Jon Heder, the actor best known for his starring role in the hilariously sardonic Napolean Dynamite — and who has done little of value since — has resorted to the web for a resurgence of funny.  Can it work?  It just may.

Dead, created by John Fascano and produced by Electric Farm Entertainment, is about a USC student who wakes up in a bathtub filled with water and suspects that he might be dead. Ha! The series will include 50 three-minute episodes for online and mobile distribution in the U.S. 

This announcement comes at the heels of another which is supposedly unrelated: Electric Farm recently inked a deal with NBC Universal, which gained the domestic rights to the company’s upcoming Internet sci-fi series Gemini Division, starring the blazing Rosario Dawson.  Electronic Farm previously saw success when the awesome Afterworld was picked up by MySpace and SciFi. 

Hilarity may or may not ensue — we’ll let you know. Similar announcements are now commonplace among (at least somewhat) established Hollywood talent who turn to the web to either create sticky web series, sell a concept to tradtional TV, or just to eff around a little.  This looks like a smattering of each.

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

The Emmy-award winning web series Satacracy 88 recently wrapped up its final, twenty-fourth episode, concluding what the New York Times called “the greatest online video thriller on the Internet.” Created by Brad Winderbaum and Diahnna Nicole Baxter in 2006 (around the same time that lonelygirl15 was coming into prominence) Satacracy 88 went on to win the 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Broadband Drama, as well as a 2007 Webby. The series was also nominated for a 2008 Emmy and was an official honoree at the 2008 Webbys.

Following the Emmy win, It’s All In Your Hands.tv, the series’ web portal, launched two additional shows, Moonshine and Blankslate. The shows all incorporate a choose-your-own-adventure style voting process; each episode ends with a cliff-hanger, and the audience determines how the plot should be advanced, an intriguing approach in an age of American Idol interactivity. The site is committed to expanding its innovative collaboration with its audience as well: “In the future, we will continue to find and invent new kinds of interactivity and offer our audience even more ways to control the direction of their favorite shows.”

Filed under: It's All In Your Hands.tv, News, Thriller, Web Series by Rob Crawford
No Comments »

As Google and other giants struggle to find the money in online video, innovating artists continue to push the medium. 

With a meager budget “that wouldn’t buy you a used car”, creators of TheFold.tv — Polly Frost (who authored a collection of sexually oriented horror and sci-fi stories dubbed, Deep Inside) her husband Ray Sawhill, and recent NYU grad Matt Lambert — have created a polished, erotically-charged science fiction spoof with impressive production value.  I’m thinking Galacticast with more characters, a contiguous arc and stronger sexual overtones. 

The series debuts August 4th. We’ll withhold judgment until we see a few installments, but the trailer is compelling enough to share now…

Read On…

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

Woke Up Dead is a web-based, live-action sci-fi comedy thriller about Drex, a twenty-something USC student who wakes up underwater in the bathtub one morning and suspects that he might be dead. The scripted online series, created by John Fascano, is being produced by Electric Farm and stars Jon Heder (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Blades of Glory”), who will also produce. The show marks Heder’s strut into the world of online programming.

Dead, which was developed with Heder in mind as the lead, will comprise 50 three-minute episodes for online and mobile distribution in the U.S.

The project, which combines live-action with limited CGI elements, is a seemingly superb springboard for Electric Farm. The series is being made outside of a deal Stan Rogow, Brent Friedman and Jeff Sagansky’s Electric Farm signed with NBC Universal, which gives the conglomerate domestic rights to the company’s upcoming Internet sci-fi series Gemini Division, starring Rosario Dawson. Sony Pictures TV International co-produces and internationally distributes Gemini Division, (which features some elaborate 3-D art) as well as Electric Farm’s first online drama, Afterworld, a 2.5-D-animated series, on mobile, broadband and traditional TV.

