Lonelygirl15 officially ended when the series finale aired on August 1, but that saga featuring attractive teenagers armed with handheld cameras battling an Aleister Crowley-inspired organization of adult evildoers with sacrificial practices and sanguinary ceremonies certainly hasn’t concluded.

In fact, Executive Producer Amanda Goodfried told me, “LG15 has just begun.”

On September 20, EQAL (the new media production company with $5 million in the bank and a fantastic tagline – The Show is Everywhere – recently formed by Lonelygirl creators Miles Beckett and Greg and Amanda Goodfried) will debut the next iteration of the highschool drama dubbed, LG15: The Resistance.

The show picks up where Lonelygirl15 left off and promises to be neophyte friendly (with a 12-week, 12-episode season instead of a 6-month, 5-episode-a-week ultra marathon), while still providing enough ancillary content (on a shiny, new LG15 social network) to keep obsessive fans satisfied.

Amanda was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about The Resistance and provide some specifics on what to expect:

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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More details are emerging from web studio EQAL on the upcoming series, LG15: The Resistance, set to debut online September 20th. Fans of the long-running lonelygirl15 franchise which ended earlier this month, have been well aware of the upcoming series built to release on the same LG15.com website that its predecessor inhabited for its 500-plus-episode run. TechCrunch and others have been buzzing about the new series, which marks the first new project for the venture-backed studio since the conclusion of LG15 and KateModern.

The Resistance, like LG15, will center around the shadowy group called The Order, which kidnaps young girls with a rare blood type. As you might have guessed, this time there’s a group of teens that decide to fight back with a group of their own.

Only twelve regular 6-minute episodes are slated for release every Saturday, ending with their standby “12-in-12” finale popularized by EQAL’s veteran web show creators Miles Beckett, Greg Goodfried, and Ramesh Flinders. Word is that several advertisers will be integrated at a script level into the series, but none have been named at this point.

The series is slated to debut on YouTube, MySpaceTV, Hulu, imeem and Veoh, with some anticipated help from these partners in featuring the episodes. Adding to the that push, the EQAL folks are building off the success they’ve had building a vibrant social network around the original LG15 site, complete with active blogs, polls and daily bonus content. Beckett notes that fans can opt to just watch the weekly episodes. “Part of the audiences sees several hundred videos and find that daunting. For really hard core fans that want to come every day, there’s something for them. But you don’t have to.”

EQAL will premiere episode one ofThe Resistance at the New York Television Festival’s Digital Day on Sept. 16 in Manhattan. [Tubefilter News will be at the conference and Editor Marc Hustvedt will be speaking on a panel about web series production on Sept 14th.]

Filed under: Drama, EQAL, News, Web Series, YouTube by Marc Hustvedt
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Brian Conley is a journalist, the creator/producer of the excellent news program Alive in Baghdad, and, as Mike says, “a man wiling to accept serious personal risk in order to cover important untold stories….a precious resource.”

He has a history of going to places that the mainstream media ignores in order to record voices that would otherwise would go unheard.  These strong convictions recently led Brian to Beijing, where he was detained by the Chinese government with at east eight other American activists for videotaping acts of civil disobedience at a rally held by the Students for a Free Tibet.

After several days in jail, Brian was deported back to the U.S., and yesterday had an opportunity to talk with Rocketboom about his experience:

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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After months of development, Warner Brothers’ web television portal TheWB.com officially launches today at 11:00 AM PDT–marking the first major push from a studio to create and distribute shows exclusively on the web. We had the chance to catch up with TheWB.com head Brent Poer and poke around the private beta of the site, chock-full of clever tech features that are impressive though not revolutionary. There’s a somewhat clunky video mash-up tool called “WBlender” which lets fans stitch together clips from older shows like Friends and Gilmore Girls. TechCrunch praised the video search function, made by Digitalsmiths, that lets viewers search for any word or phrase mentioned in a video. Pretty cool. But what about the original web shows?

Sorority Forever (premieres September 8)

At the head of the class is the college mystery drama Sorority Forever starring the original lonelygirl15 herself, Jessica Rose, along with Jessica Morris, Mikaela Hoover, Taryn Southern, Anabella Casanova, and Candice Patton. Peering inside the secretive walls of the hottest sorority on campus, Phi Chi Kappa, three young freshmen girls unravel a mystery bigger than they could have imagined. The Big Fantastic/McG-produced series brings a powerful cast and veteran creators, making it clearly the frontrunner in web TV’s packed fall lineup. Look for a TF News interview with the Big Fantastic guys later today.

