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What if the World were made of Pudding?

Story from North America (FULL VERSION!) from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

I love coming across videos so fantastic I have no choice but to repost them. Inventive, catchy, bizarre and funny, "Story from North America" is worth of second of your time. Click it with your whole heart children!

via Cartoon Brew

Celebs or Cewebs?

Stunt casting is old hat, even on the Internet. Whether you're friends with Will Ferrel or Michael Buckly, star power pulls in views. Liz Miller wrote a piece for NewTeeVee a while back that asks whether it’s better to cast cewebrities or old media celebs. The article stuck with me, and as a person who’s intimately aware of the pros and cons of both Independent and Hollywood content production, I thought I’d weigh in.

Star power is a time tested tactic old Hollywood knows too well, so of course Strike.TV, a Hollywood organization (with a capitol H), would go with what we know. Has it worked for Funny or die? Either way their model appears to be structured around one off skits, not full blown series (for now). 60 frames hasn’t seen anything take off and Strike.Tv hasn’t found the smash hit we’re looking for ( I don’t see anyone wearing a House Poor t-shirt yet). It’s interesting that My Damn Channel’s biggest hit, You Suck at Photoshop found it's audience without proper star power.

So why do we keep hedging our bets on Hollywood types? You can’t turn around without seeing another web series starring Jessica Rose. Shouldn’t Strike.Tv wise up, cut costs, and start turning out the next Hooking Up? I’d love to say that it has everything to do with creator rights and artistic integrity – and it does. But the ruthless business person in me wouldn’t be a part of an outfit if it weren’t for the fact that those ideals work in conjunction with business sense.

If this “new media” space is to be supported by advertising, then we need to make it friendly for advertisers. Just as the likes of Ask a Ninja and French Maid Tv have done a great job paving models for distribution, marketing and merchandising, we’re doing our part to make it easy for Advertisers to get comfortable in the new media space*. It's one thing to pitch a solid new show to an advertiser as a web producer, it's something else entirely when Kristen Wiig stars in your show. The more advertisers spend here, the more comfortable they'll be, and the more money we'll all see.

It’s clear to anyone paying attention that there’s plenty of room for content so long as it's quality. For all the press that Strike.TV has received, if we’re not out busting our asses 17 hours a day to build an audience, then that early surge of views isn’t going to earn us more than a bar tab at the next Digital LA mixer (at least the way I drink).

Pretending that it’s an “old media” vs. “new media” world is counter productive. Just because we Independents have been kept out of the game for so long, we think that Old Media is going to get hip to whats up and sidle us out of the game. Some would like to, believe you me, but they can’t. And even when they figure out how to play the game right, they still wont be able to keep independents from making a splash. Content is now, and will always be king. So let’s acknowledge that we’re all figuring this out together.

And if anyone can get me a meeting with Fred's people, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve got a part in my next project that’ll just knock his block off ;)

* Not that Kent Nichols and Tim Street haven't set their own precedent with advertisers as well.

The Outlaw Emmett Deemus

Yesterday I had the pleasure of posting a personal favorite: The Outlaw Emmett Deemus. It's got a ring to it, right? Obviously, this series is right up my alley. Outlaws and weirdos and Desert rats; it's too perfect. It's so in line with my sensibilities, that I worried that it may actually be too close to a project of my own (Mountain Man). Luckily, these pieces are more like companions than rivals.

Hoots the Owl: American Icon

I decided to play the saxophone at young age because, well, the sax is cool. I came to this conclusion thanks to Hoots the Owl:
What's not to love? He lives on Seasame Street, he's a fixture in the local Jazz scene, and he wails. I see no problem in aspiring to be like this particular owl. If we were talking about Owl from Winnie the Pooh, maybe you'd have reason to judge. Anyway, the point is this: I admire musically inclined animals, especially ones that play the sax.

Maybe I would have re-thought my decision if I saw this video instead.

Liberty Chew Chewing Tobacco Presents...

Back in 2001 I went to go see The American Astronaut, and I never got over it. I think about that film all the time. Even today, while meditating on a script of my own, the film crept into my consciousness. I love it as much as a man can love a film.

So you can imagine my joy when today, while cruising the web, killing time before guilt got the better of me and I began writing again, I happened upon this little nugget of joy via Laughing Squid.



A miniseries suitable for all sizes eh? Sounds like a web series to me. What wonder will Cory Mcabe bring us? We'll have to wait for Sundance.

Quidditch: Prison Rules

Now:


Then:


That fist clip is self explanatory, but the second may be a little confusing. For the uninitiated; "Movie of the Geek" was a segment friends and I would do during the Campus television show "Doin' it for Reel". Yep. Anyway, it's worth posting that our poorly constructed parody of nerdy college students playing a game for wizards has come true. Stranger than fiction.

DIY Virtual Haunted Mansion

Why we Follow Felicia: Analysis of The Guild's Success Story

Today marks the announcement of the sponsorship deal between Microsoft and Felicia Day’s The Guild. Being the smarty pants marketing genius lady she is, this announcement arrives just a day before the launch of season 2. Everyday there are a plenty of great new web shows being released, but time and again I find myself skimming through an RSS feed filled with stories about Felicia. So why, why do we (creators, fans, media) go crazy for all things Felicia and what makes her so gosh darn successful?

1. We need a Star to follow…

While web video has had seen its share of fairy tale success stories, the “happily ever after” is offline. TV gigs, feature films, that’s what the dream used to look like. It’s the dream we’re familiar with. When Felicia achieved some mainstream success in Dr. Horrible, she still continued to sweat through the little show that made her a web star to begin with. The Web community loves Felicia because she’s web grown and she’s staying here (though not exclusively). She’s the face of the new web celebrity.

2. We need precedence…

So much about the Guild sets the standard for everyone who follows. While the rest of us have floundered in a rev-share nightmare, Felicia did it right. From building an audience, to winning awards and securing sponsorship, Felicia has taught us what success on the web looks like.

3. She brought an audience with her…

It doesn’t hurt that Felicia had a multiple episode run on Buffy. Those fans are crazy! And while plenty of Buffy and WoW fans were already online, they weren’t necessarily keyed into the web video thang. With the advent of the Guild, a whole fan base of people from differing interest vectors aligned behind their new favorite show.

Youtube pulls so much traffic, it seems reasonable to concentrate on their user base exclusively. Why not? There are millions of people there already! If Felicia had been happy with the viewers the Guild gained organically through search and discovery on youtube, we wouldn’t be talking about the show today. Reaching out to different niches has been the key to success, and it’s brought a whole batch of new nerds over to the indie web scene. Thanks.

4. She’s got the right team…

Sandeep Parikh, Kim Evey and George Ruiz are all web personalities in their own right, but they’re also key members in the Guild team. Starring, producing and… agenting respectively, these three have been crucial to the Guild breaking out and becoming a full blown hit. But the help doesn’t stop there. Famously, the last half of Season 1 was financed by rabid Guild fans after initial funds dried up. Felicia may be party leader, but she’s shown us how to mobilize an army… or at least a decent sized raid party.

5. And she makes it look so easy.

Above all, Felicia brings savvy and grace to web video. She knows her stuff, hell – she helped invent it. She’s notoriously protective of her work, bargaining for the very best deal she could possibly make. It’s inspiring to listen to her tell her story, so of course news outlets love her. Seeing a well spoken, attractive, successful young woman speak on a new media panel sure as hell beats the alternative. That’s what you call star power.

The Guild may get plenty of fan and press attention, but it’s well deserved.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: Codex FTW.

Zuckerberg does not compute

Valleywag mentioned recently that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may be a bit... antisocial. Mark certainly seems to fit (and even personify) every silicon valley engineer stereortype I've ever heard. They go on to insinuate that perhaps, Mr. Facebook may actually have a hard time expressing his feelings. They reference a GQ feature:

(12:25 p.m.) Mark: There’s this definite evolution happening. Where the first part of the social web was mapping out the social graph. And the second phase is now mapping out the stream of everything that everyone does. All of human consciousness and communication.
(12:29 p.m.) Alex: Imagine if you could broadcast people’s emotions into a feed?
(12:30 p.m.) Mark: I think we’ll get there.
(12:30 p.m.) Alex: So how are you going to map all of human consciousness and communication?
(12:30 p.m.) Mark: We don’t map it directly. We give people tools so they can share as much as they want, but increasingly people share more and more things, and there’s this trend toward sharing a greater number of smaller things like status updates, wall posts, mobile photos, etc. A status update can approach being a projection of an emotion.

