If last weekend’s Saw V and High School Musical 3 didn’t fulfill your zombie and gore requirements, look no further than the new web series Monster Makeover. Just in time for Halloween, Xbox360 has partnered with the Cinema Makeup School to provide video game and horror movie fans with a brand new reality show based on popular Xbox games.
Hosted by video game bloggers Nelson Rodriguez and Natalie Sousa, Monster Makeover gives five makeup artists the chance to turn gorgeous models into horrific monsters based on creatures from new XBox360 games Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 and Fable 2. The five makeup students – Simpat Beshiron, Robert Lindsay, Erin Dellamore, Morgan Muta and Lea Willard – from Los Angeles’ Cinema Makeup School (located right next to the historic Wiltern Theatre) will be competing for the grand prize of an Xbox360 prize pack (including an Xbox360 Elite, the five aforementioned games and a Zune music player) as well as an ‘industry’ job. Viewers also have the opportunity to win a prize pack by entering on the Monster Makeover site. The zombies are judged by Cinema Makeup School instructors/veteran makeup FX artists Leonard Engelman (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Batman Forever) and Lee Joyner (Mimic, Godzilla).
The first episode, available now on Xbox’s website, is inspired by the upcoming horror/action game Left 4 Dead (due out November 18). Armed with two hours and $100 worth of makeup supplies, the students race to transform their beautiful subjects into grotesque members of the living dead. The results of this week’s competition are quite impressive – love Robert Lindsay’s office supply riddled zombie. Three of the five contestants will advance to the next round, but you’ll have to wait until the next installment to find out who the winners are. Running at just under nine minutes, Monster Makeover unfortunately does not display enough of the makeup process, focusing more on interviews with the contestants and the judges. Considering its concept and the gamer audience, I think Monster Makeover has the chops to make the jump to a half-hour program.
Happy Halloween! Do you have your costume picked out? This week we’ve selected some bone-tingling series sure to keep you up at night. Make sure to check out our Thriller and Horror genre categories for more frightening series.
FEARnet and Ghost House Pictures present an original series based on the New Orleans’ vampire hunter from the award-winning graphic novel 30 Days of Night. It’s a delightfully thrilling blood bath directed by special effects master Víctor García.
The terror starts on the newly launched StrikeTV when Jaime (Brandon Fobbs, The Wire) gets a panicked video from his best buddy, Freddie (James Snyder, Broadway’s Crybaby), about an insane chain letter that was e-mailed to him. It is a snuff video that warns the recipient that they have 5 minutes to pass it on or they will die. Yikes!
Watching the Tyranny trailer is like watching a mini action movie pumped into three minutes of high-quality excitement. Tyranny is indeed no ordinary web series. Self-financed by creator and star John Beck Hoffman, the world wide landscapes provide a big budget-looking back drop for what is truly an independent web series. Two episodes of a first-pass at the series made it up quietly last October, but now they are gearing up for a full-blown release of the updated version.
Hoffman called us from London to speak about the re-launch of his pet project while attending the premiere of Quantum Solace to support his Tyranny co-star Olga Kurylenko. Hoffman said he was psyched to give the show a re-birth after pouring so much energy into it.
The project started as a feature script several years ago, but Hoffman says, “As the times have changed, and I struggled with making it a feature, I started thinking about cutting it into a web series since it takes place over 14 years of time. Then I had a crazy idea to just do the back story as a web series, and then the final story as a feature, so that’s still kind of a model.”
Hoffman says the series will span at least 30 episodes which are already prepped to go up starting in December; but, he says if there’s more story tell, more episodes will go up. “There’s so many things I didn’t have time to explore in the feature, that I can explore here.” Hoffman also has half of the feature prepped for release sometime next year when the web series is complete.
Hoffman added the obsessive journey of his clairvoyant lead character is one worth following. “After seeing a spectacular vision of the future, my character is now performing home grown experiments desperately trying to remember what he saw, and now everyone is one step ahead of him.”
The show indeed sounds like a Bond-sized adventure.
