; it needs a powerful distribution engine behind it,” said Ettus about the show’s new exclusive home.

Naturally, the show will spilt ad revenues made on the show 50/50 with blip.tv. Speaking of ad revenues, blip.tv hasn’t been shy about the fact they have had a terrific fourth quarter in terms of ad sales, stating a recent blog post:

FEARnet’s new horror news series, Fear News has everything we’d expect from a decent terror flick—midriff flaunting ingénue, creepy animatronics and chase sequences. Only our young heroine is actually delivering the horror news—from within a horror set.

It’s the Rocketboom of horror. Only the young anchor-at-a-desk motif is supplanted with the darker dregs of an fictionalized horror set. Each week is different horror set theme, with last week being slasher film and the latest (above) in a ghost flick.

When this idea was first thrown around earlier this summer, I’ll admit I had my doubts. The concept seemed a little too hokey to deliver any sort of genuine tension. But so far it delivers, much the same way as any run-of-the-mill slasher flick keeps us watching to see how the inept leads somehow slip away.

The brains behind Fear News are creators Jack Conway and Matthew Mercer, known in the web series world for his Super Mario inspired There Will Be Brawl series. The duo tapped There Will Be Brawl’s stunner Ginger Marie Rogers as “The Last Girl” host—the one that somehow manages to escape alive at the end of every movie.