At least 1,007,000 XO laptops have been ordered by no less than 23 countries under the One Laptop Per Child program. That number sounds like a lot, but it’s not enough.
Chaired by computer scientist Nicholas Negroponte, the (It’s not an laptop project. It’s an education) project evolved through research that started in January 2005 at the MIT Media lab to develop a $100 laptop that could work under common conditions in developing countries (limited access to power sources, sunlight readability, no easy internet access, etc.).
The idea is that the widespread distribution of a single, affordable computer will give 6 to 12-year-olds in the developing world access to a powerful educational tool and shrink the digital divide. But in order to substantially educate children in “places you’ve never heard – in countries you cannot pronounce,” we need to be sending a helluva lot more laptops.
Gossip Girl creator Josh Schwartz has made up his mind on the fate of the rumored web series spinoff of the popular Upper East Side drama, according to E! Online. Originally expected to be a prequel series to the oft-referenced backstory of Rufus (Matthew Settle) and Lily (Kelly Rutherford), that plan was apparently ditched for a new storyline centered around the Waldorf’s housekeeper Dorota (Zuzanna Szadkowski).
With the Young Rufus and Lily in Love series scratched, possibly to save costs on the talent side, Blair Waldorf’s sometime confidante will take prime billing in what might end up being called simply Dorota!, a reference to Blair’s incessant beckoning for the trusted housekeeper.
The series will be developed primarily for mobile viewing as part of the show’s distribution deal with Verizon signed last year. Episodes will first be available only through Verizon phones, but are said to be pushed out for web viewing shortly thereafter.
Schwartz is already knee deep in another upcoming teen drama web series, Rockville, CA, which takes a deep dive into Echo Park’s thriving indie rock scene. That series is slated for an early 2009 release on TheWB.com.
Weapons’ Expert Jax, Cynic Ajax, Comptuer Whiz Zaptop, Commander Carruthers, Another Guy, and a number of nameless underlings to evil overlords are training in the nation of Val Verde, learning how to hate on action heroes and aid and abed bad guys.
Created by sketch comedy crew Elephant Larry, the thus far four-epsiode plot features the wacky quintuple as a nebbishy commando troupe of misfits trying to survive in the jungle of Central America. Death and destruction comes with the territory, but a recent stint of macabre murders – and the narrator and the alien-looking thing that’s killing everyone – slowly leads the aspiring vigilantes to believe they’re living inside the Predator movie franchise.
Cross one item off your holiday shopping list. At $15 this one is such a no-brainer, you can send us one too.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, this summer’s runaway sitebuster from creator Joss Whedon is finally available on DVD just in time for the holidays. The special edition DVD ships December 19th though you can pre-order now with 2-day shipping to ensure you actually get one in time. Pre-order sales are already shooting up the Amazon charts.
Arguably the most popular original online series to date, Dr. Horrible gave the nascent web series community a certified commercial success and a reference point of what an online hit actually looks like. Even before the show’s soundtrack dominated the music charts in September, the series had already grossed over $2 Million by most accounts just from iTunes downloads in the first few weeks of its release.
The DVD is loaded with special features as expected: making-of featurette, Evil League of Evil (ELE) applications and musical commentary from Joss and his co-writers (his brothers Jed and Zack Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen) and of course the stars—Felicia Day, Neil Patrick Harris, Simon Helberg and Nathan Fillion. Yes, you read that correctly, even the commentary is a muscial. “Commentary! The Musical” is the most painstaking and exhausting piece of whimsey I have ever mistaken for a good idea,” wrote Joss today on Whedonesque.“It has nearly twice as much music as Dr. Horrible itself — since you can’t really talk that much during a commentary musical or it sounds like a regular commentary.
As Joss admits , the ship date is a little close for comfort for Christmas shoppers:
The listed street date is, by the way, a little later than we’d expected — I’m hoping Amazon is just playing it safe and we can beat that date. More on that as we learn it. Expect a twittering sensation.
