GigaOm‘s NewTeeVee, the blog about all things internet video, introduced a spinoff site yesterday. NewTeeVee Station is an interesting curated approach intended to "bring to you videos that are actually good — but also the stuff that’s so bad it has everyone talking" and includes an innovative integration of VodPod.
Check out the coverage at TechCrunch and Venture Beat.
I’ve never placed too much stock in Broadway’s Tony Awards. They may not be as bad as the Grammys, but it’s still easy to confuse a non-buff walking by the theaters in midtown Manhattan trying to determine if their Tony-boasting marquees represent quality or just another marketing ploy. I usually end up tuning the awards out unless I happen across the odd spectacle of the TV broadcast (we’ll see how its Whoopifying plays this year).
But the hilarious web series Cubby Bernstein, Tony Campaign Manager rekindled my interest in the fusty awards. I may be playing right into the hands of the viral marketers who created Cubby to build buzz for the musical Xanadu (which actually is up for Best Musical and other Tonys this year), but I don’t care. How can you not love the premise of a veteran, no-nonsense, Yiddish-peppering Broadway promoter who happens to be an ageless little boy?
The show features some great writing and a solid performance from Adam Riegler as Cubby (who’s now moving on to the role of Young Shrek in its upcoming production…yes, they’re making a musical out of that, too). It’s great to see the character draw laughs out of various situations, including an Obama-esque rally at ‘The Cub-Cake Event’ outside of Xanadu’s NYC theater.
###Cubby’s often upstaged, however, by the true Broadway vets who are impressively marched out to give their testimonials of his greatness. Things get even more meta (those marketers might say ‘synergistic’) when the actual producers of Xanadu show up in episode two and Cubby ends up promoting the play during the remainder of the series (which is promoting the play to begin with, mind you). But, my favorite cameo has to be Duncan Sheik barely breathing (or is that spring awakening?) over Cubby and then Mrs. Bernstein herself.
We’re admittedly coming to this one a little late, as the finale of the series arrived to great acclaim yesterday after seven episodes, and the amazing penultimate episode featuring Nathan Lane has been viewed nearly 500,000 times on YouTube in the past five days.
But the other episodes range from 5-50K views, so it’s unclear how many outside of the theater community have delved into the entire show. It’s definitely worth the half hour or so commitment, because this bit of Broadway absurdity will make you laugh whether you’ve paid thousands for headshots or not. And be sure to tune in on Sunday (or at least read the Times on Monday) to see if Cubby’s worked his magic in real life!
A day after the Webby’s Film and Video gala in downtown New York City, Channel Frederator announced the winners of its second annual Channel Frederator Awards without much hullabaloo. Due to some logistical snafus, an official ceremony for the winning animations from filmmakers around the globe never came together. So, instead, Justin Johnson and the Frederator team rented out all of NYC and used it as a backdrop to announce who won and to give viewers a taste of each short:
Channel Frederator will show the winning animations over the show’s next eight installments, a couple winners at a time.
It’s still too bad they didn’t have a party. The event last year in LA was a blast. Tilzy.TV was there to witness it, but we didn’t have this site up yet to post our findings.
Take a look below to see what the scene was like last year at an awards ceremony that wasn’t in any way about awards.
###On Wednesday evening, a day after the Oscar nominations were announced, an awards ceremony was held just a few blocks away from the Kodak theater. Yet despite its proximity, this award ceremony shared very little with the Oscars. First off, if you were familiar with the films honored that evening, it would have been by virtue of your I-Pod rather than the silver screen. Second, and perhaps most striking, while the Oscars enjoys extending its awards ceremony a couple of hours past the point of reason, this awards ceremony never actually got around to having the awards ceremony itself.
Channel Frederator is a site devoted to highlighting the talent of animated filmmakers from around the world. Each week, three or four short animation films are selected from a pool of submissions and are made available for pod casting. And on Wednesday evening, Channel Frederator attempted to hold it’s first annual Channel Frederator Awards, honoring the best of a year’s worth of films.
