When you think about it, most how-to cocktail-mixing videos waste a lot of time. They start out by telling you what glassware you’ll need, as well well what equipment, liquors and mixers. But it’s a video. I don’t need somebody to tell me I’ll need a martini glass; I can see it right there. Nor do I need a host to hold up a bottle of vermouth to the camera. Just say, “Add an ounce of vermouth,” and I’m set.

Each 12 Second Cocktails vid, on the other hand, is essentially a recipe come to life. As the cocktail is being made, you don’t even see the bartender’s face – just a couple of skilled hands mixing, a confident voice narrating, some quick cuts and sped-up film so it’s not the Watch the Cocktail Shaker show, and bam – drink’s ready.

“Well, OK then,” you say. “What’s so great here that I can’t get from just reading the recipe?”  The answer lies in this confession: Each episode of 12 Second Cocktails is actually about 30 seconds long.  The first half consists of a mixing demo, while the second half details a related tip from the bartender. In one episode, for example, first you get a demo of a Manhattan — garnished with a maraschino cherry, then you get a tip that brandied cherries are actually easy to make and a tastier addition to your drink. The Negroni lesson is followed by the inside scoop that sweet vermouth needs to be kept chilled. And so on. The end result is that after each episode, you feel like you’ve gone to mini-bartending school, which makes the series a perfect fit for Hungry Nation, whose target demo is non-pro foodies who like to know their stuff.

Sure, the show lacks any bells or whistles. While a few episodes take place in an actual bar, many are hosted from what looks like someone’s apartment kitchen. But that’s part of the charm. After an episode of 12 Second Cocktails, you feel like you can break out one of these drinks at your next party, tossing it off with, “Here’s a little tip a bartender friend of mine showed me.”  And with a lot of drinks and a lot of “bartender friends” to choose from, you should have enough new mixological tricks up your sleeve to make your guests very happy.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

Set entirely in the white-walled subconscious of comatose accident victim Dan Humford (Rob Delaney), Coma, Period creates a surreal comic fantasy world populated by magicians, naked women, mysterious doors with bad things behind them, and candy bars.  Humford wanders around his own mind, alternately bored, terrified and perplexed by what he finds there.  The result, fueled by Delaney’s pitch-perfect and exuberant performance, is a satisfying blend of dark humor and goofy whimsy — a fusion often attempted in web video that’s rarely done as well as it is here.

In fact, few things in web video are done as well as they are in Coma, Period.  Produced by Lead Balloon, the in-house original content arm of freelance hybrid media studio Psychic Bunny, and shot entirely on greenscreen with a Panasonic HVX200, the series shows the creative savviness and tech pedigree of writer-director Rick Castaneda and Psychic Bunny partners Doug Spice, Asa Shumskas-Tait and Jesse Vigil at every turn. And that’s really what’s noteworthy: It’s not just that Delaney’s performance is so great, or the production values are so professional or that the comedy works so well. All of those things are true, but a lot of series have good actors or funny writers or good use of greenscreen – ”or” being the operative word.  What Coma, Period does, delightfully, is bring “and” into the equation. It has the technical proficiency to make you believe you’re really watching a guy in an endless white room, writing that goes beyond the obvious jokes inherent to the premise, and a lead actor who’s so great at both voiceover and physical acting that you may be a couple of episodes in before you realize you haven’t seen him speak on camera.

And when you watch enough shows shot with greenscreen and post-production effects, you really appreciate it when, say, an actor’s sight line actually looks like it’s going directly to the big, tall, imaginary thing they put in after the shoot was completed.

Each episode of Coma, Period — which runs between two and four minutes long and is released every Wednesday on Strike.tv — contains two segments: an introductory teaser followed by a main story. Castaneda conceived the series as a “comic strip of a show,” and the aesthetic, with punchy visuals and a three-beat story structure reminscent of old-school comic panels, makes for a highly digestible web video format.  But it’s Delaney — previously spotted online in Warner Bros. Responds to Christian Bale — who really makes the series sing with his 100 percent commitment to every emotion, dance number and alter ego that comes his way.

The team at Lead Balloon has already scored some great advance buzz, with articles at Tubefilter and Markee covering both the creative and the technical.  You can even follow Dan Humford on Twitter, although there’s no guarantee as to how frequently he can tweet from within the recesses of his own mind.  (Dan’s mind, by the way, is centered at Ringleader Studios.)  And since the team at Lead Balloon looks shockingly like the team at Psychic Bunny, the end goal is to have the creative freedom of an independent studio while still showing off the skills and resources that Psychic Bunny can provide for hire.  Which, given the quality of Coma, Period, seems like it’s going to work out just fine.

It’s as if new-media-savvy web creators who know how to produce technical quality on a shoestring and web creators with actual creative talent got together and had babies, and those babies made a web series.

In fact, it’s so good we’re almost afraid we’re going to wake up and find out we dreamed the whole thing.  Uh-oh.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

NTV got in touch with Smith to discuss YouTube fame and how he managed to make “cut, copy, paste” into such a catchy lyric, so quickly.

NTV: Tell us about how you found your way to online video.

Smith: I was raised in a musical family; I grew up writing, singing and playing.  When I was about 12, I started making goofy videos with my friends. By the time I was 15 I was doing freelance video full-time.  (ed. note: Smith was homeschooled and balanced video work around his studies.)  In September (of 2008), in hopes of building an audience and working my way into feature films, I started a YouTube channel and began weekly comedy sketches.