With confirmed talks of a sequel in the works, it’s time to start thinking about what’s next from the internet’s man with the Midas touch. And there’s no shortage of places teeming with speculation. Joss has made it pretty clear he wasn’t just flirting with this new medium:
All that rhetoric about the future of entertainment that flew about during the Strike is still entirely true. We need to find our own way of producing entertainment. A lot of people are watching Dr. Horrible to see if it’s any kind of model — way more people than I expected — and it means everything to me to help pave the way for artists to start working and making a living from the ground up. There are a couple of real pioneers in this that I know personally: Felicia Day, I’m thrilled to say, and choreographer Chris Elam are both looking far ahead in terms of monetization and interactivity.
For those of you in and around Los Angeles, make sure to RSVP for our upcoming Hollywood Web Television Meetup featuring web creator Felicia Day and Cristian Cussen, Director of Content and Marketing at MySpaceTV.
The direct-to-video label is now one of manyunderthe Warner umbrella investing in digital media. In fact, we’re having difficulty keeping all of Warner’s digital divisions straight. But the more the merrier, I suppose.
The studio reached out to Bad Hat Harry Productions to develop the apocalyptic sci-fi thriller H+. The concept began as a television pitch by John Cabrera and Cosimo De Tommaso before being reworked for digital. The series will follow aftermath of a terrorist attack that has killed off a large portion of humanity.
So, does it make sense for a direct-to-video division to dabble in digital media?
Thanks to all who made it out to the very social November meetup at Barney’s Beanery. Next Wednesday, December 3, we are hosting another Hollywood Web Television Meetup at the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile. This one will be well worth attending—we have some great speakers lined up for you this month:
Cristian Cussen
Director of Content and Marketing at MySpaceTV
Sponsored by Tubefilter, the monthly Hollywood Web Television Meetup brings together Los Angeles’ rich, diverse creative talent for the purpose of sharing resources, finding opportunities for collaboration, and helping talented content creators to shape the future of web television.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 8:00pm-10:00pm Screen Actors Guild James Cagney Boardroom, 1st Floor 5757 Wilshire Blvd at S Curson Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Attendees should park in the structure and SAG will validate. Here’s a handy map to find your way. Please take a moment before the meetup to make a one-click nomination for Tubefilter at the 2008 Crunchies Awards. And if you’re worried about not seeing us again until January, come join us for the 2008 Digital Family Reunion on December 11, which we’re proudly sponsoring. You can buy tickets here.
This April Pitchfork, longtime go-to for the latest in independent music, launched Pitchfork TV, an online channel dedicated to chronicling indie music. In addition to posting mini-documentaries, carefully curated music videos, and even some feature films, Pitchfork TV is also the home to the original comedy series Beardo.
Created by Tim Harrington, front man of the New York indie art punk outfit Les Savy Fav and all around cool bearded guy, it’s easy to see how the show gets it’s name. Known for his stage theatrics, Harrington is a natural in the format of the series, which feels almost like a one-man variety show.
In the pilot episode, “Vampiral Dysfunction,” Harrington plays a vampire with performance anxiety (featuring a delightful guest appearance from web starKristen Schaal), and in subsequent episodes, we watch as Harrington merrily pranks concert-goers by giving them “massages” and “haircuts.”
So what are the plans for Beardo? Tubefilter recently had a chat with Harrington during which he may have, among other things, coined the phrase “high–fiving relationship,” which you should steal and use.
Tubefilter: Did Pitchfork TV approach you vice versa?
Tim Harrington: Well it was probably down the middle. When [Pitchfork TV] first launched I had worked on some videos to inaugurate the channel where myself and Fred Armisen, the Saturday Night Live comedian guy—we pretended to be sort of Pitchfork bosses who were interviewing potential online talent for the channel, you know, reporters and things. Pitchfork organized an open call cattle call audition in New York for anyone who wanted to be an anchor person on a young, hip music channel, so we got a lot of really funny people showing up to that event, to try and be online personalities for Pitchfork. And Fred and I kind of harassed them. Difficult interviews. So that went really well, and everyone was really happy with it.
So then, since that time, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Pitchfork because I’ve got a lot of crazy ideas, it’s sort of common knowledge among people who know me—a lot of people tell me that I have a lot of ideas, a lot of things I want to be making and not enough stages to put them on. So Pitchfork had this idea of having The Tim Show and having it be whatever I wanted to do. And that’s what Beardo is.
Tubefilter: Are you guys planning to do a whole season? How many episodes are you going to do?
Tim Harrington: We don’t have a whole episode count yet. I haven’t gotten organized, schedule-wise, myself. You know, I also have this rock band, that sort of travels around, called Les Savy Fav. Beyond that, our goal right now is to do episodes every other Thursday. We’ve got a new episode this Thursday and probably five or six more in the hopper. But I think right now we kind of see it as an ongoing project. Hopefully as the success grows, we’ll become more organized into seasons. You know I’ve got a stack fifty deep of index cards with episode ideas on them, and it’s about how to try and get through them all.
Tubefilter: The pilot is scripted and kind high concept but the next two episodes are more man on the street. What other kind of episodes can we expect?
Tim Harrington: The episode that comes out this Thursday is a meditation DVD spoof that is mostly animated, has a little live action. We have an episode that we’re putting props together for that’s a puppet theatre-style episode. I think really the goal is for the show to always service the narrative ideas by any means necessary. I kinda take some inspiration in my personal life from punk music and I think Beardo can take advantage of that concept. If I have an idea for an episode that might go on in space, we don’t have to not do it because we can’t figure out a situation that looks like outer space, but we can—by any means necessary—if it turns out that sitting inside a garbage pail qualifies as outer space, then so be it. We’re keeping the look and feel episode to episode really being whatever the quickest and most interesting way to get an idea across is the goal, we don’t want the aesthetic to be exactly what the audience expects. And since it’s online, you don’t have to answer to the rules of TV where things have to make sense. But I don’t want to take advantage—people’s attitude and appetite is broad. People can understand “Oh, this show can provide me with something different every time.”
Tubefilter: Kristen Schaal guest stars in the pilot—are there any other guest stars and cameos we can expect on the show?
Tim Harrington: Well, I don’t have a lot of them planned right now that I can officially talk about, but, yes. From so much time I’ve spent with my band, I sort of have a high-fiving relationship with a lot of interesting and funny people in music and in comedy. While I’ve been doing Beardo, I’ve been asking them [to be in my show], everyone seems pretty game and excited. I plan to get as many helping hands as possible.
Tubefilter: What’s going on with Les Savy Fav?
Tim Harrington: We’re playing some shows here and there, around Christmas we don’t do very much, but we’re going to be in Tampa, Chicago, Atlanta, and down south. Hopefully I have time to get everything in the world done.
When Tim isn’t making music or web videos, he’s working on Deadly Squire, a textile company, with his wife. Check out Beardo on Pitchfork.tv.
In addition to Design by the Book – a mini-series co-produced with Design*Sponge that asks artists from Hipster, New York to call the NYPL their muse, then documents the products of their inspiration – and Live from the NYPL – “cognitive theater” aka recordings from conversations, debates, and performances the library presents – Treasures is the establishment’s flagship show.
Happy Thanksgiving Week everyone! Fall is in full effect (even here in L.A., it has dropped below 70), so now is a good time to snuggle in and watch some web tv, or find a quick escape from family during the holiday. We’ve picked some classics for you to get you through the holiday week.
[“(Layers)”]
The intensely self-referential web series that’s a mock documentary of the making of a reality show about a Hollywood agent that represents agents, [“(Layers)”] takes “meta” to the extreme. Starring Cavemen’sNick Kroll and Back on Topps’Jason and Randy Sklar and featuring Roommating‘s Erin Gibson and the gang from FX’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, this series has a lot going on beneath, above, and in-between the surface.
French Maid TV
Industry veteran Tim Street has been pumping out episodes of French Maid TV for years now and has racked up an impressive 20+ million views. He’s found a formula that works, and better yet, a demographic that can’t get enough of his sexy yet instructive maid service. With topics that range from how to administer CPR to registering a domain, there’s a little bit for everyone.
With The Angels
From lonelygirl15 writer Mary Feuer comes With The Angels, a fish-out-of-water story of a small-town Arkansas girl who moves to Venice, CA. Part of writers’ video portal Strike.TV’s initial lineup of original indie web series, With The Angels is now eighteen episodes into its first season and has been one of the only series that’s showing success growing an audience outside of the Strike.TV site itself.
Season 2 of The Guildlaunched today. The first 10-episodes of the online series created by World of Warcraft junkie Felicia Daywere made possible by contributions from viewers like you, but the show’s sophomore season has a big-time sponsor and distributor (in addition to using equipment donated by the Casanovas crew).
Ms. Day gained popularity from Joss Whedon‘s Buffy The Vampire Slayer and was the object of Dr. Horrible‘s (and many a nerd’s) affection.
Microsoft has “an exclusive lock” on the next 12-episodes and Sprint will sponsor the series that seeks to find “what happens when hardcore online gamers stop gazing into their laptops and cross into the messy territory of real life.” It will be the first show “distributed worldwide simultaneously across Miscrosoft’s triple platform of Xbox 360’s Live Marketplace, MSN, and Zune.”
It’s official. Felicia Day is a certified web star. The creator, lead actress and producer of what has become the gold standard for independent web series, The Guild, has redefined what it means to be a star. Some were introduced to her this summer through her standout performance as Penny (she can sing!) in Joss Whedon’s summer mega-hit web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Still millions more have been with her since her few episodes as Vi on Buffy or even the early days of The Guild. Matt Enlow wrote an excellent piece on Why We Follow Felicia: Analysis of The Guild’s Success Story, which summed it up this way: “Above all, Felicia brings savvy and grace to web video. She knows her stuff, hell – she helped invent it.”
Season 2 of her hit series The Guild premieres today, fresh off the heels of a massive sponsorship and distribution deal with Microsoft and Sprint. New episodes will run exclusively for the first four weeks after each release on MSN, Xbox 360 Live and Zune Marketplace. With the launch of the new season, Felicia sure has been busy—juggling production of The Guild while also shooting a role in ABC Family’s upcoming comedy Roommates. We managed to grab a few minutes of her time to chat about the long awaited sponsorship deal and what to expect from Season 2.
Tubefilter: Is everyone back from Season 1? Has time passed, or do we pick up right where things left off?
Felicia Day: We pick up about a week after Season 1 so no, very little time has passed.
Tubefilter: With Zaboo’s mother defeated in Season 1, can we expect a new, more terrifying ‘villian’ this season?
Day: The Villain this season is less concrete. You could call the “boss monster” inter-guild relationships. I wanted to explore the characters more and how they interact together, but there’s definitely action, don’t worry! Tubefilter: The new Guild website and community features (Ning) have really stepped it up this season. Will there be additional ways for fans to interact with the show?
Day: We are excited about the revamp of the site, featuring the new video wide screen player. Episodes won’t go on our site immediately on release, but they’ll be downloadable in HD/widescreen through Xbox Live Marketplace and streaming weekly on MSN Video. We want to build out our ning community site, at community.watchtheguild.com, as the place audience can interact with other fans and cast and crew members as well! There is a chat room, forums, blogs etc. It’s a great resource. We also have a Warcraft guild, info is on the Ning site, where we play and relax, and plan on doing a few live stream events during the season. Also, we will be doing a few conventions next year to meet fans, and who knows, maybe an LA meetup is on the horizon, that could be fun!
Tubefilter: You’ve certainly been busy this fall, have you managed to find time to play WoW (or other games) at all?
Day: Um, sadly, I just hit 70 right before the Lich King Expansion came out, so yet again, I’m behind the curve. The accelerated production schedule, due to weekly episode roll-outs rather than monthly, has really taught me a lot about production, and why there are so many people on a TV or movie set. Each of those crew members is necessary to make the show quick enough! We finish filming the season mid-December and I am looking forward to a Christmas break with Spore, WOW, Fable 2 and Rock Band 2. To name a few 🙂
Tubefilter: Congrats on the Microsoft and Sprint sponsorship deal that was just announced. What made you choose them as partners?
Day: It’s an amazing opportunity. We turned down DOZENS of deals for the show because I wanted to retain creative autonomy, rights and keep the grassroots spirit of the show, as well as partner with a person who could distribute on a global level. Xbox has been a fantastic partner in enabling us to grow the show and up our production values, I can’t think of a better pairing.
Felicia Day will be one of the speakers at our December Hollywood Web Television Meetup on December 3rd. Make sure to RSVP if you’re in LA and would like to attend.
Gossip Girl creator 
Happy Thanksgiving Week everyone! Fall is in full effect (even here in L.A., it has dropped below 70), so now is a good time to snuggle in and watch some web tv, or find a quick escape from family during the holiday. We’ve picked some classics for you to get you through the holiday week.
It’s official. 
