Amazon Studios has just hit a very important milestone. The digital studio has finally broken into the original feature film space by purchasing the film Elvis & Nixon, which stars actor Kevin Spacey from Netflix’s hit original series House of Cards.

Variety, who originally broke the story, reports Amazon is in the final stages to acquire Elvis & Nixon following over a month’s worth of negotiations after the Cannes Film Festival. Variety notes Amazon may have shelled out over $3 million for the film, which will only be distributed in theaters by Bleecker Street Media (who was also seeking to purchase the movie).

Elvis & Nixon tells the story of the first meeting between the titular iconic figures. Michael Shannon portrays Elvis Presley, and Spacey (who has some experience playing the President in digitally-distributed productions) plays President Richard Nixon. Directed by Liza Johnson, the historical drama was filmed in New Orleans in early 2015. Elvis & Nixon is produced by Cassian Elwes, Holly Wiersma, and Cary Elwes.

Amazon’s acquisition of Elvis & Nixon is an important step for the media giant, which, up until now, hasn’t produced any of its own feature-length films. Meanwhile, Netflix has signed multiple movie deals with various Hollywood creators. Elvis & Nixon will help Amazon catch up to its main streaming competitor.

No release date has been announced for Elvis & Nixon as of yet.

Filed under: Amazon, Amazon Studios, Articles, News by Bree Brouwer
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Nerdist Industries, which began as a single podcast hosted by Chris Hardwick, has since expanded to include a popular online video destination, a handful of TV projects, and now, a growing film business. As first reported by Deadline, Nerdist has acquired the distribution rights to The Hive, a sci-fi horror movie.

The Hive premiered at the 2014 edition of Fantastic Fest, an annual film festival in Austin. Its protagonist is a summer camp counselor who must piece his life together after he wakes up in a cabin with total amnesia. Hardwick saw the film and was immediately drawn to it. “This movie is so much damn fun,” he said. “The first time I saw it, I was blown away by how fresh and inventive the story was, which is no small feat in horror. I knew right away I wanted to help get this movie into the eyes and earholes of horror fans.”

Deadline describes The Hive as Nerdist’s first foray into film distribution, but that’s not entirely accurate. In 2013, the studio teamed up with Tribeca Film to distribute Zero Charisma, a movie about a Dungeons and Dragons player who clashes with the newest member of his playgroup. That film had a limited theatrical run in 2013.

Nerdist will first show off The Hive at Comic-Con International 2015, which begins July 9th in San Diego. Fans who wish to view the film during its theatrical run or download it on-demand will have to wait until the fall, when Nerdist plans to release it across multiple platforms.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Nerdist, News by Sam Gutelle
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Nearly two months after it trotted out Jerry Seinfeld during its 2015 Newfronts presentation, Hulu has premiered all 180 episodes of Seinfeld. The 90s sitcom, widely regarded as one of the best TV shows of all time, is available to Hulu’s paying subscribers.

In previous press releases related to Seinfeld, Hulu didn’t say whether the show would be available for free or restricted to viewers who subscribe to the service known until recently as Hulu Plus. While non-subscribers may be irked at the decision to place Seinfeld behind a paywall, Hulu’s choice shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, the streaming service reportedly paid somewhere in the vicinity of $180 million to acquire the streaming rights to the cherished sitcom (and spent additional funds marketing it with an interactive replica of its set). It has to make a return on its investment somehow.

Still, Hulu was likely quiet about its plan to stash Seinfeld on its paid service because it recognizes that service’s unpopularity with many users. Unlike other subscription services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus (or whatever it’s called now) also rolls ads in addition to its subscription fee. Hulu has considering scaling back ads on its premium service, but for now, they’re still there, and several Seinfeld fans are not happy about it.

Seinfeld fans who don’t mind the ads can watch the sitcom by subscribing to Hulu’s premium service, which costs $7.99 per month or $95.88 per year. And for non-paying viewers, an assortment of clips can provide a brief fix.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Hulu, News, Seinfeld by Sam Gutelle
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Welcome to the Fund This column! Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments right here.

Project Name: Trying My Best

Asking For: $7,632 on Kickstarter

Amount Raised Thus Far (At Time Of Post): $3,872

Days Remaining In Campaign (At Time Of Post): 26

Description: The pitch video for Trying My Best begins with a sock puppet vomiting up 100,000 teeth onto his sock puppet dentist. Based on that description, you can probably figure out if you’re the sort of person who wants to read on.