Downers Grove (premieres September 29)

Coming out of the Warner Bros. Creative Lab, Downers centers on four college-age friends who never left their suburban hometown, still living the high-school party life. WB.com head Brent Poer thinks this could be one of their biggest hits. “It’s a true buddy comedy in the ilk of Superbad.”

Whatever Hollywood! (premieres today)

A comedy starring three fun-loving best friends with well-used Hollywood names – Suri, Apple and Shiloh – make a series of ridiculous short films and a faux-reality show called Whatever Hollywood. The series stars sisters Ellyn and Alyssa Ruschak as Suri and Shiloh with Jenny Alden as Apple.

High Drama Against All Oz (premieres October 6)

This is straight out of the old WB’s wheelhouse, teen drama set in a small suburban town. This one’s unscripted, but is really more documentary than reality series, as it unfolds the production of a big-budget high school musical version of “The Wizard of Oz” in Hyannis, Mass. “It’s American Teen meets the drama club,” adds Poer.

Exposed (early 2009)

Another McG-produced series, through his Wonderland Sound and Vision production outfit, this college thriller is from web-hit Pink creators Blake Calhoun and Mike Maden of Alternative Fuel. Show is about a college student haunted by his hidden past while trying to avoid being discovered by his former associates.

Chadam (early 2009)

From graphic artist Alex Pardee, based upon characters he created for the rock band The Used, the project has racked up some serious web buzz once the teaser trailer was shown at Comic-Con 2008. The “hyper-stylized” action-horror-adventure series is built off the 3D gaming framework that powers top video games “Gears of War” and “BioShock” to name a few. This one could be one worth waiting for.

Read On…

Filed under: Drama, News, Production Companies, TheWB.com, Warner Bros., Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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Diddy’s been downgraded to commercial so Burger King is hitching its advertising and marketing wagons to a star capable of making entertainment that (most) people actually enjoy.  The fast food chain is the lead sponsor in Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s much anticipated online series, Calvalcade of Cartoon Comedy.

Distributed through Google’s AdSense network (similar to how Broadband Enterprises distributes its shows), the series comes with a “multimillion-dollar production price tag,” will be served up in 50 two-minute episodes, and features a handful of new, presumably irreverent characters with amazing memories and pop-culture-laden anecdotes.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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If you haven’t yet seen Drawn By Pain you’ve been missing a unique niche on the web. Creator Jesse Cowell, (better known to his internet following as Jeskid) scorned the typical internet formula of short, comedic videos, and has put a full, dramatic feature film, broken up into short episodes, up for general consumption. The show is live action mixed with a sophisticated style of animation.

If you are a fan, you probably already know that Jeskid just released his long-awaited season finale. I recently spoke to Jeskid about the show’s creation, his lead character’s struggles, and the finale.

Tubefilter: Drawn By Pain has some seriously heavy subject matter for a medium typically dominated by short form, light content. How did you gravitate towards this story?

Jeskid: I started making movies about 17 years ago. I made my first feature in 1999. I couldn’t figure out how to make contacts, and I couldn’t figure out how to get people watch to my feature. I thought I had the talent, but I couldn’t get anybody to watch it. I moved back to New York from Los Angeles, and I got a job in encoding. I thought, hey, I’m on the internet all day long, let me put my movie online. Until then I felt I was being robbed of the very experience of the first reason I got involved in movie making in the first place. So, I put my first feature online, and a lot of people who really loved it… I also saw the web going completely towards comedy. It was over-saturated with comedy and girls on a web cam and fights in the streets… I watch these videos just as much as the next person, but it all started to seem the same. I thought, I’ll go the complete opposite direction, and make something serious. I thought, why not create a cinematic experience for the web. I also thought that doing something different would be the only way to move something forward. It seemed like the right time to jump into something serious.

TF: Would you call Drawn By Pain’s Emily Waters a superhero?

Jeskid: No… She’s much more an antihero… A lot of people think this is a vigilante story/ super hero story, but it’s really one person struggling with her own inner demons. I found it really interesting, beating the enemy within. We all have our own internal struggle, but it’s really up to the audience’s interpretation.

TF: How do you work with your animator?

Jeskid: My animator, Erica Langley, did everything by hand. There is no computer trick to it. The emotion she adds to the series with her animation is remarkable. We started out with the idea that we would make a really dark version of the Take On Me video, and used that as a jumping off point. The real advantage for a crew like mine is that we can take what it took two people to do to look like it took 50 or 100 people to do.

