How’s your Portuguese? The US isn’t the only place that hit web series are getting called up to traditional TV, as Portugal’s hit web series Flatmates (T2 Para 3) gets the nod from RTP, the country’s leading public broadcast channel. BeActive, the indie Portuguese production studio behind Flatmates, is taking the web series into franchise territory, optioning the property to Ireland’s Campbell Ryan Productions, for a British version to premiere on Bebo in early 2009.

Flatmates follows the the story of three young college students, two girls and a boy, sharing an apartment together their first year away from home. Through Tomàs, Matilde and Patrìcia we get a little slice of real life ups and downs of these down to earth Euro teens, with what looks like a healthy dose of pop music and MTV-worthy moments of drama.

But the 170-episode web series struck a chord with Portuguese (and probably some Brazilian) viewers. Since its debut in January of 2008, Flatmates (T2 Para 3), has racked up over 5 Million views on the Portuguese site (Sapo Videos WEB TV service) not counting mobile phones through the TMN Mobile TV service. Sponsors for the series are pretty visible with Ford (Fiesta), Nestle and Harmony getting prime billing on the site.

BeActive has been pumping out some hot web properties lately, the most notable being Sofia’s Diary, which was launched as a fictional blog five years ago before mushrooming into a web franchise itself with worldwide distribution rights bought by Sony Pictures Television. Portugal’s RTP also picked up the series back in 2005 for TV broadcast while BeActive later spun off a UK version also produced by Campbell Ryan. Sofia’s Diary wrapped up its second season this fall on Bebo, netting over 16 million views so far on top of being the second highest rated show on UK TV channel FIVER.

On the hopper from BeActive is the upcoming ARG-thriller series Do You Believe Me, which recently landed distribution through UK-based I-Rights.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Drama, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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It all started back in October when we came across a few videos teasing out an upcoming web series called Hobbit House (see sizzle reel below). Little info existed on the series and the creators were AWOL. So we poked around the web and before we knew it found ourselves chin-deep in a bizarre internet conspiracy called Wonderglen.

There are dozens of pieces to this puzzle, and we’ll try to give an overview, though some you’ll just have to investigate yourself if that’s your thing. Even a cursory look around leads you back to a quirky production company website called Wonderglen Productions. From there, you can’t help but notice a conveniently placed “Employee Login” box that has the user name and password already entered. You click “submit” of course, and are taken into an active and robust company intranet, complete with internal staff messages, notes from production meetings and unreleased videos created by the company.

The fictional duo heading up this bumbling production outfit are Aidan Weinglas and Pieter Voorhees (both of whom have fictional Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.) Notably missing are IMDB profiles for these self-proclaimed veterans of TV and Film, but those are a little tougher to fake. The Variety ad knockoff was pretty decent though.

The maze of related web sites is a humorous supporting cast in this story, like Wonderglen employee hangout Brennigan’s Hole, “the only Valley pub/bar with its own coin-operated shower.” A number of the staffers at Wonderglen are on Twitter, surprise surprise, including CEO Aidan, though with only a modest following. Some other sites in the mix for your perusal: Youranauthor.com, pinoypower.ph, www.askuswhereyourqisare.com and www.drdeanpayne.com.

And then there’s James Franco, adding an angle of Hollywood legitimacy that couldn’t really be ignored. He records a faux tribute video to “legendary” producer Aiden Weinglas. A number of online press outlets ran with it, trying to figure out just who or what is behind all of this. Videogum got sucked in, calling it “a little bit exhausting.” So did USA Today, Very Short List and AdRants who likened it to the “glory days of viral wonderment.” There was some speculation by commenters that this was just a viral PR stunt for Franco’s upcoming role as beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl, coming out in spring of next year. This turned out to be a dead-end however. Other theories centered around JJ Abrams, who gave us the Slusho rouse behind Cloverfield along with the mindjob that is LOST. But still, nothing stuck.

After working our sources, we’ve confirmed that Ben Karlin, former Daily Show producer and co-creator of The Colbert Report, along with partner Will Reiser and their team over at Superego Industries are behind Wonderglen. Karlin stepped down from his positions on the two Emmy-winning shows to form Superego back in summer of 2007 and landed a development deal with HBO in the process. Karlin also co-wrote the #1 bestselling America, the Book and edited the satirical newspaper The Onion. Despite Karlin’s involvement, much of the content for the videos and the sites is apparently written by SF-based sketch comedy crew The Kasper Hauser Comedy Group.

In the end, there isn’t one massive film or TV project behind it all, as many had speculated, but rather just a very intricate (if not somewhat jenky) way to rollout a comedy site that will be “a launch pad for an endless amount of absurd, bizarre, hilarious content.” While Wonderglen succeeded in roping in a few eager online sleuths, the mystery never really hit mainstream fascination along the lines of the early lonelygirl15 conspiracy, which racked up millions of video views before creators Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried were outed.

For Wonderlgen, the James Franco video, even with the decent press buzz, only amounted to just over 10,000 views to date. From the onset, the offbeat characters were credible only on the surface, and once you read their rantings it becomes pretty clear you’ve entered the world of fiction. Now that the cat is out of the bag it remains to be seen what actual entertainment comes out of Wonderglen. From our sources, we got this early quote from Karlin before a release goes out next week:

“There is no model for what it is we are trying. Which is exciting, but it also feels like we are in Jamestown circa 1610,” says Ben Karlin. “We may very well successfully colonize a new world or, we could starve to death because we didn’t bring enough salt.”

Will the minions keep up the in-character babble now that the wool is lifted? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. And somewhere along the line we’ll hopefully get a nice salty little web series out of Hobbit House.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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There’s nothing quite like the holiday season to get us up from the desk and out around town. Last week’s meetup was a phenomenal success, and in addition to cool schwag from The Guild, we also gave away tickets to last night’s Digital Family Reunion. As one of the event’s sponsors, we set-up a table to showcase our newest product, the Tubefilter Screening Room, and brought along a camera crew to capture all of the festivities. We rubbed elbows with a stellar line-up of web television creators including Taryn O’Neil of After Judgement, Hayden Black of Goodnight Burbank, Kristiina Hackel of Strike.TV’s Speedie Date, Brock LaBorde of Studio8, and Efren Toscano of TechZulu. We showed off our sneak peek of the Jenn2.0 trailer (which looks great!) and talked about the future of web television with a cross-section of SoCal’s technology and media leaders.

Earlier in the week we discussed TheWB.com’s simultaneous release of every episode of Children’s Hospital, and got into the nitty gritty of how KoldCast’s Tivo deal would bring ‘Invention with Brian Forbes’ straight to your DVR. Look forward to a big announcement next week, and in the meantime, catch up with the best news of the week:

• ‘Jenn2.0’ Trailer Exclusive Sneak Peek
• ‘Childrens’ Hospital’ Premieres, Rushing Out All Episodes At Once To TheWB.com
• ‘Invention with Brian Forbes’ Scores KoldCast Deal, Dry Brit Wit Heads to TiVo

Filed under: Articles, Friday Rewind, News by Tubefilter News
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Oh so many years ago, as I would sit with my post-Felicity glass of chardonnay, I would muse over a very important topic: who was my favorite Scott? Foley or Speedman?

Sure, Speedman initially broke out. He worked with Kurt Russell and fought vampires, two of the top qualities I look for in a person. Yet, Foley was always a lovable underdog.  He got the girl, then lost the girl (Affleck!). He fought terrorists with the T-1000 and President Palmer, two more of the top qualities I look for in a person.  Now, finally, he has officially taken the lead in the Scott sweepstakes.

Scott Foley has created the very likable web series, Who Cut the Cake? for 60Frames (which, while it got off to a slow start, is starting to produce some of the more entertaining origial series on the web).

Set in and around the upcoming Cooper/Johnson nuptials, this slyly comedic show follows Dave (Foley) and Lizzie as they plan their wedding.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joe Eddy
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In the long, grand tradition of Oompa Loompas and Fraggles, Honkbarn’s “idiots” are half-familiar, half-alien creatures that seem to be best able to express themselves through dancing, singing, and hitting each other.

As animated by Todd Ramsay – perhaps best known for his work on the latest TV version of George of the Jungle, which is drawn in the same bold, simple-moving Ren and Stimpy-esque style – Honkbarn’s five very short episodes consist of strange songs created by musician Dave Girtsman of indie band Blimp, visually represented by the idiots who sing and play them.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Michael Joshua Rowin
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As viewers junkies of web television we all know that the web is the breeding ground for zany ideas sometimes unsuitable for mass consumption. Yet the very idea of freeing ourselves from creating content for mass consumption allows creators to go hog-wild, bathing themselves in the limitless possibilities of their own creativity. While some of these limitless ideas turn out as bad web experiments, others while inexplicably bizarre, stick with you. Odd Noggin is exactly that– inexplicably bizarre, yet somehow kind of irresistible.

The show was born when New Hampshire artists John Herman and Ryan Plaisted met for the first time over coffee. They birthed the idea of a surreal show about a group of friends who all happen to have food items for heads. Days later they were shooting. “We met for coffee to discuss creative projects,” explains Herman. “Within minutes we were plotting the show episodes. Two days later we were shooting with a cast of actors. We ran with the idea.” Plaisted added, “When you can say to somebody you’ve just met, ‘let’s make a musical web series about people with giant food items instead of human heads, and that idea is received, considered, and even embraced, that’s probably an indicator that you’re compatible. Maybe that makes John and me the Odd Noggins.”

There’s something quintessentially American and wholesome about the show. A lot of that stems from the musical soundtrack supplied by Phil Kliger. It’s up-beat, catchy, and if you watch the show more than once you pretty much can’t help but singing along.

Additionally, you can’t deny the fact that a hamburger, fries, and ketchup compliment each other to the point that they really almost can’t exist with out one another. Making these three food items hetero-life-mates with routine conflicts anyone in a close relationship might fight about is really quite brilliant.

The series is delightfully slick, weaving in a well-polished, comic-book surreality. Show creator Herman is no stranger to new media, having success with Gravityland earlier this year which is an equally surreal delight following a group of characters in a small New Hampshire town.

Visiting Herman’s blog one is almost overwhelmed by the daunting tasks he has accomplished, and is about to thrust into the world: two novels, a comic book to accompany Gravityland, and completion of hosting duties on web show Energy Smackdown, and not to mention, two more web series on the way. If either of the series are as unique as Odd Noggin we’ll be watching. With only episode one out so far, new episodes are set to release every other week starting December 15th at oddnoggin.com.

Filed under: Articles, blip.tv, Comedy, Featured, News, Web Series by Lindsay Stidham
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Apparently we have a long way to go before we exhaust every comedic permutation of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Strike.TV‘s Daryl from OnCar is the latest example.

Daryl mashes Voice GPS, Knight Rider, the aforementioned HAL and an ample dash of Stephen King’s Christine into a volatile in-car cocktail, the devil on your driver’s side shoulder. Daryl’s friend-turned-victim is Ted, the mini-van driving, generic white-collar Joe just trying to lead a normal, if mildly adulterous, life along with his wife Judy (the perfectly cast Michele Scarabelli, who appropriately enough, had a part in the Leslie Neilsen bomb 2001: A Space Travesty).

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Michael Shaw
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30 years after the Battlestar Galactica franchise first aired on TV sets, Ronald Moore‘s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning re-imagination of the serial sci-fi drama is about the hit the web.

In preparation and promotion for Battlestar Galactica‘s fourth and final season, fans will be treated to a 10-part online series with two installments a week, every week, beginning tomorrow and lasting until the January 16 television premiere on SciFi.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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The Lonelygirl15 phenomenon is not over yet. In fact it’s still trickling across the globe as every few months another secret society/ big brother-ish story with web cam footage pops up on the internet. The latest example is Ireland’s No Warning from Craic Addict Films, a dystopian sci-fi story with little narrative, and so far few details provided to allow a viewer to lock in and come back.

The described premise is more interesting than the show—in the summer of 2007, people started to disappear in Northern Ireland after the appearance of strange lights. Footage has been linked of the disappeared providing few clues to mystery of their whereabouts. A robotic telecommunications without a face company (Nexcorp) serves as the wizard behind the curtain occasionally issuing propaganda, again with few clues to help solve the mystery. But maybe that’s what supposed to keep us watching—just who is this Fraternity of the Eternal Brotherhood? 