Trying My Best is a new web series created by Australian comedy group Birthday Loyalty Club. It stars Jessie Ngaio as a colorfully-dressed young woman who creates a show that “feels something like a surreal Sesame Street as imagined by an unstable young pervert,” explains the project’s pitch video.

Birthday Loyalty Club plans to fill Trying My Best with all sorts of colorful characters and bright sets. We can only imagine the rest of the series will be filled with all of the vile creations you would never find on the actual Sesame Street.

Creator Bio: Beyond its online videos, Birthday Loyalty Club recently put on a stage production called Slutmonster and Friends, which one reviewer described as “gross-out porn of the highest quality.” Sounds like fun!

Best Perk: Birthday Loyalty Club will reward each backer who pledges $50 by using a puppet to scream that person’s name. They describe it as “so stupid,” but there’s no denying it’s kind of fun.

Why You Should Fund It: Trying My Best has a lot of positive qualities going for it, but it’s biggest plus is how unabashedly different it is. This is the sort of project that wears its independent spirit like a badge of pride, and for that reason, it is exactly the sort of series services like Kickstarter were made for. It needs just a few thousand more dollars to unleash its special brand of mania upon the world. I think it deserves to get there.

Got a crowdfunding campaign you’d like to see featured in Fund This? Be sure to contact us here.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Fund This, Kickstarter, News by Sam Gutelle
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The Grateful Dead is finishing up its 50-year career as one of the most well-known rock bands of the past century. However, not all of the band’s fans can get to its final concerts in Santa Clara, California and Chicago, Illinois. To rectify this, the Grateful Dead is making these events available via YouTube.

In conjunction with Live Alliance, YouTube will sell access to live streams of the Grateful Dead’s last five shows. Fans who want to tune in can pay $19.95 each for the Santa Clara broadcasts on June 27 and 28, and $29.95 each for the Chicago events on July 3, 4, and 5. Viewers will be able to watch the broadcasts on any device which supports the YouTube site or app.

YouTube is renowned for being a top destination for music fans. After all, the most-searched word on the site in 2014 was music and artists routinely attract hordes of new subscribers and billions of views on Google’s online video site. YouTube has only strengthened its reputation as an artist-friendly digital venue by live streaming the yearly Coachella event; YouTube also soon plans to release a music subscription service out of beta.

You can catch any of the Grateful Dead’s last five concerts via youtube.com/dead50. You can pre-purchase the broadcasts starting June 24, 2015, at 6 PM EST.

Filed under: Articles, News, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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As you may have heard, Tubefilter has teamed up with the City of New York and LeftField Media (founded by the creator of New York Comic Con) to put on a massive creator, fan, and industry event in the heart of Manhattan this fall. It’s called Stream Con NYC, and it will be the first and biggest creator-focused convention the city has ever seen.

Why New York? Well besides encompassing a greater metropolitan area that 20 million people call home, it’s also headquarters to some of the most prominent institutions in the advertising, marketing, licensing, manufacturing, film and television, and publishing industries.

And these industries are eager to ramp up their game in online video—we’ve already partnered with trade organizations AdvertisingAge, LIMA (International Licensing Merchandisers’ Association), NCTA (National Cable & Telecommunications Association), Publishers Weekly, and NYC & Company (the official marketing, tourism, and partnership organization for the city of New York) to explore how to work with burgeoning and established entities in the online video and social media ecosystems and the new breed of celebrity those entities support and create.

Stream Con NYC is a three-day event takes place October 30 to November 1, 2015 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan (the same venue as New York Comic Con, New York International Auto Show, American International Toy Fair, and dozens of other high profile consumer and trade events), and will bring together thousands of fans, creators, brands, platforms, and celebrities at the forefront of this new era of entertainment.

In short, #TeamInternet is taking over Manhattan. And planning is well underway. We’ll start to release our first wave of talent, programming, and partner announcements Thursday, June 25, but we still want to give you an opportunity to be part of the event and all the action. We’d love your feedback, support, suggestions, and ideas. Here are a few ways you can get involved:

We appreciate your input and look forward to seeing you October 30 to November 1, 2015 at Stream Con NYC.

Filed under: Articles, News, Stream Con NYC, Uncategorized, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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Wil Wheaton will soon host a new show for the PlayStation Store. The geeky entertainer and internet icon will talk about video games in the web series Conversations with Creators, which premieres on July 7, 2015.

