I just got off the phone with Josh Weinberg, creator of The Website is Down, and fans of the first video will be happy to hear that episode 2 is in production.

When Weinberg put together the first episode of The Website is Down, entitled “Sales Guy vs. Web Dude,” with his friends, he had no idea what to expect in response. Would people watch it?

Would they understand it? How popular would it be? A few days after posting it, he had his response. The unauthorized copies alone (on YouTube and Break) have garnered over 2 million views, making the video a certified viral hit.

Weinberg is still working out the details of the show, especially with regards to scheduling and distribution. Future episodes will probably be shorter, but the format will be the same (screencast, and shots of video gameplay). He’s also working on some new features and easter eggs for the site (to go along with the first video he had a fake Unix command line, complete with insulting error messages.) I had a chance to mess around with one of the new features still under wraps, which Weinberg calls the “Sales Guy Simulator.” Even though it’s currently unfinished, this tiny glimpse of what Weinberg is working on makes us very confident that “The Website is Down” has the potential to become a summer sitebuster series.

And as an added bonus for fans, we’re told there is a chance that we could see The Website is Down merchandise in the near future. Josh, if you’re reading this, feel free to use our TWID T-Shirt idea, though we would really (cough) love (cough) to find one in the mail.

Filed under: Comedy, Interviews, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
No Comments »

Tubefilter News caught up with Mary Feuer, one of the writers of the seminal web series lonelygirl15, to talk about her new web show, With The Angels, premiering next month on StrikeTV. The show brings together a slew of LG15 vets, starring Carly Jones (“Mallory” from LG15) and Sean Vincent Biggins (“Dr. Calvin Hart” from LG15) and featuring fellow lonelygirl15 scribe Jonathan Robert Kaplan as a co-writer. Set to launch soon (early August) on StrikeTV, the show plans to roll out a whopping 36 episodes in its initial run.

Tubefilter: Why 36 episodes? How long is each (give or take)?

Mary Feuer: I started out planning to do 24, and we’d be done now if I’d stuck to that. But I couldn’t tell the story I wanted to tell in 24 episodes. We’ve got 6 major characters, and they all have stories I want to tie together and resolve, so all of a sudden there were 36. There could actually end up being more. I’m hoping people will jump into the forums on Strike TV and talk about what they’re seeing once the episodes go up, so that could spark some new ideas.

So far, the longest is 7 minutes and the shortest is 30 seconds. The average is 4 and a half minutes.

TF: Where are you in production?

Feuer: Do you mean physically where, or how close to done are we? If it’s the first, we shoot in Venice, California. If it’s the second, we just finished shooting our 24th episode.

TF: You were a writer on lonelygirl15. Will With The Angels remind us of LG15?

Feuer: The blog style will remind you of LG15. The fact that Taffy, the main character, is kind of an isolated person who reaches out to people on the web for companionship is another similarity. But I guess for me the biggest difference is that on LG15 people are necessarily always reacting to a big external threat, and the conflicts in “With the Angels” are more interpersonal. They come from things as basic as having an incompatible roommate, failing at a career, falling for the wrong person, having your belief system rocked when it collides with someone else’s, things like that.

None of this is to say anything against Lonelygirl15 – they do what they do incredibly well, and I still watch and enjoy the show. It’s just different.

TF: What’s the release date?

Feuer: You’ll have to ask Strike TV about that one: there are a few logistical things that are still being sorted out, I guess. But soon. Very soon. When I find out, I’ll let you know.

[Ed. Note: StrikeTV is aiming for an early August release.]

TF: Is it easier/how is it different than writing/shooting for television?

Feuer: It’s definitely not easier – but it is different, in my opinion. That’s why it doesn’t necessarily work when someone chops up their feature and posts it as a web series.

The first-person storytelling is the biggest difference. It’s not the only way to go, but it certainly is one great option. I’m really interested in exploring that – it’s something the web does incredibly well that doesn’t so much work in other mediums. Well, it works, but to a very different effect: when you have someone talk straight to the camera in a movie or on TV, it feels theatrical because it reminds you there’s a camera there and you lose that “fly on the wall” sensation. But on the web, with a blog, you’re acknowledging the camera and looking through it to the person sitting on the other side, who is much more actively engaged than someone watching a movie or show. It’s an overused word, but the web really is very intimate. As TV and the internet merge, this will be less true, so I feel like, let’s explore this while we can.