Given the evidence, I think the real issue at hand is obvious; Zuckerberg is an android. Why else would he be so obsessed with "mapping" human emotions - only because his cold android heart cannot fathom them!

Photographic evidence:

"It's Complicated..."

Sorry. I thought this was a good idea this morning.

"I lost 50 dollars on this! I don't even have 50 dollars!"

I keep intending to expand this blog, to make it something worth reading, something with insight. I have countless half written articles about the state of online media, about social networking, viral marketing, all that junk. There's a popular idea among the web scene in LA that viewers crave scripted content, and that we're here to bring it to them. But how, how God, how can I compete with the drama and tension of this:



When ephemeral videos like this continue to surface why would you ever want scripted content? Now if you'll excuse me, I have some brains to blow out.

"Hear that? It's the sound of something awesome"

as the landscape becomes more and more cluttered, seeing something so effortlessly delightful on the small(est) screen is inspiring. Amy Poheler FTW, FTW indeed.

Hail to the King

YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video

Strike.tv launched!

Flash in the pan

Bloggers generating rumors are as common as videos of kids doing dangerous activities for attention. Both are obvious, familar grabs for traffic and attention. So why do I care so much about this phony (albeit awesome) trailer for The Flash?

The execution, the production value, the carefully crafted back story, even the idea that they secured an actual theater to shoot this in, it’s stirred something in me. But let’s ignore all the work and resources and love this hoax must have consumed for a moment. For these hoaxsters, the point is this; they wanted to prove to Warner Brothers that the general public would be excited about a Flash movie. They’re insisting that not only is the Flash a viable franchise, but that the attention paid to this video is proof. Every time someone views, blogs about, or comments on this video, it’s another step towards convincing Warner Brothers that we want a Flash movie.

Now I’m no fanatic. I’d love to see a Flash film, but this is not my agenda. What’s got me so jazzed is the mentality this hoax embodies. This home made video has become a tool in provoking the creation of the film these fans so desperately want. Let’s show Warner that there's legitimate interest in a Flash movie (and therefore cash), then maybe we’ll get one.

That’s a big step in geekdom. We may have had the gumption and desire to insist on a film, but never the power. But why shouldn’t these guys think they’re capable of getting a film made? Fans are saving TV shows, running websites, determining buzz and box office dollars, and filling convention halls. So why cant we get a movie made? Maybe we can. And if blogging about a hoax some film students pulled over on the internet means that they get the movie they want, and that more fans determine what content get’s made and seen, then isn’t that the goal of this whole movement?

Who knows how this whole thing will shake down. There’s a grab for power and eyeballs and big teams and big money are all vying for the same pie. Let’s just hope whoever ends up with the opportunity to put some real resources behind their content takes the time to listen to what we all want to see.

How does your own medicine taste?

I've been sharing a lot of videos lately. I know what you're thinking, "What, doesn't this guy have anything unique to say?".

I suppose this blog speaks for itself.

Anyway, this is the Hodgmaniest.

Mountain Man Pro-Love

We're shooting the Mountain Man prologue this weekend. Awwwww yeah. It's good to be back in the swing of things. Grabbing our standard order from Wooden Nickel, I felt especially hopeful. We've done this before, it's familiar. We've learned from our mistakes and we are ready to rock. Also, the fires didn't burn down the sets or anything... so that's handy.
Revival!

In case you don't have enough awesome in your life...

I used to think user generated content was dead. I guess I just got served.

Countdown

Strike.tv launches in...

Losing it -

Often times I find myself using the phrase "losing it" when describing an extreme reaction by myself or someone else. I overuse it, we'll say. When the time comes, then, to witness someone who really does go a little crazy, someone who looses inhibitions and abandons reason or good sense, who goes out of control for a second, I think that's perversely special. Lewis Black may be a man known for being angry, and his character is familiar, but real honest to goodness rage is something rarely captured. Enjoy perverts: