Want Internet TV in your living room?  You have some options, but nothing perfect just yet.

Open distribution of video has already had a profound impact on the entertainment industry, but we’ve yet to see widespread adoption of devices that span the last mile, sending video content distributed over IP directly to the TV.  The latest announcement from Nintendo is much too little way too late.

As Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee notes, Wii, with its “gesture driven remote,” could be the device of choice for many users, but not without more content. Nintendo has opted for a walled-garden offering of family-friendly content that’s unlikely to spur major interest.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
No Comments »

The Wire fans are a fierce breed. Whenever The Wire comes up in passing conversation a fan usually demands that whomever has yet to see the show needs to immediately drop everything and begin from season one. While I have yet to see the show, from it’s sheer cult status, everything The Wire intrigues me, including a new web series from a woman who kept everyone on The Wire well-fed while working in craft services.

Life After Lisa, a new drama web series set in the 80’s, is the brainchild of Maryland-native Elena Moscatt. While working craft services on the show, the indie filmmaker also worked her connections, landing cameos for Lisa from Method Man and Corey Parker Robinson, both actors on The Wire. Lead cast members for the show include Zoe Sloane, Sabrina Kay, and Stephanie Danielson as Jessie Beaumont, the protagonist of the story.

It’s 1987, and Jessie starts school in Baltimore at Brighton College a semester late. She lucks out and gets her own dorm room, until she discovers she’s occupying the room of a girl named Lisa Shatner who died in a car crash last semester. The show chronicles how each girl’s life has been affected since Lisa’s death. Being the artsy girl she is Jessie almost always has a camera in hand filming everything.

So far, only a video from Jessie’s video diary, and an episode preview have been released, as the series has yet to fully launch. The first season is slated for 22 eight-minute episodes premiering on February 1st. Jessie’s camera is surprisingly mobile for the clunky VHS models of the day, and the quality is also undeniably crisp. Perhaps this was a production choice, but this could have been something fun to play with in the video diary sections, especially since there is such care taken with other tonal details, such as fashion, drink references (Bartle and James), and music (The Cure). The music in the preview videos uses 80’s sounding local Baltimore bands like Ego Likeness, The Perfects, and Australian natives Parralox.provides a creepier tonal soundtrack that feels slickly produced and perhaps suitable for cable television.

While the premise of this one is intriguing, so far I fear it may fall into the trap of being just another video diary series. Additionally, the web site feels like a personal promotional page for each actress rather than a place to get to know and interact with characters and the story. On the other hand, it seems Moscatt, Wire veteran, has picked up a good knack for suspense, even through work in craft services, and for now, that will bring me back to see what’s become of Lisa. This is actually Moscatt’s second stab at a web series, having converted a short film she shot back in 1998, Jamie’s Way, to a four-episode web series earlier this year.

Filed under: Articles, Drama, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Lindsay Stidham
No Comments »

Hey, Battlestar Galactica fans. Can’t wait until the January 16 premiere of the fourth and final season? Are those Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy webisodes satisfying, but with just two five-minute episodes released a week not satiating your desire for fraktacular entertainment? Amazon might have the snafu for you.

SyFyPortal reports Amazon released all except the ninth episode of the 10-part online mini-series over the weekend, streaming four of the remaining installments well ahead of their scheduled release. 

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
No Comments »

Nintendo is inching into the online video market with new partner Dentsu, Japan’s largest advertising firm, with plans to offer free and pay-per-view videos on the Wii game console, according to a recent AFP news group report. The game manufacturer, slurking in the steps of trailblazers Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox (who offer large libraries of original and syndicated video), plans to focus on content specifically made for Wii’s Wiinoma Channel with a Japan-only release in Spring 2009 and no announced plans for international distribution.

“Nintendo and Dentsu shall use the environment surrounding the Wii so that living rooms with Wii-ready TVs would become more of a fun area for communication among families and friends,” the firms said in a translated joint statement. The companies are soliciting pitches for original Wii videos, which will be primarily family-friendly. With reports of major Japanese media companies (including Fuji Television and Nippon Television) teaming up to build a secure content distribution system for the Wii, we have high hopes for what Nintendo has in store for Web Television in 2009.

