Robert Englund, left, and Kane Hodder in “Fear Clinic”
WEB video knows no season — new stuff just pops up any old time — so the notion of a fall preview is a little artificial. There’s a certain logic to it, though, because at the high end, where corporate budgets are involved, Web video continues to look and smell like television.
But professional online video is a big tent, one that includes, among many other things, television network Webisodes, satirical stand-alone clips on comedy sites and advertisements that begin life on YouTube as quasi-art objects. The business model appears to be in a tenuous state of equilibrium: while small companies that hoped to specialize in Web video are forced out of business by a lack of advertising, other producers enter the field because it’s cheaper than making television.
Here is a small selection of new online content — serials, one-shot videos and ephemera — that has recently begun or is arriving soon. Primary Web addresses are listed, but most will be available on a wide variety of video sites.
THE FALL OF KADEN (fallofkaden.com): This noirish serial about a loan shark and his no-account brother is two weeks into a 10-week run. Adam Leiphart, whose credits include being Wentworth Miller’s stand-in on “Prison Break,” plays Kaden.
How are you promoting the series to your audience?
Well, we had the fortune of getting a great PR representative, Wilson Cleveland of CJP Digital, out of New York. He has been largely responsible for most of the success we have experienced. PR is probably the single most important aspect of a new project, for the simple fact that nobody will know you exist otherwise. Even if you have the best project on Earth, if nobody can watch it then it's pointless. It's like the old adage: Is it better to make great art, or have people see it? Well, that's sort of a subjective matter, but my opinion is... if nobody sees it, can it even be considered art? Because art is supposed to affect the mind and opinions of those viewing it. Marketing and promoting tips for content creators.
Like I said before, most of our success was based around good PR. But we met Wilson by proactively immersing ourselves in the new media scene. We found which organizations were responsible for what, and when various meet-ups or gatherings would occur, and then made sure to attend them. Tubefilter's meet-ups are some of the best places, in my opinion, to network with people in new media. All of our success can be attributed to various people we have met and connected with at these myriad places. But on another note, we cannot forget the grassroots importance of awareness either. Before we met Wilson, we utilized social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread awareness to all of our friends. That's also an invaluable resource that you need to take advantage of. Social networking is free advertisement, and you should definitely embrace it.
Distribution tips for content creators.
Same as above, we received all of our distribution opportunities by attending events and meeting people in the new media scene. If you live in Los Angeles or New York it's obviously much easier to find events like these. But if you are out of town, I would recommend researching new media distributors and directly contacting them. New media is blowing up fast, but it is still nascent enough that young hopefuls with good content can infiltrate the market. But be quick about it, because new media will be traditional media soon enough!
Where can readers go to watch or get information on the series? We are currently re-vamping our main website with EQAL, and it can be found at www.fallofkaden.com. You can also watch the series unfold at KoldCast.tv, www.youtube.com/fallofkaden, Blip.tv, iTunes, Zune, DailyMotion, and are in talks with many other opportunities in the future. You can also join the fanpage on Facebook: www.facebook.com/fallofkaden or follow on Twitter: @fallofkaden.
What happens when a divorcee “acquires” her ex-husband’s marketing research company and asks her best friend, a beauty editor-turned-bestselling author, to help her run it? On the surface, it seems almost plausible. But when those two best friends are Cynthia and Pillar, two of the most self-obsessed women in the San Fernando Valley area, then things get interesting…and often hilarious. Especially when you bring in actors such as David H. Lawrence (Heroes, Goodnight Burbank) and Sandeep Parikh (The Guild, co-creator-director The Legend of Neil) to play some of the crazy cast of characters that participate in the focus groups for the horrible products that result from this “acquisition”.
Groupthink was created by two cast members of Goodnight Burbank, so the writing-directing-producing-acting team of Angela Espinosa and Wendy Rosoff have a lot of web series experience to bring to the table. I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Wendy and Angela and wanted to know how working together on Goodnight Burbank lead to them creating Groupthink.
Tubefilter: What can you tell us about your next web series project, Exposed? What has it been like working with McG?
Calhoun: Pink really opened a lot of doors for Mike and I. We sold the show to Generate and subsequently got to produce 25 more episodes (Seasons 2 and 3) and right now we’re in talks to do a new Season 4. We’ll hopefully have news about this soon. We also got to go around town and pitch several other ideas and sold one to Warner Bros. and TheWB.com. We’ve had the great opportunity to work with the studio along with McG’s company Wonderland Sound and Vision on this new project (McG is the Exec Producer). We’re currently finishing it up right now and will be able to speak more about it in the near future. But I think fans of Pink and our “dark-thriller” brand will enjoy the show.
