If you thought the finale of lonelygirl15 was the last we would hear of the show, you’d be wrong. A selection of upcoming online projects by lg15 alumni includes Jessica Rose’s leading role in the new show Sorority Forever this fall, writer Mary Feuer’s new Strike.TV show With the Angels, and now executive producer Yumiko Aoyagi has announced that her latest project, a thriller entitled The Scary City, will be released on September 15th.

If there are two terms that could describe the buzz around The Scary City, those terms would be ‘big budget’ and ‘multimedia extravaganza.’ The project has $5.2 million in funding, including a $1.4 million website that will include character blogs, games, and merchandise. Let’s do a little math here – with $3.8 million left for programming, and assuming that the series will have about 180 episodes (similar to one season of lg15) The Scary City will cost about $21,111 per episode. With episodes between 1.5 and 3 minutes long, this comes out to anywhere from $7,037 and $14,074 per minute. [To compare, Prom Queen cost Michael Eisner’s Vuguru about $2,000 per minute, and low-budget hit Break a Leg spends about $63 per minute.]

Produced by BS-i, a Japanese satellite broadcaster that serves as both a creator of original content, and distributor for Japanese and American shows (such as Lost) in Japan, the series will be released online as well as on mobile phones and in a graphic-novel format. The plan is to develop the story into a feature length movie; Aoyagi explained, “It’s like a full-fledged pre-release campaign, with each story in every country serving as a trailer for the movie.”

The series will also be spread out globally – the first versions to be released will be American and Japanese storylines, and future stories in development will take place in Israel, France, the UK, Thailand, and Korea. Aoyagi has been fairly busy this year – on top of The Scary City and the lg15 finale, she is also an executive producer for the upcoming film See Dick Run. Her past credits include writing for the Japanese drama/thriller “Sing Yuet Tung Wa,” also know as “Moonlight Express,” as well as writing for a few Japanese TV mini-series.

Photo by Span X

Filed under: News, Production Companies, Thriller, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
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Gym rats need to be made fun of. Nobody’s done it yet.

Everyone’s been too busy parodying bodybuilders and douchebags – who, one could argue, are all concentric circles in the same Venn Diagram – to take an extended look through a satirical lens at the superfit that walk among us, at the bridge-and-tunnel trainers that work at city clubs and sell personal sessions like used car salesmen, at the top-heavy dudes that invent awkward stretches so they can put your girl into sexually suggestive positions by the treadmills for $60/hour.

The personal trainer is an archetypal character in need of some comedic attention, and Gloria Claderon Kellet gives it fair treatment in Get Ripped.

Created by Kellet, shot by Firefly, distributed by new media studio 60Frames, and starring Rand Holdren, it’s a POV tour of your local LA Fitness with a guide hopped up on copious amounts of Ephedrine. And it costs $20,000 an episode.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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If you’re not familiar with the concept of Craigslist casual encounters, spend a few minutes reading these posts.

It’s one of the more enlightening/depressing slices of human behavior you’re likely to find on the Internet. A casual glance at today’s Safe For Work listings: “Twice in one night with this asian hottie?” , “very sexy and daring nympho waiting 2 get drilled” Well, you get the idea.

Michael Mohan‘s original series Casual Encounters originally dropped on Atom.com in early 2007 and, despite some amateur stylings, most installments stand the test of time. As the name suggests, it’s a mockumentary based on a group of casual encounterers whose lives intersect across eight episodes that can stand alone, but make a helluva lot more sense if you watch them in order.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Owen Roberts
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The Legend of Neil from The Guild’s Sandeep Parikh is a joyous romp through a real-life version of Zelda. Perhaps the biggest joy of all is, characters call it like they see it. For example, “Zelda is totally f**kable.”

In a recent conversation with Sandeep, I was overjoyed to learn that Legend’s beginnings are not that unlike the opening of the show. Set to a catchy ditty, title character Neil gets sucked into Zelda through a freak asphyxiation accident when playing Zelda drunk. Thankfully, Sandeep has not been recently asphyxiated, but fortunately for the world of Internet content, he does enjoy a good drunken game of Zelda.

Sandeep muses on the show’s creation: “I was a bit tipsy with my roommate after a night out. He told me he could beat original Zelda in under an hour. We just so happened to have the original, so we cracked open a few beers, and I watched… I started thinking about what it would be like to be in the game…wondering what this creepy Old Man in a cave was doing with a wooden sword. And then I just started drunkenly writing.”

So, the show obviously has big appeal to gamers, and classic Nintendo fans alike, but what about the casual Internet video watcher? Sandeep says, so far, his worst comment has been, “meh.” His favorite comment, which may appear on the DVD jacket is, “surprisingly not sh*t!”

Sandeep is modest. The show is undoubtedly funny as we get an inside look at creepy bad guys who only before spoke via synthesizer sound effects. Not only that, we get an anti-hero to root for. Neil is a slacker dujour, but as portrayed by Tony Janning, he’s appealing, and we’d like to see this fine young man snag a real-life princess to save himself from a fate worse than, well, asphyxiation post-masturbation.

