Los Angeles hipsters, wannabes and struggling actors get viciously skewered in The Great L.A. Pretenders, a low-budget indie web series about the perils of L.A. fakery that has just concluded its six-episode first season. We’re introduced to “The Pretenders” by main character, sometimes narrator, Sherman (Dan Shirey), who describes himself as “the badass—a sharp, edgy, angry, sarcastic American—tired of lies,” plus he’s a Muslim convert and raging alcoholic. Sherman, along with his French immigrant friend Felix (Garikayi Mutambirwa), has been hired by Mr. Adams (Gary Edward) to go under cover and infiltrate a group of yuppie wannabe actors. The reason or nature of the undercover operation is never made clear, although it’s noted that both Sherman and Felix will be paid well for their work on the project.
“The Pretenders” consist of Fernando (Nathan Marlow), a struggling Tom Hanks impersonator with a racial identity crisis, Beverly (Kara Chaput), a rich, aspiring actress/socialite who idolizes Paris Hilton, Glen (Owen Williams), a starving actor who may be too nice for L.A., and Holly (Sherry Romito), an aspiring actress and wannabe lesbian.
All of these characters converge at Sherman’s house, allegedly for social reasons, despite the fact that Sherman makes it very clear that he detests them all. This group of good-looking twenty-somethings spend their days pondering the rules of dating in L.A., the virtues of MySpace and text messages, and what it means to truly have a big-screen debut in Hollywood.
Despite some decent production value, The Great L.A. Pretenders often comes across as an over-wrought cautionary tale on how not to behave in modern day Los Angeles. The series opens with a quote from Kurt Vonnegut, stating that “we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” Whether this is meant to be deliberately pretentious or not is one of the more puzzling aspects of the series. The show creators, Djamel Bennecib and Renaud Fouilleul, clearly have some strong feelings about L.A. culture, but the tone of the show is so relentlessly mean spirited and characters they’ve created are so unlikeable that one wonders who would possibly want to spend time with these people.
By the end of season one, Sherman has had it with these sad stereotypes and begins plotting his escape from L.A. As a viewer, it was the first time I was inclined to sympathize with him. Let’s hope season two offers more hope to the droves of bright-eyed aspiring stars and starlets-to-be that arrive here in Hollywood every day.
I’m in like with I’m Just Sayin’. Most of the time. It grows on you. In part, I think it’s because they’re not talking about colonics.
In the incestuous, frenemy–filled New York bubble of cewebrity and pseudo-stardom-turned-kinda-almost-real-but-still-niche-stardom it’s refreshing to hear people on screen discuss something other than a scene. Something outside the realm of insular or mainstream pop news. Something that’s about…well…nothing.
Every now and then something comes along on the web, that’s really exciting. It’s got all the right elements to go viral — an interesting subculture: check; hot chicks: check; and really, really funny: check. I’m gonna go ahead and say it, I’m darn excited about wieners. That’s right, wieners. Well, not just wieners, but a new web series from 60Frames focusing on the world of competitive eating.
Watching the well-produced trailer (above), and the bonus clip (below) that have so-far been leaked to YouTube, I’d say The Quest for the Golden Hot Dog has all the right elements — hot chicks, wiener eaters, and a veritable who’s who of the LA-indie comedy scene. The world of competitive eating also seems so ripe for parody-fodder it’s hard to believe Will Ferrell and Adam McKay haven’t already capitalized on the idea.
Luckily for web fans, Upright Citizen’s Brigade comedian and The Quest for the Golden Hot Dog creator, Michael Busch, convinced 60Frames to bring the idea to the small screen. Busch told us about the birth of the idea, “I first thought it’d be fun to do a competitive eating show when I read an article about how Kobayashi (a competitive eating champion, and well-known member of The International Federation of Competitive Eating) couldn’t compete because of a jaw injury and was ashamed. I thought it was funny how serious these people took shoving hot dogs in their mouths.”