In the latest installment of Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary, the relaxed actor(?) talks to Abigail – a happy-go-lucky 13-year-old girl blessed with ignorance, but suffering from a disease that makes her look like Hayden Black – about Judge Ito, reality TV shows, and what’s the deal with K-Fed.
Black, Abigail‘s creator, reportedly landed the interview after he met Kaelin while working on a pilot. (Maybe his HBO Pilot?!)
Is asking hard-hitting interview questions with non sequitur-laden segues a symptom of Bloomberger’s syndrome? My favorite is, “Back in the 80s you dated singer Elizabeth Daily. Do you think you’ll ever stay in a guest house again?” Well done, Abigail. Well done.
Check out Jamison’s interviews with Hayden Black and Abigail here.
Ok, Greenville General. At first I wasn’t sure if you were a parody of a soap opera set in a hospital or a soap opera set in a hospital riddled with clichés. Sure your tag line is: Greenville General – Where the best medicine can’t fix a broken heart. There was the cheesy opening with syrupy music and the Greenville General hospital crew spinning in a calliope of daytime soap opera wonderland. That’s kind of parody-esque.
But man, it was really hard to tell! I watched on.
There’s Dr. Rod Steele (Rife Sibley) living in the shadow of his father’s footsteps, unable to save the woman he loves – “Of course! We’re all dying. Stephanie just got to do it sooner.” And the middle age couple, Mr. and Mrs. Day (Robert Desiderio and Brynn Thayer)trying to give love one last shot – “I’m so tired of you trying to make everything right with your roses and your champagne and your tri-tip.” (Dude should’ve gone with the fillet.)
A good parody takes the conventions of a form and lets the audience in on the joke. This seemed to play it straight. I was waiting more for the metaphorical wink at the camera. And that wink finally came when I watched Greenville General‘s sister series, Life in General – the soap opera that’s the behind-the-scenes, mock-making of a soap opera.
Almost a year later, their sandbox is complete, but their tune has changed quite a bit. Strike no longer stands for the refusal to work under organized protest, but a more innocuous spark of creative freedom symbolized by a strike of lightening.
Today, after months of delays and strategizing, Strike.TV has finally launched.
It’s been a while since the picket lines of striking WGA writers last winter where the idea of a video portal for professional writers (read: WGA writers) could have a place to showcase their original web series while also owning the rights to all content. The idea seemed simple enough. Writers would head out and rally together resources — celebrity actor friends, camera ops, editors, etc. — calling in all the favors and waivers they could manage.
The content was the easy part. With Hollywood on strike for two months, it seemed everyone had a little time to spare and a hand to lend. In all, some fifty web series were collected for the newly formed site, loading it up with a year’s worth of star-driven series. Here are some of the web series debuting today:
The philosophy and message were solid, that’s for sure. From our interview with Strike.TV founder Peter Hyoguchi earlier this summer:
Hyoguchi is excited about where TV on the web stands today, saying “the internet’s pre-Howdy Doody today,” referring to the 1947-debuted TV show which essentially spawned the advertising-supported television model that exists today. While he notes that there have been some early successes like lonelygirl15 and quarterlife, “we still haven’t haven’t see a true hit show yet,” the kind that reaches a true global scale. “For a show to reach that kind of mass appeal, it’s going to come from a professional team,” he notes.
The trickier part was building a video portal from the ground up, especially in a shaky economy. Established players who have been at it for years still haven’t found the magic ticket to web video monetization (read: making money.) Turner’s Superdeluxe site lasted just a year before folding into Adult Swim. Recent layoffs at other web studios/portals — maniaTV, Heavy, Veoh — show these are murky waters that Strike.TV is jumping in to this week.
But from a relatively small team, and just a smattering of investment dollars from some of the more well-heeled writers, the Strike.TV operation is geared from the ground up to be nimble. While it’s not clear how much revenue the recent YouTube and Joost partnership deal will bring in, it will probably be the major source of income for the time being. There’s talk of individual sponsors for each series, though most likely we won’t see these come into play until after the numbers shake out showing which shows can break out and sustain a real audience.
We’ve been following this story for quite a while, so we decided to take a look back at some of the Strike.TV coverage on Tubefilter News:
Unlike Bud Bundy, David Faustino doesn’t appear to have much trouble with the ladies (ex-wife Adrea Faustino and this towering brunette are both very easy on the eyes). But while the girls have come easy, the acting gigs have not.
