The trend of feature films led by YouTube stars is not strictly an American phenomenon. British YouTube star Olajide Olatunji, known online as KSI, and South African vlogger Caspar Lee will star in Laid In America, an upcoming feature film whose cast is filled with YouTube stars.

As TheVideoInk notes, Laid In America began filming last month and promises exactly what it says in the title. KSI and Lee will play a pair of friends who cross the pond in an attempt to score with Stateside women. The supporting cast is full of YouTube stars: Timothy DeLaGhetto, Josh Leyva, and Josh Golden will all make appearances.

Laid in America is helmed by a notable YouTube channel as well. Bad Weather Films, a sketch comedy hub, is directing the film and co-producing it alongside Max Gottlieb.

KSI and Lee are frequent collaborators who are also two of the biggest stars on YouTube. Together, they have nearly 14 million subscribers, so Laid In America has a good change to equal the success of similar films like Camp Takota and Expelled.

Up to date news about the film can be found its official Twitter feed.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, KSIOlajidebt, News by Sam Gutelle
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Zealot Networks is expanding its network of media properties. The digital media company, which helps startups and entrepreneurs accelerate their ideas, has acquired Brooklyn-based magazine company Northside Media.

Zealot, started by former Maker Studios CEO Danny Zappin, will be able to utilize Northside’s online and print publishing expertise, as well as the brand’s ability to produce live festivals and events. Northside currently boasts the music and innovation-focused event Northside Festival, the Taste Talks parties for food fanatics, outdoor film and concert series SummerScreen, Brooklyn Magazine, The L Magazine, and arts and culture guide The Culture Network.

“The brand has built a strong regional presence by successfully exploring the concept of ‘what’s next,’ and their offerings resonate with millennials, tastemakers, and those seeking something authentic and cutting edge,” said Zappin in a statement as reported by The Video Ink. “Through our support, we believe the brand has potential to go beyond its regional origins and become a global player.”

“Our partnership with Zealot will allow the company to flourish as we look to grow it beyond Brooklyn, and as our festivals truly come into their own as beacons for discovery,” added Northside co-founders Scott and Daniel Stedman.

Northside joins Zealot’s current roster of acquired businesses. In February 2015, the digital media company picked up the management firm Converge Media Group. A month later, Zealot acquired digital media marketing agency Threshold Interactive. Zealot also owns the majority stake in AudioMicro, the parent company of YouTube monetization platform AdRev.

Financial terms of the Zealot-Northside Media deal were not disclosed.

Filed under: Articles, News, Zealot Networks by Bree Brouwer
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Michelle Phan is unmatched in her rise to fame in the YouTube beauty community. But her history is far more humble than most people realize. According to Re/code, Phan’s family at one point lived off food stamps. In 2007, the now 28-year-old vlogger was working as a waitress and couldn’t even get a job at a beauty counter because of her lack of sales experience.

Then Phan started putting videos on YouTube, covering topics ranging from makeup tutorials to popular beauty haul reveals. Nearly eight years later, Phan now boasts over 7.7 million subscribers and 1.1 billion all-time video views on her YouTube channel. She has her own book, a Streamy ICON Award, and a beauty subscription company called Ipsy, which has now pulled in $150 million from over 1 million subscribers.

Phan also has her own network within Endemol Beyond called ICON, which features lifestyle content from various YouTube talent. And the network doesn’t just include content from popular stars; Phan makes sure some up-and-coming names are included, making the ICON network a leader in discovering future digital talent.

Phan will discuss how her ICON network with Endemol is empowering the next generation of YouTube stars in a panel for Social Media Week Los Angeles (SMWLA) on June 12, 2015, from 2:30 to 3:30 PM PST. The vlogger will be joined by fellow panelists Drew Baldwin of Tubefilter, celebrity makeup artist Jamie Greenberg, lifestyle YouTuber Anne Le, and Leslie Morgan of Endemol Beyond USA.