Busch seems to have embraced the stereotypes of the strange creatures who take the eating world so darn seriously. In the trailer, the competitors are introduced as they all ram hot dogs. There’s the novice rookie played by Jeff Sloniker. There’s the Asian natural (likely a nod to Kobayashi himself), but played by a woman, Micki Ann Maddox.Armen Weitzman plays the role of the sitting legacy. Jeff Davis is the Hungry, Hungry Hipster And Demorge Brown is the Black Bomber, and he’s well, black.
Of the series Busch had little to say, cleverly leaving us wanting more before the series comes out next week. (I’m sitting on the edge of my desk chair.) “There will be lots of greasy hot dogs shoved into funny people’s funny mouths,” he hinted. “Also, Matt Besser’s character, The Baron, is evil.”
Busch was equally clever in avoiding questions about the show’s process. The budget was, “under 10 million dollars,” according to Busch. And working with 60Frames was, “kind of like working with my mom, except they didn’t ask if I’m dating anyone every time I called.”
60Frames will debut the series next week with a minimum 4-episode run.
It would suck to be killed by a can of Mr. Pibb. You have been warned. All of the signs are there. From Arthur C. Clarke to Spielberg, we are constantly being cautioned by the great purveyors of fiction that technology, not terrorism or global warming, is the ultimate threat to mankind’s existence.
My scariest techno-flick was Maximum Overdrive. It taught me that it’s not my cell phone that’s gonna get me, it’s a big-ass truck.With the Green Goblin on the front. But, now I have to add a more menacing danger to my list.
With Amy Poehler‘s new web series Smart Girls At The Party from ON Networks picking up steam this week, we caught up with new mom Poehler to hear her thoughts on the show and the world of web television. The 8-episode series, which recently landed Mattel’s Barbie line as its lead sponsor prior to its official launch, stars Poehler along with longtime friends Meredith Walker and Amy Miles. Created for girls and their parents, its mission is to “help young girls find confidence in their own aspirations and talents.” In each episode, Poehler interviews a smart young girl with a unique talent, community interest or point of view.
Tubefilter: Amy, how did Smart Girls the series come together? Amy Poehler: Meredith and I wanted to do a funny, Charlie Rose style talk show for girls. All we knew was we wanted it to celebrate real girls and real friendships, and we wanted it to end with a dance party. We asked our good friend and musician Amy Miles to join us, and we were off.
Tubefilter: Tell us about the choice to do Smart Girls as a web series versus a traditional TV show. What made you choose the web? Poehler: It’s great to able to make something cheap and fast. The internet allows you to do that. Plus, I love the idea of using the internet for something positive. There are so many things you don’t want your kid to see on the computer, I’m hoping this will be the kind of thing that girls can watch alone in their room, with friends, or with their whole family.
Tubefilter: The internet is such a huge part of young people’s lives today, do you think original web series will ever surpass prime-time television in popularity? Poehler: I do. I think the computer is the new fireplace. Families huddle around it for warmth. I can watch things on a phone for Pete’s sake. You’re talking to a lady who didn’t have email when she went to college. The future is now!
Tubefilter: What do you think about the current slate of popular TV shows – are there enough intelligent female role models? Poehler: Nope.
Tubefilter: Who were some of your role models growing up? Poehler: Pat Benetar, Rosalyn Carter, Gilda Radner, Billie Jean King, Fred Rogers, Bill Cosby, My Mom and Dad, and Animal from The Muppets.
Tubefilter: Are young women discouraged from being smart? Poehler: It can be hard to be smart these days. It can be hard to be an original, or to show you care about anything. We wanted to do something that celebrated kids who were passionate about something and not afraid to show it.
Tubefilter: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received? Poehler: You’re a good friend.
Tubefilter: It looks like you had a whole lot of fun in the series – spontaneous dance parties! Any rap sessions break out? Poehler: The dance party was our favorite part. I challenge anyone to dance around and not get happy. I wish I could end every project I do with a spontaneous dance party. Gets the blood pumpin, blood flowing, and gets you out of your head. Dr. Poehler prescribes a dance party anytime you wanna shake those blues away!
