In court, Ethan and Hila Klein of h3h3productions are fighting to defend fair use on YouTube, but their battle is taking a significant financial toll. In a recent video, Ethan revealed that he and Hila have paid more than $50,000 in a single month to cover legal fees for their defense team.
In May 2016, YouTuber Matt Hosseinzadeh of MattHossZone brought a suit against h3h3productions after he was the target of a video on their secondary channel. While Hosseinzadeh offered a settlement if certain terms were met, Ethan and Hila opted to take the matter to court.
After realizing their court battle would cost them $100,000, Ethan and Hila built a legal defense fund with the help of a GoFundMe page launched by Philip DeFranco. Thanks in part to contributions from YouTube stars like Philip DeFranco and PewDiePie, the couple ultimate raised more than $150,000.
Now, however, it appears even that massive total will not be enough. The Kleins opted to switch lawyers, and their new team comes with a hefty price tag. Ethan Klein shared the expenses he owes for the month of December 2016 in a recent tweet:
As their legal expenses spiral out of control, Ethan and Hila except to spend $50,000 of their own money to pay their attorneys. While Ethan feels fortunate that they have that money to spend, he is still lamenting the hefty cost it is taking to defend a position that, from a casual observer’s position, seems well-covered by the doctrine of fair use. “Those with money in the legal system have the ability to destroy and bully and defeat people on the grounds of “I have more money,” he said, “and you never have a chance to defend yourself. It’s obscene.”
The latest update from h3h3productions comes on the heels of last week’s news related to Jim Sterling, a YouTuber who defeated a fair use-related suit brought against him but still suffered a significant financial toll. Fair use defends should hope for a decisive h3h3productions victory of MattHossZone, in order to ensure that parties who wish to bring frivilous legal action against creators who criticize them are not supported by existing legal precedent.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on H3h3productions Spends More Than $50,000 In One Month On Fair Use Legal Defense
Media and telecommunications giant Comcast is integrating YouTube into its X1 set-top box product, which offers live, on demand, DVR, and online programming. YouTube is the second major streaming app to be added to the X1, as Comcast added Netflix to the platform in July following a dispute between the two companies regarding web traffic throttling.
YouTube will become a part of X1 across the U.S. later this year — whereupon Comcast’s roughly 11.25 million X1 users will have access to all of the streaming giant’s videos with a dedicated app. Additionally, Recode notes, Comcast will suggest YouTube videos alongside traditional programming that is available within the X1 platform. All YouTube clips will be searchable via the X1’s voice-controlled remote.
“By integrating YouTube into the X1 experience,” Comcast Cable’s chief business development officer, Sam Schwartz, said in a statement, “viewers can simply and effortlessly access videos on any topic, from cooking to beauty and fitness, with just their voice.”
Recode notes that Comcast won’t initially receive any money for showcasing YouTube videos on the X1. However, the company could eventually enable consumers to sign up for YouTube’s $10 monthly subscription service, YouTube Red, directly through X1, and thus pocket a cut of these payments.
In 2015, Comcast launched its own answer to YouTube, an ad-supported streaming service called Watchable, whichcurates content from roughly 30 different media brands, including AwesomenessTV, BuzzFeed, Tastemade, and Vice. Meanwhile, YouTube is reportedly looking to get into the Comcast business of selling cable bundles. The video giant reportedly has a skinny bundle of live channels currently in the works called Unplugged.
Filed under: Comcast, YouTube by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on Comcast To Launch YouTube App For Its 11 Million ‘X1’ Set-Top Box Users
YouTube clocked a staggering statistic late last year: viewers on the platform now consume 1 billion hours of videos every single day, reports The Wall Street Journal — a figure that could soon surpass the number of hours that people spend watching TV on a daily basis.
The Journal, which was first to report the statistic, attributes the 10-fold growth in daily watch-time since 2012 to YouTube’s development of artificial intelligence to create personalized suggested videos for users. YouTube confirmed the figure in a company blog post.
YouTube’s 1 billion hours of daily watch-time gives it a vast leg up over competitors like Facebook and Netflix, which in January 2016 reported 100 million hours and 116 million hours of daily watch time, respectively. According to Nielsen, Americans watch 1.25 billion hours of live and recorded TV every day, though that figure has been tumbling in recent years, per the Journal.