Christina Applegate went on to Jesse and Broadway, but the actor that played her lovelorn younger brother never outgrew the epithet “Child Star.” After a decade of Married…with Children, Faustino’s biggest roles have been in reality series reserved for celebrities from decades ago.
Luckily, that washed up celebrity story makes for great satire (and if Grandmaster B is any indication, the dude knows how to make fun of himself). Variety reports Faustino has signed a 13-episode deal with Sony’s Crackle to star in the online series STAR-ving – an “exaggerated version” of the 34-year-old’s life. From the article:
“Skein finds him running a struggling porn shop that was willed to him by a fan. After losing his wife to a rap star, he’s reduced to begging for money from his old Hollywood pals.”
New racy comedy web series Star-ving starring David Faustino (Bud Bundy on Married….with Children) has landed Ed Asner (Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant) for a major role, sources close to the star tell us. The Sony/Crackle project looks to be an exaggerated take on David as a down and out actor who’s wife ditched him for a rapper and is now running a struggling porn shop. According to a recent casting notice, “Think Curb Your Enthusiasm crossed with The Real World but very R rated.”
Casting is still in full swing apparently. A recent craigslist ad sheds a little light into what to expect:
1) Osama Bin Laden lookalike – in a very funny episode, David gets a series on Al-Jazeera network and the studio head decides it should be a “buddy comedy” with Osama Bin Laden. 1 scene.
2) Dave’s Mom – must be a Little Person or very, very short (under 4’10). 50-65 years old. Lots of funny but very racy stuff. re-curring role.
Looks like they’re using the lesser-used AFTRA new media contract which means $100 a day plus deferrment for actors. The 13-episode series, produced by FNB Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television, should be up on Crackle early next year. Faustino created and exec produced the project along with Corin Nemec, Todd Bringewatt and Sam Kass. More info to come as the project develops.
UPDATE (10/29): Trailer was just released and has been added above.
Another teen-oriented web show brought to us by Anglo-centric social networking site Bebo, Chelsey: OMG!is filled with cute, if a touch too savvy web-bites featuring the spunky, tanned, buxom, and all-American Chelsey Pucks. Just launched this month, the site features the beginnings of a twice-a-week web serial and a handful of “What’s On My Mind…” commentaries (where Chelsey discusses important things all American care about, like Obama, Palin, and Jamie Lynn Spears).
With episodes lasting only a couple minutes and the WoMMs clocking in at about 50 seconds, Chelsey: OMG! is just short enough to make the hackneyed video blogger premise enjoyable.
Newly arrived in London and staying at the flat of her uncle (whose face and country of origin remain unknown as he hasn’t yet been on camera), Chelsey has landed a marketing internship. Her job features tension-filled clashes with her ‘N.W.E.’ (New Worst Enemy), who turns out to be her boss, and plenty of fawning over the one cute guy, who appears to be dating said boss.
Watching The Hayley Project, one instantlydraws comparisons to YouTube juggernautlonleygirl15. The Hayley Project focuses on a college girl’s quest to find the truth about her friend Keira’s recent death. The series’ protagonist Hayley, played by Rachel Risen, vlogs in an effort to recruit her community of viewers to help her decide which leads to follow. The Hayley Project creators Andrew Park and Jato Smith’s use of the web as a platform is innovative. The show’s characters engage directly with the viewer to create a bit of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” quality to the show that makes it an exciting, interactive alternative to traditional television broadcasting for mystery junkies.
Unlike lonelygirl15, however, The Hayley Project’s acting is unconvincing and unnatural in its delivery. Looking back on the sincere, vulnerable quirkiness of lonelygirl15’s Bree, Hayley often appears scripted and robotic in comparison. We very seldom see any reaction from Hayley, even when the characters she meets dismiss her best friend’s death as “too bad…. She was hot.” So far, it’s tough to get a human reading on the series’ lead, making it difficult to want to “help her” as she implores us at the start of each episode. Lexi, Hayley’s roommate, is the most vivacious and dynamic character in the series, and it’s pretty clear we’re supposed to hate her.