Tubefilter: Who should watch Smart Girls? Poehler: Everyone and their mother.
It’s a continuation of his highly successful online video / YouTube strategy – that over the course of the election led to over 110 million views – and a logical evolution for the Weekly Radio Addresses / Fireside Chats that have been around since Eisenhower.
Here’s the President-Elect’s first from this past weekend:
A few comments:
First of all, the Rule of Thirds does not apply to the President of the United States.
Someone please tell that to Barack Obama’s DP. If I were a senator, I would have voted “Nay” on this guy’s appointment. I do not find my President more interesting, or myself more engaged in his message if his head is positioned slightly off center. Being off center is unbecoming of the most powerful person in the world.
Sci-Fi is alive and well on the web, and clever creators are making use of the latest visual effects toys to deliver some of the most gripping stories in weekly episodic morsels. This week we feature three of the better sci-fi web series of the last few months: IQ-145, After Judgment and Kirill. All three of these shows create an immersive world extending beyond the show itself into alternate online dimensions where the true fans can really geek out. If you haven’t caught up, there’s still time to get in on these before the stories fully unfold and the secret’s out.
Thomas Dekker (TERMINATOR: Sarah Connor Chronicles) stars as Nate Palmer, a young football star enlisted by a top secret organization, IQ-145, to help track down a stolen nano-micro-co-processor chip. There’s even a sharp looking graphic novel and a pretty active fan community to fill in some of the holes.
We’re not supposed to know what happened as we are thrust into this grim reality and introduced to the rag-tag group of survivors that carry the story—led by a mysterious ex-priest name Steven (Joel Bryant). Here’s what we do know: all the children simply vanished and time ultimately stood still- the sun doesn’t set, no one can bleed, no one can die, nothing works and you don’t want to go into the ocean or the rivers. The rest is up to us to figure out. The series is now eight episodes in to Season One since launching last month, with another eight to go. Plenty of time to catch up.
Another dark sci-fi take on the future, Kirill stars British actor David Schofield (Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator) as a scientist at CERN, the backers of the recently completed real-life (and possibly terrifying) Large Hadron Collider who is communicating from 50 years into the future after a massive disaster has hit the planet. In his dystopian future he’s a “desperate, driven, vulnerable fugitive keeping himself alive by fear and stubbornness.” You’ll need Microsoft Silverlight installed to get to all the goodies on the site, but if you just want to watch the series (in lower quality) they also have a YouTube channel.
Taryn Southern & Jessica Rose – The Webutantes (Photo by Brady Brim-DeForest)
Let’s get the big news out first. Two of the hottest stars on the web are teaming up: Jessica Rose and Taryn Southern have formed a web production company, Webutantes, and are developing a number of original web series slated to come out in the next year. We had a chance to catch up with the young web stars to talk about their new venture, their ever-evolving careers and their plans to shake up Hollywood’s outdated perceptions of women.
Holding Court
It’s El Coyote on a Thursday, and the place is frantic. For an internet star, Taryn Southern isn’t easy to find. I work my way through the labyrinth of assorted rooms, each teeming with overrun tables, making a lap or two before I realize there’s there’s a hidden back room to the restaurant. Taryn welcomes me in, where her group overflows the long narrow table in the corner. It’s a party for her latest web series, Private High Musical, which just wrapped up its inaugural season.
She holds court graciously, pausing to hug Mr. Belding himself, Dennis Haskins, on his way out. Haskins reprised his iconic role as high school principal in the series, or at least something close to it. He captures the group’s attention for a moment, gushing on how much he loved working with everyone, most especially the show’s creator-producer-star Taryn. The rest of the cast claps and smiles before returning to their gabbing, slogging down a few more house margaritas.