Rogow said that Woke Up Dead was developed with Heder in mind for the lead. “He will be terrific,” he continued, “he’d always wanted to play a zombie.” Woke Up Dead is currently in pre-production and set to be released later this year.

Filed under: Comedy, News, Production Companies, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Web Series by Lon Haber
No Comments »

Walking through the farmer’s market in Union Square with my bestie Wayne, when two aspiring, fashion-y, intern-types approach us: “Can we take your pictures for Beautiful Stranger.TV?” They hand us a glossy ad. “We scout attractive people in New York City, ask them what they do, who they’re wearing. You could be featured on our site!!!”

We promptly sign the waiver. A week later I get an email from the Beautiful Stranger mailer host: “Check out who made the cut,” or something similarly, superficialy elitist. I didn’t make it. What’s worse, they write me everyday as if to say, “Artsy intellectual you might be, but you’re still wondering – secretly hoping even – that this week you’ll be crowned Beautiful Stranger of the Superficial Cyberworld!” And the horrible thing is, they’re right.

I continue to click, proof that “Andi & Max” the editors and self-proclaimed “Style Sleuths” behind Beautiful Stranger can turn the same manufactured insecurity invented by martini-guzzling Mad Men in the 60’s into something profitable. Even Jobs is in on it: “Sign up to win a beautiful iPhone!” (As opposed to an ugly iPhone?)

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Sonja Mauro
No Comments »

Tonight at 6:30PM at Webster Hall in New York, Yaron Samid will lead a town-hall-style meeting with some of internet-TV’s most creative innovaters…

• Robert Millis – Founder, Hudson Street Media
• Paul Kontonis – Founder, For Your Imagination
• Andrew Baron – Founder, Rocketboom
• Jay Smooth – Founder, Ill Doctrine
• Sarah Austin – Founder, Pop17
• Kathleen Grace & Thom Woodley, Founders, Dinosaur Drama Productions

to discuss what’s working, what’s not, and where the video content industry is headed.

RSVP Here

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

In the wake of September 11, David Rees gave critics of the Bush administration’s response three-paneled doses of much-obliged comic relief. On October 9, 2001, the cartoonist debuted the first installment of his “glorious excoriation of our post-9/11 loony bin,” Get Your War On.

With a 90’s clip art aesthetic and Real Ultimate Power sensibility, the comic strip is a brilliant mix of humdrum office culture, rabid heterosexuality, and government satire, showing that hyperbolic patriotic affirmations from white-collared workers (and Voltron) make for awesome political critique.

Since Operation: Enduring Freedom provided the inspiration for Get Your War On over seven years ago, the cartoon has spun off into two books, one play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and now a weekly, online animated series courtesy of the mock pundits at the Huffington Post’s (where Rees sometimes blogs) version of The Daily Show, 23/6.

Read On…

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

Back in June we announced the relaunch of Atom.com, the Comedy Central-sponsored site for web content that includes a large (a bit too large, in fact) collection of original web series. The three shows that accompanied the launch were Stickman Exodus, Benny, Escaped Convict, and Border Patrol. Now, some 43,000 views later, Border Patrol is set to release its series finale tomorrow, and we thought we would take a look at how the shows have done in the past month, and show you the penultimate Border Patrol episode to get you caught up.

Views for the three shows followed our predictions – Stickman Exodus has led the way with over 107,000 views total for five episodes. The pilot was easily the strongest of the three, but the series has ended up not being as original as we had expected. That hasn’t stopped the Waverly Films show from being the strongest in terms of views, and we’ll admit the series has given us some pretty good laughs.

Benny, Escaped Convict performed poorly both in terms of content as well as viewership. With less than 25,000 views, the show’s three episodes were barely distinguishable – each episode followed the same pattern with Benny, our foul-mouthed protagonist, showing up at an event and shocking everyone with his prison stories and bad language. In the end, the show couldn’t shock enough people to build up a viewer base; however, we hope to see more from creators Ryan Levin and Nye Warburton.