Tubefilter: Anything else coming up for you?
Calhoun: I just wrapped (in June) directing my fourth feature film called Spilt Milk. It’s a wry comedy about a disgruntled grocery store manager whose life gets forever changed one fateful evening when his store gets robbed. It stars Jake Johnson from the Drunk History YouTube videos and this summer’s indie hit Paper Heart (with Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera) and also Chase Jeffery who is the lead in Exposed. The film already has distribution and will be released sometime in 2010.
Next up in the new media realm I’m directing a sci-fi/thriller called Continuum that we’re planning to shoot late this fall and release next spring. Wilson Cleveland and CJP Digital Media are working with us on this project. I’m really excited about this series as I’m getting to work in another genre and also we’ve decided to produce this ourselves as an independent, like we did with the first season of Pink. We’re going to give owning our content a try again and see how it works out.
New York Television Festival Digital Day panel with Illeana Douglas, creator and writer of Easy to Assemble and Spärhusen;My Damn Channel Founder + CEO, Rob Barnett; producer Dominik Rausch moderated by Wilson Cleveland, director of CJP Digital Media.
Excerpt: We screened the teaser trailer for this unsigned web series back at the April Web TV Meetup, and it stood out as one of the best pieces of content no one in the room had even heard of. Flash forward a few months, andThe Fall of Kaden, a gritty web drama from creators Matt Doubler and Adam Leiphart, has inked a distribution deal with KoldCast TV.
CJP has received a 2009 Bronze Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for superior performance in the use of streaming media as part of an integrated PR campaign. The Temp Life, an original branded Web series produced for Spherion by CJP Studios, won in the 'Webcast' category at an awards ceremony held recently in New York City.
The Bronze Anvil Award was created by PRSA in 1969 to recognize outstanding public relations tactics — the individual items or components that contribute to the success of an overall program or campaign. Entries were judged by teams of PRSA members — and others who have specific category expertise — across the country.
This recognition puts CJP in an esteemed group of 2009 winners including Starbucks, GE Profile®, Disney Parks, UPS, Delta Airlines, Pfizer, General Mills and McDonald’s® Corporation.
Next week, we’ll be posting a rundown of the content screened at the event and along with video recaps, including Jordan Levin’s keynote address and our panel on bridging the gap between brands and digital media moderated by Brian Stelter of the New York Times with Christine Beardsell of Digitas, Ian Schafer of Deep Focus, and Doug Scott of Ogilvy.
In the meantime, you can check out most of the reels from the new media studios showcased at OnfrtonNYC. NewTeeVee has a rundown of the good, the meh, and the awesome, but I encourage you to watch the reels for yourself.
Web Television continues to grow up - first its own awards show and now its own version of television industry’s tried and true Upfronts. The first annual OnFrontNYC went down Tuesday in New York, bringing out over twenty different web content studios to showcase their web series wares to media buyers and digital ad agencies in attendance including Ogilvy, Digitas’ The Third Act and Deep Focus.
Following last night's Webby Awards ceremony comes the online video advertising event OnFronts, produced by internet video connoisseurs Tilzy.tv, (not to be confused with last week's NewFronts, put on by Digitas' The Third Act.) Although the event does include a panel about bringing branded advertising to the digital space, it's more focused on presentations of content new media studios are trying to sell to, according to Tilzy.tv founders Jamison Tilsner and Joshua Cohen. "One of the things we learned putting this together is that many media planners are unaware of this space in general," said Mr. Tilsner. "There's also issues with larger firms allocating resources when trying to make smaller, more targeted buys." More than a dozen web studios will present their latest shows at ADD-compatible speed including CJP Studios, Revision3, Deep Focus, Blip.tv, For Your Imagination and Vuguru.
This week Tilzy.tv brought us the first annual Onfronts, a presentation of what the year ahead has to offer in online video. Like the oldteevee upfronts from which they get their name, the Onfronts are a way for content providers to show potential advertisers just where their money could be going, and just how many eyeballs could be taking a gander at those logos. Of course, we here at NewTeeVee Station aren’t looking to invest big bucks for big traffic; we just wanna see all the previews and judge which will be the most squee-worthy.
It’s a noble calling, really. And we do it all for you. So here’s what’s coming up.
What looks good:
New seasons of old favorites. The promo for Prom Queen: The Homecoming was full of quick cuts and short on plot points, but, much like actual prom queens, the series doesn’t need details to get us to show up. They have us at Prom Queen. Likewise, new seasons of The Legend of Neil and Wainy Days seem like they’re going to bring more of the quirky fun that hooked viewers in the first place.
Take180 presented an impressive slate — I <3 Vampires pokes a little fun at Twilight-level fandom, My Date turns viewer-submitted dating horror stories into guffaw-worthy sketches, and Electric Spoofaloo, well, spoofs stuff.
Also intriguing are CJP's The Mercury Men, which did for retro-cool in one brief preview what “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” failed to do in an entire film, and Hillers, a dark comedy about a man in an ever-faster downward spiral. (Plus, there’s a mysterious and possibly evil hot chick who keeps talking to him, but where she fits in remains to be seen.)
Embedded above is a player from the Onfronts loaded with a playlist of all the videos discussed.
The First-Annual Web Television All-Star Team (Link)
It’s Spring time again. The grass is green, the sun is finally warm on your skin. It’s time to check the pockets of your heavy coat - so recently a daily companion - for anything important and then stash it away. January is past, but let’s face it, Spring is really when it feels like a new year.
We thought we’d celebrate Spring in our own way, by munching a box of not-as-good-as-we-remembered Cracker Jack and picking out the impact players of the long winter. As baseball season kicks off into high gear, Broadcast Assassin is fielding it’s first ever team of Web Television All-Stars.
There are quite a few major players in the league at this point, and by next year it will be much harder to narrow down the field. However, if you were to name an All-Star team at this point, we believe it would look something like this.
Wilson Cleveland: Reflections on the Streamys (Link)
My challenge in attending a first annual anything is not having a sense of what to expect when I get there and deciding whether or not I have to shave. I mean, this was The Streamys which at best, I imagined would be like the Independent Spirit Awards and at worst, a cruel mash-up of ComicCon and the Soap Opera Digest Awards.
Honestly, none of that mattered. I was just excited to be going as someone who doffs multiple hats within the web television community and as someone who could potentially end up on the wrong end of a restraining order were he allowed even a Hellmouth’s distance from Joss Whedon. What can I say? This is my Buffyverse and you all just live in it.
As soon as I saw the throngs of web viderati all expectations were turned upside down and I found myself saying to no one in particular, “THIS is very cool.” I think if you asked anyone among the crowd hanging out in front of the Wadsworth during that first hour if they’d anticipated just how profoundly awesome it would feel to be right there, right then, the answer would have been a firm “no way.”
A lot has been said about the Streamys being a catalyst in formalwear for the broader acceptance of web television as a legit entertainment medium. The thing is, I’ve been sold on the legitimacy of original web videos and serials for quite some time and therefore didn’t need a kick-ass awards show to convince me. I’m extremely fortunate to be able to produce sponsored web series at CJP, while getting to represent some of the best creators, producers and studios in the business on the marketing side.
Beyond getting the web video community a few steps closer to a better seat at the industry table, the Streamys pulled-off something even greater: It celebrated the concept of creative perseverance and recognized a collective passion for making something great. This is a community whose members have at one time or another eschewed the standard 9-5, spent their rent money on a camera or helped a fellow creator by working 12-hour days for free all in the name of making something cool on their terms. There was such a strong sense of camaraderie, respect and gratitude permeating throughout the evening which I found incredibly inspiring.
I enjoy Felicia Day. I just do. Ever since she played one of the “Slayerettes” during Buffy’s final season (I’m still not over it), I’ve enjoyed her. Dr. Horrible? Own it. I suck at video games but I sure love The Guild because like so many web series, it’s just a damn good show. However, it wasn’t until her acceptance speech for Best Actress that the overall vibe I had been sensing throughout the evening was expressed so succinctly. Here is a beautiful young actress/producer dissatisfied with her options within the existing Hollywood ecosystem who instead of settling, subverted the Hell out of it, pulled a team together and made a hit web show. She’s certainly not the first artist to do so, but she was the only one I was paying attention to at that moment. Plus I dug her green dress.
For me, the Streamys was a total blast. One of the shows I work on won its category (Pink’s Blake Calhoun for Best Directing in a Dramatic Series -Ed.); I caught up with friends and got to meet so many talented people. The whole experience left me feeling inspired and excited because I knew this community of creative storytellers that Marc, Jamison and their respective crews had brought together was going to deliver on the promise of what the future of filmmaking will look like on the Web and beyond.