It could be just another cast party full of new found pseudo-friends promising to keep in touch and be BFF’s now that the shoot is over. But looking around the table of beaming LA up-and-comers I can see the mark of Taryn’s handiwork. These aren’t the random survivors of the casting gauntlet. These are a hand-picked lineup that all share one thing in common—they are all friends with Taryn.
Her friends, it turns out, are who she relies on most. This isn’t the first time she’s worked with Angie Cole, Katy Stoll or Kate Albrecht and it probably won’t be the last. A few days later we schedule another chance to talk, this time with the new business partner she’s been telling us about. “Jessica’s in Bulgaria shooting a film but should be back by next week,” Taryn tells me as we work out the next meeting. That Jessica of course is the Jessica Rose, the original Bree from lonelygirl15.
Getting Down to Business
When Taryn and Jessica arrive at our office, it’s hard not to notice Taryn’s brown hair is several shades darker and now sports vicious looking bangs that cloak her forehead. She’s just come from what she says is the “most expensive haircut I’ve ever had.” It turns out it’s for a role in yet another web series, Madison Lane, that she’s about to shoot the next day. It’s sponsored by TRESemmé and stars Taryn as a ruthless young editor at a high-end fashion magazine.
How did these two meet? You might have thought it was this past summer while shooting TheWB.com‘s mystery thriller Sorority Forever, but in fact it was almost two years before, just as Jessica was outed as an actress and not an innocent brown-eyed young vlogger that captivated millions of YouTube lonelygirl gawkers. “I came up with this idea of doing a scripted show similar to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Taryn recalls, “about the life of a web celeb. Jessica completely embodies what that is.”
Taryn had already made a name for herself in the many circles in which she runs. Some knew Taryn as a former finalist on American Idol, others knew her as the star of DirecTV’s first foray into original series, Project MyWorld, which Taryn also produced. But what would really put Taryn on the web video map was Hott4Hill, her 2007 musical parody of Obama Girl where she professed her sexually-driven devotion to Hillary Clinton. The sultry video racked more than three million views and landed her on the national media circuit—CNN, MSNBC, Good Morning America, People Magazine, FOX, NBC—bringing Taryn onto a stage few web stars have yet to trod. Waxing political behind a webcam is one thing, but thrust on the press junket with a candidate to defend is a different game altogether. “I’m on Hardball and not going to the talk about my political views? C’mon.”
Last summer she spent a few rounds sparring with Chris Matthews on Hardball the same week she hosted daily celebrity puff pieces for Cosmo—maybe Matthews underestimated her, and you can’t fault him for that really. It’s easy to underestimate Taryn. She’s barely over five feet and rarely makes a video that doesn’t bare her mid-riff at some point. IGN recently ogled her as their “Babe of the Day” and Maxim did a spread on her a little while back. But the more you learn about Taryn, the more you see this is all part of her own little game on all of us.
Taryn the producer is orchestrating her career like a grand puppet master—casting Taryn the singer, Taryn the actor, Taryn the babe and even Taryn the gossip queen where needed. It doesn’t surprise me when I find out she graduated from the University of Miami with two degrees and a 4.0 at just 20 years old, an age when most of the college set are still deciding on their first major. She’s always a step ahead it seems.
Developing a series about the life of a web celebrity meant landing Jessica Rose. “I wanted to create this world that takes women who are dealing with this world of web celebrity,” Taryn tells me. “We conceived it as a half-hour, Larry David-esque show, chronicling our misadventures around Hollywood trying to make our web videos.” Jessica jumps in, “and trying to pay rent when you’re getting paid a web celeb salary which everyone knows is sh-t.”
It’s somewhat sobering to hear this admission from one of the most recognizable faces on the internet, a reminder that the business side of web television is still in its infancy. These aren’t life-changing deals, and ultimately even the lucky ones who can say it is their full-time job are still looking for their next paycheck.