NTV: One thing that’s notable is your high production values.  What sort of budget do you normally work with?

Smith: I spent years saving to buy cameras, lights, mics, etc.  A local restaurant caters all of my shoots for free, and most of the time I get free locations, too.  So the videos cost me literally nothing to create.

NTV: You launched your YouTube channel pretty ambitiously with Kidnapped! How did that come about, and how many subscribers did you gain?

Smith:  The Kidnapped! series was created while I was on a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. Chris Torchia (who plays Gabrielle) and I were tossing around the idea of filming a video before I went back home.  This quickly turned into a concept for an entire series. We filmed in six days (minus Bribe2Subscribe on the Street and Captive Music Video).  I was the only crew member and editor, and Chris works 9-5 as a scientist, which meant he couldn’t even film until 6:30 each night. So I would spend the day preparing the script for that night. We’d begin filming at 7:00 pm with the shots that we were in together, then film Chris’s close-ups.  Then, Chris would go home and I’d stay to set up and film my own close-ups. I’ve gained roughly 2,000 subscribers from the series.

NTV: Impressive turnaround time brings us to Got My Mac on with iPhone3GS.  You must’ve had to write much of the lyric after the phone’s release.  How’d you get this video up so quickly?

Smith: I wanted to be the first with a response to the iPhone3GS.  I started digging around online for rumors as to what new features we’d be seeing.  I had my first draft written by Sunday, June 7th.  I wanted the video online by Wednesday, so I needed to start filming immediately, but I knew the 3GS wouldn’t be announced until Monday, which meant there was no way to confirm that any of my lyrics were correct.  So we filmed the parts that weren’t specific to the lyrics (cutaways, iPhone close-ups).  While we were filming, we followed Apple’s keynote live and began reworking my lyrics as they confirmed and debunked the rumors.  We went into the studio, laid down the track, and the next morning, on a few hours of sleep, we filmed the performance shots. I went straight home and edited my tail off, and had my final cut uploaded by the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

NTV: That’s some serious commitment to being first! So what rumors didn’t pan out?

Smith: I had written about a couple things that ended up needing to be changed, such as: a thinner design, GPS/compass integration for advanced geo-tagging of pictures, front facing iSight…things like that. I was a little bummed, to be honest, because I thought the original lyric was much funnier than the one we ended up with. I got attached to it and so I was curious to see if people would still find the song funny or not. It’s hard to know what people will think of something at first impression when you’ve been staring at it for hours and hours.

NTV: 25 Things I Hate About Facebook was such a giant hit — nearly a million views, visits to the Facebook offices and the Tyra show, etc.  Why do you think Got My Mac on with iPhone3Gs has had comparatively modest success?

Smith: The video is getting the amount of exposure I anticipated it would. I’d love to see Apple pick it up, but that’s always a shot in the dark. Believe it or not, 25 Things I Hate About Facebook didn’t take off immediately — it was in its
third week online that it blew up. I think the iPhone3GS video still has some hits coming.

NTV:  Has online video become your full-time occupation?

Smith: I support myself via my YouTube sketches and sponsorships/endorsements, yes. I take freelance work when I need extra money; I outsource most of the work so that I can stay focused on my own projects. It’s hard not knowing when the next paycheck is coming, but if it came down to it, I’d rather live on the street in one of my pelican cases and have time to create than work 9-5.

NTV: What’s ahead for you?

Smith: For the past three months I’ve been in conversation with several networks, agencies, and production companies regarding the possibility for my own TV show.  I can’t give details yet, but I look forward to updating everyone when I can!

Julian Smith releases new video every Friday on YouTube and at JulianSmith.tv.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Report: The Live-Stream Video Market
• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Report: The Enterprise Videoconference Landscape, 2010 – 2015

The series follows college student Jeremiah Whitney as he is charged with the protection of a mysterious box. Jeremiah has long had “feelings” — messages from, well, God (here is where secular audiences have to take a leap of faith, no pun intended).  Turns out Jeremiah is a very special guy indeed, and that box is about to cause him a world of trouble.  Soon, very bad things start happening to people close to him, he finds out his parents have lied to him his whole life, and some pretty violent dudes start chasing him, all dressed in black and wearing fancy Bluetooths and such. Throw in an aggressively sexy female reporter (baddie alert!), a sweetly naive love interest, and those pesky voices, and Jeremiah has a lot on his plate.

What makes Jer3miah worth watching even for those of us who have to stop frequently and Google stuff like “Iron Rod” is not just that it’s a well-crafted mystery, but that it’s a religious thriller that doesn’t take itself seriously all the time. There’s quick dialogue, funny supporting characters…this is a show written for people of strong, observant faith, yes, but it’s also written for college kids who want a fun, engaging piece of new media. And it succeeds on both levels. In the comments sections for the episodes, you’ll see intelligent debates aover how well or poorly the show is addressing Mormon parables, and comments like, “It’s like Lost and Cloverfield had a baby, and the Jer3miah people raised it.”