As I made my way down to the Cinespace in Hollywood, I was not entirely sure what to expect. I was reminded of the awkward clips shown during the Oscar telecast, when they announce that a ceremony for scientific and technical awards had been held earlier and at a different location. Images of Peter Jackson look-alikes clutching their awards and celebrating the one day a year they get to leave the house flashed through my mind.
When I arrived, however, there was not a single Peter Jackson in sight. Rather, an eclectic group of people dressed in everything from dinner jackets to cowboy hats waited to get in. Most people did not seem to know each other, and almost no one I spoke to had any idea what to expect.
Once inside, I was surprised by the ease in which the crowd of strangers managed to jell. Eavesdropping on a few conversations, I found that the vast majority of what was being discussed was completely incomprehensible to me: high tech animation shoptalk that I will spare my spell check from trying to discern. What stood out, however, was that every conversation started the same way. “So good to finally meet you. I loved your film!”
As it turns out, despite having never met each other, this was not a crowd made up of strangers. They had seen and admired each other’s work, knew each other’s animation style and story telling methods. The night was not about meeting people for the first time. It was about replacing the animated face of the creation with the human face of the creator.
Surprisingly, the night seemed also to not be about the films themselves. While the films were playing on screens in the background, they were doing so silently and without much attention. But these films truly demand attention. They range from the haunting and surreal (Bendito Machine), to the CGI action adventure (Rock Fish), to just plain fun (Everybody Else Has Had More Sex Then Me).
The budgets on these films ranged as well, from one dollar to one million. But they are all superbly crafted, delightful representations of what Channel Frederator, and the short animated film genre, has to offer. A link to the award winners can be found below. There is not wrong mouse click among them.
But as Wednesday night crept slowly towards Thursday morning, I began to wonder if perhaps the Channel Frederator Awards had forgotten it’s own awards ceremony. A large stage sat empty at the back of one of the rooms as people continued to mingle and drink freely. Had they all gotten so caught up in conversation that they forgot why they came together in the first place? So I went to find answers from the source. I went to look for Fred.
You are familiar with the work of Fred Seibert, the founder and namesake of Channel Frederator, even if you have never seen an animated short film. Close your eyes and try to conjure up the early-animated logos for MTV. That is Fred. He made Nickelodeon what it is, as well as establishing Nick-at Night. He is the reason cartoon network has shows like Dexter’s Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls. And he now oversees the most distributed pod cast in the world with channel Frederator. He is also very easy to spot in a crowd.
Wearing all white except for his iconic black-rimmed glasses, Fred was making the rounds, hugging filmmakers left and right. It is rare that a host of a party is the most excited one in the crowd, but Fred was absolutely glowing. “No one honors these people,” Fred told me. “I wanted to elevate and expose them.” The fact that interspersed in the crowd of animators were quite a few studio executives was testimony to his success.
Tilzy.TV: Why an awards show?
Fred: It’s what you do when you are successful.
Tilzy.TV: Then why no actual awards SHOW?
Fred: Because they are boring.
Turns out, the winning filmmakers were notified before hand and had their awards sent in the mail. This party was not about honoring some of the filmmakers above the others. As Fred described it, this was a chance for people who aught to know each other to mingle. This party, Fred continued, was simply an extension of “what we do on our pod cast and bogs every week.”
And perhaps that is the greatest accomplishment of Channel Frederator. In the age of Youtube, we have learned to view the Internet as a disjointed arena of unlimited content, where trailers for hundred million dollar films bleed into clips of bored college kids punching each other in the stomach. But despite it’s size and all aboard attitude, the Internet has the unique ability to foster small, intimate communities that defy geography.
And as the palpable joy from the crowd that Wednesday evening attested to, that is what Channel Frederator, and by extension, the Channel Frederator awards, is all about.
This was not a night for separating one filmmaker from another, dividing between those who get to go on stage and those who get to clap politely from below. This was, quite simply, Channel Frederator’s First annual Family Reunion.
An awards ceremony would have missed the point entirely.
Last week I received an email I had been looking forward to for a while. “Come on in!” The message read, “You’ve been approved to join the beta group for TheWB.com.”
As a big fan of Hulu, the clean and simple NBC/Fox video Shangri-La that I have all but developed an emotional dependence upon, I was elated to gain access to a site that promised to be a clone the with Warner-produced content that I love such as The OC (don’t judge) and Veronica Mars.