Wilson Cleveland is a Senior Vice President of Digital Media at CJP Communications in New York, a PR firm representing, among other clients, the web series Pink: the Series. Mr. Cleveland also created, writes, and acts in the popular web series The Temp Life.
Excerpts from Feb 10th Social Media Week panel: "Social Media + Video = Social Entertainment" which included Wilson Cleveland, director of CJP's Digital Practice discussing PR's role in the creation of branded entertainment initiatives. Also on the panel are Paul Kontonis and Kathryn Velvel Jones from For Your Imagination, Tarah Feinberg from Brand New World and Eric Rochow, host of Gardenfork.tv.
Mind-Numbing Office Work Turned Funny and Promotional with The Temp Life (Permalink)
If you’ve ever worked as a temp, than you know. It’s the lowest of the lows of all jobs ever. Substitute teachers at least get to participate in fun games. Substitute office workers learn the superficial functions of phone systems and coffee makers while trying not to screw anything up.
But on the original scripted web series, The Temp Life, the main cast of characters provides a promotional spin to the temporary world, offering comedic flare on what many would call a dismal existence.
The Temp Life is created and produced by CJP Communications for Spherion, a leading U.S. recruiting and staffing company. Not only do the producers grease the funny bone, they also offer viewers a world of career possibilities for those who are willing to travel from job to job in search of full-time employment (not a bad idea in today’s economy).
The action takes places at the newly-formed company, Commodity Staffing, where the agency has earned quite the reputation of attracting the absolutely worst temp jobs possible.
Among the cast, long-time lead, Laura (Laura Kowalcyk) continues to shine and do her best not to smack the bored souls who loiter around the office searching for office supplies. And like a good temp or a first-rate American Olympic gymnast, Laura sticks her grin, regardless of the situation.
Caitlin’s hyper, over-achieving and somewhat bi-sexual tendencies contribute to the flow of the show, while Mark (Mark Jude) and Paul bring up the tail end with tid-bits of trite despair.
Since it first debuted in November 2006, the series has enlisted an accommodating cast with one hilarious staple: Mr. Nick “Trouble” Chiapetta (Wilson Cleveland), who not only stars in the show but is a lead account exec for CJP. Cleveland steals each scene with his comedic talents and particular droll in the dream sequences with guardian angel, Tom Cruise, who usually offers couch-side, forthcoming advice in a very Mission Impossible kinda way.
At the beginning of the series, Nick is the proud owner of Pedtastic, peddling shoe lace aglets but following a “multi-hundred dollar” acquisition of Commodity Staffing, Nick assures his “Chief Content Ninja,” Paul (Paul Konz) that the change is only “temporary.” As the web series progresses, the plot thickens within the cityscape and The Temp Life has developed from bestowing temps with tips to a budding prominent web-a-soap series. I.e. Season 2’s cliffhanger finale, where Caitlin (Caitlin Mitchell) and Paul turned up in Thailand by mistake, and Nick learns what “trouble” really is.
The third season of The Temp Life just launched this month. The premiere sees Laura and Mark describing their new gigs, noting “on paper” that they’re consulting as a telecom specialist for a global chemical company (read: receptionist for an exterminator) and an Efficiency Manager (read: puts stickers on time clocks). At the stroke of five, the temps wrap up the day and turn in their time sheets, only to discover the oblivious CEO of Commodity Staffing, Mr. Nick “Trouble” Chiapetta catatonic on the job. Unbeknownst to the temps, Trouble and Tom Cruise are conjuring up a rehab plan.
If you haven’t checked out the Web series Temp Life, I totally recommend it. The clever, sometimes heartbreaking show deals with the ins and outs of terrible temp jobs. Permatemps Mark and Laura get sent on various assignments by their ‘boss,’ Nick (played by the show’s creator, Wilson Cleveland). In this episode, the first of the show’s third season, Laura suggests that Mark might want to post his workplace horror story on a certain website you may have heard of. Check it out:
I’m not sure anyone fully understands what video means to travel — let alone the Internet. As Wilson Cleveland, a vice president at CJP, points out, “Video is the best medium for bringing an experience or storyline to life.” (Link)
Cleveland Helps CJP's Clients See Digital Benefits (Link)
Wilson Cleveland works for CJP Communications, a firm known for clients such as Edward Jones and GE Financial Corporate Services, but he has found a way to parlay his entertainment PR background into his work there.
“I was told from day one [at CJP] that whatever interests you, as long as it adds value to the company and for clients, you can do,” says Cleveland, VP of the digital practice. He adds that CJP's client list also includes a number of companies in the tech, consumer, professional service, and other sectors.
“I didn't create the digital practice only to [help] financial companies,” he explains. “This is the digital skill set that any company with a communications plan [will] be needing.”
Cleveland launched CJP's digital practice in 2006, when he says Web 2.0 “started gaining some momentum.” Among the work it has done since its inception are behind-the-scenes video, or “digimentaries,” to use the term CJP coined, that are promoting the best-selling authorized biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.
The digimentaries launched September 29, the same day the book did. The three-minute segments, available on YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, and other online channels, have received 150,000-plus views.
“The videos deliver on the initial strategy to give audiences the visual look at how the book was written and [author] Alice Schroeder's personality,” says Cleveland. “We thought she was going to be overshadowed by Buffett. [But] people are also asking about her.”
Cleveland got his start in college, promoting a TV show at Boston University. He worked in entertainment PR after college, did communications work at Goldman Sachs, and then returned to the agency side to work with dot-com clients.
“The work at Goldman positioned me as someone who could do entertainment and tech [work] with financial aspects to it,” he says.
When the digital practice launched, it wasn't immediately evident that financial-service clients would see the merits of adding digital elements to their PR program. But they've come around, notes Cleveland.
“Back in 2006, a company like Ed-ward Jones may not [have been] asking us about digital media, but when they [did], we wanted to be ready,” says Cleveland. In April, he went to St. Louis to do a new media seminar for the company. “I have known for many years that this is something that's going to matter.”
A few years ago, CJP sought to differentiate itself by focusing on the entire marketing mix. The digimentaries are one example of how it has brought new PR methods to clients.
“We've been able to open clients' minds to new ways of communicating with new audiences,” says Jennifer Prosek, partner at CJP. “Financial service firms, like every company, need to engage their audience... in unique ways. Digital has offered a new vehicle to companies that weren't thinking of those vehicles before.”
While many might associate video with the absurd fodder that often fills the world's in-boxes, Cleveland says video has an important place in PR and for all of CJP's clients.
“It's important not to associate the... content with its distribution platform,” he says. “I think video, when used by PR as a communications tool, has to have a purpose.” 2001-present CJP Communications, SVP of digital practice
What's Gone Before: Viral videos just hawked brands What's the Innovation: Serial videos people watch like soap-opera episodes Who's Doing It: Spherion
Chances are, most every professional has worked a temp job at one time or another and, chances are, it sucked. Patronizing co-workers, imperious mid-level managers, the endless refrain "make the temp do it"—all are staples of modern white-collar day gigging. So why on earth would an interim-staffing firm want to actually spotlight stuff like this?
In the case of Spherion, it was actually worse than that. The staffing firm hired agency CJP Communications to create a five-episode miniseries for YouTube that portrayed in graphic, eyeball-rolling, detail just about every 9-to-5 nightmare endured by temporary workers. The drama series (which just wrapped its fifth episode in April) is called The Temp Life. Absurd? Sure, and that's why people watched.
Viral video's nothing new, of course, but Spherion opted for a viral video serial that worked much like a TV drama series. The interlocking episodes, said Spherion corporate marketing director Kip Havel, "allowed us to dive deeper. We explored more scenarios, developed a following. People got to know the characters."
Drawn from the ranks of CJP's own employees, series stars included the superlatively bitchy "Paul," who insults a temp by assuming she can't use a photocopier, and "Nick," the midlife-crisis manager whose delusional visions including making his company "the global leader in synthetic cord and casing solutions for the global footwear market." If you had to put up with these people, you'd probably shoot yourself.
Which is exactly the reverse psychology behind the series. By acknowledging that temping is often a rotten gig, Spherion planted the seed with viewers that it could steer them clear of hellish gigs. "We all know that there are plenty of bad temp assignments out there," Havel said. "So the messaging is that we know, we get it, and Spherion is going to offer better experiences."
Thus far, The Temp Life has drawn 60,000 viewers, and while Spherion doesn't have a hard metric to measure returns, Havel said, "It's apparent this is resonating with viewers." What'll be the ultimate fate of this marketing experiment? Tune in next week...
Numerous web series, or 