“We both had those typical Hollywood stories of what happens when you move to Hollywood. I mean, Jess found lonelygirl off of a Craigslist ad,” Taryn adds, ” and I definitely had my share of getting jobs in really interesting ways.” Many times that meant making the job for herself rather than waiting for someone else to notice her. She explains, “you learn how to be resourceful and how to create an audience for yourself when everyone else in Hollywood doesn’t want to give you that opportunity.” Jessica agrees, “it’s more rewarding coming up with the concept yourself, you get really excited about it. You have more control over it. And we both hate auditions.”
Taryn takes the lead in the interview, clearly showing how she handled her own on the national press rounds, with Jessica following her lead. The two balance each other well. Jessica is the quieter one, the thinker, the writer. Taryn is the quarterback, the business woman, the leader.
A Woman’s Perspective
Together Taryn and Jessica have formed Webutantes, a web production company looking to develop comedy series from an authentic female perspective. “It seems like all the major productions on the web are created by men,” Jessica explains, ” it’s men’s companies creating women’s web series.” She lists off some of her latest projects: Sorority Forever, created and directed by the all-male Big Fantastic, and Hooking Up, created by Woody Tondorf and the HBOlab team. Even lonelygirl15 was created by EQAL‘s Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried.
“I love how all these men think they can write for women’s heads,” Taryn chimes in, they do a decent job at it, but not great.” Jessica, in fact, has written about six different projects the pair are moving forward with at various levels. Taryn plugs her partner, “Jess has written a very very funny, raunchy comedy that is really all about the inner thinking of women. I think a lot of men would be shocked to hear that women really think that way.”
This is the reality of Hollywood these two are setting out to shake up. “A lot of what we’ve read in scripts,” says Taryn, “is a little cheesy—women are dirtier than that.” Almost on cue, Jessica jumps back in, “one time a guy wrote the line, ‘Ooh, I wonder what Brad and Angie are doing today?’ Girls don’t think about what Brad and Angie are doing today.”
The two have used their sexuality to break through, and now it appears they are looking to use it to break down traditional sexual norms, especially in comedy. Tina Fey comes up, and without prompting, Taryn professes that Tina is in fact her hero du jour. “I think that she’s brought such a fresh perspective. She’s not afraid to be funny and sexy. I’m powerful and I’m running this sh-t, so get out of my way. But she doesn’t parade her sexuality. She’s just good at what she does.” Taryn’s blog in fact, says she aims to be the Tina Fey of the online generation.
“I’ve really embraced the internet for what it can be as a voice for me and for other women. I’m sure that there’s a lot of women out there, and I know this being from Kansas, that don’t agree with my perspective… to be powerful and to be sexual and be all of those things.”
Understanding “Weblebrity”
What about this new form of interactive celebrity? What is it like to be a creator, producer and star, subject to the internet’s unrelenting ability to shower both love and hate with virulent force? “I can be exactly who I want to be on the web,” says Taryn. “You can leave a comment and tell me I’m a whore or I’m a bitch, but I can still keep doing it. And I can be successful and I can make money from it. If you have a message and you can do it in an entertaining or unique way then people will appreciate you for it. And that’s what’s awesome about being a weblebrity or whatever you want to call it.”
Jessica tells us about her first reactions to the comments on lonelygirl15. “I was so mad at first,” she says, “web video was so new for entertainment when I first started lonelygirl that I wasn’t used to seeing bad comments about every single person.” A few years later she’s a bit more seasoned in the web’s unabashed ways. “Now I’ve come to accept that no matter who you are or no matter what you do, you’re going to have a million horrible comments about you as well as a million good ones.” So does she read them? “I occasionally do,” she admits, “but not for my own sake—not like what do they think about me. For Sorority Forever I would skim it and see what they think of the show. Sometimes there are bad comments and I even agree with them.”
Taryn took some warming up to them as well. “It’s hard reading comments. I didn’t read them for a long time. Like when I first started doing my own videos, like Hott4Hillary….the comments would either be, ‘You’re awesome, I want to marry you!’ or, ‘You’re too skinny’ or, ‘you’re stupid’ or even, ‘you need to die a long burning death.’ She goes on, “look, I’m my own worst critic. I can sit here and tell you ten million things that are wrong with everything I do. But it’s a learning experience and I’m only getting better. If someone says something is bad, I usually agree with them, like I can see your point on that. I don’t take it too personally.”
Clearly there’s little that scares these two off—and they are going to need to tap that fearless hunger if they are going to make real headway in this town. Shifting Hollywood’s perceptions is never an easy feat, even for more established stars. These Webutantes are looking to do it twice, redefining not only what it means to be female stars but also how to connect with audiences in ways only the web generation seem to understand.
Back to their series about web celebrity which, much like these girls, has changed over the past few years as the space has matured. “We did shoot a [pilot] presentation for the series Webutantes, which was originally called E-lebrity,” says Taryn getting us back on track. “I think we learned a lot out from the experience of shooting a TV show that had so many evolutions. It was funny because all the networks wanted to meet with us because they were fascinated by this idea of web celebrity and what it was all about. And they didn’t know whether to send us to the scripted department or the unscripted department. They just couldn’t grasp us playing ourselves in these different scenarios. But it had a lot of evolutions and changed so much and we’ve changed so much in the past year.”
Taryn and Jessica have both rebranded themselves over the past year. This is a business after all that has a hard time getting over first impressions. “It’s really hard to be taken seriously when you start out a certain way,” Taryn points out, hinting at her frustrations with the system. “I started out hosting. Everyone said, ‘you’re a host, that’s what you do. That’s what you do well.'” Her hosting gigs have seen her manning the red carpet for the Grammy’s and the Golden Globe Awards, though it’s clear that these are just a day job for the young entrepreneur. Her transition into a young leading female actress has been via a handful of web series—as a troubled college freshman in Sorority Forever and a geeky high schooler in her own series Private High Musical—and a supporting role in an indie comedy film, Senior Skip Day, which made it to Comedy Central.
Jessica’s transition away from 150 episodes as Bree meant briefly heading to TV—half a season on ABC Family’s Greek—before her inevitable return to the web in TheWB.com’s first original web seriesSorority Forever, HBOlab’s Hooking Upexperiment and 60Frames’ yet to be released thriller series, Blood Cell.
What’s Next
Web entertainment as an industry is still so much in flux that it’s pretty obvious nothing is certain in this rapidly changing space. Even the webcam video blogs that made Jessica famous are now cropping up almost everywhere. I have to ask her straight up, are vlogs passé? “Yeah, they are kind of done now,” Jessica confides. “You go in and you pitch a show now, they want to know what’s the web angle going to be, are you guys going to do video blogs? That’s not what I personally would want to go see when I watch a show. If the show calls for it, sure, but if it’s forced in there we see that it’s just the web element and it’s stupid.”
So what is the next wave in web storytelling? Taryn simmers on this for a second, “I think the way we tell stories will be very different. The internet allows you to create an experience—I want to call it a fusion of video games with traditional entertainment. The idea that the viewer is actually playing a role and impacting the story. There’s an opportunity for the audience to be a character.” She starts thinking about one of their new web projects currently in the works, trying not to give too much away. “There’s a concept right now that I’m in love with that we’re developing where every audience member is a character and impacts the storyline and what happens. I think we’ll see more of that. I think entertainment will be less of ‘oh is it a web show’ or ‘is it a TV show’, but how is this part of this larger game play.”
The pair feels empowered by their positions as web series creators. You can see it in their approach to the studios, who were once firmly positioned as the only way to reach a mass audience. Now they are able to self-distribute and self-promote, reaching an audience of millions with virtually no formal marketing push. “We have gone to the studios, we’ve been in those rooms and we love working with them,” Taryn says. “But even they are seeing that they have to go to advertisers. They almost become middlemen. On the internet we can be our own studio in a way and talk directly to advertisers.”
What lies ahead for these two is yet to be seen. Success on the internet is about captivating attention and then holding it. Both of these young stars had vehicles that launched them onto the web scene, but now sit in the driver’s seat of their own careers. In order to succeed, they will have to don the many hats they have worn over the past few years, as both artists and entrepreneurs in a business that is still trying to find its own bottom-line.
In November 2005, Irina Slutksy told Eddie Codel to grab his camera. The two then ventured inside San Francisco’s Bubble of Web 2.0 (a term that was okay to use back then) to interview their friends who were intimately involved in the scene.
Geek Entertainment TV began as an irreverent, fun-loving yet informative, tech-focused talk show and, over the past three years, has turned into a celebration of all things fanatical, usually (but not necessarily) with a tech bent.
The show just celebrated its third birthday (which makes it 27 in Internet Years – it’s a 9:1 ratio, obviously), but Irina tells me Geek Entertainment TV is just ramping up.
The new web series Being Eddie Black, from Byron Hord of BEB Productions, created by R. Byron Hord and Devon K. Shepard, follows Eddie (played by Casey Washington) as he receives a promotion from the mail room into big-time corporate advertising at the Homogeny agency. Surprisingly enough, Eddie meets a diverse group of co-workers at the agency who are determined to fit the mold created by ridiculous corporate policy.
Eddie’s bosses, Peter Rosenbaum and Kathy Harrigan, are nightmarish creatures reminiscent of Bill Lumberg in Office Space. They take pleasure in sticking it to their employees on technicalities and rules, and the customer is always king, no matter how lame the customer might be. In Eddie’s case the customer won’t trust a black man without a mustache. Luckily for Eddie, viewers advised Eddie not to shave his ‘stache even after a black co-worker told him he’d be less scary without it.
It’s this kind of race-based, but fun-spirited humor that makes Eddie Black work. That, and the fact that the audience gets to decide Eddie’s fate—so anyone offended by the show can’t really blame the writing team. At the end of each episode, viewers are asked to vote on key issues currently affecting Eddie’s career. In addition to the burning question of Eddie’s mustache, viewers were asked to decide if Eddie should tell his customer that their lame rap song was lame, or if he should work with wet-blanket co-worker Jen Roberts.
Show creator Byron Hord says that there are definitely parts of the show that may fall victim to common stereotypes, but that they have a basis in truth. “The dualities of corporate life (and home life) are triply true for minority professionals. Besides our cultures and customs not being mainstream, our skin color lacks that distinction as well.”
Hord has found that he’s struck a chord with his viewers when it comes to the format of the show. “They love it,” Hord says of the choice aspect of the show. “What’s weird, though, and this shows how cynical I am, this actually worked. People voted, and really feel that they’re a part of Eddie Black’s life. To see people really caring about a character on a web series was great and also helped me realize the power of interactivity.”
Viewers will continue to have a say in Eddie’s perilous journey climbing the corporate ladder in the thirteen episode series. Byron says that if you like the series, make sure to continue to “help Eddie!”
Guy, is a regular, er, guy. Guy needs a place to live. Luckily, Guy finds a real bargain: a trailer for one dollar. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.
Everyone, at one point or another, has dealt with problems involving their place of residence. My apartment gets ants during the summer. Yours could have faulty plumbing, or perhaps your building manager hovers over your bed watching you sleep (Is that you Mr. Roper? Couldn’t you have changed the air conditioning filter in the morning?).
For Guy, it’s something a little more problematic – demons. Welcome to HellHoles.