My hands shaky with anticipation, I log into the site for the first time and immediately notice that it is the aesthetic antithesis of Hulu. I am greeted with blaring surfer-rock that accompanies a promo video for Aussie TV hit Blue Water High. The mood of the site is reminiscent of a 9th grader’s MySpace page.
My high hopes for the site no longer quite as high, I press on. I am here for the videos, after all. I find my way to the page that displays the menu of programs the site has to offer. I see WB hits like One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls, Buffy (which is also on Hulu), Smallville, and The Wayans Bros. Shows aired elsewhere like Friends, All of Us, and The OC are there as well. Finally there’s a selection of “WB Originals” – more on that later.
Read On…
Urbandictionary defines "bush league" as "Below good standards, not good or incorrect. Pitiful, poor, terrible, awful, bad, sucky." Also, "unawesome." (It’s been a while since I played an organized sport, so I had to look it up.)
Launched in mid-May, Bushleague.tv is blog created by entertainment studio DECA and produces articles and original videos with the lofty goal of providing men with funny and advice on breaking into the porn industry, punking friends, and hosting poker games, etc. etc. It’s sort of like a DIY Man Show without the homophobia, which, if I remember correctly, was basically all the Man Show was, plus busty girls on trampoline. And that dude that could down a stein in one gulp.
I digress. The audience for Bush League is geekier than that of the Man Show, with regular segments on comic books and computers. So, geeks and popped collars, you’ll find accessible video content updated updated frequently with a clip or two everyday. Unfortunately, it’s not always riveting.
Take, Fixed or F*cked, a series feauturing a geek explaining an absurdly uninteresting computer problem to a Bush Leaguer who makes contrived references to porn in order to keep up the whole humor thing.
Grace Helbig is a cutie-pie. She’s the star of MyDamnChannel‘s new daily, freeform vlog, Daily Grace, delivering commentary on video premieres, featured clips and life behind the scenes at the new media studio. The show consists primarily of free-flowing banter from the early-20-something writer, improv artist, actress and comedian who previously read dirty and gruesome Bedtime Stories.
When your stardom is based on your baby face, baritone voice, sweet synth sound, undecipherable lyrics and, most importantly, a viral video, there’s no such thing as overexposure. Tay Zonday might not understand the concept of “selling out,” but he fully realizes the need be lit up by the limelight for as long as – and to the greatest degree – possible.
The internet has a short memory, and if you’re not pumping out product, you can fast fade away from relevance. That’s why Tay’s cameod in a self-referential web series, covered the Rick Roll, and collaborated with Girl Talk, Dan Deacon, Lily Allen, and now, Brian Bell of Weezer.
It’s an unplugged rendition of the band’s latest single, Pork and Beans that shows how much better Tay sounds when accompanied by a synthesizer and how hot and bothered YouTube makes Weezer. The cover comes just two weeks after the release of the song’s official music video, which features an orgy of web video stars.
Overexposure might be a good tactic for Tay. For Weezer, it seems lame.
###Frontman Rivers Cuomo has a genuine interest in the online medium, but referencing a litany of viral videos in hopes of making your music video go viral seems insincere. Yes, Pork and Beans is an incredibly cool piece of entertainment, but it feels like a cheap publicity stunt we’ve seen before. If it wasn’t solely derivative maybe I’d find it more enjoyable. Take a look for yourself.
Straight from the good people at YouTube, here’s a definitive list of all the internet famo references:
– Numa Numa Kid – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o
– Dramatic Prairie Dog – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs
– How the Dramatic Prairie Dog Was Born – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sochd9Xqlos
– Afro Ninja – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9PcHAoi1vA
– eepybird – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLAesBdv9PE
– Tshirt world record guy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tlw-oPDBM
– itschriscrocker – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc
– All Your Base Belong To Us – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
– evolution of dance – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg
– Star Wars Kid – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU
– kfed – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7HjV3MnYHM
– daft hands – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq–Nw
– daft body – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYD_-A_X5E
– liam kelly – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA
– Planet Unicorn – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQJD1ura7G4
– kicisie – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embdtwW-sSE
– Peanut Butter & Jelly Time – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MDNFaGfT4
– Will It Blend – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI
I’ve spent the past few months scheming unsuccessfully; I’ve been longing to get out of the noisy, smelly, dirty, chaotic mess that is New York City. I need to breathe!