In 2012, the Journal reports, YouTube began to update its video recommendation algorithm to prize overall watch time across the platform as opposed to overall viewcounts. Initially, viewcounts fell as viewers spent more time watching videos — though today that strategic shift appears to have paid off in spades. As opposed to only suggesting videos based on other videos that users have clicked after watching a particular video, a former YouTube staffer told the Journal that the company partnered with its Google Brain division, which develops machine learning software, to help YouTube delve even deeper into viewers’ potential areas of related interests.
“The corpus of content continues to get richer and richer by the minute, and machine-learning algorithms do a better and better job of surfacing the content that an individual user likes,” YouTube’s chief product officer Neal Mohan told the Journal of the milestone. (Last summer at VidCon, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said that 400 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute).
The last time YouTube disclosed its user base was in 2013, when it said it had 1 billion monthly users. Now, the Journal reports, 2 billion unique users watch at least one YouTube video every 90 days.
Filed under: YouTube by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on YouTube Viewers Now Consume 1 Billion Hours Of Content Every Single Day
Thanks to The White Helmets’ win in the Short Subject Documentary category, the 2017 Academy Awards marked the first ever victory for a Netflix-distributed project at Hollywood’s most prestigious award ceremony. During the show, Netflix also reminded viewers that it has even bigger film projects coming through its pipeline. In one of the Oscars’ commercial breaks, the subscription video on-demand platform shared the first teaser for Bright, a sci-fi/fantasy film starring Will Smith.
In the world of Bright, magic is real and humans live alongside multiple fantastical races. Smith stars as a cop who, along with his orc partner (Joel Edgerton), must investigate the power possessed by a magical wand. The film’s teaser first aired as a commercial, and Netflix has since posted it to YouTube.
Bright is notable as the most expensive film Netflix has picked up so far. The streamer won a bidding war for the project back in March 2016, paying $90 million for the right to distribute the film.
David Ayer, who directed Smith in Suicide Squad, will also be behind the camera for Bright. A reprise of the creative partnership featured in Suicide Squad isn’t exactly a great sell given that movie’s cold reception, but Netflix knows what its subscribers like. They like fantasy (see Stranger Things), they like crime thrillers (see Narcos), and they probably like Will Smith (who doesn’t?) Those factors make Bright an interesting bet; it’s due out in December 2017.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, Netflix, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on On Oscar Night, Netflix Teases Its Biggest-Ever Feature Film, Starring Will Smith
Video platforms like YouTube and Instagram have taken steps to make their videos “shoppable,” and now, Twitch is following suit — in its own way. The live streaming platform has announced a new feature called Twitch Games Commerce through which creators can sell select games to their viewers, with purchasers receiving Twitch perks as rewards.
Featured games will be available on the channel pages of individual creators as well as on the “game detail pages” that highlight specific titles. Most of the money generated by the sales will go to developers, though creators who successfully sell to their fans will earn 5% cuts. To sweeten the deal, purchases will come with complimentary “Twitch Crates,” which include exclusive emotes and other goodies.
The developers who have agreed to participate in Twitch Games Commerce include top-of-the-line game makers such as Ubisoft as well as indie shops like Hi-Rez Studios. Twitch shared additional information about its forthcoming offer in a blog post as well as an introductory video.
“Many of our streamers want to make a living doing what they love,” said Twitch VP of Commerce Matt McCloskey in a press release. “To help them, we’re enabling game developers to sell game content at the exact time and place their communities are gathered to watch, which in turn lets streamers earn money from games sold on their channels. To ensure everyone benefits, we’re also rewarding fans that purchase with Twitch Crates.”
The Twitch Games Commerce program is expected to roll out in the spring.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, TwitchTV by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Twitch Will Let Its Streamers Sell Games Within Their Broadcasts
A takedown piece in The Guardian last Friday about the massively popular U.K lifestyle vlogger Zoe Sugg has ignited a firestorm within the YouTube community, and illuminated a seemingly growing animosity between ‘old media’ (print journalists, more specifically) and the vanguards of the digital age.