HellHoles is a little gem of a series. From Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle (they also share directing duties) of Newborn Pictures, this four episode lesson in hilarity sees what happens when a hapless guy’s trailer sits on a portal to hell. I don’t want to ruin the gags in this all-too-short series, so I’ll give you the gist:
Los Angeles hipsters, wannabes and struggling actors get viciously skewered in The Great L.A. Pretenders, a low-budget indie web series about the perils of L.A. fakery that has just concluded its six-episode first season. We’re introduced to “The Pretenders” by main character, sometimes narrator, Sherman (Dan Shirey), who describes himself as “the badass—a sharp, edgy, angry, sarcastic American—tired of lies,” plus he’s a Muslim convert and raging alcoholic. Sherman, along with his French immigrant friend Felix (Garikayi Mutambirwa), has been hired by Mr. Adams (Gary Edward) to go under cover and infiltrate a group of yuppie wannabe actors. The reason or nature of the undercover operation is never made clear, although it’s noted that both Sherman and Felix will be paid well for their work on the project.
Despite some decent production value, The Great L.A. Pretenders often comes across as an over-wrought cautionary tale on how not to behave in modern day Los Angeles. The series opens with a quote from Kurt Vonnegut, stating that “we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” Whether this is meant to be deliberately pretentious or not is one of the more puzzling aspects of the series. The show creators, Djamel Bennecib and Renaud Fouilleul, clearly have some strong feelings about L.A. culture, but the tone of the show is so relentlessly mean spirited and characters they’ve created are so unlikeable that one wonders who would possibly want to spend time with these people.
Tubefilter: Amy, how did Smart Girls the series come together?
She holds court graciously, pausing to hug Mr. Belding himself, 
How did these two meet? You might have thought it was this past summer while shooting 
Developing a series about the life of a web celebrity meant landing Jessica Rose. “I wanted to create this world that takes women who are dealing with this world of web celebrity,” Taryn tells me. “We conceived it as a half-hour, Larry David-esque show, chronicling our misadventures around Hollywood trying to make our web videos.” Jessica jumps in, “and trying to pay rent when you’re getting paid a web celeb salary which everyone knows is sh-t.”
Jessica tells us about her first reactions to the comments on lonelygirl15. “I was so mad at first,” she says, “web video was so new for entertainment when I first started lonelygirl that I wasn’t used to seeing bad comments about every single person.” A few years later she’s a bit more seasoned in the web’s unabashed ways. “Now I’ve come to accept that no matter who you are or no matter what you do, you’re going to have a million horrible comments about you as well as a million good ones.” So does she read them? “I occasionally do,” she admits, “but not for my own sake—not like what do they think about me. For Sorority Forever I would skim it and see what they think of the show. Sometimes there are bad comments and I even agree with them.”
Back to their series about web celebrity which, much like these girls, has changed over the past few years as the space has matured. “We did shoot a [pilot] presentation for the series Webutantes, which was originally called E-lebrity,” says Taryn getting us back on track. “I think we learned a lot out from the experience of shooting a TV show that had so many evolutions. It was funny because all the networks wanted to meet with us because they were fascinated by this idea of web celebrity and what it was all about. And they didn’t know whether to send us to the scripted department or the unscripted department. They just couldn’t grasp us playing ourselves in these different scenarios. But it had a lot of evolutions and changed so much and we’ve changed so much in the past year.”
Web entertainment as an industry is still so much in flux that it’s pretty obvious nothing is certain in this rapidly changing space. Even the webcam video blogs that made Jessica famous are now cropping up almost everywhere. I have to ask her straight up, are vlogs passé? “Yeah, they are kind of done now,” Jessica confides. “You go in and you pitch a show now, they want to know what’s the web angle going to be, are you guys going to do video blogs? That’s not what I personally would want to go see when I watch a show. If the show calls for it, sure, but if it’s forced in there we see that it’s just the web element and it’s stupid.”
Hord has found that he’s struck a chord with his viewers when it comes to the format of the show. “They love it,” Hord says of the choice aspect of the show. “What’s weird, though, and this shows how cynical I am, this actually worked. People voted, and really feel that they’re a part of Eddie Black’s life. To see people really caring about a character on a web series was great and also helped me realize the power of interactivity.”