Well, I can’t fully solve my problem, at least not in the near term, but this piece gives me a taste of the country that I so desire.
Escapes Away is a New York Times piece that paints a picture of two artists, Charles Lindsay and Catherine Chalmers, in their country escape away from the chaotic city. Created as an ancillary to a written piece, Rooms With a Viewfinder, the narrated slideshow creates a mini respite from the sometimes blaring internet.
Internet television plays into the shortened attention spans of the online generation, or so hopes the film makers in Attention Span Media, a new media, short form production company. Call them formal pioneers or cultural exploiters, their raison d’etre is certainly a reflection of the current media atmosphere.
It is fitting then, that one of their programs, Sock Tube (they also produce the collegiate farce, Dorm Life) uses sock puppets to reenact recent Hollywood releases, many of them Oscar nominees/winners. It’s Potter Puppet Pals expanded to satirize the silver screen.
They satirize boring or confusing sequences in films like There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men . Their reenactment of Michael Clayton contains no recognizable references to the movie, but instead focuses on George Clooney‘s massive celebrity and the fact that Michael Clayton sounds kinda like Michael Keaton. Brilliant!
Despite their dedication to the ADD inflicted viewer, some of the clips go on for five minutes or more, occasionally losing my interest. It is difficult to tell how much of what they do is rehearsed or improvised, but it is often their digressions that are most humorous. The hands and minds inside and behind Sock Tube also manage to make clever comments on the Hollywood system.
Their version of Will Farrell’s Semi Pro is their shortest and most scathing, but also the most accurate in it’s criticism. Their Step Up 2 was my favorite, perhaps because it takes a less turgid and more brazen tone. Juno is the weakest, as they are not able to get past the film’s corniness, but the imitation of Diablo Cody‘s overwrought dialog is inspired. Their latest, Indiana Jones, may be there best, which makes sense given the absurdity and odd richness of that movie.
I’m not sure that Sock Tube achieves the vision of Attention Span (which is, presumably, to always hold my attention), but it’s a concept well realized nonetheless.
Sarah, the cute coat check girl with a Sinead Oconner haircut, had no idea what the hell was going on. Of the 2,000 rabid technophiles waiting in a line that snaked around the corners of three Grenpoint, Brooklyn blocks, 400 lucky individuals (I estimate around 350 ecstatic dudes, 30 excited ladies, and 20 nonplussed ladies who got dragged along by their ecstatic significant other) and equally as many video recording devices had infiltrated her favorite hipster night club with a nightlife pedigree.
Me: What are all these people here for?
Sarah: I don’t know. Some kind of internet thing.
Me: What are those guys doing on stage?
Sarah: They’re not performing…they’re just kinda talking…seems pretty cool.
Me: Really?!? Cool?
Sarah: Ummmmm….
The crowd drowned out the rest of her meh response. Kevin Rose has just done his best Papa Bear Bill O’Reilly impression and cheers riddled with anticipation filled the room. Rose and fellow TechTV-alum/co-host Alex Albrecht were just about to start their latest live taping of Diggnation, an online show produced by Revision3 that provides a weekly summary of the top stories submitted by many-a-teenager to the democratized news site Digg,
Since its July 2005 launch, the show’s put on a number of live recordings to an ever-increasing fan base of wired males who lament the loss of Screensavers, vie for a spot on the Top 100 Diggers, or simply like recycled tech and online culture stories delivered by two buddies each a few beers deep.
###I think the latter is mostly what brought fans out to see the show last night. With their powers combined, Rose and Albrecht give off an accessible, affable vibe. Good-looking, successful guys who project social images what wouldn’t relegate them to hours alone in their parents’ basements. In high school, these were the dudes who felt most at home in geeky social circles but still talked to the jocks and in college were welcomed with high-fives when they showed up at frat parties.