The Guardian’s piece, titled Zoe Sugg: The Vlogger Blamed For Declining Teenage Literacy, refers to a recent study in the U.K. that concluded that the enormous popularity of Sugg’s novels — a series dubbed Girl Online — is resulting in regressing reading levels for children. Girl Online, which had the biggest first-week sales in British history upon its debut in November 2014, per The Guardian, is not as challenging as other popular books read by kids — including the Harry Potter series and The Hobbit, according to the study. Therefore, says education and social research professor Keith Topping, Sugg is responsible for a “striking” decline in children’s reading levels.
If saddling a 26-year-old vlogger with declining national literacy levels sounds like a bit of a stretch, The Guardian column also serves to disparage the vlogging medium as a whole. Columnist Zoe Williams calls it “the endpoint of narcissism, a stage of self-enthrallment so complete that there is nothing too trivial to share.”
Williams also begrudges the commercial aspects of the industry. “When every video comes complete with links to the clothes she’s wearing and where [Sugg] bought her curtains,” she writes, “it is impossible to tell where the advert ends and the selling begins.”
Sugg, whose YouTube moniker is Zoella, and who also launched a digital book club last year encouraging young adults to read books beyond her own, responded with a tweetstorm over the weekend. “It’s refreshing to see how many people roll their eyes at some of the things the mainstream media write! I’m almost used to it now,” shewrote. “When you’re doing well at something, there will always be people that will try and tear you down at any opportunity. Just keep going!”
And the YouTube community promptly came to Sugg’s defense. Check out some of their supportive messages below.
I had a little nap and woke up to see the media trashing @Zoella for writing successful books and minding her own business. Standard.
Counterpoint: Despite Massive Readership Zoe Sugg and Jeff Kinney Mysteriously Blamed for Declining Literacy. https://t.co/KVl9mCxDRM — Hank Green (@hankgreen) February 26, 2017
Many also drew comparisons between The Guardian’s story and an article in The Wall Street Journal on Valentine’s Day, which reported that Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg, YouTube’s most subscribed star, had made anti-Semitic jokes in nine videos since last August, precipitating his discharge from Maker Studios as well as the cancellation of his YouTube Red series, Scare PewDiePie. Kjellberg responded to that controversy with a video that assailed the “old-school media,” which he said “does not like internet personalities because they’re scared of us.”
Check out similar sentiments from Sugg’s manager, Dominic Smales, and fellow creator Josh Zerker, below:
The ‘older’ people working for legacy media have to accept that the world is different now to avoid totally losing touch with a generation. — Dominic Smales (@domsmales) February 26, 2017
‘Traditional media’ throwing its toys out the pram again. First @pewdiepie and now @Zoella – They’re losing touch with our generation. — Josh Zerker (@ZerkaaHD) February 26, 2017
Filed under: Books by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on YouTubers Rally Around Zoella Following ‘Guardian’ Column Disparaging Her Books, Vlogs
In the years since they have become major players in the annual Emmy race, both Netflix and Amazon have added films to their respective libraries in a shared attempt to crash the Oscars. Now, the two most prominent subscription video on-demand (SVOD) platforms in the industry can both say they are Academy Award winners. At last night’s ceremony, the Amazon Studios-distributed drama Manchester By The Sea took home awards for its screenplay and acting, while the Netflix-affiliated short film The White Helmets was named the year’s best short subject documentary.
Manchester by the Sea had already made history by becoming the first SVOD-distributed film to earn a Best Picture nomination, but victories for screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan and lead actor Casey Affleck cemented the film’s status as an Oscar winner. Amazon representatives who attended the Oscar ceremony were excited to see the film they worked on take home its statuettes, to say the least:
Netflix, for its part, has finally succeeded in clinching an Oscar win after coming up just short for several years. The SVOD platform received an Academy Award nomination for 2013 documentary The Square, but did not win; in 2017, it was another film about unrest in the Arab world, The White Helmets, that allowed Netflix to emerge victorious.
Both Netflix and Amazon have added more films to their libraries in recent months, so don’t be shocked if the streamers show up again at future Oscar ceremonies. In the meantime, they have a lot of work to do in the worlds of music and theater if they hope to claim the illustrious EGOT.
Filed under: Academy Awards, Articles, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Both Amazon And Netflix Won Their First Oscars This Year
[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a new weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given timeframe. You can check out all of our Tubefilter Charts – with new installments every week – right here.]
Scroll down for the Tubefilter Chart.
It’s another installment of the Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide and the most subscribed YouTube channel on the planet is back on top.
Chart Toppers
Felix Kjellberg couldn’t hold onto the #1 spot on the Most Subscribed chart. The famous (and now possibly infamous?) YouTube star closed out 2016 in commanding fashion after manufacturing some will-he-or-won’t-he-delete-his-channel drama, but he couldn’t maintain such a high subscriber acquisition rate in the new year. January saw PewDiePie‘s Bro Army recruitment dip 55% to bottom out in third place just shy of 1.1 million new subs.
Claiming the top spot form Kjellberg is Ed Sheeran. The YouTube channel of the 26-year-old English singer-songwriter shot way up in its subscriber count thanks to a handful of new music video uploads, the first we’ve seen from Sheeran’s channel in over a year. Lyric and music videos for singles like “Shape Of You” helped drive almost 1.4 million new subscribers to the artist’s home on YouTube.
In the #2 spot is Canal KondZilla. The online video destination for all your favorite poppy Brazilian music video hits hopped up 6% to top out at more than 1.1 million new subscribers on the month. That pushed whinderssonnunes down to fourth place. The young, prolific, and popular Brazilian YouTube vlogger’s channel tacked on over 1 million subscribers in the 31 days of the month.
And rounding out the Top 5, yet again, is Liza Koshy. The 20-year-old Streamy Award-winning YouTuber keeps adding subscribers thanks to a steady supply of weekly videos with a lot of comedic appeal. In January she welcomed over 900,000 new subs into her channel’s fold.
Top Gainers
The honor of one of our our Top Gainers this month goes to Ashely Tisdale.
The American actress, singer, and producer’s YouTube career spans way back to 2006, when she semi-regularly posted vlog-style updates about her thoughts on other YouTube videos and dispatches from live performances of High School Musical – the entertainment entity that spawned the then-burgeoning star’s musical career and incredible popularity.
Tisdale’s been an on-again, off-again YouTuber ever since, but she might be sticking around a little longer this time around thanks to her massive increase in subscribers. The incredible uptick seems to stem from a January 3, 2017 collaboration video with ex-HSM co-star and current BFF Vanessa Hudgens. The two perform a duet of Elle King’s “Ex’s & Oh’s” with Tisdale’s husband Chris French accompanying on the guitar. The video quickly racked up an eight-figure view count and helped Tisdale’s channel to a 11,711% month-over-month increase in subscribers, more than 616,000 new subscribers on the month, and the #21 spot on the worldwide chart.
Channel Distribution
The Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube channels in the month amassed in aggregate a total of 48,840,423 new subscribers. Here’s a look at the distribution of a few of those channels broken down by the most-represented YouTube Multi-Channel Networks on the chart:
VEVO: 11 channelsin the Top 100 Most Subscribed, with Chainsmokers the top channel in the network at #10.
Maker Studios: 10 channels in the Top 100, with Felipe Neto at #19.
BroadbandTV: 8 channels in the Top 100, with Fernanfloo at #6.
Fullscreen, Studio71: 5 channels each in the Top 100, with Fullscreen’s whinderssonnunes at #4 and Studio71’s Wengie at #11.
Machinima, StyleHaul: 3 channels each in the Top 100, with Machinima’s ToyPudding at #15 and StyleHaul’s TheDiamondMinecart at #52.
Collab, ONErpm, XMediaDigital: 2 channels each in the top 100, with Collab’s The Gabbie Show at #56, ONErpm’s Canal KondZilla #2, and XMediaDigital’s mashamedvedtv at #85.
And here’s a look into the distribution of the this month’s Top 100 by country of origin:
The United States: 37 channels in the Top 100.
Brazil: 16 channels in the Top 100.
Great Britain: 8 channels in the Top 100.
Mexico: 7 channels in the Top 100.
India, Spain: 5 channels each in the Top 100.
Canada, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine: 2 channels each in the Top 100.
Argentina, Australia, Chile, El Salvador, Ireland, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Thailand, United Arab Emirates:1 channel each in the Top 100.
OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 800,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.
The celebrated vlogger and filmmaker Casey Neistat made a much-buzzed-about appearance during last night’s Oscars telecast — though not during the ceremony.
Neistat starred in a commercial for Samsung’s Galaxy range of smartphones dubbed The Rest Of Us, which the tech giant said is the first piece of creative within a forthcoming campaign to “empower, inspire, and develop a new guild of creators that realize their inherent potential.” The multi-channel initiative will aim to show how Samsung’s tech has enabled digital creators to become the filmmakers of the future.
In the Oscars ad, Neistat is bedecked in a tuxedo and delivering his own award show acceptance speech of sorts on a wet parking lot. “We don’t have big award shows or huge budgets or fancy cameras,” he says, amid flashy footage shot by Samsung devices, “but what we do have are our phones — and duct tape and parking lots and guts.” Aired during the Academy Awards, these words had a particular resonance.
Check out the spot, which was developed by the creative agency Wieden+Kennedy, below:
Neistat, who revealed that the commercial was shot just eight days ago, has collaborated with Samsung before — on a sponsored holiday film for his YouTube channel. In that viral video, he donned a Santa Claus costume and was towed through the Finnish mountains on a snowboard by a custom-built drone. Posted last December, it has thus far clocked more than 8 million views.
True story; all the cut aways we filmed were shot on Samsung S7 phones. https://t.co/a8UtStGHK4
Neistat, a noted critic of Samsung competitor Apple, posted a behind-the-scenes look at the production of the commercial on his channel yesterday prior to its airing. After noting that the Academy Awards planned to celebrate exactly zero YouTubers this year and is the second most-watched televised broadcast after the Super Bowl, Neistat explains in the vlog that he wanted to create a commercial that would celebrate the YouTube community.
While he didn’t direct the massive production, which was shot over three days and planned over the course of months — and which Neistat quips he could’ve shot on his phone in 5 minutes — he does serve as the face of the campaign.
Here’s his behind-the-scenes vlog:
Filed under: Academy Awards, Uncategorized by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on Casey Neistat Stars In Samsung Oscars Commercial Exalting Digital Creators
The 89th iteration of the Academy Awards is set to kick off this Sunday, February 26 live at 8:30PM ET / 5:30PM PT with host Jimmy Kimmel from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. This year’s celebration of excellence in motion pictures will be broadcast to terrestrial television by way of ABC and by way of the internet to not a whole lot of other destinations.
Instead, ABC is only allowing viewers in one handful of markets (“Chicago, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham and San Francisco”) who subscribe to a “participating TV provider” and viewers in another handful of markets (Albuquerque, Boston, Ft. Smith/Fayetteville, Jackson (Mississippi), Kansas City, Milwaukee, Monterey-Salinas, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Portland-Auburn (Maine), Savannah and West Palm Beach) who subscribe to DirecTV to access the broadcast online.
Meanwhile, the denizens of the more than one-in-five households that have cut the cord (and don’t have one of these) won’t be able to see an uninterrupted broadcast of the main event, but will be able to check out The Oscars: All Access companion show. The peripheral live stream will be distributed on Facebook(without an embed option, or else you’d see the video embedded here), Oscars.com, the ABC app, ABCNews.com and a variety of Xfinity devices and online destinations.
All Access will be helmed onscreen by Chris Connelly, Troy Gentile, and Adnan Virk along with 20 cameras and footage from the red carpet, backstage at the main event, and inside the Dolby Theatre.
“Working with Facebook to extend the reach of ‘The Oscars: All Access’ enables us to further drive water cooler discussion and encourage people to tune in to the live awards show broadcast,” said Disney-ABC Television Group’s EVP of Digital Media, Strategy, and Business Development John Frelinghuysen in the release.
We’ll see if that encouragement works, or if it just gives less potential viewers the means by which to tune in.
Filed under: Academy Awards, Articles, News by Joshua Cohen Comments Off on Where To (Sorta) Watch The Oscars Live Stream
[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]
Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.
It’s another installment of the weekly Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide and people are still watching a ton of Indian entertainment online.
Chart Toppers
T-Series is in first place on the worldwide chart for the twenty-sixth week in a row. The self-proclaimed largest music label and movie studio in India saw its YouTube channel shed 6% of its weekly view count, but still rack up nearly 229.9 million views. In a closerish second place is Ryan ToysReviews. The five-year-old’s toy unboxing channel shot up 15% in views on the week to take home more than 188.4 million of them.
In the #3 spot is Ed Sheeran. The British singer-songwriter’s YouTube channel bounced back after a down week to amass almost 171.2 million views. Up next in the #4 spot is Canal KondZilla. Your online video destination for all things Brazilian pop music stayed relatively constant with a view count of just about 153.3 million views.
And rounding out the Top 5, yet again, is SET India. Sony Entertainment Television’s Indian iteration’s YouTube channel climbed up 3% to top out at over 141.1 million views on the week.
Top Gainers
The honor of one of the Top Gainers on the chart this week goes to ToyzCollectorHD.
The latest channel to climb up and into the charts for targeting an audience of toddlers and preadolescents with hyper-colored gummy and jelly concoctions featuring the likenesses of comic book superheroes and Disney princesses is ToyzCollectorHD.
Run by a somewhat anonymous Peruvian named Balentin, the channel amassed a large view count this week thanks to a steady supply of uploads featuring Play-Doh, popular intellectual property, and dinosaurs. The video entitled “Play-Doh Superhero Ice Cream Finger Family Nursey Rhymes Scoops Playdouhg Learn Colors Kids,” for instance, racked up a view count in the multimillions, helping the channel to its 119% week-over-week increase in views, nearly 59.5 million views on the week, and the #40 spot on the worldwide chart.
Channel Distribution
The top 50 most viewed YouTube channels worldwide this week amassed a total of 4,183,784,302 views. Here’s the distribution of a few of those channels by multi-channel network:
VEVO: 7 channels in the U.S. Top 50, with Chainsmokers the highest-ranked channel of the network at #11.
Studio71: 3 channels in the Top 50, with Webs & Tiaras – Toy Monster Compilations at #18.
BroadbandTV, ONErpm, WMG, XMediaDigital: 2 channels each in the Top 50, with BBTV’s WorldStarHipHop at #28, ONErpm’s Canal KondZilla at #4, WMG’s Ed Sheeran at #3, and XMediaDigital’s mashamedvedtv at #20.
And here’s the distribution of the this week’s Top 50 YouTube channels by country of origin:
United States: 21 channels in the Top 50.
India: 7 channels in the Top 50.
Great Britain: 6 channels in the Top 50.
Brazil, Canada, Russia, Thailand: 2 channels each in the Top 50.
Argentina, Germany, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Turkey: 1 channel each in the Top 50.
OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 800,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.
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.
For the past month, creator Pablo Andreu has chronicled the production process of his show Stray, a comedy about two buddies from college rediscovering their friendship. In humorous updates he has shared on Tubefilter, Andreu has talked about everything casting to storyboarding to shooting, all within the context of a low budget. His articles have left a lingering question: Is Stray any good?
Based on its first two episodes, which are now available on YouTube, we are happy to report that it is. Stray is a simple story at heart, but it is carefully told and subtly rendered, allowing it to become a sweet, charming tale of a budding bromance.
Stray stars Cameron Clarke and Sha James Beamon as Rich and Jay, two old friends. When Rich crashes with Jay for a bit, they deepen their bond through frank and humorous conversations about sexuality and romance. These conversations take place within the context of their respective identities: Rich is straight and a bit meek, while Jay is gay and unfiltered.
As with other indie web series about dynamic duos, Stray succeeds because of the chemistry between Clarke and Beamon. Rich and Jay’s bromance is believable, and Andreu’s steady camera captures their chats without unnecessarily frills. Check out new episodes as they arrive on YouTube, and be sure to keep an eye out for more updates from Andreu as they arrive on Tubefilter.
OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT
37 Problems. A 37-year-old woman learns she only has one egg left and searches for a way to get it fertilized.
Nick and Collin. Two friends explore their mid-life crises as one moves into the other’s backyard.
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 Comments Off on Indie Spotlight: ‘Stray’ Is A Subtle Chronicle Of A Bromance