If you haven’t already purchased tickets to SMWLA, you can do so here. You can find a complete schedule of panels here.

Filed under: #SMWLA Previews, Articles, Channels, Endemol Beyond, News by Bree Brouwer
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We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now.  Read previous installments here. 

Some web series are impossible not to like. Whether through their charming characters or original scripts, they exude charm and transmit good vibrations to the viewer.

The Impossibilities is one of those series. Anna Kerrigan’s eight-episode series about the friendship between a magician and a yoga instructor hits plenty of appealing notes and gives its viewers ample reason to keep watching.

The stars of The Impossibilities are Ashley Springer, who plays Harry the magician, and Kati Rediger, who plays Willa the yogi. Both actors have professional experience with the jobs they are performing, and The Impossibilities uses that fact to its advantage. At the beginning of each episode, for example, Springer performs a magic trick, which serves as an amusing appetizer for the scenes to come.

At its core, The Impossibilities is the story of a friendship between a man and woman who are both trying to find their way in the world. What’s refreshing about this setup, though, is its platonic underpinnings. “A lot of people see this show and they’re like, ‘Oh, I bet at the end Harry and Willa are going to get together.’ But from the beginning, Anna was very adamant about wanting to give this character her sexuality. She’s a lesbian, and she’s not just waiting for the right guy to come along,” Rediger told The Huffington Post. “It was important for us to portray this character as has having a very solid sexuality and not have that be the main drama.”

While strong performances from Springer and Rediger put The Impossibilities on solid footing from the start, it is the offbeat side characters who raise the series up to a special level. Everyone, from Willa’s fast-talking girlfriend to Harry’s chilled-out musician roommate, is full of life and personality. The result is an absolutely delightful set of eight episodes.

OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT

• New Mayor of New York. A guy with no job gains the titular title, and sings about it across a series of musical numbers.
• Bands on the Bubble. Little-known performers get a much-needed boost.
• Paper Boys. Supernatural powers give a new twist to the gay web series.
• Dating Dummy. This romantic comedy series was shot entirely on an iPhone 6.

Got a series you’d like to see featured in the Indie Spotlight? Be sure to contact us here. For best coverage, please include a full episode in your e-mail.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Indie Spotlight, News by Sam Gutelle
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YouTube isn’t the only media outlet streaming this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Twitch, the Amazon-owned platform that has been E3’s official live streaming partner for two years now, will let its users around the world co-stream its E3 coverage on their own channels.

Twitch plans to live stream throughout all of E3, covering press conferences, celebrity interviews, game demonstrations, and more. The streaming platform is inviting site users to spread coverage from the twitch.tv/twitch channel and personalize it for their own followers by providing commentary and insight.

In addition to the co-streaming announcement, Twitch unveiled many of its initial planned coverage for E3. First up, the platform will bring back before the official start of E3 Twitch’s traditional Day 0 event on June 15, 2015, from 9 AM to 7:30 PM PST. Coverage will include combined press conferences, gameplay and reveals, and appearances from game developers and publishers.

Twitch will also broadcast live from its own stage in the South Hall from June 15-18, with staff hosts Jon Carnage, Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham, and Jordan “Soma” Tayer, and guest hosts including MANvsGAME, Seltzer, Anna Prosser, and djminiWHEAT. These hosts will show off the latest game content to come out of E3 and interview reps from game studios like Blizzard, Konami, Nintendo, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and Disney Interactive.

Finally, Twitch will make sure its own E3 booth has plenty of content for international audiences, as well. To complement Twitch’s English coverage of E3, the streaming platform has partnered with Twitch user Rocket Beans TV for German-language reporting, and with Gaminglive_TV1 for a French presentation.

“The Twitch community is the single most active, socially engaged group of gamers in the world,” said Carnage, Twitch’s Live Programming Director, in a release. “They have a voracious appetite, especially for new indie and AAA games. With every press conference on Twitch and every major publisher being featured on the Twitch stage, we’ve got the fans covered. By having the industry’s most comprehensive collection of live streamed content, this is shaping up to be our biggest E3 to date.”

