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.

Stun Creative released the third episode (above), “Crotch Bomb,” of their animated spoof web series Obamourage today on Atom, commemorating President Obama’s first year in office. The series, created by Brad Roth and Mark Feldstein follows the day-to-day life of President Obama and his cabinet—Rahm, Joe, Hillary, and Bo, the dog—as they all roll, “Obama-style.” [Atom.com]

Crackle’s Woke Up Dead from Electric Farm Entertainment has scored showcase.ca as Canadian online distributor of the comedy web series starring Jon Heder, Krysten Ritter, Josh Gad and Wayne Knight. Woke Up Dead’s 22 episodes will roll out on showcase.ca three times a week starting February 1, 2010 through the end of March. [Channel Canada]

Blue Movies rolled out a slick-looking Streamy Awards “For Your Consideration” site along with a video (below) showcasing the talent behind the indie comedy series like writer-director Scott Brown, and lead actors Jareb Dauplaise, Beck Bennett and Sascha Alexander. [Blue Movies]

Playing Dead a new dark comedy web series directed by Ted Raimi debuted this week, with musical help from horror rocker Curtis RX of Creature Feature on the soundtrack. Two ‘deathisodes’ are now up on the show’s site. See episode 1 below. [FEARnet]

More video from CES last week as I had a chance to sit down with Kodak Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Hayzlett (above) and talk about their web TV strategy and where he sees the space going. He also had some new tech to show off from Kodak, including their new waterproof pocket video camera the PlaySport—they crowdsourced the name on Twitter.

Hayzlett is no stranger to some on camera work, having done a season on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice and even a cameo role playing himself on the Kodak-sponsored comedy web series Woke Up Dead this fall on Crackle. During CES, he also hosted a bit of The View-styled chat show with a number of guests on stage including Tubefilter’s Jamison Tilsner (left) talking about the Streamy Awards and what’s in store in 2010 for original web series.

Wearing his marketing expert hat, Hayzlett also shared some advice for web series creators looking to build the brands of their shows in an increasing crowded field. He talked about identifying your “brand essence” and really making sure to deliver on the promise you are making. He noted that some preliminary reflection on what you want to achieve with a project is crucial, whether it’s to make money or to just create something cool.

Sony announced today that it’s fall tentpole web series, Woke Up Dead, is off to a formidable start racking up 1.4 million streams in just 10 days since its premiere on October 5. 1.4 million for an original web series isn’t shabby no matter how you slice it. This show clearly has two big factors pushing it along: Zombies and a recognizable, talent-rich cast.

For those that haven’t yet checked it out, it’s not too late to bang through the first dozen episodes which clock in at a little over four minutes a piece. Jon Heder stars as recent USC grad Drex Greene who lives with his Zi8-sporting video obsessed roomie Matt (Josh Gad) and one day wakes up to find out he’s dead. Drex naturally is a little confused and tries to reclaim some form of normalcy. That means taking a droll office job a InfoCorps, where his snooty co-worker Andrew (Wayne Knight). Yes, there’s a love interest, Cassi (Krysten Ritter), a young med student who tries to help figure out what his brain-eating zombie condition is all about.

It’s not exactly coincidence that today’s launch of Sony’s zombie comedy web seriesWoke Up Dead comes on the heels of the company’s box-office-winning $25 million opening weekend for Zombieland. In fact it was pretty much by design. With its debut on Crackle today, the Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) led comedy is the latest example of how the studios are starting the work their digital properties into the synergistic business mix, capitalizing on buzz from one property to drive interest in another.

The series is touted as the tentpole of Crackle’s fall lineup, one that is slimmed down from previous seasons to feature just a handful of premium, more polished online series from Sony Pictures Television. It’s the latest from online creative shop Electric Farm Entertainment, the guys behind web series like NBC’s Gemini Division and more recently MTV’s Valemont.

Heder stars as a six-year USC grad turned office drone, Drex Greene, who suffers an inexplicable accident that leaves him, well, undead. Now a confused newbie zombie, Drex tries to figure out what exactly is going on with the help of his wannabe filmmaker roommate Matt (Josh Gad) and an eager young med student turned love interest, Cassie (Krysten Ritter).

We had a chance to head to set this summer and catch a day of shooting at their downtown LA warehouse set. Electric Farm’s Stan Rogow, a veteran TV producer in his own right, is now considered a Web TV veteran with a number of commercially successful projects under his belt. He talked about the comedy heavyweights they were able to assemble for the cast which alongside Heder, Gad and Ritter include Wayne Knight (Seinfeld), Jean Smart (Samantha Who?), Meital Dohan (Weeds) Daniel Roebuck and even web star Taryn Southern (Private High Musical, Sorority Forever).

Sony’s Crackle.com announced its fall lineup today and as expected, the Jon Heder lead zombie comedy Woke Up Dead is the headlining web series in the bunch. The online network is known for rolling out new 13-week seasons four times a year, and this new slate has just three new original series in it. The other two newcomers, Groundlings comedy Hardline: Inside the Idaho Sex Cult and Barry Sonnenfeld’s The Esquire Digital Man join the weekly returning series Anytime with Bob Kushell, Penn Says and My Long Distance Relationship.

The most touted is clearly Woke Up Dead from web vets Electric Farm Entertainment (Gemini Division, Afterworld, Valemont), which first popped up in development last summer. After finally lensing earlier this summer, the series calls itself a “re-imagining of the zombie mythology” with Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) plays a USC college student thrust into a world of zombie powers after accidentally dying and waking up, well, dead. Expectations are high for this one with co-starring comedians Josh Gad, Krysten Ritter, Wayne Knight and Jean Smart rounding out the cast.

We’ll have a more in-depth look at Woke Up Dead coming soon from our on-set visit with the producers, Stan Rogow and Brent Friedman and stars of the series before it premieres on October 5.

Last night the excitement in the air was electrifying at the Red Carpet Opening Night Gala for the 4th Annual Independent Television Festival, festival for independently produced, original and innovative television pilots and web series. ITVFest offers opportunities for web television creators like showcasing their work to a live audience and the chance to pitch development executives that can bring their projects to the next level.

On Monday, August 3 Tubefilter is proudly presenting ITVFest Web Television Day, which features screenings of the Official Web Series Selections from the ITVFest,

Woke Up Dead is a web-based, live-action sci-fi comedy thriller about Drex, a twenty-something USC student who wakes up underwater in the bathtub one morning and suspects that he might be dead. The scripted online series, created by John Fascano, is being produced by Electric Farm and stars Jon Heder (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Blades [...]