At this point in time, too, most people are still viewing on tiny screens, so, visually, it’s going to have to be different than what you’d put on a larger canvas. And shorter, which I find really fun, because you can enter and exit stories in all kinds of ways. There aren’t so many formulas and structural rules, so there’s room to play. You don’t have to color within the lines – you can drop pieces of your story all over the internet like breadcrumbs for people to find if you want to. It’s great.

TF: Anything else you’d like to add?

Feuer: This is an exciting time. I think it was Cocteau (right?) who said that “Film will only be an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.” I think we’re there.

Filed under: Drama, Interviews, lonelygirl15, Strike.TV, Web Series by Lon Haber
No Comments »

Editor’s note: We are thrilled to have Alec McNayr, of Space Shank Media, contributing as a guest author to Tubefilter News. Look for more from Alec on a semi-regular basis as he lends us his experienced eye for quality as we follow the episodic web television scene.

Half advertisement, half action series, TNT’s new short-form series Lucky Chance is a high-speed romp through a what feels like a student film inspired by the fast editing style, one-liner quipping actors, and outlandish mobsters in Guy Richie’s Snatch.

The series, which consists of twenty 2-minute episodes, airs on TNT (and almost as an afterthought, online) during the commercial breaks of episodes of Bones and Law & Order, and is essentially a commercial in itself.

The story follows DEA undercover agent Lucky Chance (yes, that’s his name, and he carries around a pair of lucky dice to prove it) who murders some dishonest cops, and must race to clear his name. Along the way, we find out that his red lingerie-sporting girlfriend is one of the agents asked to bring him in.

The style of each episode is certainly frenetic, with fast, chaotic camera moves and jump cuts, which unfortunately don’t match the slow, story-driven movement of the shows they support. And in a strange editing tactic, lines of dialogue are shown on screen, as if to engage the half-watching viewer.

The series is heavy with product placement, primarily from the 2009 Dodge Challenger. The show itself feels like a series of scenes connected by shots of a Challenger racing over the desert sand at sunset: the same gorgeous shots you’d expect of a car commercial. Other consumer products are introduced just as obviously: the cold and brooding Lucky oddly orders a “Fiji Water” at a bar and the barkeep drops it right in the middle of them. Each character’s mobile phone also gets a fair amount of screen time.

The strategy behind the series (and likely the similar-sounding upcoming series Blank Slate, sponsored by Acura) is to serve as a “Tivo-killer” to keep viewers from fast-forwarding through the commercials. It’s a tactic we’ll see more of as overall TV ad spending decreases, and, done well, it will provide an opportunity to add value to viewers’ experiences.

However, in Lucky Chance, the characters are thinly developed and the dialogue is a series of colloquial sayings and semi-puns about gambling. And unfortunately, neither of these things can be covered up with any amount of fast cars and fast editing.

Alec McNayr is a writer-producer at Space Shank Media, and the co-creator of the online mockumentary Flipper Nation, an official honoree of the 2008 Webby Awards. He also writes a regular column on new media entertainment in Final Draft’s Script Magazine.

Filed under: Action, Reviews, TNT, Web Series by Alec McNayr
No Comments »

Welcome to The Line. Two friends, Josh (Bill Hader) and Duffy (Joe Lo Truglio of Superbad) score the coveted first spots in line outside of a movie theater, 11 days prior to the world premiere of FutureSpace, the hottest sci-fi movie of the summer. Moments later, the heat is on, as they are thrown into a face-off with the ultimate fanboys: the Telepathic Triplets of Zybar.

The seven-episode series, created by Seth Meyers, Bill Hader and Simon Rich and produced by Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video launched this week over at Sony-owned Crackle.com. Written by Hader and Rich, the show is sponsored by Sony Pictures, which is prominently featuring actual movie posters for its upcoming Columbia Pictures releases (Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, and The House Bunny) on the wall behind the characters in line. Worth noting that Hader and Lo Truglio both also co-star in the upcoming comedy, Pineapple Express. This feels a little too convenient, though it seems like it was an easy sell to the marketing folks at Sony/Columbia.

“This integrated marketing opportunity with The Line feels like the most organic user experience that I’ve seen in a very long time,” said Dwight Caines, executive vice president of worldwide digital marketing strategy for Columbia TriStar Marketing Group. “It’s always exciting to see a completely unique approach to sponsorship and for me, it was an easy decision to get involved with these incredibly funny and talented guys. The project is so clever and will certainly resonate with our target audiences.”