Currently my favorite thing about this show are the accents which give me an eerie throwback to the bone-chilling film Trainspotting. Decoding occasional untranslatable Irish is the mystery I’ve been enjoying most. While the show has decent set-up, and some haunting images that look they were taken from Abu Grahib photographs the mystery has no follow through. The show has a welcome protagonist in emissary Gabriel (Michael Smyth), but his message are too cryptic to follow leaving the viewer frustrated, and not sure where to become emotionally engaged.

Nexcorp’s “website” provides a forum for discussion of the show, but still few clues from the 148 site members who only occasionally post, further frustrating the viewer in search of clues. Echoes of Lonelygirl even appear in the tag line of the show, “stay vigilant” which seems eerily familiar in the Lonelygirl tag of “join the resistance.”

Perhaps this is a show that will get better as the mystery deepens, but right now it seems this Irish-based show needs more meat and potatoes. Check it out for yourself at www.nowarning.co.uk.

Filed under: Articles, Drama, Production Companies, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Web Series, YouTube by Lindsay Stidham
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The web is not TV; we’ve been repeating that for a while.  It can be like TV, but it can be more robust, more interactive. Its shows are shorter, and sometimes longer; they can be less commercial than TV, and they can be more.  The web is a distinctive medium with unprecedented power whose capacity should be pushed and explored by innovators…and it is.

The New York Times, despite the recent financial woes facing most print publications, is the utmost of online innovators.   Its long history and celebrated brand, its simplistic style and its air of elegance, have proved fodder for some of the most interesting, inventive projects I’ve seen on an off the web.

Despite – and indeed because of – its simplicity, Screen Tests is some of the most fascinating, intriguing work on the web. It is what it says it is, a simple video that captures the on-screen energy of an individual (via a conversation – these aren’t Warhol’s silent Screen Tests) except these people don’t need to be tested; they are already well vetted.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
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Tubefilter got our hands on an exclusive sneak peek of the highly anticipated trailer for Jenn2.0, the meta-biographical scripted web series about real-life San Diego blogger and social media consultant Jennifer Van Grove. The reality-esque series, created by Rob Lewis of Dare Fusion in association with NAS Productions, follows the life of social media consultant Jenn Leary (played by Alexis Grenier) as she tries to build her personal brand in the Web 2.0 landscape without succumbing to information overload.

Lewis, along with writer Darren Elwood and director Cody Long, based much of the fictional Jenn2.0 story around Van Grove’s life—both professional and social. In a recent Tubefilter interview Van Grove told us, “During the pilot creation process, I shared a lot of personal things about my life, including my love life (which seems a little odd in retrospect). We’ve talked about the challenges I face on a daily basis, the types of people who I spend time with online and off, and the personal goals I have.” It seems that when your professional identity is built in the social media landscape, it becomes hard to distinguish between your job and your life.

We all aspire for those eyeballs which measure our success and failure on the web, and Jenn seems to have it made. But with profiles to maintain, statuses to update, blog entries to post, beta sites, web links, comments to answer, new connections, old friends, opportunities, software upgrades, chat conversations, emails, and even phone calls, Jenn’s life is a full time job, and one wonders if there is any room left for personal life at all. Is Jenn’s heavily connected lifestyle the new sign of success or simply a frantic attempt at self discovery that is doomed to implode? We can’t wait to find out.

Filed under: Articles, Drama, Featured, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Drew Baldwin
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Let’s assume Pee Wee’s Playhouse was conceived during the acid trip of a 9 year-old boy suffering from acute ADD. Now, let’s try to imagine another program derived from the child’s mind-altering escapades with a cocktail befitting of a Merry Prankster. Combine that with too much Japanese television replete with an engrish speaking hostess, a furry(ish?) fetish, and a thing for celebrity(ish?) personalities.

What’s your imagination got? Yeah, I couldn’t come up with much either. Lucky for us Crackle.com’s Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show (G.T.C.M.S.) does all of the imaginative hard work so we can just turn on, tune in, drop out, and enjoy.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jake Weaver
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