You can check out Twitch’s press event schedule via its E3 blog post. Twitch will announce its complete booth schedule on June 9, 2015.

Filed under: Articles, News, TwitchTV by Bree Brouwer
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Snapchat, bolstered by its undeniable popularity among Millennials, its thriving ad infrastructure, and its deep pockets, is looking to create original content. In order to achieve that goal, it has hired Sean Mills, a veteran of NowThis, Nerve.com, and The Onion who will oversee Snapchat’s original content division.

Mills, as Snapchat’s first ever Head of Original Content, will work out of the company’s New York City office. As he searches for producers who can create ephemeral videos for the Snapchat, he’ll work alongside some other recent hires. Just before announcing the addition of Mills to its team, Snapchat hired Marcus Wiley as its Head of Program Planning and Development and put him in charge of a programming vertical called Snap Channel.

Snapchat’s original content plans cover a variety of different formats. The app is bullish on its Stories feature, which features video collages composed of user-generated Snaps from specific events like New Year’s Eve or March Madness. Stories are popular with Snapchat users and attractive to brands. The MLB, for example, is working with Snapchat on a series of Stories based around specific baseball games.

Snapchat has also devoted resources to serial content that, as with other content on the app, disappears after a set period of time. The app’s first original series was Literally Can’t Even, which was renewed for a second season despite being savaged by critics.

Literally Can’t Even is far from perfect, but that’s kind of the point; it will be up to Mills and his team to produce original content worth watching. The success of series like Snapper Hero shows that Snapchat-exclusive content can work. Mills will be hunting for more of it.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Snapchat by Sam Gutelle
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Justine Ezarik (known to the internet masses as iJustine) has joined the ever-growing ranks of published YouTube authors. The vlogger, who has amassed a following of 2.2 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, released her first book I, Justine: An Analog Memoir on June 2, 2015.

Announced back in May 2014, Ezarik’s memoir provides readers a detailed behind-the-scenes look into the vloggers’ life behind the camera, and the pressures and craziness that come with being a digital celebrity. Ezarik also addresses themes like entrepreneurship, creativity, and the importance of being yourself.

In an interview with Fast Company, Ezarik said she actually considered naming her book something entirely different. “After so many years of doing so much online, I began to think, ‘You know what, I’ll just save that story for the book,’” Ezarik said. “It got to the point where I was tweeting things, but that wasn’t really what was going on. I’d tweet, ‘Wow, what a great day,’ but that was the day my tires got stolen from my garage. I originally thought of calling the book Behind the Tweets, or Tweets I Never Sent.”

Ezarik also revealed she needed a little help understanding how to write in book format, which she received from her publishers at Simon & Schuster imprint Atria Publishing and digital celebrity-focused Keywords Press. “At first, when I started writing the book, everything sort of ended up as 140 characters, and then I’d hit return. Basically I was writing the book in tweet form,” the 31-year-old vlogger explained. “The people around me started to read it, and they’d say, ‘Justine, just want to let you know… a paragraph is at least five tweets.’”

You can order Ezarik’s book on its official site at ijustinebook.com. Based on the past success of books from other YouTubers, we wouldn’t be surprised if Ezarik’s book becomes a sales success.

Filed under: Articles, iJustine, News, Studios by Bree Brouwer
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During the 2014 Buffer Festival in Toronto, the Canadian Film Centre announced the Jumping Screens Comedy Workshop, a program through which it will work with broadcaster CBC to develop TV and web series from Canadian content creators. Now, the CFC and CBC have announced three of the four participants in the inaugural workshop: Epic Meal Time producer NextTime Productions, vlogger LaToya Forever, and musical parodist Mikey Bustos.

NextTime, run by Epic Meal Time sauce boss Harley Morenstein and his brother Darren, has already jumped from the Internet to TV thanks to Epic Meal Empire, a show that debuted on the FYI channel. A press release from CFC states that NextTime has another series with FYI in the works, and the Jumping Screens Workshop will provide the Morenstein boys with addition resources. Smart.

The other two creators within the Jumping Screens program may not be as well known, but they are both established YouTubers who represent the diversity of Canada. Bustos is a Filipino-Canadian whose videos appeal to Pinoy viewers, while LaToya, who originally hails from Trinidad and Tobago, occasionally discusses Caribbean culture in her videos.

“We’re very happy to partner with the CFC Media Lab and Aircraft Pictures on such an exciting initiative. Not only does this allow us to work with top-shelf creators from platforms like YouTube, it allows us to build relationships with them,” said Michelle Daly, Senior Director of Comedy at CBC, in the release. “This is a great group of creators and we’re thrilled to be working with them. We can’t wait to see what they come up with!”

Jumping Screens will run from June to November in Toronto. A fourth participant will be announced at a later date.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News, Web Series by Sam Gutelle
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Facebook video may be growing by leaps and bounds, but some content creators question the legitimacy of that growth. In a recent chain of Twitter posts, Fullscreen’s CEO George Strompolos blamed Facebook for not being more active in identifying and removing pirated content taken from YouTube.

In his tweets, Strompolos claimed Fullscreen content has been put on Facebook illegally by the site’s users. The CEO said several Fullscreen-owned videos, which have been ripped off and posted to Facebook (sometimes even by other media companies), have over 50 million views. But the multi-channel network makes no money from any of these clips, and currently, there’s no easy way for Fullscreen to report all these offenses.

Strompolos wasn’t alone in his frustration. In response to one of the CEO’s tweets, the Fine Bros., who are part of the Fullscreen network of talent, noted the struggles they’ve encountered with dealing with video content stolen from them and then illegally posted on Facebook.

@gstrompolos But totally agree .. we can’t keep up at all with the illegal posting of our content there.

— thefinebros (@thefinebros) June 4, 2015

YouTubers have even started calling the stealing of their content and its subsequent posting to Facebook “freebooting.” Many of them are fed up with Facebook users taking credit for their work. SourceFed’s social media coordinator J.D. Waldvogel even wrote in a blog post that “Facebook is complicit in the piracy of your favorite YouTube content.” Strompolos clarified in one tweet he does believe Facebook has the ability to overtake the popularity of YouTube:

8) I think FB video can truly eclipse YT over time with search, widespread embeds, a dedicated app, monetization and content ID — George Strompolos (@gstrompolos) June 4, 2015

However, Facebook will have to accomplish lot to reach the point where it overtakes YouTube, especially in terms of copyrighted content. Strompolos tweeted that for starters, Facebook needs to move beyond its basic compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and give content creators more options in reporting video stolen from them.

4) It costs us a lot to hunt them down one by one. I’m a huge DMCA proponent, but this has to improve fast.

— George Strompolos (@gstrompolos) June 4, 2015

YouTube, on the other hand, currently has its Content ID system, which allows creators to identify their own videos and either issue takedown requests or runs ads against the content to monetize it. YouTube has shelled out over $1 billion to creators who have claimed roughly 300 million videos through Content ID.

Strompolos said he believes a similar system will work on Facebook, but the site needs to allow creators to claim their content first. And the sooner the social media site implements a piracy-reporting system, the less likely the company is to get sued. Strompolos tweeted he was “shocked that a rights holder with deep pockets has not sued yet,” especially considering YouTube was sued $1 billion in copyright infringement damages by Viacom in 2007.

Variety contacted Facebook about Strompolos’ claims. “We take intellectual property rights very seriously… We have a number of measures in place to address potential infringements on our service,” replied a representative for the social media site. “As video continues to grow on Facebook, we’re actively exploring further solutions to help IP owners identify and manage potential infringing content, tailored for our unique platform and ecosystem.”

