After years of toiling on the sidelines, the DNC has finally given the blogger community a seat at the table. Aaron Myers, the director of online communications for the DNCC told the NYTimes, “The goal is to bring down the walls of the convention and invite in an audience that’s as large as possible…Credentialing more bloggers opens up all sorts of new audiences.”
While CNN is installing a $100,000 camera rig for Sen. Obama’s speech at the Invesco Field in Denver, I suspect some less-expensive, but worthy material to be produced by web TV community during this following week.
Here are two reporters I’ll definitely be watching:
Break A Leg‘s season finale, extended by a recent sponsorship from Holiday Inn Express, has just ramped up the celebrity factor in their recent extra, “Join the New Child Actor’s Guild,” a mock promo from BAL’s ex-child star actor Jimmy Scotch. The promo features two actual ex-child actors, Brian Forster and Jon Provost, who respectively played Chris Partridge from The Partridge Family (1970) and Timmy from Lassie (1954), and are now fully grown middle-aged men. The series’ new stars join Patrice O’Neal, the venerable comedian who plays the surgically-transformed “adult sized” Gary Coleman, a child impostor and president of the Child Actors Guild (CAG) whom the promo targets. Absolutely hilarious. Catch Break A Leg on the Tubefilter Web TV Schedule–every Monday.
Anti-McCain propagandists and comedians, you are running out of time. Only 71 days remain until the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. If you want your project added to the laundry list of derisive satires populating the web and a chance to make it into the Pool of Relevant Political Spoofs fed by Popular Culture’sMainstream, now is the time to upload.
ESPN is jumping into the scripted web series world on October 2nd as it debutsMayne Street, starring the irreverent silver-haired ESPN anchor Kenny Mayne. Mayne plays essentially a version of himself – offbeat, dry, tongue-in-cheek – a sports reporter trying to make the most of his frequent blunders.
Created by Josh Shelov (writer of soccer-flick Hooligans) and Todd Pellegrino (ESPN producer), the 15-episode series was definitely not done on the cheap. Word is that the budget was in the high six figures. Shelov and Pellegrino are both former ESPN production assistants who know the Bristol office antics well.
The cast is formidable, Mayne’s producer is played by Alison Becker (former host of AV Squad), while web veteran Ben Schwartz (creator of SuperDeluxe’s Webby-nominated Bronx World Travelers) is the hotshot young new ESPN suit. Aubrey Plaza plays his assistant. This being ESPN, cameos will be the name of the game. In-house names such as Scott Van Pelt, Linda Cohn and Neil Everett are said to be featured at some point, along with most of the cast from HBO’s The Sopranos.
The series is in some ways an extension of the successful ad campaign, “This Is SportsCenter,” that ESPN began way back in 1995. The short ads were almost a series themselves, showing some (fictional) comical moments from SportCenter staff on the Bristol campus as they interact with a gambit of athletes, celebrities and even mascots. Kenny Mayne was one of the best in these spots, often taking the dry character to outright absurdity. Here’s a recent clip that should give us a hint at what to expect when Kenny Mayne, the actor, takes the digital stage in a little over a month.
Here’s a story you’ve probably heard at least two dozen times, maybe even twice today. Two young Hollywood actors are involved in the age-old balancing act of doing everything they can to get a break while earning money at day jobs to stay afloat. The part of the story you might not have heard has to do with the day job these particular up and comers maintain to get by; contract killing.
60Frames‘ new seriesInfamous, created by Craig Bonacorsi, AJ Wedding and Pharaba Witt, is set to officially launch this September. It’s an unconventional look at the path two young men must take in order to make money while auditioning, learning lines and doing everything they can think of to break into the film industry.
The six-part series follows two wannabe film stars, Tom and Anthony, through fast-paced and hilariously absurd adventures as they kill their way through Los Angeles office buildings, parks, city streets and places in between. They treat their day job with the same emotionless disregard other actors treat waiting tables, bar-tending or data entry. Besides losing out on roles, Tom and Anthony face another conundrum; their day job (contract killing) requires them to remain anonymous even though they are constantly focused on becoming famous.
It’s Swingers meets Pulp Fiction meets Extras in this new, dark comedy about making a killing to make a living. Not clear at this point how long 60Frames will let this one run. The short-livedGet Ripped only made it through one order of 4 episodes.
The series follows their attempt to recreate their success with Spud Gun War, a sci-fi epic about potato launchers. It flips between narrative and mock-documentary as our heroes offer tips on how to make a winning web video, such as the importance of a tight edit and keeping the script between 0 and 2 pages.
Fresh from wrapping up filming on season two of the hit UK web drama series Sofia’s Diary producers at Campbell Ryan Productions were tapped to create their next series, Aisling’s Diary. This time they’re heading to Ireland.
The new series, Aisling’s Diary is a teen drama set to air September on RTÉ (Ireland) along with the social nework Bebo. Aisling (Esther DiMaggieo) is an Irish-American teen, who is obsessed with Irish dance. The show picks up as she and her family relocate back to Ireland where the oft-told teen struggle to fit in takes on new cultural layer. As one might expect, Aisling falls for the hip-hop loving bad boy next door played by Irish actor Chris Newman (Song for a Raggy Boy; Love is the Drug). With any luck the series will feature multiple dance offs between the hip hop and the Irish dancing crews.