Created as a class project at BYU by Theater and Media Arts associate professor Jeff Parkin, and produced by Parkin, Jared Cardon and more than 30 students, the series is highly interactive. Not only can fans uncover puzzles and conspiracy information on sites The Davenport Papers (hub of the companion ARG) and Zooby News, but physical clues have been hidden around the BYU campus for students to discover and share. A discussion on the Davenport Papers forum will lead to the discovery that a clue refers to a particular classroom, which leads to various students snooping around and reporting back until one finds a hidden flash drive and uploads its contents for everyone to see. It’s a pretty big leap forward in terms of university-sponsored transmedia content, and yet, the online collaboration between fans is so fervent that you don’t have to be anywhere near the campus to be part of the action.

Sure, there are a few points harder for non-Mormons to swallow. You probably have to come from a background with a long tradition of people having legitimate transcendent experiences and recording them for future generations for instructions like, “This is highly secret. You must tell no one. But it’s important, so record it with that video camera,” to really make sense. And of course, for the non-religious among us, hearing voices is usually considered a bad sign, not an indication you’re on the right path. And by the time we get about halfway through the series, those voices have some pretty disturbing stuff to say. On the other hand, you know what all this leads to? Real drama, with real stakes and real consequences. A character troubled by the demands of the mission that’s been tasked to him. And some very, very difficult choices.

Hey, when celestial smackdowns are a plot possibility, things can get pretty hardcore. And that makes for good web drama.

Will the season finale reveal what is in that @$&* box? What happened to Jeremiah and Claire, his sweet love interest, after their recent vanishing act? And why does everyone on this show have a cell phone, but only evil people have Bluetooth?

Mormon or not, stay tuned.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

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 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.)

What’s not so exciting:

Since the Onfronts are meant to lure advertisers more than viewers, a lot of content partners went for promos rather than previews — meaning faster-than-lightning quick cuts of shows and stars only the already converted would recognize, overlaid with statistics and traffic figures.  Great for showing off your revenue potential, guys, but not great for those of us who are trying to get a glimpse of what to watch.

They’re slickly produced shows that spend more time looking good than selling us on story.  The previews for The Bannen Way and The Fall of Kaden, for instance, look gorgeous but gloss over their own hooks.  Would it really have given away too much to actually mention one of the iron-clad family rules the protagonist of The Bannen Way violates, if the consequences of his breaking those rules are the entire premise of the series?  Similarly, the Kaden preview dances around its own premise with oblique narration — it looks awfully pretty, but what’s it really about?  Newteevee has proven that it can compete with oldteevee when it comes to star power and production values; if you want to win over viewers, you have to do it with story, too.

What looks so awesome we can’t even stand it:

A new season of Easy to Assemble.  Surreal Swedish-flavored musical numbers? Check.  Celeb guest stars aplenty? Check.  Illeana Douglas’ hilarious look at how famous folk might try to live “normal” lives continues to be the most fun you can have in an Ikea.

Angel of Death.  Technically, this promo was not for new content, but probably meant to tie into next month’s DVD release of Season 1.  But we here at NTVS will watch Zoe Bell pulverize everyone in her path until our eyes glaze over, and we’re not a bit ashamed of it.  New or not, there’s just no limit to the number of times you can watch a badass female assassin with a big knife in her head.

Detention.  Quicker than you can say, “Hey…this looks kinda like a Breakfast Club ripoff,” the preview gets funny all on its own terms.  Plus, the series promises a level of clickable interactivity that makes us happy in our nerdy places.

Cambridge Prep.  It’s a soap!  At a prep school!  With vampires!  A vampire prep school soap opera.  That is simply the maximum amount of awesomeness that web video can provide.

With all of the above going on, plus the quality standbys we’ve come to expect from regular standouts like MyDamnChannel, Atom, and Revision3, viewers have an impressive depth of online content from which to pick and choose.  The message at the Onfronts seemed to be that web television is serious business now — and that serious business is translating into some seriously good entertainment.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

In fact, the above is an extreme oversimplification of Life After Lisa, an intriguing little mystery series which, yes, happens to be set at a Baltimore college in the ’80s — but, thanks to writer/producer Elena Moscatt (Jamie’s Way) and director Palmer Enfield, blissfully avoids slamming the audience over the head with a glut of decade-centric cliches. In the first episode, freshman and aspiring reporter Jessie Beaumont arrives at her new dorm and notices that she’s being watched from afar by a mysterious girl.  This is Kapria, who we learn via flashback was good friends with Lisa, the deceased titular former occupant of Jessie’s dorm room.

Not that Jessie knows any of this; she just knows that there’s a surly smoking girl watching her, and that someone has written STAY OUT in lipstick on her dorm room door.  By episode two, she finds a similar message on her bathroom mirror, and she learns about Lisa, who died in a drunken car wreck the previous spring.  But was her death really an accident?

The answer to that question is presumably going to unfold as the series does — if, in fact, Lisa’s death turns out to be a mystery at all.  That’s a big problem here: The show’s been scripted to be filmed in 22 8-minute episodes, which could be cut together into six half-hour episodes for a broadcast series.  And the first two episodes of Life After Lisa — about 15 minutes’ run time — feel like the first half of a half-hour broadcast pilot; it’s the kind of pacing that comes from having plenty of time to tell your story. But web time is different from TV time, and regardless of how many episodes are planned, in the first 15 minutes of a web series, the audience had better know what your series is.  Murder mystery?  Ghost story?  Soap opera?  It’s just not all that clear.

Another thing that’s not clear: Lisa is played in flashbacks by Stephanie Danielson, the same actress who plays Jessie, but why is anyone’s guess, because Jessie proceeds to meet all of Lisa’s old friends and not a single one remarks upon the resemblance, so presumably the two characters are not supposed to look uncannily alike. It’s just odd.

