Tubefilter News

Big Fantastic has one of the more impressive track records in the web series circuit, tent-poled by their international breakout franchise Prom Queen. For years they have been the goto production house for studios like Michael Eisner’s Vuguru (Prom Queen, Foreign Body), 60Frames (Cockpit) and Warner Bros. (Sorority Forever). But now as the company prepares its first non-studio original series since their debut Sam Has 7 Friends, the company announced they have signed on as a new media signatories to the Writers Guild of America, West, under the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement (“MBA”).

“The Guild has done a great job of recognizing and legitimizing the efforts of online creators like us,” said Big Fantastic’s Doug Cheney. “We chose to become a signatory now because it affords us tremendous opportunities as writers while allowing our company access to the vast WGA talent pool.”

There’s been a fair amount of coverage around the Writer’s Guild East’s (WGAe) efforts to organize new media creators, with as many as 22 web series shops on board as of last month. But out west, its sister guild, the WGAW, has been quieter, though no less successful in bringing in signatories in online content. Big Fantastic in fact is the 33rd web production company to become signatory under the WGAW’s recently won jurisdiction in digital and mobile.

So far 73 web series have been released from these WGAW signatories including Streamy Award-winning Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Web Therapy and Back on Topps. Other series like Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy and television show companion web series like those from Battlestar Galactica, Chuck, Heroes, Monk and The Office are also on that list.

Now the 4-man Big Fantastic team has a new undisclosed web project heading into production. We’ll have updates on this as soon as they are available. Their latest edition of the Prom Queen franchise—Prom Queen: The Homecoming—is still slated for a 2010 release from Vuguru, though no official launch date has been set.

This month we are bringing you Going Pro: Seducing the Studios, featuring panelists from Big Fantastic, Sony Pictures Television, and Crackle’s upcoming action series, The Bannen Way.

Many producers dream of scoring a studio deal. With financing, marketing, and distribution all taken care of, can’t you finally just focus on creating something great? But what’s it really like when a studio gets involved? At December’s Hollywood Web Television Meetup we’re exploring these questions and more.

In a multimillion dollar deal announced today, Michael Eisner’s three year-old web studio Vuguru just landed a major investor and distribution partner in Canadian-owned Rogers Media. For Rogers, it means a multi-year exclusive on Canadian rights to Vuguru properties on all platforms including web, TV and mobile.

Known for being an earlier pioneer of professionally produced web series like Prom Queen, The All-For-Nots, Foreign Body, and Back on Topps, the studio had been relatively quiet after a busy first two years. The only active series so far this year were a second season of Back on Topps and the shot but still unreleased third installment in the Prom Queen franchise, Prom Queen: Homecoming.

As part of the deal, the web studio is being spun out into its own stand-alone entity, with Eisner serving as its Chairman. Vuguru was previously a division of Eisner’s privately-owned Tornante Company, the same investment company that purchased Topps trading cards in 2007.

“This deal not only solidifies Vuguru’s position as a leader in the new media landscape, but it also allows us to stay true to our creative and business philosophy of owning and distributing high-quality, story-driven content,” said Eisner.

The final episode (above – warning: contains spoilers if you’re not caught up!) of Sorority Forever came out today at TheWB.com and MySpaceTV, closing this chapter of the 40-episode college sorority thriller. The Big Fantastic/McG-produced series, chock full of web stars — Jessica Rose (lonelygirl15), Taryn Southern (Private High Musical) and Mikaela Hoover (Sam Has 7 Friends) — had the web media hype-machine in full force this summer, us included, before its Labor Day debut.

The first major scripted series out of Warner Bros.’ new digital portal TheWB.com, Sorority Forever has lived up to its end of the bargain in terms of viewership. Distribution partner MySpaceTV, who had a exclusive 48-hour window for new episodes, certainly delivered. They accounted for over 4 Million views for the series so far. TheWB.com hasn’t yet released viewership numbers for those shown on its own site, but it’s expected that they are at least over 1 million for the series.

Internationally, the series is distributed by Warner Bros. International Television Distribution (WBITD) who has landed a couple of choice placements for its teen hit including Bebo in the U.K. and MSN in Canada and even Korean video portal GOM TV.

We had a chance to talk with Sorority Forever star Taryn Southern, who plays Taryn in the series, about the whole experience and what’s next for the ladies of Phi Kappa Alpha.

“It’s been so exciting to see the evolution of the audience in response to the series,” Southern tells us. “As the mystery unfolded and characters were given a chance to develop, the audience became more and more invested in trying to determine the fate of the girls and the heart of the mystery. The message boards are filled with people playing detective – from analyzing pictures in the girl’s rooms to reading our character’s MySpace pages and finding hidden metaverse blogs, the audience really got into it! That’s what’s so exciting about online series – the interactive elements of storytelling.”

And what about rumors of SF Season 2 in the works?

“I haven’t heard any ‘official’ rumors yet. If a rumor wills a sequel into existence, then yes! I’m starting the rumor now. Ha-ha! We all had so much fun working on this together and grew very close. It was very much like a film set in that way, and I know we would all go back to work on a second season in a heartbeat.”

For more of Taryn check out her original comedy web series Private High Musical, which she created and stars in. She’s also keeping up with her political sing-along “Hot 4 Hill” video series with the latest installment hitting YouTube last week.

[Ed. Note: This review contains some slight spoilers. Be warned.]

Slickly produced, Sorority Forever stars the sublimely morose Jessica Rose of lonelygirl15 fame. Shining like a bright white light in this slow-simmering mystery soap, Rose is a star in the making. Behind those bedroom eyes and that wan yet warm closed lip smile there is something [...]

Sorority Forever Trailer – Series Premiere 9/8 on MySpaceTV 9AM

Sure, there’s been plenty of build-up and we certainly have been on that train, but finally the big debut is upon us with Sorority Forever premiering Monday at 9AM PST. Looks like the TheWB.com’s hottest fall original has officially hooked up with MySpaceTV, with a spiffy [...]

After months of development, Warner Brothers’ web television portal TheWB.com officially launches today at 11:00 AM PDT–marking the first major push from a studio to create and distribute shows exclusively on the web. We had the chance to catch up with TheWB.com head Brent Poer and poke around the private beta of the site, chock-full [...]

Thanks to the folks at TheWB.com, we have a special sneak peek of the trailer for the site before it launches August 27th. Look out for the cast of Sorority Forever, including the original lonelygirl15 herself, Jessica Rose. Enjoy.