As far as what to expect in future episodes, Sandeep’s not telling. However, you can expect more in-depth stories on everyone’s favorite one-dimensional Zelda bad guys. All will be out by the end of the month, and a second and third season may also be in the works.

When Sandeep is not dreaming up “places where Moblins hang out in their off-time,” he also runs his site Effinfunny.com. Sandeep says he now has over 100 comedians and 500 clips of tightly-edited stand-up, giving him a huge resource to cull from when he does other side projects, like the spots he recently created for Absolutepoker.net.

Episode 3, which debuts tomorrow (Aug 7) will feature The Guild’s Felicia Day. Stay tuned.

Editor’s Note: We are excited to have Lindsay Stidham joining the Tubefilter News staff. Lindsay is a graduate of the American Film Institute with an MFA in screenwriting. Since graduation, Lindsay has written and produced two feature films, including the upcoming SPOONER, starring Matthew Lillard. When Lindsay is not watching videos online, she can be found doing comedy and improv in Los Angeles.

Filed under: Channels, Comedy, Interviews, The Legend of Neil by Lindsay Stidham
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The upcoming Summer Olympics in Bejing, set to triumphantly commence this coming Friday, are groundbreaking. They represent China’s ascent to superpower status with extravagant infastructure, weather-changing technology, and an ever-obedient citizenry, but this is not the first time the world has seen the olympics used as a stage for showcasing newfound political might.

There is one particular element of these games that is truly unprecedented. You got it: for the first time in the history of the Olympics, we’ll have an interactive online TV channel devoted to the games’ coverage.

Ready to whet your palette with tales of American achievement? A Shot At Glory chronicles the Olympic journies of 10 American athletes set to compete. Each installment follows the story behind the rise to Olympian status. The series highlights some truly staggering talent, and an often uphill battle for Olympic success.

The 10-part series, which is available in it’s entirety on Hulu, also aired on MOJO HD.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
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A princess, white knight, celtic warrior, stage manager, mud wench, armorer, wizard, and some mistrels are some of the characters in Dinosaur Diorama’s newest web series, “All’s Faire,” about the adventures of a crew of some real-life Renaissance Fair goers. Writer/Producer Thom Woodley of Dinosaur Diorama, who is reportedly a “Ren Faire” expert, and Bob McClure, who some may recall as “Jed” in Dinosaur Diorama’s earlier hit series The Burg, are in the midst of shooting the hopeful hit.

Woodley and Dinosaur Diorama partner Kathleen Grace have two success stories on their hands already with the popular, hipster-faves The Burg and The All-For-Nots. Though the launch date hasn’t yet been announced, it looks like we’re in store for some creative medieval programming.

Update: All’s Faire has been released.

Filed under: Comedy, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Lon Haber
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Bebo (AOL’s social networking site) is launching its newest online drama, The Secret World Of Sam King, today (August 6th.)

The series features the eager Sam King, a junior employee at Universal Records who, unbeknownst to his colleagues, secretly starts his own record label using the facilities available to him at the London office of Universal Music where he works in the mail room. Sam King is in fact shot at Universal Music UK’s actual offices in West London. Bebo today announced the involvement of musical acts such as The Sugababes, The Automatic, Sam Sparro, The Saturdays, as well as The Jonas Brothers, who appear in the first episode.

Produced by Globe Productions and Universal Music UK in partnership with Monkey Kingdom, The Secret World Of Sam King will upload 3-5 minute episodes daily on Bebo. Product integration, aside from the bands of course, looks to be all over this series. The producers are saying that the initial storylines see Sam heading to “Ibiza Rocks” as part of an integration with show sponsor, Sony Ericsson and Virgin Mobile’s V Festival.

One upside for viewers could be the fan interaction planned for the series as King will “invite the audience to get involved with him in both his personal and professional life.” Viewers are even encouraged to send in material, and “suggest bands he should go and scout, profile emerging talent and generally help him in all elements involved in creating his own label,” the producers added.

Editor’s Note: We are excited to have Paul Goebel joining the Tubefilter News staff. Paul is the ‘King of TV Trivia’ and has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs. He has been featured in Maxim and People magazine as well as TV Guide. Paul has also written TV-related articles for websites and publications such as Film Threat.com, Bob and David.com, TVSquad.com and National Lampoon.com as well as his own site TheKingofTV.com. Paul is best known to his fans as the resident “TV Geek” on Comedy Central’s gameshow, Beat the Geeks.

Filed under: Channels, Drama, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Paul Goebel
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The internet is home to a fickle audience. You’re only as good as your next hit and no good content producer goes unpunished.

Show us something worthwhile and we want to see more. NOW. Or tomorrow. Or next week, tops. But any later than that and you’ve made us mad and we’re not clicking back (or at least not until MSNBC tips us off to a sweet new video you produced).