Here’s what’s good: Danielson, who’s compelling in both personas; the dialogue, which falters occasionally on exposition but is overall natural and clever; and the ’80s production design.  This, actually, is one of the most striking attributes of the web series; most films and series set in the ’80s are an explosion of condescending kitsch, jamming every trend into every frame, as if to say, “Weren’t we idiots back then?” But Life After Lisa is designed not with mocking nostalgia, but as if it were filmed in the era in which it’s set. The credits could’ve been lifted out of Degrassi or Saved by the Bell, there’s no Valley-Girl-speak to be heard, and even the wardrobe is refreshingly not over-the-top.

Speaking of the wardrobe, you can find suggestions for how to dress like your favorite characters lurking amid the other great supporting content on the series’ web site.  Extensive character bios and video extras are fun to browse, and the site is easy to navigate, which is pretty smart, given the elaborate Sponsors section, where companies can pony up for product placement and individuals can buy themselves titles like “Awesome Associate Producer.”

It’s clear that Life with Lisa is a production that’s been planned with a lot of careful thought, both on the creative and the business sides.  The 22-episode pacing threatens to be a pitfall, yes, but there’s enough promise here to hook even impatient web viewers.  Still, 20 more episodes = 160 more minutes of viewing, so Life After Lisa has some ground to cover before things get totally tubular.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

The Harper’s Globe site — ostensibly the newly digitized home of the local newspaper of the same name — is full of articles about the Wakefield killings and their aftermath.  (Just one example of the depth of content we loved in our NTVS review.)  And everything old is new again on Harper’s Island, where the danger is supposedly a thing of the past…until Abby Mills (Elaine Cassidy), the groom’s best friend, returns home for the first time since her mother’s murder.  Suddenly, characters are being offed left and right.

It’s a promise straight from the show’s marketing department that at least one character will be killed in every episode.  The premiere — evocatively titled “Whap” — delivers on that promise big time.  And things only get darker and gorier from there.  But for a show with 25 characters and a dense backstory, the pleasant surprise here is not just film-quality chills, but the amount of information that’s delivered in the first hour. 

Too often, pilots ladle on exposition with a heavy-handedness that grinds all action to a halt while characters remind each other of stuff they already know. On Harper’s Island, terrifying flashbacks flit by, old flames are rekindled with a few choice words, hidden betrayals are uncovered with a glance — it’s a lot of story and character bang for the buck from a show that could have been just a by-the-numbers splatterfest.  (Though the pilot does offer some delightfully squishy moments for the bloodthirsty.)  Adding to the appeal is Harper’s Island’s self-contained mystery and guaranteed payoff, which might be just what the doctor ordered in a TV landscape full of viewers frustrated by mythology-heavy and resolution-light fare like Lost and Heroes.

As hinted when the EQAL-produced Harper’s Globe launched, there will be character crossovers between the broadcast show and the web series, and Globe’s just-released fourth episode features the first such appearance, when Harper’s Globe heroine Robin has a run-in with Harper’s Island‘s Ben. Ben is the cousin of Trish, the bride in the destination wedding that kicks off the TV show, and — well, we can’t tell you more, but on a show where most of the cast probably won’t survive the series, deciding whose death and whose survival to root for is probably going to be half the fun, and any extra glimpses of the characters can only enhance the experience. Ben actually figures significantly in the first 10 minutes or so of the Harper’s Island pilot, which means TV viewers coming in fresh will have no trouble following his storyline, and Harper’s Globe fans will have the fun of recognizing a familiar face. 

It’s the first example of how the two shows will integrate — the next will happen in Episode 5 of Harper’s Globe, which will include fallout from some of the carnage of this week’s Harper’s Island — and so far it seems that CBS is succeeding with its attempt to spawns a new generation of web-and-broadcast show pairing, in which each series complements and expands upon the experience of the other.

As the race heats up to crack the mystery first, no doubt fans of both shows will collide, and it will be interesting to see what happens then.   But for now, the premiere of Harper’s Island is not only a promising launch to a new TV show, but a promising glimpse at a world where new and oldteevee actually work together.

Web-television harmony.  Seems worth a small body count.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected Consumer Q4: New Platforms and OTT’s Dynamic Duo Dominated
• Report: The Live-Stream Video Market
• Report: The Connected TV Marketplace

Accepting the award for Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series for The Guild, series creator Day drew thunderous applause from the crowd when she said,

“As an actor, I want to thank all the casting directors and directors and producers who rejected me horribly.  And never hired me.  And didn’t like the way I looked…. Because without them beating me down into the ground and making me depressed, I never would have picked up a pen and written my own thing and did it and gone around [all of them].”

Day went on to say, “I’m a square peg and I’ve been trying to fit into a round Hollywood hole for a very long time,” and said she hoped her success with The Guild would inspire others to create their own opportunities for their art.

Accepting the award for Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series for Dr. Horrible (which Day also starred in), Whedon called himself “the establishment guy,” but went on to say,

“It means a great deal to me that a bunch of people who are not already established, who have not had opportunities or connections, are coming up and making stuff that I adore, and that millions of people are watching.  The television industry right now is in a funky state … while it seems to be slightly falling apart, the Internet seems to be coming up.  I have no idea where they’ll meet, but I know it begins here, and the people here are creating the bedrock of what’s going to be not just the new media, but the media.  And it’s very exciting for me to be a part of that.  You are my heroes.”