Border Patrol, which we called “the middle child” of the three, ended up being the most entertaining show. The three friends, who have been guarding the US-Mexico border for over a year without seeing an illegal alien, have had some crazy adventures in their time as Minutemen. They’ve attempted to build a fence at the border, they’ve put together a crow’s next made out of a lawn chair and some balloons, and they’ve met their Mexican alter-egos, who are making sure no Americans illegally cross into Mexico. The show didn’t do as well as Stickman Exodus in terms of views, but it was an example of great web comedy, and we look forward to watching the series finale.

Filed under: Channels, Comedy, Comedy Central, Production Companies, Reviews, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
No Comments »

For those of you that like your sci-fi chock full of lesbian sex, dudes in thongs, and other quirky fetishes, look no further than The Fold. Judging from the trailer, the title is either a reference to erotic origami, a mysterious time travel machine, or female genitalia (or possibly all of the above.) Co-writer and co-producer Polly Frost describes The Fold as “part sci-fi, part sex comedy [that] interweaves stories involving a time-traveling geek with Aspergers Syndrome, an investigation by a Gaming Babes Magazine reporter, a sex-cult guru, a right-wing CEO determined to remake history, and a New Jersey hot tub salesman for whom things mysteriously start to go the right way.” Got that? Frost co-wrote the series with her husband and co-producer, Ray Sawhill, and NYU film school grad Matt Lambert shot and directed all six of the 10 minute episodes for a meager $8,000. The cast is comprised of emerging talent from downtown NYC theater. Frost added that “we see the webseries as a way of doing a ’70s-style midnight movie: R-rated, edgy, and erotically-charged. One way we like to describe The Fold is as The Matrix meets Barbarella on the budget of a 3 Stooges short.” Well put. The Fold premieres Monday, August 4th at TheFold.tv.

Filed under: Comedy, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Web Series by Bobby Bender
No Comments »

Rewind of the week on Tubefilter News – top stories in case you missed them. Sequels were the big topic this week – first, we heard that a Dr. Horrible sequel could be coming later this year, and then yesterday Josh Weinberg told us that the next episode of The Website is Down is in production, and graciously gave us a sneak peek at what he’s working on. Another popular story was the debut of TheWB.com‘s new lineup, led by the original series Sorority Forever. Rounding out the top stories was our interview with Mary Feuer, writer for lonelygirl15 and creator of the upcoming Strike.TV show With the Angels.

• ‘Dr. Horrible’ Sequel in the Works?
• Second Episode of ‘The Website is Down’ In Production, Says Creator Josh Weinberg
• Can McG’s “Sorority Forever” Carry TheWB.com’s Fall Web Lineup?
• Interview with ‘lonelygirl15? writer Mary Feuer on her new show ‘With The Angels’ on Strike.TV

Filed under: News, Strike.TV, TheWB.com by Tubefilter News
Comments Off on Friday Rewind: Tubefilter News of the Week – July 25, 2008

If you’ve not yet seen Barak Obama address a crowd of 200,000 while facing Brandenburg Gate in Berlin — a onetime symbol of Nazi power, the site where JFK famously declared “Ich bin ein Berliner”, and where Ronald Reagan implored the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” — I recommend watching.

Read On…

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

DiagonalView, a show that debuted on DailyMotion in March, is a video blog which presents oddities from around the world in minute long documentary-style clips. These range from odd, to cute, gross to breathtaking, and every reaction in between.

The name comes from the concept that they are not marketing their content, so audiences discover it on their own, from a fresh perspective – “diagonal” rather than “linear” programming. Their most recent clip, which is on the geeky side, I found particularly cool:

DiagonalView is generally entertaining and relatively innocuous, but it can at times resemble an Internet version of P. T. Barnum‘s traveling freak shows, which arose from a long tradition of Western imperialists exhibiting people of color, the disfigured, disabled and mentally retarded, and other “human marvels” for amusement.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Owen Roberts
No Comments »