The more than obvious product integration aside, the show is classic SNL caliber. Hader is a comedic gem and any chance to get him in a web series is worth taking. Lo Truglio has some web series roots, having written and directed an episode of the Webby Award-winning hit Wainy Days last year. Keep an eye out for guest appearances by Jason Sudeikis (SNL), Paul Scheer (30 Rock), and Liz Cackowski (Forgetting Sarah Marshall).

Episode 2 of the The Line just went up over at Crackle.com and it picks up right where the first one left off. This time, The Telepathic Triplets introduce a hardcore five-minute rule: leave the line for more than five minutes and lose your place.

Filed under: Comedy, Crackle, Crackle (Sony Pictures Television), News, Production Companies, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
No Comments »

Proof of concept? Joss Whedon spent around the “low six figures” out of his own pocket to shoot Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and after a whirlwind launch the summer sitebuster could bank over $2.6 million, according to some number crunching by Jeffrey McManus. McManus estimates that number assuming one million iTunes downloads of the series at $3.59 each, after Apple’s share (10%) of the $3.99 sale price. With the show already dominating the top of the iTunes TV downloads chart, this very well could be a possibility.

Whedon himself commented on his blog, confirming that “the guestimates were not far off, as far as I noticed.” He added, “This was a sensible article on a subject that will, if we beret-wearing artistes have our way, will matter very much.”

To get an idea of how many were able to watch it during its 5-day free viewing period at the DrHorrible.com site, here are the initial Hulu view counts by Act: (courtesy of David Sarno at the LA Times)

Act One: 1,149,846
Act Two: 625,552
Act Three: 427,785

All this further turns heads in the industry, as Hollywood is starting to notice that top name talent like Joss Whedon, who admittedly has a considerable and loyal following, can self-distribute original content outside of the traditional studio system. As for Dr. Horrible – we’ll be looking forward to the sequel.

Filed under: Comedy, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, News by Marc Hustvedt
No Comments »

If Dr. Joyce Brothers and The Simpsons’ “Comic Book Guy” had a child together, that child would probably be Kyle Piccolo, from For Your Imagination’s new series Kyle Piccolo: Comic Shop Therapist.

The series, created by Alec Pollak and Neil Turitz, follows Kyle Piccolo (Eric Zuckerman) as he guides his comic-nerd customers through their personal problems using his encyclopedic knowledge of comic books, combined with a fine-tuned understanding of human psychology. The show is filmed at Manhattan’s Midtown Comics, which provides the perfect setting for a series that already has great production value. Executive producer FYI has been one of the most successful productions companies in the online realm with hit shows Break a Leg, DadLabs, and The Patrice O’Neal Show, and they seem to have done it again with their latest project. According to FYI’s blog, Kyle Piccolo has garnered over half a million views through Blip.tv, YouTube, Yahoo, Dailymotion, and iTunes.

Another thing FYI seems to have had success with is getting sponsorships for its shows. The first 5 episodes of Kyle Piccolo were funded by a $36,000 sponsorship from Warner Bros. as a promotional tool for The Dark Knight. Said FYI after The Dark Knight’s opening weekend, “Lost in all of the [Dark Knight] hype was the fact that Kyle Piccolo – Comic Shop Therapist, the blockbuster[*] new web series, is clearly the reason behind the success of the film… Now, did Eddie Murphy’s Meet Dave advertise on Kyle Piccolo? It did not. The result? Less than $10 million at the box office. Hollywood studios, take note. If you want a successful film, call Kyle Piccolo. If he can’t do it, no one can…”

*Editors note: This is the web after all, and we prefer the word “sitebuster.”

Filed under: Comedy, News, Production Companies, Warner Bros., Web Series by Arjun Sharma
No Comments »

YouTube fame hasn’t helped Picnicface pay its members’ rent, but it has helped grow their fanbase. Since hitting it big with Powerthirst (now over 8 million views), the eight-person crew has been selling out two 45-minute sketch shows a month in their native Halifax. More exciting, the original hype of Powerthirst got Picnicface representation by UTA – who has its own studio and is repping nearly everyone in online video. So expect big things from these Canadians in the future.

Powerthirst, a fake ad for a sports drink that gives you “gratuitous amounts of energy.” What makes the ad funny isn’t the concept of mocking sports drinks as much as the style of the ad — shouting and bad clip art and cheap animation. It’s a professional, intentionally amateur aesthetic we’ve seen a lot of lately, and Picnicface executes it well. The claims get more ridiculous and the narrative falls apart. The ad ends with a proclamation that Powerthirst will make you “AHHH SPORTS AHHH.”