The full list of winners presented at the ceremony:

Best Reality Web Series:

The Shatner Project

Best News or Politics Series:

Alive in Baghdad

Best Web Series Host:

Alex Albrecht, Project Lore

Best Male Actor in a Comedy Series:

Neil Patrick Harris, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Best Directing for a Dramatic Series:

Blake Calhoun, Pink

Best Directing for a Comedy Series:

Joss Whedon, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series:

The Guild

Best Hosted Web Series:

EPIC FU

Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series:

Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Best Writing for a Dramatic Web Series:

Jane Espenson, Seamus Kevin Fahey, Ronald D. Moore, Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy

Best Ad Integration in a Web Series:

Back on Topps (Skype)

Best Animation in a Web Series:

The Meth Minute 39

Best Male Actor in a Dramatic Web Series:

Alessandro Juliani, Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemey

Best Female Actor in a Dramatic Web Series:

Rosario Dawson, Gemini Division

Best Guest Star in a Web Series:

Paul Rudd, Wainy Days

Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series:

Felicia Day, The Guild

Best Comedy Web Series:

The Guild

Best Dramatic Web Series:

Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy

Audience Choice Award:

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Editor’s note: NewTeeVee was one of the co-hosts of the Streamy’s Awards, along with Tilzy.TV and TubeFilter.

Harper’s Globe — produced by EQAL, the folks behind a modest little success called lonelygirl15 — is the story of Robin Matthews (the ridiculously adorable Melanie Merkosky), a recent college grad who gets a mysterious job offer to digitize the archives of Harper’s Globe, the local newspaper of Harper’s Island (where the death-at-a-destination-wedding show takes place). Robin’s also tasked with building a social network on the paper’s web site. As she scours old files, her attention is caught by a murder spree that devastated the island seven years ago. And the more she digs, the more dangerous things get. Already, a poster named Dangerous Wreck has uploaded a seriously creepy video, and that out-of-the-blue letter Robin received with the job offer is looking more and more suspicious.

What makes it a “social show?” It’s not so much a simple web series as a constantly interactive site with a social network and daily content updates, where in-show characters upload videos and blogs, and participants can comment, interact with characters, and upload their own content. Every Wednesday, a week’s worth of character content updates gets edited into a new episode — meaning that those following the mystery have a choice to either follow the updates as they unfold during the week, or get a web-show-packaged version weekly.

(A “mystery event,” by the way — in the case of Harper’s Island — is a contained 13-episode series that will wrap up the mystery and reveal all by the run’s end. Think of it as the anti-Lost.)

Much like Harper’s Globe has launched several weeks before Harper’s Island, Robin arrives on the island a few weeks before the events that kick off the TV series. Producers for both platforms are reluctant to confirm how much crossover there will be (for fear of spoilers), but EQAL’s Greg Goodfried and Matt Siegel say that Harper’s Globe Episode Four — which airs the day before the premiere of Harper’s Island — ends with the arrival of the TV series’ fated wedding party, and the events of the first episode of Harper’s Island feature prominently in Harper’s Globe Episode Five. (Also of note is the fact that Jennifer Yale, head writer for Harper’s Globe, just happens to be Harper’s Island Executive Producer Jeffrey Bell’s assistant. So it’s fair to assume the creative teams are in close touch.)

The goal is to have a web experience that enhances the TV show without becoming too interdependent with it — what Goodfried calls, “relevant but not required.” So far, so good; the site and the videos are great-looking and intriguing, there’s extra content scattered around online (like Robin’s college blog), and the forums and comments on the site are heating up.

Newteevee that seems to be making a geniune effort to give us something new. That seems worthwhile enough to justify a small body count along the way, right?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Is There a Future for Original Web Video Shows?
• Shattering the Fourth Wall To Find Web Audiences
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era

The Traditionalists

The Queen of England and the Pope both tend to favor repackaged existing footage over original video. From Queen Elizabeth, there are speeches, public interest tidbits, and of course, the Changing of the Guard. Rounding out the content is an impressive amount of older footage, for those of us not old enough to have caught Her Majesty’s first televised broadcast back in 1957.

The Pope’s channel is dominated by edited snippets of papal speeches or visits accompanied by summarizing voiceover.  The standout here, however, is not the content but the amount and immediacy of content.  The channel is updated every day, often with footage from appearances made only the day before. The cropped length of the videos also displays a fairly savvy knowledge of online attention spans.

The Web Superstars

With a streamed inauguration, weekly video addresses that launched while he was still a mere President-elect, and at least three YouTube channels (the still-updating campaign channel BarackObamadotcom, transition news channel ChangeDotGov, and the official White House channel), President Barack Obama has used online video as a way to underscore his stated commitment to greater transparency in the U.S. government.  And in doing so, he’s also taken US presidential accessiblity in its greatest leap forward since FDR debuted the Fireside Chat.

Taking accessibility even further is Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, who — in stark contrast to his less-interactive monarch — has a new feature on his YouTube channel called Ask the PM, in which he responds to questions from YouTube users. Via some slick widgetry, Brown’s response actually launches as soon as the question video ends, adding to the feel of a real conversation between politico and voters.  In an era when most candidates are still adjusting to debates with YouTube-contributed questions, Ask the PM is especially notable for being so very casual about being so high-tech.