TF: While there is a lot of violence in the show, you avoid blood and gore. Was this a conscious decision?

Jeskid: It’s funny that the show is perceived as less gruesome because of the animation. I didn’t want to make a horror movie. While the movie had horror elements in it, I didn’t want blood squirting into the camera. That level of violence would take away from it. I like the element of having some of it left to your imagination.

TF: How do you think the finale turned out?

Jeskid: I think I told a story that makes sense. The end is a natural progression of what would happen. It takes people a lot to commit to fully watching something, and sometimes I get people saying, you made me cry, and other people tell me I should be shot. I fought really hard to get those kinds of reactions. If what I made gets people passioante enough to tell me why we suck, at least they reacted. It means we were doing soemthing right. But I also think the show helps some people to deal with all the bs we all deal with every day. If I had to walk away today with these reactions, then it was worth it.

Filed under: Interviews, Thriller, Web Series by Lindsay Stidham
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Fan interaction is a critical part of a web series’ success. Active show blogs, bonus footage, and lively message boards are becoming part of the standard M.O. for shows these days. Maybe we need to add one more to the list. Roommating is extending the experience by bringing the hit series to the LA stage for a 30-minute version of the web show. Show creators Erin Gibson and Joel Church-Cooper will star in the live version as the same quirky roommates that fans have come to love.

Adding to the buzz is the fact that YouTube took down episode one (“Slave”) claiming its use of a sex slave character violated its community standards. Gibson tells us it was by far their most popular episode, garnering over half a million views. Not to disappoint, Gibson and Church will push the limits with this version too. The characters find themselves in a pinch for cash and turn to what they know best. “We scheme several ways to make money, ultimately deciding that making a celebrity sex tape as Ronald Regan and Tea Leoni is our only way out. We show the sex tape during the show, which is why the flyer has a warning about nudity.” Gibson added, “if we’re going to advertise that there’s a sex tape, we gotta go there. So we did.” Needless to say, don’t bring the kids to this one. If you’re in LA, the show goes up Wednesday at 8PM at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Hollywood.

From Crackle: Roommating, Ep 1: Slave

Filed under: Comedy, Crackle, News, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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Kenny Mayne is ESPN’s third-best all-time anchor (behind Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman, obvi), but the one that’s most likely to have a second career outside the network in something not sports or news-related.

Besides his penchant for covering ponies, Mayne is equal parts comedian and reporter known for what Michele Greppi at TV Week aptly describes as a “dry wit and a deadpan delivery that trusts [his fans] to get the joke, whether it’s on him, his confreres at the sports network or the audience.”

His characteristic brand of comedy gained Mayne the acclaim of Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg, and thousands of adoring fans, but until now his humor’s been relegated to SportsCenter segments, the 2 Minute Drill, and installments of HungryMan’s ingenious This is SportsCenter ad campaign.

But now Mayne is going to have his own show in which to shine thanks to the upcoming, 15-episode web series dubbed Mayne Street, set to premiere on ESPN.com October 2.

It’s the second scripted online show for the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” and if it’s sophomore effort is anything like Endless Drama, it should be one to watch.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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Seth McFarlane, best known as the creator of Fox’s Family Guy franchise, has announced September 10th as the debut of his first episodic web project, the animated Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. The 50-episode series garnered a hefty amount of attention when it was announced due to its unique distribution plans with Google’s AdSense platform. The 2-minute episodes will be shown all over the web on sites that host AdSense banners, much the same way some movie trailers are shown. Using contextual ad placement, the series will be targeted at sites with a strong young male audience. The budget of the project is reported in the multi-millions, with several advertisers, including lead sponsor Burger King, picking up most of the tab. McFarlane even created three pre-roll ad spots featuring the King character to run before Cavalcade episodes. For those not surfing the young male-themed sites, you can catch episodes right from the source at sethcomedy.com.

Filed under: Comedy, FOX, News, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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If you’re a geek-culture aficionado (and face it, you are) you probably already know Zack Snyder’s highly anticipated Watchmen movie (based on the universally-revered graphic novel by Alan Moore) has been abruptly beached on the desolate sands of Studio Lawsuit Hell.

While Fox and Warner Brothers duke it out, nerds across the nation are biting their keyboard-stunted nails over whether the film will ever see the light of day.

If you haven’t already, I’d take this opportunity to watch the Watchmen motion comic, produced by WB digital subsidiary Warner Premiere, in case it gets caught up in the crossfire and taken down.