Filed under: Articles, Industry, News by Drew Baldwin
No Comments »

Zoe Bell is about to take front and center of a few million LCD screens this February. And it’s about time. We have to admit we’ve been looking forward to this trailer (above) since we took a visit to the set of Crackle‘s new action thriller web series Angel of Death, which stars the New Zealand stuntwoman-actress (Bell) as Eve, a vengeful assassin out to “right the wrongs” of all those vicious cold-hearted hits. That’s all after a near-death wound to the head delivers visions of her past victims. Really? Well, thankfully comic mastermind Ed Brubaker, known for his gritty crime fiction (and a couple of Eisner Awards), wrote the series and will most likely keep it out of the ridiculous bin.

Bell, of course is the longtime stuntwoman for former Xena star Lucy Lawless, who co-stars as Bell’s weary neighbor Vera. Rounding out the cast are Doug Jones, Ted Raimi (brother of Spider-Man director Sam Raimi) and Jake Abel. Crackle went with director Paul Etheredge for the series, having helmed the Buried Alive web series for them late last year.

With buzz growing, this is Bell’s chance to step in the boots of a full-fledged badass female action star. She has the action side nailed—Grindhouse, Uma Thurman’s stuntwoman on Kill Bill—but now the acting spotilght is on her. From what we can tell, she’s turned her crazy-hot intensity on making sure she delivers.

From our October interview with Zoe:

“Eve is guiltless, heartless — emotionally sterile before she suffers the trauma that changes her,” Bell tells us. “She has to learn to co-exist with emotion” she adds, letting on that she has worked her character backstory well beyond what writer Ed Brubaker had written out.

Angel of Death is slated for a February 2009 debut, bowing on Crackle with a weekly release of ten episodes over ten weeks.

Filed under: Action, Articles, Crackle, Crackle (Sony Pictures Television), Featured, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
No Comments »

Day after Christmas, and the last Friday of 2008. We hope you all are enjoying some time with your families and away from your untreated internet addictions. This week was also chance for us at Tubefilter to catch up on all those web series we have been covering but fell behind a little. Shame on us. We’re talking about series like Valley Peaks (now on episode 7), which is still one of the better genre satires on the web. And there’s Agency of Record, which with us being Adobe nuts already, we say really sets the bar for product in integration in web series. It’s about creatives at an ad agency—Adobe products are basically as basal as chairs and desks. And for silly almost-adult fun, we caught up with the latest from James Gunn’s PG Porn. The Gunn brothers, who playfully called themselves The White Wayans’, have made a few more of these gems and we suggest boning up on them. And the Whatever Hollywood girls continue to ring those holiday bells, still looking to score Jimmy Kimmel as a guest.

Top stories of the week:

• Will Ferrell Gets $3M Stocking Stuffer for Funny Or Die
• ‘Battlestar Galactica: The Face of The Enemy’ Web Series a Must-Watch For BSG Fans
• ‘IQ-145′ – Stunning Visuals, Clunky Story

Filed under: Articles, Friday Rewind, News, Web Series by Tubefilter News
No Comments »

The Murder of Dirk Snowglobe, a new comedy web series slated to debut in April of 2009, promises a lot of things. As creator Jon Fairhurst explained to Tubefilter, “The story is a comedy set in Borderton, a corrupt noir-esqe city where murders are common.” Dirk Snowglobe is a delusional detective who seems to think he’s actually dead too, and is trying to solve his own murder while his partner Chet Candles (Jeff Drovdahl) leads him along as they “investigate murders as a series of twists and turns lead them to the ridiculous.

Plenty of cheaply made web series (in Fairhurst’s words, “our budget for each episode is the cost of pizza”) tend to have one shortcoming – they look cheap. One of the biggest tell-tale signs that you’re watching a series made for little or no money is that the camera quality is bad, sometimes worse than YouTube quality, the sound is barely audible, and you can tell it was filmed on a street corner with pedestrians staring at the camera quizzically.

It says something about Snowglobe when I’m excited about its production value before it’s even started production. Fairhurst sets the show up to be impressively edited, saying that it will “present the urban decay of our modern world with the feel of black and white… [while] musically we will combine the urban sounds of be-bop and hip hop, along with an orchestral underscore.” Technically, these guys know what they’re talking about when it comes to cameras, as evidenced by the fact that the two latest posts on the Snowglobe blog are about the sensor size and shutter speed of their new digital SLR camera, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Fairhurst also promised some seriously impressive technical details for the show, telling us that it “will be shot at 1080p using 35mm lenses.”

Snowglobe is the latest project from Bellingham, Washington-based Fairhurst and his son Nathan who together make up Poorly Projected Pictures. Their last online project was the long-running Colonel Crush: Films of Action, which dates back to late 2006. For Snowglobe, the pair are hoping to have a trailer out by February, premier the 12 minute pilot at the Seattle International Film Festival, and in April release the first seasons 8 six-minute episodes weekly. If the series is successful, they’ll break to produce the next 8 episodes, and release them weekly again. The new series will most likely either be self-hosted or released through Revver.