Facebook’s rep also said the site uses content-recognition technology from Audible Magic “to help prevent unauthorized video content.” But according to Strompolos and other content creators, this tech doesn’t work as well as it should, as it obviously lets through plenty of originally posted to YouTube. Facebook will need to rectify the site’s piracy problems, or risk losing its reputation as a leading (and reliable) online video powerhouse.

Filed under: Articles, Facebook, Fullscreen, News, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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Thanks to an impressive array of long-distance trick shots, Dude Perfect has transformed from a quintet of unassuming group of sports fans into a group of YouTube stars. Now, with their latest development, the Dude Perfect guys are giving their fans a chance to get in on the trick shot fun–albeit digitally. They have released a new mobile game called Dude Perfect 2 that is available on iOS and Android.

The “2” in the title differentiates the game from a previous mobile title focused on Dude Perfect’s signature trick shot challenges. This time, the guys teamed up with Miniclip, long the purveyor of addicting online games. Miniclip published Dude Perfect 2 and also released a browser version of it, which can be played here.

By asking players to carefully set the flight paths of their shots, Dude Perfect 2 resembles other popular mobile games. It’s kind of like Angry Birds, except instead of launching aggressive avians at green pigs, you hurl basketballs into carefully-placed hoops.

Dude Perfect themselves took some time to enjoy the game. In a recent video on their YouTube channel (which has more than 5.5 million subscribers) they challenged each other to see who could get the best score.

Dude Perfect 2 is one of several mobile games branded around YouTube stars. It’s also one of several off-YouTube projects for Dude Perfect; among their other endeavors, they recently helped renovate a park in New York City.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Fitness vlogger Cassey Ho is known to her YouTube audience as Blogilates. Since founding her channel 2009, Ho has built up a following of more than 2.2 million subscribers. Ho has been featured on the Dr. Oz show, and has been ranked the second most influential online fitness personality behind Jillian Michaels by Sharecare in 2012.

But Ho’s impact doesn’t stop there. The certified pilates instructor started her line of oGorgeous yoga bags when she was a senior in college, and started blogging at Blogilates.com and filming YouTube videos after she graduated. Ho invented her own pilates routine called POP Pilates, which is taught nationwide in 24 Hr. Fitness gyms. Additionally, she designs products for her online store, and launched a line of exercise clothing called Bodypop in August 2014.

How can other creators and brands imitate Ho’s success? That’s a question the vlogger and several other panelists will seek to answer at a session for Social Media Week Los Angeles (SMWLA) on June 11, 2015. From 10:00 to 11:00 AM PST, Ho will talk about the best tactics and strategies for building a sustainable new media empire along with Victorious’ Bing Chen, Jukin Media’s Josh Entman, William Morris Endeavor’s Avi Ghandi, and FameBit’s David Kierzkowski.

You can check out the entire schedule for SMWLA here. And if you haven’t already purchased a ticket yet, you can do so here. Tickets start at $199, but prices will increase starting June 8.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, News by Bree Brouwer
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Nash Grier is one of Vine’s most popular personalities, and now, he’s taking his career to the next level thanks to a deal with a major event producer. DigiTour, which hosts “in real life” events that feature social media stars, has struck a two-year deal with Grier and his brother Hayes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

DigiTour is best known for events like Digifest, at which top content creators on sites like YouTube and Vine take the stage and perform in front of thousands of screaming plan. Grier has already appeared at Digifest events across the US, and he will continue to make those appearances while also embarking on a world tour produced by DigiTour.

The deal, however, is not limited to IRL events. Grier will also join DigiTour as the company’s creative director; in that role, he will create and star in original series to be distributed across DigiTour’s various channels.

“I can’t wait to continue making great content with the team at DigiTour,” said Grier. “I have so many ideas I’m looking forward to sharing with the fans and couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to create the upcoming series.”

Grier has more than 11.7 million followers on Vine. He was once the platform’s most-followed personality, but he has since been overtaken by King Bach.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Vine by Sam Gutelle
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