So those Tom Cruise impersonations and James Franco classes are great and all, Funny or Die, but we need another OMG-you-gotta-watch-this blockbuster. Something that makes us fall in love with site creators Will Ferrell and Adam McKay all over again and reminds us to come back and visit on a regular basis. Something topical, probably election related, involving a pop culture icon acting out of character.

Yeah, this will do:

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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On paper, it looks entertaining. Samsung taps Bob Odenkirk – Mr. Show co-star and auteur behind one SuperDeluxe’s better series about hostile, womanizing co-dependency, Derek and Simon – to create a series of videos pimping its Q1 Ultra.

But once you realize that Odenkirk’s trying to sell what Gabe calls “a 10 pound device about the size of a meatloaf that runs on DDD batteries and requires two hands to operate,” you get that sense that, in practice, this has about a 90% chance of being 0% funny.

Take a look at the best of the three vids released so far:

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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So, daily video blog Rocketboom – whose Boing Boing-inspired newscast of internet and cultural ephemera – signed a (count ‘em) seven figure distribution deal with Sony Pictures Television.

That means the crew at Rocketboom, with an influx of cash and time, will be able to expand their roster beyond their flagship offering and Pop17. I’m hoping they’ll do more to edify the internet-ignorant public on how to Know Your Meme.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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If you’re like me, you probably don’t know much about “crime and trauma scene decontamination.” As it turns out, CTS Decon (as it’s referred to) is a fairly robust industry, charging between $100 to $600 an hour for their services cleaning up anything from animal infested houses, to homicide and suicide scenes. From this dark, depressing industry emerges the new comedy series The Clean-Up Crew, about a small CTS Decon company with an odd collection of employees.

The series, by USC graduate students Scott Rickels, Tim Dragga, and Tim Kolesk, is Rickels’ graduate thesis. “The pitch for the series was well received except for the fact none of the USC faculty knew anything about making webisodes,” Rickels explained. “Mostly the response we got was, ‘Sounds like a great idea. I don’t know anything about it but let me know how it turns out.'” Adding to the challenge was the fact that USC also has a strict copyright policy. “If you use the school’s resources, they own your copyright and will not allow you to post your work on the internet. I ended up having to do a special thesis project where I received no support from the school, but in turn, I’d own the copyright.”

Rickels and his crew shot all the episodes over the course of eight days last June and then spent the past year “pulling it all together in post on a shoestring budget,” And by “shoestring” they mean just under $50k for all the episodes. While some people gasp at that cost for a student work, it’s apparently “on the average/cheap side for a USC graduate thesis project.”

Even with a small budget and a short time to film, The Clean-Up Crew boasts an impressive cast, especially with its leads Dale Midkiff (Love Potion No. 9, The Magnificent Seven) and Richard Riehle (Office Space). The great talent, combined with a strong script, makes for an impressive series, like something I would expect to watch on HBO or Showtime. Episodes can be found exclusively on Funny or Die, a decision Rickels made because, “It’s a smaller site, focused on comedy. Sure, videos are getting hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube but the majority of them are 30 second clips of umbrellas attacking women. I was afraid since we were coming out of the blue with no advertising dollars and a longer run time, we might get buried in a big place like YouTube or MySpace.”

While the response hasn’t been huge so far, the show’s following is growing, with over 25,000 views so far for the first two episodes. New episodes will come out every other Monday; you can find out about the latest episodes on the Tubefilter Web TV Schedule.

While The Clean-Up Crew is still fighting to stand out, I asked Rickels what he thought about the future of the web series medium. “The desire for quality web content is growing and somewhere down the line people are going to figure out the best way to monetize it. Maybe that time is already here? Just look at Dr. Horrible! People are calling it a ‘sitebuster‘… I don’t think there’s ever been a webisode show that was an event like it! It’s a very exciting time in the new media sector of the entertainment industry and we’re glad to be considered a part of it. It’s the wild west! You don’t have to be a studio or production company to create a show or short film or whatever! Anyone can upload content and if it’s good…hopefully it will find an audience.”

Filed under: Comedy, Funny Or Die, Interviews, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
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You might have already heard: Rocketboom, the first breakout internet show and an industry pioneer, has made waves by announcing a distribution deal with Sony that includes a seven-figure guaranteed revenue-share.

That means, while you’ll still be able to find Rocketboom on YouTube, Blip, etc., visitors to Sony’s Crackle and users of Sony’s PS3, PSP, and Bravia I-Link TVs (all 12 of you) will be able to watch the show. Sony’s also taking care of ad sales while Rocketboom focuses on production. Now, the business that has been marred by legal proceedings with its former host can finally take off.

So, what else does this mean for Rocketboom? In a word, more.

Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron hints that this announcement coincides with his recent push to bring on additional writing staff.

“We’re experimenting with group writing to improve each script but also in anticipation of expanding the content offerings,” Baron said by email.

In December, I sat down with Andrew to discuss his vision for the future of the company, which seems to be coming to fruition.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
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