All in all, The Murder of Dirk Snowglobe promises to have strong film noir elements and a proper musical accompaniment, while telling a complicated story with a comedy twist on it. And it’s all shot in high definition on a low budget. Fairhurst himself summed it up best- “With so many entertainment options available, we wanted to present something new and different.” After talking to him, I think they just might pull it off. The Snowglobe site is already live, with a number of “clues” already in place for over eager sleuths.

Filed under: Articles, Comedy, Featured, Production Companies, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
No Comments »

You’re at a relaxed holiday barbecue.  You’re enjoying a beer and some discussion on the latest trends in [insert your interest] when you hear some clanking, or whistling, and then suddenly you’re standing awkwardly as someone across the room drones on, with occasionally mildly funny but forced, pre-planned witticism.  You sip your beer and laugh courteously, wondering when the entertainment will end.

Like this feelling?  You’ll love Maina TV’s BarBeQuay.

[HTML1]

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
No Comments »

Though it can be funny and effective, we never aim to insult.  Instead, we seek to speak our minds, sometimes with criticism but more often with praise.

Barely Political‘s Obama Girl is iconic of our growing industry.  Her ubiquity is nothing short of viral marketing genius.

We’re gratified and flattered, to say the very least, to get this holiday video card from a brand that has accepted our sometimes harsh critique with grace and understanding.

Happy holidays to you too Obama Girl, Barely Political and Next New Networks!

And happy holidays to everyone else in the online video world.  Here’s to the spirit of collaboration!

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
No Comments »

Will Ferrell’s online comedy vid site Funny or Die received a $3 million gift from an undisclosed single benefactor for “in-kind contributions for marketing, publicity and promotional support for programing” according to a regulatory filing reported by Reuters (thanks for the tip Perez Hilton).

Especially given today’s recessive economic climate, this news certainly indicates that web entertainment is here to stay. Earlier this year Portfolio Magazine reported $15 million investment into the site, and Funny Or Die recently sold a small equity stake to HBO in June, with the intention to develop “more-traditional-type sitcoms,” Ferrell told Daily Variety. We’re looking forward to seeing more Streamys worthy web series coming from the mostly one-off vid site. Congratulations, Will!

Filed under: Articles, Comedy, Featured, Funny Or Die, HBO, Industry, News by Drew Baldwin
No Comments »

Season’s greetings! We hope you are staying warm! It’s always fun to see those talented web television creators get into the spirit. With so many classic holiday stories, there never is a shortage for parody. This week we’ve compiled holiday episodes of some of our favorite shows—but be sure to include your holiday favorites below in the comments!

The Guild – Season 2 “Christmas Special”

If you enjoyed last season’s Christmas Special from The Guild, “A Christmas Raid Carol” (above), a then you’ll love this season’s MMOG-style reinvention of the classic holiday poem “Night Before Christmas,” describing the guild’s demise at the hands of mega-boss St. Nick, who proclaims in victory, “merry Christmas, you n00bs, log off, and go to bed!” Watch it here at MSN Video.

Whatever Hollywood “The Best Office Christmas Party Ever”

Suri, Apple, and Shiloh bring another fun-packed episode filled with many holiday lessons, like how to improvise when you don’t have a Christmas tree, the pros and cons of re-gifting, and—most importantly—why you should never forget the bagel bites.

Happy Tree Friends “We’re Scrooged”

Lumpy and the gang of cuddly characters discover the true meaning of Christmas in this take on Charles Dicken’s classic holiday tale. It’s sure to bring a bloody smile to your face.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, The Guild, Tubefilter Tuesdays, Web Series by Tubefilter News
No Comments »

Grace Helbig has been vlogging new developments on My Damn Channel since this past summer via The Daily Grace. Before that, she and Michelle Vargas had been plugging away on their own blog of vlogs. Now, the dynamic duo that jumpstarted Grace’s online career is back together at long last.  This time, on My Damn Channel.

GraceNMichelle is a lifecast-vlog hybrid that follows the superficially banal adventures and tribulations of two 20-something aspiring performers/roommates. Yes, it’s a video blog, but somehow, through charming nonchalance, surprisingly deft editing and a bit of that MDC magic fairy dust, it manages to captivate.

So, who are GraceNMichell and what exactly are they doing?  Josh asked…

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
No Comments »