Each episode covers one issue of the twelve-part series, and though the show was launched in July, so far only the first episode has been released (perhaps the hold-up has something to do with the lawsuit?). You can purchase it for less than a cup of coffee at the iTunes store, or you could just watch it in low res bootleg-o-vision on YouTube…

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Ana Hurka-Robles
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One celebrated web show winded down yesterday and another debuted its finale.

Created by Jesse Cowell and animated by Erica Langworthy, Drawn by Pain just released the final episode of its 12-part story about a girl whose rough anime sketches, born from inner demons, fight her outter demons for her. 

Cowell comes to the web with a traditional film school background (he went to USC) and a distaste for the traditional Hollywood system (he was part of it for seven years).  When he left LA for NYC he embraced the internet and found more recognition online than he ever did out West.  Thanks to Cowell’s fanatical obsession with quality and a compelling storyline, Drawn By Pain gained acclaim and an audience through a Webby Award, a syndication deal with The Escapist, and word of mouth. 

Jesse’s not quite finished with the project (he still has to make and coordinate a Drawn by Pain soundtrack, DVD, and live screening), but I asked him how it feels to air the finale.  “I’m pretty psyched,” he said, “but I’m pretty f#$&in tired.”  Spoken like a true independent content creator.

Break a Leg is another independent series with a strong following that aired its finale, or at least part of it. 

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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In the web television business, 2004 is pre-historic. It was back in ’04 that maniaTV launched as the world’s first internet television studio. I think it is safe to say they have earned this title. Starting off with the daunting mission of providing 24/7 live programming via the internet, they proved they are not afraid to try something that hasn’t been done before. This was a year before YouTube launched, and maniaTV had already added a whole UGC community to its site allowing viewers to upload and share their own videos.

Flash forward to 2008. maniaTV is now boasting 11 million monthly viewers and has relocated from its Denver upbringing to a sizable new production studio in Hollywood. The live-shows-only plan was nixed, along with the UGC area, and today’s maniaTV is a top-notch premium web television studio. With an impressive lineup of non-scripted shows including Dave Navarro’s Spread TV, video-gamer-themed Arcade with Rob and Turtle, All Access music interviews hosted by Samantha Maloney, live music streaming Gibson Garage, and Comedy on Demand featuring National Lampoon’s Lemmings sketch comedy troupe, maniaTV is to the music and gaming world what Revision3 is to the tech set.

With Midnight Rida, maniaTV makes the much-anticipated jump into the heated space of scripted web comedy. Billed as an urban action comedy, Rida is a spoof on the the 80’s classic Knight Rider. Instead of K.I.T.T. as the personified crime-fighting car, there’s G.A.R.I., Ghetto Artificial Replica Intelligence, inside a late model black Cadillac sedan. G.A.R.I is voiced by comic DeRay Davis (Semi-Pro) whose urban slang clashes hilariously with the car’s new driver, Mitch McKnight, a white Texan intern hastily recruited as the shadowy org’s latest secret agent. Chris Spencer (Postal) stars as the head of intelligence, Tyrone Jackson.

We sat down with show creators Devin Boddie and Michael Mihail of Guerilla Hollywood, who pitched the show to maniaTV and landed a 13-episode order. Now working full-time out of the maniaTV studios, the duo brings true urban comedy cred to the team, creating Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith TV and YouTube 11-million-view hit G’Sup TV. Boddie and Mihail grew up basically “on the same block” in LA and have been filmmakers since the early years.

With Rida, the pair set out to make a feature film with the concept but found it could be made much quicker, and with more creative freedom on the web. The way they see it, says Boddie, “everything should be cross-platform.” Veterans on the web front, but relatively new to scripted episodic television, they hired TV comedy writer James Hannah (The Steve Harvey Show; My Wife and Kids ) to spearhead the writer’s room.

Celeb cameos bring a nifty surprise to each episode, and the series should have its fair share of them. Some can’t be announced yet, but one that can is Tommy Davidson (In Living Color; The Proud Family). Landing stars for these cameos has been easier than they thought, says Boddie and Mihail. “Once we had Tommy,” says Boddie, “there was a cascade effect, they hear ‘he’s doing it?’ and they’re in.” The best part about the series? “We’re thrilled to be working with the comedians we grew up watching,” added Mihail.

Sponsorship is maniaTV’s forte, and the studio landed a number of advertisers that can be integrated on a script level from the onset of production, including AT&T and Five Gum. Episode one is out now, with new episodes coming out every Monday on maniaTV.

Filed under: Action, Channels, Comedy, Interviews, Production Companies, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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