Queen Rania of Jordan‘s “Send Me Your Stereotypes” campaign (see our NTVS review here) attempted to cross cultural boundaries while offering more interaction with a royal than any previous generation has seen. The result won her YouTube’s first ever Visionary Award.  Queen Rania no longer updates her channel as regularly as she did during the initial campaign, but she does post videos when she wishes to raise awareness for an issue, such as aid to war-torn Gaza.

Speaking of Gaza, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign affairs created a YouTube channel to address backlash against Israel’s actions there.  Launched just two days after the Israel Defense Forces’ more combat-heavy channel, the Minstry’s offering divides its focus between videos of ordinary Israeli citizens offering aid, medical care and friendship to the citizens of Gaza, and messages from spokespeople explaining Israel’s Gaza actions and policies (in multiple languages, including Arabic).

In very different ways, all have managed to tap into the intimacy of online video.   None of them shy away from a political stance; they are not merely affirming a presence or touching base with “fans,” but trying to establish a voice online as strong as those of their detractors.  Their confident and aggressive forays into the medium set the bar for future leaders to define their own online presence, on their own terms.

The Surprises

Strangely enough, the royal family with one of the strongest online presences, The Royal Family of Serbia, is not, in fact, currently in ruling power.  (And they haven’t been since Communists took over Yugoslavia in 1945.)   Nonetheless, in addition to regular updates for their countrymen, their YouTube channel has yearly English-language videos from both the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess, each filled with informative narrative about the country, their humanitarian efforts, and their year in general.  Which is quite a bit more than a lot of “official” royal families contribute.

Like the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Church, has some videos that are simply short packages of existing speeches.  However, he also posts regular “reflections” on religious, historical, and current matters, in which he speaks directly and casually to the camera.  Unlike the easily digestible videos on the Pope’s channel, these pieces can run 7-10 minutes, but the effect is that of having a sitdown with your own personal clergyman, a one-on-one sermon. The Holocaust Memorial Day message takes the concept even further, with the Archbishop having a quiet chat with two rabbis, giving the impression that we’re merely eavesdropping on a few men of faith having a private conversation.

The Rest

Many other royal families do have web sites, but their video content tends to be limited.  (The Royal Family of the Netherlands‘s site, for instance, has more to offer in the way of palace virtual tours than it does actual royal video.)  Japan’s previous Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukada, used the Liberal Democratic Party‘s channel to broadcast in English, while his successor, Taro Aso, delivered his New Year’s address only in (subtitled) Japanese, but both have limited themselves to the basic annual-speech-from-behind-a-desk format.  And while both branches of Congress now have YouTube channels, they have only a handful of videos between them.  (Though Nancy Pelosi does indulge in the occasional bit of online whimsy.)

Other channels making serviceable use of the YouTube stage are those of Canadian PM Stephen Harper and the United Nations.  Harper posts regular addresses and press conferences, along with holiday greetings celebrating various cultures.  The UN site has, among other features, a daily update shedding light on a particular crisis somewhere in the world.  And still more world leaders are dipping a toe in the waters, contributing videos to the Davos Debates or the In My Name campaign, or participating in one-offs like Ugandan Vice President Dr. Gilbert Bukenya’s visit to YouTube headquarters last May.

As the world gets ever bigger, leaders of all sorts are realizing they must embrace new media to stay connected to the people they want to reach.   Of course, crafting a message for the world online is as much about spin as it is anywhere else.  For some leaders, online video will truly be a way to be more accessible to their people; for others, it may ultimately be just a high-tech vehicle for propaganda.  And for most, the truth will lie somewhere in the middle.  But 24-hour news cycles and leaders’ most vocal critics have been online for years, and public figures know that for better or worse, it’s time to get their voices and faces out there.

The world will be watching.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• In Q4, Data Centers, Not the Cloud, Were the Big Story

We have not yet been able to obtain a comment from ABC on the topic, but we spoke to Benny and Rafi Fine via instant messenger for a more detailed take.

NewTeeVee:  Let’s get a quick background on how long you’ve been doing this series.

The Fine Brothers: We shot the first episode in December 2007; it went up in January of 2008, coinciding with the season 4 premiere of Lost.  We did five episodes of the first season, and on YouTube, Break and other sites, those episodes have over 4.5 million views to date.

NewTeeVee:  And can you talk a little about the process of shooting the show?

The Fine Brothers: Shooting an episode takes a good 6-8 hour day.  We shot the first season on an original Panasonic DVX 100.  The second season is being shot on a Panasonic HVX.  We shoot ground level to scale, trying to make it look as real and lifelike as possible.  We treat the series as if it’s live action, complete with script and shot sheet.

NewTeeVee:  On to the real devil’s advocate question: Isn’t it possible for two different creators to come up with a “let’s recap/parody Lost with action figures” concept?

The Fine Brothers: First of all, we don’t know or claim that they 100 percent stole this idea from us.  We think there’s thought in the web community that we are upset and/or thinking of legal recourse about this, which is not at all how we feel.  We know they own the intellectual property rights and can, of course, legally do this web series.

NewTeeVee: Obviously, without knowing who created the video for ABC, it’s difficult to know whether they had the opportunity to even view your content.  (ABC was not able to provide a comment in time for this story.)   Though you’ve certainly had a good deal of media coverage for your series.