We can’t lay all the blame on the talent, as the dialogue vacillates between passable, quasi-realistic banter to clunky, overwritten cliché. The pilot episode begins with some very unconvincing tears from Hayley and the bland assertion that Keira wouldn’t have killed herself (cue the melancholic piano) “… she had dreams,” which, according to the flashback seem to consist of a vague idea that she might want to be famous, “maybe an actor or a musician or something.”
Despite the weak acting and stilted dialogue, the storyline seems to be well thought out. Like Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer, the series’ trailer sets up the likelihood that there is more to Hayley’s dead friend Keira than we may initially think. Faithful viewers might be in for some twists and turns, and they may even have some input into how Hayley solves the mystery. The filmmakers are earnest about creating an engaging story that viewers are invited to unravel with Hayley—let’s hope that as The Hayley Project progresses, the actors and writers find their footing.
Let’s get the big news out of the way early. After six episodes that racked up over 500,000 views, the hit mockumentary web series Jesus People is headed to the big screen. The standout of the Independent Comedy Network’s (ICN.tv) inaugural web series crop has shot a full-length feature film that’s due to hit the festival circuit early next year. Tubefilter got an exclusive sneak peek at the film (above) from the creators Dan Ewald and Rajeev Sigamoney with whom we had the chance to sit down and chat with about the film, the web series and the future of web entertainment.
Dan and Rajeev arrive six minutes early for our scheduled mid-afternoon interview at Tubefilter HQ. We had a hunch these guys would be early from talking to a few people that know them. You see Los Angeles is a city with a penchant for lateness, a guiltless acceptance of the dozens of uncontrollable factors that assault the day here. But Dan and Rajeev are the ultimate outsider’s insiders — a bit of a Hollywood enigma. The two man creative team behind the Jesus People would have to be.
We sit down on one of the couches in front of the big screen to take a look at the final two episodes of Jesus People season one. It’s the ultimate interactive DVD commentary, custom tailored to the questions we fire their way. A few laughs in, we realize their actors still crack them up.
Their cast is a comedic clan even Apatow and Guest would have to admire. Most are Groundlings vets well known to casting directors and comedy nerds, and the two know they got a little bit lucky in scoring them all. Joel McCrary (American Beauty) plays the ringleader Jerry, the pastor determined to bring the band Cross My Heart into the throes of the Christian pop scene.
Tim Bagley (Will & Grace) guest starred in the series, after working with with the duo before on several of their growing list of projects through their Ewald/Sigamoney Productions, including a half-hour comedy TV pilot called The Room that didn’t end up getting picked up. “I don’t think there’s another project we’ll ever do that doesn’t involve Tim, he’s that good,” Dan boasts. Having Bagley in place helped secure a number of their guest stars — Kate Flannery (The Office), Deborah Theaker (Waiting for Guffman), Stephnie Weir (Mad TV), and Victoria Jackson (SNL).
We can’t help but ask how much Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show) influenced the project, and Dan and Rajeev aren’t shy in acknowledging his inspiration. Dan’s also a big fan of the comedies of James L. Brooks (The Simpson, As Good As It Gets).
Jesus People – the movie – picks up earlier than the web series, almost an origin story though taking the story on a whole new journey. We see the band come together and begin their rise to Christian Rock stardom complete with all the strife and conflicts you’d expect of a genre band on the brink of a mainstream crossover.
Dan shoots off their pitch, “it’s Spinal Tap set in Christian dance pop,” in a way suggesting this is a well-worn sound bite. Hollywood likes it simple, at least in a pitch meeting. But their work is anything but simple. It’s layered comedy over real dramatic themes. “We’re not making Jesus jokes, we’re making fanatical Christian jokes,” says Rajeev pointing out one of the subtle differences missed by those who give the series just a cursory glance.
Hollywood has treaded lightly when tapping into the sizable religious sentiment in modern American culture. Saved (2004) made waves for its film portrayal of life at an Evangelical Christian high school, managing to show a world that was both hip and hypocritical.