According to producer Triona Campbell, “We wanted to capture the vibrant feel of modern Ireland and at the same time include strong elements of Hip Hop and Irish dance. We are very excited about this new commission and to be working with RTE’s Young People’s who have such a strong track record with young audiences.” Aisling is created by Nuno Bernardo and written by Melanie Martinez and Irish writer Róise Goan.
For now, you can catch Campbell’s Sofia’s Diary on Bebo with new eps daily, Monday through Friday at 5:30 PM. Interactivity is abound on the site, as Friday’s episodes have two versions which are picked by the viewers during the week. Sofia’s Diary, produced by Sony Pictures Television International, has netted over 16 million views so far on top of being the second highest rated show on UK TV channel FIVER, has already been green-lit for a third season.
Thanks to the folks at TheWB.com, we have a special sneak peek of the trailer for the site before it launches August 27th. Look out for the cast of Sorority Forever, including the original lonelygirl15 herself, Jessica Rose. Enjoy.
To see a theatrical rendition of just how much the idea of new media has permeated the minds and culture of our beloved youth, look no further than the The PossEble Theater Company, a sophisticated group of young actresses who seek to shine a light on girlhood in the 21st century.
Under the direction of Katie Cappiello and Meg McInerney – alumni of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts – the members of The PossEble Theater Company created a play titled, “Keep Your Eyes Open,” which is structured around a snarky 11-year old, Winnifred, and her very own web TV show on YouTube.
I recently had a chance to talk to Gloria Calderon Kellett, creator of one of my favorite shows, Get Ripped. Let me be clear – ‘favorite’ isn’t a term I throw around lightly when it comes to entertainment. I’m someone who watches all kinds of stuff – on the web, I’ll check out anything from Gemini Division to The Roadents. In terms of traditional TV shows… well, let’s just say that I’ve watched every single episode of Family Guy, House, Futurama, Grey’s Anatomy,The O.C., and 24. With all of these shows, however, once I watch every episode, I move on. Get Ripped was the exception to that rule – I’ve watched every episode so many times that my friends have threatened to stop talking to me if I ever mention it to them again.
It was with great sadness, then, I learned that the four episodes of Get Ripped are all I have to satisfy me, at least for now. In case you haven’t seen the show, this is how Kellett describes it, “The premise for the character when I wrote it originally for the stage was to get behind the facade of the salesman. I had joined several gyms and there is always that guy in the front. He’s intense and he’s kind of ‘full of it’ but deep down he’s just a dude trying to make it through the day just like the rest of us. I wanted to explore who that guy was. And Derek came out of that exploration of character. He’s a former fat kid who decided to do something about it. So the same intensity he used to put into eating he now puts into working out. He’s really tragic because, thus far, food is the love of his life and while now ‘hot’ he’s very unhappy… and, oh yeah, it’s a comedy.”
“How many eps are there, and what can we expect in upcoming episodes?” I asked her next. Little did I know she was about to drop a bomb on me. “There are only four episodes of Get Ripped,” she explained. “[Although] I think it would be funny to see a day in the life of Derek…from waking up to heading to bed.” I had to take a minute to let this information sink in. No more episodes? No more Derek talking about turning our unseen protagonist into “a hot piece of A”? No more of those brilliant insights into Derek’s life, like this one, one of the funniest moments I’ve seen in any show, web or otherwise, “I had a Twinkie today, and you know what? It was so F***ING AMAZING that I was crying the entire time.”
Why would 60Frames do this? I later asked Kellett for more details, and she explained simply, “The original order was for 4 episodes, and… I’m just too swamped to do more [at] this time.” It’s understandable; considering the simplicity of the plot, Derek is a very complex character, and every detail down to his smallest movements reveals something about his personality. The intimacy of the online medium also helps us pick up on the slightest nuances of Derek’s actions. I guess all I can say is that I hope to see more episodes of Get Ripped – if not, I look forward to seeing another online project from Kellett. I asked her how the experience of working on the web has been, and she explained, “This is my first online project, [and] it’s very exciting to be getting in on this new medium now. My favorite part was the ability to write something and see it shot as I wrote it. Often times we get notes or have to change things for the censors. And it was fun to just be able to write something and put it out there. It felt like when we were kids and would make up a play to preform in the living room for family members. It had that type of ‘play’ feel to it. But instead of my aunts and uncles it’s the online community who is our audience.”
Here it is, one last time, episode 2 – ‘Nutrition’ from Get Ripped:
The New York Times’s Virginia Heffernan thinks that web video series today are lacking.
She starts by citing the four webisodes produced by John Edwards’s mistress (that’s the first web series that popped into your head too, right?), then lumps it in with Satacracy 88 and Cataclysmo as the “slow, conservative, overpriced cousins to the wildly Web-friendly ‘viral videos.’”
So much is wrong with this statement, and I don’t just mean the annoying capitalization of “web.” Heffernan passes judgment on entire swaths of online video based on just a few examples, and her classification system is misguided at best.
ESPN is jumping into the scripted web series world on October 2nd as it 
Here’s a story you’ve probably heard at least two dozen times, maybe even twice today. Two young Hollywood actors are involved in the age-old balancing act of doing everything they can to get a break while earning money at day jobs to stay afloat. The part of the story you might not have heard has to do with the day job these particular up and comers maintain to get by; contract killing.
Fresh from wrapping up filming on season two of the hit UK web drama series 
I recently had a chance to talk to Gloria Calderon Kellett, creator of one of my 