The Fine Brothers:  It’s been featured not only on nearly every major video site but the top Lost fansites and top TV blogs, including Deadline Hollywood Daily and Sports Illustrated.  Even Heroes star Greg Grunberg (who appeared in the premiere episode of Lost) Twittered and posted the first episode of our second season on his web site.

NewTeeVee: Ultimately, it’s rare that you find a “paper trail” between two similar pieces of web content, as AgencySpy did with HBO’s PostSecret-esque site Web of Secrets.  More often it’s a case of similarities that straddle the line between coincidence and suspicion … like College Humor’s take on the Bud Light Superbowl ad that was awfully reminiscent of a Whitest Kids U Know sketch.   In your case, what caught your attention about the Lost Untangled style?

The Fine Brothers: For starters, the shaking toys just offscreen, like we do – this no-budget way of doing things is not common for networks; figure-based content (like Robot Chicken for example) is almost always stop-motion with animated mouths.  Secondly, Lost to date has not created much blatantly comedic content for their show.  Whoever would have thought that a show that take’s itself so seriously would lampoon itself in the first place.  And to not only take this comedic route, but to do it with action figures …

NewTeeVee:  In the end, though, it’s not so much that you’re accusing ABC of anything; you’re lamenting the opportunity that was lost because they didn’t come to you for the Untangled videos.  Even if they’d never heard of you or Lost: What Will Happen Next, your feeling is that it would have been a much smarter move on ABC’s part to seek out someone already making successful Lost-related web content, right?

The Fine Brothers: We would have jumped to do it, and we know we would have been able to produce an even better product than they made themselves, based off our experience.  Not only that, but we had the ability get the video seen by more people online, not only because of our connections and following but because of the great success story it would have been for Internet filmmakers.  This is the central point we want the web community to understand: that this had the opportunity to be this great moment where the creativity and out-of-the-box thinking of web video led to a network and show wanting to legitimize it … which would have ultimately helped us help them get more people to watch their show.

NewTeeVee: Bottom line — will Lost: What Will Happen Next continue?

The Fine Brothers:  Of course!  We’re in production with JustForLaughs.com on the second season.  It remains to be seen what impact Lost Untangled will have on our show — if sites that post our series will opt not to do so now that they have an “official” action figure show to promote weekly.   But we had a very succesful premiere episode of Season Two, with over 200,000 views so far.

NewTeeVee:  And, of course, you have something Lost Untangled doesn’t: On your island, everyone from Gandalf to Heroes characters can drop in.  That’s got to be worth several thousand extra views right there.

The next episode of Lost: What Will Happen Next premieres on Just for Laughs on Feb. 23.  New installments of Lost Untangled are slated to appear weekly during post-Lost episodes of Life on Mars and at ABC.com.

Update: Rafi Fine’s name was spelled wrong when we first published this story; it has been corrected.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

Either Russia really is running nefarious energy experiments and flirting dangerously with the space time continuum, and the only people capable of uncovering it are a covert group of operatives who like to Twitter, or…something viral is afoot.   And Netizens are picking up the scent.

In fact, as blog dosdotzero uncovered via some pretty nifty detective work, this is all a campaign for Activision’s new first-person shooter game Singularity, steered by ad agency DDB and video-seeding maestros Feed Company.  The intrepid forum posters at Unfiction have uncovered even more content, including Flickr and Facebook accounts for Natasha.  They also found another site, named Katorga 12 after the creepy island in question (and the in-game, tell-all book of the same name, whose author was killed under suspicious circumstances), which turns out to be the home of the Singularity trailer. Ah, yes, it’s all coming together.

Adding to the depth of content are nice little touches like Natasha’s Facebook friend, Emily, corresponding with curious online sleuths, and alxnder12, the YouTube poster of the assassination video, adding as “Favorites” actual Russian news stories that might catch the eye of an international conspiracy theorist.  Yes, critics are already cropping up and taking swipes at the original video’s production values, the shakiness of some of the Russian translations, and the unlikelihood of anything very terrible happening with Einsteinium (the ominously referenced Element 99), no matter how far amok scientists might run with it.  And sure, when you’re promoting a shooter, sooner or later you’re going go have to step away from the backstory and show some, you know, shooting.  But these are still early days, and so far, this seems to be a pretty well-orchestrated campaign that’s already doing what it’s supposed to do: It’s got people talking.  

Stay tuned. And keep an eye out for mad Russian scientists. Just in case.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• A 2011 Connected Consumer Forecast
• A 2011 NewNet Forecast

Produced in association with UK-based charity The Wellcome Trust as part of Darwin 200, a nearly year-long program of events celebrating Charles Darwin’s bicentennial, Routes could have been as dry as it is ambitious. But it’s not, thanks to a cheeky attitude, a fun web site, and — most of all — the undeniable appeal of its star, Canadian comedienne Katherine Ryan.

In Routes, Ryan — a two-time cancer survivor who was recently diagnosed with lupus — submits to genetic testing, kicking off an eight-episode journey into her own genetic map. Charming, vulnerable and irreverent, Ryan comes off as a nice, funny person who’s had a lot of bad luck, health-wise. So by the end of the first episode, we’re invested right along with her in finding out how much of that “bad luck” is luck after all, and how much more of it may be lurking in her future.