“Any group that thinks they are above satire and criticism just doesn’t work,” Rajeev interjects. “With comedy,” he adds, “the fact that people are laughing at judgmental Christian characters is because they are true.”
In fact each of the characters come from the pair’s real experiences within the Christian scene. There’s Cara, the part-time Christian who occasionally veers off into darker moral corners. “Sometimes we all are Cara where we don’t know what it means to be Christian,” Rajeev muses. “Ty is the audience’s Jim from The Office — the relatable straight man,” says Dan. Even the more eccentric characters like Tim Bagley’s self-absorbed Rod have an authenticity that makes them accessible.
Seeking the Truth
To satire a culture, you have to truly understand it. “We come from this world,” says Dan, who grew up Baptist in Grand Rapids, Michigan in a tight-knit religious family. Rajeev was raised Seventh-day Adventist in an Indian-American community in a small Maryland suburb.
A pastor in England even asked for a DVD of the series to show during his sermons. Dan and Rajeev asked if he was sure it was appropriate. “Oh don’t worry we’ll love it,” the English pastor assured them. “We’re the land of Ricky Gervais. We want to know what your country will think of it.”
American Christians haven’t exactly charted into the boundary-pushing mainstream comedy waters. But with Jesus People it seems they just may be warming to self satire, as long as the humor is born out of the authentic. In one of his pre-Hollywood jobs, Dan wrote for a few Christian music magazines. “I’ve written over 150 articles on Christian Rock, interviewing all the top bands,” he tells us. “We have a good idea of what they will do and won’t do.”
So far, despite a few detractors, the web series has struck a chord in the Christian community. “We played the series at a number of Christian film festivals and they loved it,” Dan points out. They seemed to have tactfully tapped the vibrancy and energy that fuels the Christian pop scene, while keeping the humor notched up to carry a feature length comedy.
From Web to Film
For the feature, the pair teamed up with director Jason Naumann, who directed the web series as well. The pair had worked with Naumann on the dramedy short film Happy Wednesday. Together it’s a creative threesome. “We are always behind the monitors together signing off on each scene,” Rajeev tells us.
“Everything is bigger this time,” they tell us of what to expect in the film version. The band even has a pop hit, “Jesus Save The World” that catapults the pop group onto the public stage. The cast has grown, with a laundry list of veteran improv masters joining the fun this time around — Mindy Sterling (Austin Powers), Jennifer Elise Cox (The Brady Bunch Movie), Laura Silverman (The Sarah Silverman Program), Wendi McClendon-Covey (Reno 911), Octavia Spencer (Bad Santa), Carrie Aizley (For Your Consideration), Shon Little (Everybody Hates Chris), Catherine Reitman (Thank You For Smoking), Timothy Brennen (Hancock), Christen Sussin (Curb Your Enthusiasm), and Robert Bagnell (The Comeback).
With satirical comedy, especially from sketch comedy players, there’s a tendency to go big. “We actually had to have a few of the guest actors watch the web series to get a sense for the tone of the project,” Dan tells us. “Afterwards, they would pull it way back and it would be perfect.”
While Dan and Rajeev finish cutting the film and lining up distribution — you would think would be enough work to keep them busy — the two-man team has even more in the hopper. A new web project is on the horizon, they tell us, which means these versatile filmmakers won’t be leaving the web series world just yet.
Hosted by video game bloggers Nelson Rodriguez and Natalie Sousa, Monster Makeover gives five makeup artists the chance to turn gorgeous models into horrific monsters based on creatures from new XBox360 games Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 and Fable 2. The five makeup students – Simpat Beshiron, Robert Lindsay, Erin Dellamore, Morgan Muta and Lea Willard – from Los Angeles’ Cinema Makeup School (located right next to the historic Wiltern Theatre) will be competing for the grand prize of an Xbox360 prize pack (including an Xbox360 Elite, the five aforementioned games and a Zune music player) as well as an ‘industry’ job. Viewers also have the opportunity to win a prize pack by entering on the Monster Makeover site. The zombies are judged by Cinema Makeup School instructors/veteran makeup FX 
artists Leonard Engelman (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Batman Forever) and Lee Joyner (Mimic, Godzilla).
