Tubefilter News

CraveOnline launched MotoMan, its latest original web series today, that “covers new cars, classic cars and all things car lifestyle. In a nutshell, MotoMan drives cars you can’t.” The debut episode (above) waxes auto-philosophical for a few minutes on whether a luxury cars are more about what’s under the hood or the logo on top of it. [CraveOnline]

Hans Zimmer didn’t compose the theme song for The Guild, but what if he did? Brian “Tweex” Arnold mused on this question, coming up with a remixed intro theme song on his site [Tweex]music, combining the beefed up Season 3 theme with Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean. He even re-edited a clip from Season 3 with the new intro theme. [TweexMusic]

Tubefilter’s Jamison Tilsner talked Web TV and Streamy Awards on the Kodak K-Zone stage at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week. Joining him on the panel, moderated by Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett, were Blip.tv’s Dina Kaplan, My Damn Channel CEO Rob Barnett, and Boxee’s VP of Marketing, Andrew Kippen. Video from the two-part session is up on YouTube and posted below. [YouTube]

British actress/host Emily Booth bowed a new hosted web series that sits down with horror icons called Behind The Screams. The series has seen some play on horror blogs, though no formal distribution deal is in place for the show which has three episodes pushed out so far. [ShockTilYouDrop]

BBC Reporter Dan Simmons, host of the BBC’s technology show Click actually managed to break a mobile phone touted as “unbreakable” by its makers (Sonim) who were showing off its rugged features during a demo this past weekend at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. See the mud-on-face below. [BBC]

Within seconds of beginning my search for where I could watch this six-part UK-based web thriller, it had been compared to not one (Saw) but two (Seven) American movies and not one (24) but two (Lost) American television series. At almost the same time, Girl Number 9 was letting me know it was made specifically for the internet, and unlike anything I had seen before.

Written by James Moran (Doctor Who, Torchwood,Severance) and starring Gareth David-Lloyd (Torchwood), Joe Absolom (Doc Martin, Personal Affairs), and Tracy-Ann Oberman (Doctor Who, Eastenders), the series has a lot of BBC talent to back it up—along with a huge advertising campaign. The Guardian in particular did a very interesting piece that was open-ended: it began its review at episode 1 and then added information as each subsequent episode was released. The author also encouraged its readers to join in the discussion in the comments section, and the dialogue that resulted was often heated but with several extremely valid points about the weaknesses and strengths of the series.

The format of the show itself is an almost unique approach, if not a bit on the transparent side: six episodes running at less than five minutes each were released over a span of six days beginning on October 30th. The show will be viewable for free for 30 days, at which point it will go offline and offer a DVD of the series, which promises to be jam-packed with special features including a behind-the-scenes documentary, commentaries, interviews, script, gallery, trailers and other special features. According to the show’s website, the DVD will also contain “a feature length version”. No word on if this means they originally shot the series as a feature film and then cut it down into a half-hour format, though this seems unlikely since all the press boasts that the show was specifically written with the web in mind.

Needless to say, I’m confused by the show’s seeming intense need to be exclusively for the internet yet making all it’s comparisons to traditional media. The show also does a half-hearted attempt at interactivity with a few in-your-face ARG elements. Within the first minute, the killer is giving you a web address and a number (incidentally, I watched the episodes at the web address he was giving…so I was a bit confused as to what I as a viewer was supposed to do with that information). They track locations using IP address, which is the very first thing any mildly tech-savvy puzzle-solver would instantly try. Basically, I wish that if they had gone for ARG elements, they really would have committed to them and offered the viewers a bit of a challenge.

Continuing in the vein of U.S. shows like Harper’s Island and Heroes, the popular and award-winning UK soap EastEnders has announced it will tackle its own internet spin-off. The 13-part EastEnders:E20 web series tracks four new characters who move into Albert Square, the location of the parent show.

Conceived by EastEnders executive producer Diederick Santer as a way of nurturing new, young talent, both on- and off-screen, he also wants the series to explore the stories of the soaps’ anonymous bystanders. Says Santer: “There are always other people (in EastEnders) milling round the market and houses that we never go into. There are four or five parallels you could do. It will be nice to see well-known characters through strangers’ eyes.”

A group of teenagers discover an old well hidden in a derelict house. They of course take a look at what is inside…and end up disturbing something very sinister indeed. And here’s the fun part: the audience has the chance to stay a step ahead of the characters in this creepy tale.

Written by British author Melvin Burgess – dubbed ‘the godfather of young adult fiction – The Well is a four-week drama collaboration between the BBC and Conker Media created for BBC Two, bbc.co.uk and Bebo. As episodes are released on BBC Two, additional tasks and challenges will be released online designed to reveal backstory or to uncover mysteries within the show. For instance, at one point a character hides an item in the house on TV and the audience can immediately go to a 3D replica of the house online in order to solve a puzzle to uncover the hidden item.

In a press release, writer Melvin Burgess spoke about how The Well is an excellent fit for the transmedia experience: “A ghost story is perfect for this, because at the heart of every ghost story is a mystery waiting to be solved – a back story, about how the horror arose and others in the past who have brought it back to life.”