Conversations with Creators is exactly what it sounds like: each week, Wheaton sits down with game developers and discusses the video game industry in roundtable fashion. Topics Wheaton and his guests will cover include how games and movies are both similar and different, why The Last of Us was so terrifying, and where the idea for Bungie’s hit game Destiny came from.

Wheaton’s involvement in a video game-based show for PlayStation makes sense considering the host’s previous experience leading gaming programs on Geek & Sundry. The ex-Star Trek actor hosts the fan-favorite TableTop series, which is all about tabletop gaming. He also just debuted his new role-playing game series, titled Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana.

You can catch new episodes of Conversations with Creators every Tuesday on all devices with access to the PlayStation Store (which includes PlayStation 3 and 4, as well as the Vita). You can also view the schedule for the first four episodes on PlayStation’s official blog.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, News, PlayStation Network by Bree Brouwer
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Homestar Runner, one of the web’s first great series, has been reduced to a relic since Matt and Mike Chapman (aka The Brothers Chaps) ceased regular updates on their most famous website in 2010. While Homestar Runner may be a thing of the past (a few occasional updates notwithstanding), The Brothers Chaps are still active, and their latest creation has arrived at your local computer screen. It’s called Two More Eggs, and you can find it on the Disney XD YouTube channel and Watch Disney XD.

The Brothers Chaps have had a development deal with Disney since at least 2012, and Two More Eggs is one of the projects born out of that deal. It’s a series of 40 animated shorts that will make their debut online before heading to the Disney XD TV channel later this year. At launch, the first three episodes of Two More Eggs are live. The best one so far is “Hot Dip: Not 4 Momz,” which has the same satirical, over-the-top tone as some of the best Homestar Runner installments.

Similarities aside, there’s plenty about Two More Eggs that separates it from The Brothers Chaps’ previous work. For example, one of the new episodes diverts from the duo’s signature animation style to incorporate 3D CGI (albeit in a humorous way).

“As we pursue new methods of development and short-form production, we looked to two trailblazers in the field, Matt and Mike, who created a beloved web series years before today’s ubiquitous video-sharing platforms even existed,” said Eric Coleman, SVP of Disney Television Animation. “This project epitomizes our development strategy – hire great talent and give them the freedom to create content with their unique point of view.”

No, Two More Eggs isn’t Homestar Runner, but that’s probably for the best. The Brothers Chaps have spent the last 15 years being defined by the same characters. You can’t blame them for dipping their toes in something a little bit different.

New episodes of Two More Eggs will arrive each Tuesday.

Filed under: Articles, Disney, Featured, News, Web Series by Sam Gutelle
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The Global Online Video Association (GOVA) has a new face on its leadership team. The nonprofit organization, which aims to help grow the online video industry as a whole, has hired Chris Dorr as its new Executive Director.

With a background in digital media working for companies like Walt Disney Studios and Universal Pictures, Dorr will oversee GOVA’s overall development. He will also continue to help the nonprofit support the advertising, production, distribution, and other business needs of its members (which include brands like Bell Media and Whistle Sports). Paul Kontonis, GOVA’s former executive director, has been moved up a rank to become the organization’s new President.

“After year one, GOVA has been influential in the online video industry and this will continue to grow in alignment with the business models of our membership,” said Kontonis. “Chris Dorr has been an executive and consultant in online and mobile video for the past 15 years working with traditional and new media companies and his broad insights are a great addition to our team.”

“GOVA and its member companies are driving an unprecedented sea change in the larger media ecosystem as creators are connecting directly with their audiences,” added Dorr. “GOVA’ s membership build business through video content across all platforms, working with talent, technology, brands and audiences. This is an amazing time for our industry and I am thrilled to be supporting its growth.”

GOVA was founded in 2014 by YouTube multi-channel networks such as Collective Digital Studio, BroadbandTV, Fullscreen, MiTu, and Maker Studios. You can learn more about GOVA on the organization’s official website.

Filed under: Articles, Industry, News by Bree Brouwer
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Hulu will soon have a new offer for its subscribers. The video streaming subscription platform plans to offer the Showtime subscription service as a premium (yet discounted) package to subscribers starting in July 2015.

Showtime’s video service was officially announced in early June, with a subscription price of $10.99 per month. But for Hulu subscribers, the network’s streaming platform will only cost $8.99 per month in addition to Hulu’s premium $7.99 per month tier. Separately, Showtime will also make its service available to owners of Apple, Roku, and PlayStation devices.