Due to cramped space and the heat emitted by hundreds of starstruck men, I left about 15 minutes into the taping. I saw some kid standing around in the drizzle outside so I said wassup.
Two weeks shy of his 18th birthday, Westchester native Alex Constaninescu (it’s Romanian) wasn’t allowed into the venue. The thin kid with a slight voice and no nerd-defining characteristics said he got there an hour before the doors opened with his friend, who was now texting him how much of a blast it was inside.
Alex described his Diggnation viewing as “casual,” and then went onto explain how he watches the show every week, and sometimes, on special occasions, he and said friend crack open a cold one and watch it together.
Alex: I’ve read all the articles and know about all the stuff they’re talking about, but it’s fun to watch the funny, stupid, sometimes sexual humor…I’m into tech stuff and I wouldn’t say Kevin Rose is my idol, but he’s definitely an inspiration.
Me: An inspiration for what?
Alex: Well, he’s a typical geek and computer guy that’s made it. He puts himself out there and is kinda like a role model, I guess. I want to be an entrepreneur or do something with the web, and if he can do it, maybe I can, too.Me: Do your other friends at school understand Diggnation’s appeal?
Alex: Nah, they’re going to make fun of me when they find out I’ve been sitting outside this place for 5 hours.
Me: Maybe you should’ve come earlier. Sometimes that helps, ya know, to avoid security.
Alex: Yeah, we planned on getting here earlier, but we had to make a quick stop by the Apple Store first.
Kevin Rose might be an inspirational role model, but he aint got nothing on Steve Jobs. At least not yet.
EpicFu, the internet pop culture show that began in June 2006 as The JETSET Show has moved from Next New Networks to Revision 3 for ad sales, distribution, and cross-promotion reports NewTeeVee. The show is set to relaunch today…
Tim Shey, head of network development at Next New Networks notes that the two companies’ goals were no longer fully aligned. “Next New Networks is focused for the coming year on a strategy anchored around our building up our own networks in key categories like autos, entertainment, humor and style, and establishing some new partnerships in those areas.”
Though show creators (and star) Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf are quick to lavish praise on their former partners – “We are fortunate to have people like them as mentors and friends,” said Steve on Smashface Productions’ blog – the decision likely came down to the most agreeable terms. Online video is still a nascent space and relationships can be fickle – we’ve seen Lonelygirl15 jump from YouTube to Revver to MySpace and back and Ask a Ninja drop Revver for Castfire. Whoever offers the sweetest deal at any given time will draw top content, and in this case it was Revision3.
Read more at NewTeeVee.
Jim Coudal is the principle at Coudal Partners, a Chicago-based design, advertising, and interactive studio where, if you’re involved in any of those fields, you wish you worked.
In their downtime, to foster an environment abuzz with happy productivity, the crew at Coudal organize a “virtual circle of artful swag,” launch side businesses, curate the fantastic timetrap that is an online museum of online museums, play the game Booking Bands (mashup a musical act and a book to comedic effect, e.g. SidVicioushartha, Courtney Love in the Time of Cholera, The Joy Division of Sex), concoct the perfect vodka martini (a hammer is involved), and develop a General Theory of Creative Relativity.
The latter is an idea that the “initial moment of passion” about a concept or project is “an amplification of the creative moment.” If you can foster and sustain that feeling, you’re going to be happier and do more satisfying and quality work. It’s productive procrastination, “goofing off as bonafide professional development,” and leads to projects like the ones mentioned above and Regrets.
Produced by Coudal, directed by Steve Delahoyde and currently being redistributed across the web by ICN, the five-part series stars talents of Chicago’s improv scene depicting self-loathing characters stuck in not-so-precarious positions.
###All set to a sweet melancholy tune, Spoons and Boxes feel too much like overdrawn scenes from a Christopher Guest flick to be appealing and Kid might only find an audience amongst mommas, but Racism and Hobbies are fantastic. Peter Gross (below) and David Pasquesi (above) gracefully touch the edges of absurd before wrangling the story back into the realm of believability.
Given the subject matter, Gross is funny because you know he’s joking, but with Pasquesi you’re not quite sure. His autoneurotic behavior channels a calm Woody Allen (is that an oxymoron?) that hits close to home.
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