Well, as luck would have it, Picnicface has a bunch of other “Powerthirst”-style videos and they are the troupe’s best work.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Andrew Friedman
No Comments »

David Penn is just a writer trying to get his show Groomates picked up. He accepts that the sitcom will never be bigger than the mysterious hit show Swamblers, and he’s coming to terms with the fact that one man is pretending to be two different cast members.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you need to go and check out Break a Leg, the hit show from Late Again Films and For Your Imagination. The series, which picked up a sponsorship deal with Holiday Inn Express back in June, is currently airing its final episodes, and Tubefilter’s Drew Baldwin got a chance to sit down with co-creator (and star “David Penn”) Yuri Baranovsky, and ask him a few questions.

Tubefilter: Let’s start off with the finale–how has the response been?
Yuri Baranovsky: Overwhelmingly good. People are really surprised at the high production values of this one — we’re gone all out and, I can honestly say, the finale is the best looking independent show I’ve personally seen. We have special effects, we have armies of children (coming up!), we have cowboy towns, we even have an actor from the original Partridge Family. The last few episodes are really good, I think. Generally, we’re just excited to see what the reception will be like and we’re very, very proud of these last few episodes.

TF: Has getting a sponsor affected the show? In terms of creative freedom, have the sponsors made any changes?
Baranovsky: They didn’t change anything. The only thing it affected was the lengthening of how many videos we release. We were going to release the entire finale, back to back, but now we’ll have little in-between videos to split it up a bit. The sponsor has no say over any of the content.

TF: What’s it like working at Late Again Films?
Baranovsky: I’m not sure if people know this, but it’s really made up of very few people, all working full-time jobs, trying to make the best possible show we can. We’re filmmakers, all of us, we’ve made a film together, we’ve made Break a Leg together and, ideally, we’ll be making future projects together. The people involved in Late Again Films are some of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with. They learn programs in days, they take any challenge presented — no matter how hard — and dive in, headfirst. We’re planning to build a giant, 24-foot ramp for one shot, purely for filmmaking and comedic purposes. That alone should tell you everything about our production company!

TF: How has using Blip as your standard player worked out? Where do you get more views, Blip or YouTube?
Baranovsky: Blip’s been great for us. The quality is good and the company is extremely sociable and helpful. It was with their help, along with For Your Imagination, that we got the sponsor. I can talk to any of their higher-ups almost at a moment’s notice. They’re fantastic, and they helped us grow when we were just starting out. It depends, as far as views go. If we get a feature on YouTube, then YouTube. If not, Blip usually takes the lead.

TF: What would you have done differently in making the show, if you had the chance to do it again?
Baranovsky: Aside from purely technical stuff, I think we would’ve made each episode a bit more stand-alone. We would’ve made it a little simpler to tune in from the middle and understand what’s happening and I think we’d aim for a slightly more sellable story. We’d also shoot all the episodes at once, and then release them week by week over a certain period and call that a full season. People love episodes, and it’s tough to keep them interested while we shoot for 3 months. That said, Break a Leg has been amazing to us, it has provided an invaluable lesson for us, it has taught us how to be better writers, filmmakers, marketers — you name it. It has given us amazing press, a dedicated fanbase and a lot of great connections.

TF: What’s in store for you in the future?
Baranovsky: Right now, we’re talking to people, trying to follow various leads — the goal is, come the end of October, to have a funded project to do. Be it an internet show, a TV show, the second season of Break a Leg — whatever people are interested in helping us create. We’re talking to everyone and, hopefully, will have some kind of announcement once Break a Leg wraps.

Filed under: Comedy, Interviews, Production Companies, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
No Comments »

Every Tuesday, the “Tubefilter Tuesday Picks” showcases three shows worth watching, chosen by the Tubefilter News Staff.

This week’s picks:

The All-For-Nots

The All-For-Nots follows a struggling fictional indie rock band as they tour across the country and try to get on the right path to success. The series has been going for a solid 19 weeks now, and the band was even featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live! back in June.

Imaginary Bitches

Our staff writer Bobby Bender described it best– “[Imaginary Bitches] plays out as a sort of condensed, lower-budget, schizophrenic version of Sex And The City.” With new episodes every Friday, the show hasn’t failed to impress us yet, and seems to have pretty solid viewership numbers. In the last week alone, the series garnered over 10,000 views per weekday, and 20,000 views per day on the weekend.

Gaytown

If there’s a show that demonstrates why web comedy is great, Gaytown is probably it. The premise is brilliant – what would the world be like if everyone was gay, and straight people were the minority? As it turns out, straight guys would be meeting in bathrooms to talk about fantasy baseball, and straight women would have to hide their dislike of softball. Sure, there are some great sci-fi and drama series on the web, but it’s this kind irreverent brilliance (and total disregard for political correctness) that makes web comedy so pervasive.

Filed under: Comedy, Crackle, Crackle (Sony Pictures Television), Production Companies, Reviews, Vuguru/Tornante, Web Series by Tubefilter News
No Comments »

To me, the notion doesn’t sound so novel.  I know a handful of Bloggers-in-Chief, but when NBC News runs a story (seamlessly embedded below) about the 76-year-old CEO of Marriott who writes blog posts by hand because he never learned to type, I’m reminded of the transformative power of new media.

[HTML1]

It’s enabled a new age of creative innovation in arts and entertainment and, also, a world in which dialogue, transparency and trust have become incredibly effective marketing tools for some of the oldest, and most respected, consumer brands.  It doesn’t get much better than that. 

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

Web shows making the leap to TV… we’ve seen this tried before; see quarterlife and In The Motherhood to name a few. This time, it’s not just one show getting featured, but a whole roster of web standouts. Starting this fall IFC (the cable network) will debut a primetime viewing block called Automat, to feature content developed for IFC.com, along with other original series. Beginning September 30th, the block will run on Tuesdays from 8PM to midnight, aiming for a young, mostly male demographic with its edgy, short-form focus. The Automat block will be followed at midnight by a male-targeted feature film.

The new block takes its name from an antiquated form of fast food restaurant in which food was presented in vending machines (though served on plates) filled from the kitchen in the back. [Though still popular in the Netherlands, the last of the old Automats closed in the US in 1991. BAMN, an Automat in New York’s East Village, opened in 2006.]

Web series from IFC.com getting called up to the new primetime block include:

• The Mary Van Note Show (quirky series about one girl’s quest for love)
• Young American Bodies (three seasons currently online)
• Wilfred (Australian comedy series about a pot smoking dog)
• Getting Away With Murder (Webby-nominated series about a young hitman)

Filed under: Comedy, IFC, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Rob Crawford
No Comments »

Dr. Horrible may have closed free viewing of its three acts today, but that hasn’t stopped the buzz around the series from spreading. The internet musical, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day, could be modestly described as a smash hit – Whedon fans took down the Dr. Horrible site on the first day of release, and fan site Whedonesque.com voluntarily went down for a couple of days to avoid exceeding their bandwidth. As Felicia Day twittered yesterday, “Whedon fans have a knack for crashing servers!” Even on iTunes, Dr. Horrible has topped the charts for TV shows, taking first, second, and third for the three acts (which can be bought for $1.99 each, or $3.99 for all three).

Considering all this buzz, it comes as no surprise that the rumors are already starting that we could see another Dr. Horrible appearance. During a live chat with fans earlier today, when asked about a possible sequel, Whedon typed back, “It’s over! Let it go! Or, okay…. We’d love to, but it wouldn’t be simple and it wouldn’t be soon. And frankly, Neil needs to work on his singing. The voice has promise, but…” Well, our industry sources say that the chances of a sequel are higher than that and could begin shooting as early as September.

Of course, we will have to wait and see; the DVD for Dr. Horrible has yet to be released, but considering the kind of traffic the debut attracted, as well as the popularity of the iTunes release, Dr. Horrible should prove to be a profitable venture in the end, and will probably establish itself as the “sitebuster” hit of the summer. Combined with the twisted ending, we’d say that it is highly likely that this isn’t the last time we’ve heard from the Doctor and his friends in the Evil League of Evil.

UPDATE: While no public confirmation to report just yet on the sequel, Neil Patrick Harris had this to say when asked by Alan Sepinwall about what to expect: “Joss has some strange giant master plan that includes much more than a sequel. Joss thinks on a great many levels. I think we’re all giggling like little schoolgirls for a week or so and then he’ll figure out what he wants to do next.”

Filed under: Comedy, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, News, Web Series by Arjun Sharma
No Comments »