Hulu subscribers will have full access to all Showtime programming, including documentaries, sports content, movies, and Showtime’s library of original titles. Hulu users will also be able to watch new episodes of current shows as they’re released, and stream live East and West Coast Showtime feeds.

“We’re excited to be the first premium service available to Hulu’s growing subscriber base and look forward to offering their customers our award-winning original programming, films and documentaries across almost every device,” said Showtime’s chairman and CEO Matt Blank in a statement as reported by Variety.

“We are always looking to give our subscribers access to the best content available,” explained Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins. “The robust slate of Showtime original programming, movies, and specials together with Hulu’s strength in current-season programming, library acquisitions, and original programming makes a powerful combination.”

Hulu currently boasts about 9 million subscribers in the United States.

Filed under: Articles, Hulu, News, Showtime by Bree Brouwer
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Fred Seibert, the founder of animation company Frederator Studios, has long invested in the online video industry. With his newest venture, he will search for more projects worth funding. Seibert is one of the co-founders of Thirty Labs, a startup incubator that has raised $2 million in venture capital.

Seibert launched Thirty Labs alongside John Borthwick; Borthwick is best known as the founder of Betaworks, which devotes small teams to individual startups and builds larger companies for the products that prove most successful. Services owned by Betaworks include Bitly, Giphy, and Digg, and it has also invested in a number of major web-based companies.

Thirty Labs will take the Betaworks model and apply it specifically to the online video industry. The company’s team will be broken down into specific projects, with plans to expand the best performers. TechCrunch notes that Thirty Labs has worked on ten of these “alpha projects” so far, but details about them are sparse. The only one shared with the public is Crumbles, which was posted on Reddit late last year. It lets users cobble together short video messages using one-word clips from movies and TV shows.

“One of the things we have seen over and over again with people who have ideas in the video space is that a guy alone in his room launching a product will have a tough time,” Seibert told TechCrunch. “Video by its nature needs an audience… and finding spontaneous ways to build out audience is very difficult.”

In addition to founding Frederator, which now runs a major animation network on YouTube, Seibert was also one of the founders of Next New Networks, a company that housed prominent video channels like Barely Political and ThreadBanger. Next New Networks, which was sold to YouTube in 2011, was a sort of proto-multi-channel-network, so it’s not an exaggeration to call Seibert’s online video work ahead of its time. For that reason, we’re expecting big things from Thirty Labs. Seibert says the startup will publicly launch its first projects in the coming months.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Thirty Labs by Sam Gutelle
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Snapchat keeps growing its services for brands. The mobile app, renowned for messages that delete themselves after a few seconds, has introduced a new form of advertising dubbed 3V, and has also created a new content agency for brand advertising.

As Snapchat CEO and founder Evan Spiegel explains in a video, the 3V title stands for vertical video views. This advertising format is aptly delivered as videos only, to be viewed on mobile devices in a full-screen format to ensure 100% viewability. Spiegel notes 3V advertisements will be nestled among the premium content created by brand partners on its Discover platform (similar to its Two Pennies ad format), as well as Snapchat’s own curated content.

In addition to its new ad format, Snapchat has also partnered with the Daily Mail and public relations company WPP to launch a new digital content agency called Truffle Pig. Named for the type of animal which seeks out the rare fungus prized as a delicacy, the goal of Truffle Pig is to provide advertisers with a comprehensive marketing package, including media planning, content marketing, positioning and branding, audience development, and (most importantly) thorough data analytics.

Truffle Pig will test initial content on Snapchat, the Daily Mail, and the Mail’s sibling site Elite Daily, but won’t be restricted to just those platforms. The agency will utilize Snapchat’s 3V production studio in Los Angeles, and be equally owned by Snapchat, Daily Mail, and WPP.

These new initiatives on Snapchat’s part only contribute to the mobile app’s ever-growing popularity and growth. The app recently hired Sean Mills and Marcus Wiley to oversee the development of original content. And earlier this month, Snapchat was reportedly seeking another $650 million for a total valuation of $16 billion.

Spiegel claims in the 3V advertising introduction video that more people watch video on Snapchat than on any other mobile platform. He says 100 million active users view more than 2 billion videos every day.

Filed under: Articles, News, Snapchat by Bree Brouwer
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