Tubefilter News

Academy voters had their hands full this year in pairing down some 2,000 web shows submitted from fans in over 100 different countries. Voters weren’t shy in acknowledging the international fare with nominated series coming from Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, France, Canada and The United States. The official nominees for the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards were announced this morning in a live streamed internet broadcast led by CBSNews.com’s Shira Lazar and theStream.tv’s Jim Festante.

Click here for the full list of Streamy Award nominees.

Whole Lotta Drama

While comedy series seemed to run the table last year thanks to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and The Guild, this time voters lauded a handful of dramas with multiple nominations. The Bannen Way led with seven nominations including Best Drama, Best Writing, Best Directing and Best Actor for co-creator and lead Mark Gantt. Gritty indie drama Compulsions also is in the Best Drama hunt, picking up four nominations. British crime drama Girl Number 9 earned five nominations and murder mystery Valemont picked up six. Australian drama OzGirl and Angel of Death are also up for Best Drama.

Comedy Powerhouses Return

Experience was rewarded in Best Comedy nominations. The Guild, which bowed its third season in 2009, proved it still has the mojo amongst the Academy which bestowed seven nominations this time around. The addition of a rival guild, led by a very well cast Wil Wheaton even landed a Best Guest star nod for the show. Its “cousin” series, The Legend of Neil has some solid support of its own, which may or may not have something to do with Sandeep Parikh having a hand in both shows. Easy to Assemble rolled out its sophomore season and Wainy Days its third. Even web comedian-turned-movie-star Zach Galifianikis has two years of Between Two Ferns under his belt.

What’s New?

Comedy can be an acquired taste. And looking at the Best Comedy category, none of the nominated series were new on the block in 2009. So with the addition of Best New Web Series into the mix—or as some like to call it, the category-that-can’t-be-won-by-The-Guild—upstart comedies like Odd Jobs and Old Friends were able to pick up nominations. Personally, I like this category. And for the most part the Academy used it to take notice of what popped onto the scene last year. But following the drama trend this year, three dramas made it into this final five—The Bannen Way, Girl Number 9 and Craig Brewer’s debut season of indie music docu-series $5 Cover.

Co-Stars Square Off

Meanwhile on the acting front, the Season 2 rivalry between Easy to Assemble co-stars Justine Bateman and Illeana Douglas spilled over into the Best Female Actor in a Comedy category, with both actresses notching enough votes to face off against each other. Still, they face off against last year’s winner in this category, The Guild’s Felicia Day, who returns for the second straight year along with Web Therapy star Lisa Kudrow. Joanna Cassidy, from the indie comedy Sex Ed, rounds out the nominees with her performance as acerbic college sex professor.

For the male comedians, Zach Galifianakis picked up his first Streamy nomination after a solid year delivering his trademark awkward low-fi interviews with celebrities in Between Two Ferns. The Guild’s Sandeep Parikh scored his second Streamy nomination for this category, which ended up going to Neil Patrick Harris last year. Amir Blumenfeld also picked up a second Best Actor nomination for his half of popular comedy Jake and Amir. CTRL’s cubicle hero Tony Hale and Wainy Days eponymous creator-star David Wain make up the rest of this heated race.

Actors in the Best Female Drama hunt were all first-timers with all five coming from web series that debuted in 2009. Rachael Hip-Flores’ touching performance in indie drama Anyone But Me won over Academy voters as did Tatyana Ali’s freshman season of Buppies. Sophie Tilson dazzled as Sadie in OzGirl much like Zoe Bell in Angel of Death and Crystal Chappell in web soap Venice.

Picking up a not so shabby four nominations was Auto-Tune the News, which is up for Best News or Politics Web Series, Best Editing, Best Experimental and Best Original Music in a Web Series for The Gregory Brothers—Evan, Andrew, Sarah and Michael Gregory. Canadian steampunk drama Riese and Anyone But Me joined in the four-nominations club.

When the New York Television Festival (NYTVF) selections came out back in August, we knew the increased amount of web series in the mix would shake things up come festival time. Last week’s festival capped off with Saturday night’s winner ceremony in Manhattan.

Notable wins from web series scene included Johnny B Homeless, a comedy web series that snatched the most audience votes during screenings at the festival. Creator Al Thompson and Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson were both on hand to receive the award for the series about a semi-pro couch surfer.

Odd Jobs, which we’ve been following since its launch back in February, scored creator Jeremy Redleaf a development deal with Fox Television Studios through its web-only 15 Gigs arm, winning the “FtvS 15 Gigs of Fame” prize. Best Web Series pilot went to Canadian Film Centre-funded entry My Pal, Satan, who’s snappy theme song also won honors. And MERRIme.com creator-star Kaily Smith won best actress for he work as the lovelorn socialite.

The New York Television Festival (NYTVF) announced today its official selections for the pilots competition at the fifth annual festival scheduled for September. Making the selections cut were a host of original web series including MERRIme.com, GOLD, Leaving Bliss, Man-Man, Blue Movies, Johnny B. Homeless, Hell Froze Over, Odd Jobs and Streak to Win. Trailers for all of the 37 pilots in competition are now up on the NYTVF YouTube channel.

Similar to the just-wrapped ITVFest in Los Angeles, NYTVF is taking a step further in bridging the gap between traditional independent television and the emerging web television medium. The festival is bringing back what it calls Digital Day, which is an entire day of programming based around the online space. The festival runs from September 21-26 in Midtown Manhattan.

When it comes to getting exposure for your web series, you don’t need a six-figure distribution deal (although that certainly wouldn’t hurt)… what you need is a strong hook. And for Jeremy Redleaf, creator of Odd Job Nation, that hook was literally odd jobs. The concept of the series was loosely based on a friend of his who odd jobbed his way to a 5-bedroom suburban home doing everything from walking neighborhood dogs to renting out his driveway. In the pilot of Odd Jobs, we see Jeremy’s character, Nate, get fired from his high-paying job with a big investment firm, and his roommate extolling the moneymaking wonders of Craiglist’s Odd Jobs as a viable source of income. Though somewhat skeptical of making a living from random side gigs, to support his high maintenance fiancée, Nate begrudgingly agrees to try his hand at odd jobbing. And so was born a series that only 2 episodes in has already garnered some high profile press from the likes of Newsweek, CNN, CNBC and the Washington Times. (And of course Tubefilter.)

But… the coverage wasn’t about the show.

It was about the online community of odd job seekers that Jeremy built around the site, aggregating the Craigslist ‘Odd Jobs’ listings from every major city across the country, and allowing users to post – and apply to – odd jobs of their own. In fact, with only 2 episodes available, the lure of the site to date has been the job board, not the series. But with the volume of regular traffic the site’s been getting, it’s expanded the exposure for the show to a more mainstream audience than most web series typically attract, giving Jeremy that coveted hook to reel viewers in. And reeling them in, he is.

While on first look, this might seem an uneasy mix of job search services, news links and video comedy, viewing episode one of Odd Jobs the web series, solidifies the concept of Odd Job Nation as a clever idea in capable hands. Jeremy Redleaf is the main force driving the content; he is writer, director, actor and producer with a capable team of actors, design and web support behind him out of the New York based operation, Brackets Creative.

It’s entire hook is that the job hunting, business deals and employment on this site are not dry or boring, but accessible and comic. Indeed if Craigslist had a series, Odd Jobs would be it. Ashley Albert and Redleaf are executive producers on the series from a concept by Ashley, produced by Colin Hornett which stars Redleaf, Devin Ratray, Alexandra Daddario, Frank Simms, Johnny Pruitt, Perry Silver, Chris Knowings, and Anna Garner with a great supporting cast.