Episode Two, to be released Feb. 2, kicks off the genetic investigation, as Ryan sends a tube of saliva for testing and puzzles over the initial results, eventually meeting “Scientist and Mate” Greg at a pub for a quick consultation. This is where the second half of Routes’ appeal kicks in; explanations come by way of casual conversations and joking banter, rather than droning narrations and static slide shows. It feels easy and unforced, capturing the fly-on-the-wall intimacy of good documentary filmmaking.

The Routes web site has some great supporting content — games, contests, extra science know-how — with promises of more to be added every week. The games will allow players to accumulate points, with top scorers every week entered into a drawing to win a Playstation 3. What’s more, as the site’s FAQ teases, there is a yet-to-be-revealed “star” prize: “All we can say now is that five lucky players who have really played will get to go behind the scenes of Routes.”

Smart science, wrapped in a highly watchable series and delivered with a side of cool interactive content? It’s enough to make a true web nerd shiver with delight. But the great thing about Routes is that there’s plenty for everyone to enjoy…even those whose “geek gene” is, sadly, dormant.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories

The Remnants from John August on Vimeo.

The Remnants already has a promise from NBCUni Digital via 60Frames for its distribution, but that deal is contingent on the show finding a sponsor.  So far, one has yet to materialize.  With material this good, why? And what other options does the show have?

August laid out some interesting facts about the production.  First, and perhaps most unusually for a web series, from the six-person cast to the crew of 15, everyone got paid.  Together with the cost of shooting, the budget stands at $25,003, which as August said, is on the high end for a web series but really, really cheap for a TV show. In a perfect world, August said, he would produce a 10-episode run, a possibility he has been able to “mentally [move]…from the ‘Impossible’ to ‘Unlikely’ box” as a result of all the fan support. But he still cites numerous obstacles, like increasing tightness in his own schedule as well as that of the rest of the team. And of course there’s that age-old investor question he’d have to answer: “How would we make our money back?”

Combined with distribution costs, a series like The Remnants could take 5 million clicks just to break even, said Darryl LaRue, EVP of operations at Broadband Enterprises. At last check, the pilot (without any promotion) had clocked just 28,800 views on Vimeo, which doesn’t share ad revenue with members.

August said the main problem was that The Remnants didn’t score a major advertiser.  Both LaRue and Richard Frias, co-president of Digital Content Partners, said that the best way to sell to a single sponsor is to do so on paper, before shooting begins. Frias thought someone of August’s caliber should have been able to draw money from the start, while as LaRue pointed out, pitching beforehand allows creators to tailor content to an advertiser’s specific needs, making a sale easier. 

On the other hand, Corey Kronengold, senior director of marketing & communications at Tremor Media, said any initial product placement/sponsorship model can “get in the way of a long-term monetization strategy.”  If an episode is built around a specific product, it will have trouble being resyndicated elsewhere with new sponsors.  Frias is also a proponent of the long-term monetization plan, adding licensing of foreign rights and merchandising to the list of possible revenue streams.   But without knowing the details of the NBC deal, it’s hard to know what options are available.

Everyone we spoke to agreed with August on one thing: It seems nearly impossible that all the original talent could be brought back together. (The pilot was made during the writers’ strike, and everyone has since gone back to work.) While having well-known names as web series headliners can go a long way toward raising cash, there’s no model for locking in talent the way there is with TV pilots.  If the money doesn’t flow right away, the big names move on to new projects.  It’s a downfall we’re likely to see more of as two trends continue to rise in online video: the demand to lock in money well in advance of producing new episodes, and the interest of major TV and film talent in branching out to the web.

Given that the experts we surveyed more or less make a living working this sort of thing out, they tended to disagree with August’s assessment that there’s no business model in online video yet.  But unfortunately for fans, August does seem to be spot on with the “Unlikely” call.  Unless something pretty miraculous happens, it seems that — for the foreseeable future, anyway — the remnants of The Remnants are all we’re going to get.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Report: The Ongoing Battle for the Digital Home

It’s not that Star-ving isn’t funny. In fact, each episode kicks off with a hilariously brutal recap of the show’s premise, narrated by Faustino — he’s broke, his wife left him for Coolio, his only income is from a porn shop left to him by a fan, his BFF is fellow has-been Corin Nemec (Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), and he’s freakishly short (“Thanks, God!”). Problem is, the episodes fail to deliver on the lead-in. We don’t see Faustino getting dumped for Coolio. We don’t see the crazed fan willing him the porn shop. Instead, we see Faustino hitting up Ed O’Neill for a load while O’Neill says “f*ck” a lot. It’s funny — who doesn’t want to see Ed O’Neill saying “f*ck” a lot? — but it’s a one-note joke, and once that note is spent, I’m left waiting for the other fun stuff to kick in.

Next week’s episode improves on this week’s, with stellar guest turns by Seth Green and O’Neill and Faustino’s other MwC co-stars, Christina Applegate and Katey Segal. But with Star-ving, even the good stuff goes on a little too long. From the fun bits to the we’re-just-here-for-the-shock-value, envelope-pushing bits (man the word “midget” gets used a lot), this show simply needs a more brutal hand in the editing bay in order to really shine.

Plus, seriously, two episodes with no porn shop shenanigans and the smallest possible glimpse of Coolio? That’s just stingy. (Though Faustino’s amusingly inept attempts at suicide are a fun running gag.)

Crackle, with its unique fusion of original content and established Sony product, is absolutely on the cutting edge of new media. I just wish a little more cutting (and shaping) had gone on with Star-ving.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks