The Fine Brothers have a long-established reputation for trying new things with web content, from experimenting with interactive YouTube games to creating a whole fake social network to support a series about social media profiles. And this year, they’re using YouTube’s money to create not just a show, but a fully immersive social media experience — as well as not one but three show-within-a-shows.

The premise of MyMusic is relatively simple: The primary series, an Office-esque sitcom, charts the wacky antics of a transmedia production company focused on music, shot in semi-regular blocks.

On top of that, though, there are three side series being produced every week: The Mosh, an interactive Q&A series, music news show MyMusic News, and a live variety show featuring comedians and musicians (past guests include The Jezebels and Rhett and Link).

Each show is hosted by at least one of the show’s characters, who also have vibrant social media profiles across a minimum of three social networks — each. Between Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and Twitter, that’s a total of 25 profiles, each being updated multiple times daily. According to co-creator Benny Fine via IM, there are over 40,000 people following the characters and the company on services outside of YouTube.

Making it happen, said Fine, are 11 full-time staffers “wearing many hats,” including two full-time writers whose duties include the social media element.

“To do this ambitious project with three weekly shows you need manpower, and it’s still not enough,” Fine added. To accomodate the demanding production schedule, the Brothers have had to scale back on their other series, including Kids React and Spoilers.

The cast includes a mix of TV-born and web-born talent, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer villain Adam Busch and My Damn Channel It Girl Grace Helbig. “We really wanted a mix of more traditional TV actors to mix in with YouTube talent, continually wanting to show talent is talent no matter where it originates,” Fine said.

Along the theme of mixing TV and web styles: The comedy component of MyMusic is released as short-form episodes every Sunday. But then, once every seven weeks, the preceding episodes will be cut together as a TV sitcom-length catch-up episode — certain scenes will even be reshot to make sure that the catch-up episode works as a seamless experience.

Thus, by the end of MyMusic‘s 49-week first season, the team will have created a six-episode season of a TV series, “written in a way to have the content fully work as a web series or a sitcom,” Fine said. “We’re the only one in [the Made For Web] initiative, to our knowledge, making a full-on sitcom.”

Since the show’s launch a month ago, the MyMusic channel has racked up over 2.2 million views across all its various series. Is that enough to be considered a success? The Fine Brothers are torn. According to Rafi Fine, “Views are one thing, but who’s to say what number makes advertisers come on board, make YouTube happy and make a sustainable business to keep the show going?”

But for Benny, “Having 100,000 views an episode or more, all year long, for a scripted show online is not something that’s really been done. And being able to see the tens of thousands that are so engaged with this world — that’s success to me as an artist.”

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But CafeMom, a web community for moms that is also now one of the latest participants in YouTube’s Made For Web channel initiative, believes that it has a unique approach for its YouTube channel.

“I’d disagree that there’s been plenty of video content targeted towards moms. I think there’s been a lot of video created for brands who want to reach moms,” CafeMom EVP of content Tracy Odell said via email. “I think it’s extremely important to get the voice right. We’ve got the largest community of moms in the country on CafeMom and we’re listening to moms all day every day, hearing what they’re talking about how they talk about these topics.”

So far, viewcounts for CafeMom series aren’t stellar; three months ago, a series of videos featuring Suzanne Somers racked up six-figure viewcounts, and some controversial topics do attract real attention. But most of the shows making up the channel’s new line-up of programming hover in the 1,000-6,000 range.

But its line-up does feature some unique concepts. On Broadway, With Kids, a series about what it’s like to be a Broadway professional and a parent, caught my interest, as well as Our Special Life, which focuses on families raising special needs children.

The latter show came directly from the CafeMom community, according to Odell: “We asked moms what kind of show they’d like to see, and they told us they wanted to see a show about families raising special needs kids because they want to know life is like for these moms.” Several Special Life episodes have five-figure viewcounts, making it one of CafeMom’s most successful new series.

Key to CafeMom’s approach is building a subscriber base — “our new slate of programming includes verbal callouts from all our hosts asking viewers to subscribe to our channel,” Odell said — and they’ve reportedly seen accordingly a 25 percent increase in subscribers per month since January. In addition, they’ve noted a 241 percent increase in monthly positive engagement over that time.

Really, the most important part of CafeMom’s approach is this: “The exciting thing about producing a channel on YouTube is that we can use minute to minute data to analyze what’s working and what’s not,” Odell said. “We are embracing this opportunity to try different types of programming and… discover what moms really want to watch.”

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The show, co-hosted by ubiquitous representative of online culture iJustine, features six teams competing against each other in various challenges. Not much new there. The real innovation, though, happens through the official website, created by digital ad agency Rokkan, which allows viewers not only to interact with the contestants, but also to actually participate in the competition as members of “virtual teams,” helping their favorite duo win challenges. In addition, the site tracks contestants’ rankings, which is where things get interesting.

In the first episode of the show, Escape Routes quickly introduces viewers to the teams: six pairs of photogenic young people (seriously, one team consists of two models). And while the teams are given arbitrary names based on the color of their product-placed cars, the White Team is far better known online as #TeamYouTube. Brett Lemick and Ross Everett, known on YouTube as BrettTheIntern and TheRossEverett, have both worked with YouTube talent company Maker Studios‘s network of channels.

This online presence gave them an early leg up in building their virtual team. “As soon as they were cast on the show, they started encouraging the audience they already had to follow the show — they hit the ground running,” Rokkan VP of Technology Jim Blackwelder said in a phone interview. In the premiere, as contestants struggle to engage their social networks to solve a basic challenge, Lemick and Everett are shown easily setting up their live feed and interacting with fans.

With support from other YouTubers like ShayCarl (a Maker Studios co-founder), Lemick and Everett are dominating the competition. On the eve of the final episode, the pair were in second place, but they’ve been in first place in previous weeks. And here’s the most important metric: They currently have over 8,400 fans on the site, by far the most out of the other teams (brother musicians Drew and Derek have the second highest number of fans at approximately 4,200).

That matters to Rokkan because one of the primary ways the company measures success for this branded content is through site traffic. While the official site’s use of Ford logos and language is relatively subdued, “Every moment on the site is engagement with the brand,” Rokkan CEO John Noe said via phone.

The product placement is blatant but this level of online and offline engagement is intriguing. If this sort of audience interactivity is the future of reality TV, then casting directors might want to rely heavily on YouTube creators going forward. Because when it comes to challenges based on building an online audience, the advantage an experienced YouTuber has is distinctly unfair.

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The new iteration, Black Box TV: Silverwood, premiered last Friday, taking the original premise of the Twilight Zone-esque anthology series and adding a new layer of mythology. As creator Tony Valenzuela described it in a phone interview, “We’re setting up The Twilight Zone inside the world of Twin Peaks.” While episodes will remain ostensibly stand-alone, there will be a number of recurring characters (including the actual “Black Box”), some unifying visual elements and an additional level of narrative to connect episodes for repeat viewers.

All this extra storytelling means a major change in length; whereas episodes of the original series ranged from five to seven minutes, installments of the new series now range around 15 minutes — a change in part inspired by YouTube during the Made For Web pitch process, Valenzuela said.

“The audience wanted us to do longer content — they felt like [the episodes] were too short. But we could only do longer stuff if we had sponsorship. So when YouTube said they were looking for longer storytelling, I was like, ‘I’m your man,’” he said.

According to Valenzuela, Zuiker was originally interested in developing Black Box for television, but when Valenzuela got the opportunity to pitch to YouTube, they chose to instead go in that direction. “[YouTube] understands that creators and producers need more autonomy,” Zuiker said. “They’ve provided us a great safe haven of creativity.”

Zuiker is no stranger to the Internet — in addition to working on one of the most popular shows on television, he had previously created the Level 26 “digi-novel” series, which used text, web and video components to bring its serial killer-focused narrative to life. He initially discovered Black Box TV by accident, during a bout of web browsing, and was immediately impressed. “He was doing such great visceral work with a very small crew and inexpensive price,” Zuiker said in a phone interview, “and had such a ferocious understanding about the rhythm of his audience. The voice was very very unique — I really appreciated the genre chances he was taking.”

To the creative process, Valenzuela said, “[Zuiker] brought a lot of character development, plus he has a really high taste level — he always wants to make sure that the second act is as good as the first.”

While Valenzuela and Zuiker are still working out the programming plans, the current approach is to post a new original epsiode every other Saturday, with alternating Saturdays reserved for other types of content, potentially contributed by other directors.

Zuiker and Valenzuela are each “presenting” a certain number of episodes for the channel over the next year — according to Zuiker, he’ll be behind 10-12 episodes, while Valenzuela will produce 35 to 38. Next Saturday is a “true story” tale of the BBTV team visiting Linda Vista Hospital, “the most haunted place in America.”

And of course, it all comes courtesy of YouTube. “They are taking a very aggressive and very ambitious approach in taking care of creators, so we can push the envelope as best we can,” Zuiker said.

“I don’t know if I could have kept making stuff for YouTube if they hadn’t been so supportive since the beginning,” Valenzuela said. “The ability to push a… button and upload to YouTube has changed my life.”

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Created by Jeff Koenig, the premise of Drifter could be boiled down to “boy meets girl.” Except the story takes place 150 years from now, and the “girl” in this case (Julie Ann Emery, also a producer and co-writer) is an artificial intelligence manifesting as a character in an interactive TV show, a show the boy (Darren Le Gallo) is watching while lost in space with 12 days to live. There’s also a Battlestar Galactica-esque subplot focusing on a military commander trying to save the lost astronaut and handle the political opposition to the mission — making for a unique combination of genre and tone.

Given how complicated the premise is, the Drifter pilot will not be a short one; Koenig expects it to run about half an hour. The lineup currently attached to the project is full of hardened veterans of the web series wars — the cast includes Anyone But Me star Rachel Hip-Flores and prolific creator Al Thompson, and attached to direct is Pink and Continuum creator Blake Calhoun. Even behind the scenes, Safety Geeks creator Tom Konkle is set to work on effects, and music will be composed by IAWTV award winner Rob Gokee.

But if this sounds intriguing, prepare to open your wallet. The only way to watch the Drifter pilot will be to contribute to Drifter‘s crowd-funding campaign, currently being run through the site Mobcaster; even contributing one dollar gets donors access to the completed pilot online. The reason for this is that the pilot will not be receiving a wide release — instead, it’ll be used for pitching to networks (as well as companies like Hulu and Netflix) as a step towards a full release.

Koenig and Emery, via phone, were both upfront about their hopes that Drifter would find a home on television — Emery said her first choice would be Syfy, while Koenig mentioned the BBC as another possibility. “My dream is for it to be on television,” Emery said. “The appeal is very broad — it’s a sci-fi show that women are going to want to see, that couples are going to watch together.”

Mobcaster is a relatively new entrant in the crowdfunding genre of sites, billing itself as Kickstarter for independent television. While that might sound redundant, as Kickstarter has funded plenty of indie projects, the site differentiates itself with a smaller number of projects. “We’re not competing against nearly as many other projects, and we’ll be featured the whole duration of our campaign,” Koenig said. Like Kickstarter, Mobcaster takes five percent of all funds raised, with an all-or-nothing approach.

As of writing, the Drifter team has raised over $1,300 of its $25,000 goal, with almost two months left to go. If they don’t reach their goal, Koenig says that while they would have to reschedule this summer’s shoot, they would move forward in another direction. “The nice thing about having this producing team is that we don’t want to do this as a branded entertainment product, but if the campaign doesn’t work out, we have other options we can explore,” Koenig added.

The stakes for Drifter are therefore pretty high, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. “If the project goes to network, we believe it will validate the idea that web series creators have the skills (if not the resources) to compete with TV head on,” Koenig said. “If the project is released online, we believe that instead will validate that audiences are ready for original TV format programming — a bet that Hulu and Netflix are also making.”

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Distrify

Founders: Peter Gerard (CEO) and Andy Green
Founded: June 2011 (soft launch)
Content it hosts: Primarily feature-length films, though there are plans available for short films and web series
Can any creator use it? Yes.
What the creator gets: 70 percent of every sale. If anyone registered as an affiliate shares a film, however, they receive 10 percent of the revenue for all sales made from that location, which Distrify and the creator split equally. The first film you upload to Distrify is free — uploading subsequent films costs $3.17 per month per film.
What it costs the viewer: Creators set their own pricing.
What makes it different? According to international business manager Stephen Green via email, “Distrify puts rights holders in complete control… You can sell films on our platform, and use our technology to build your own platform. Our affiliate scheme incentivizes sharing, so your platform is not just a destination, it’s a launchpad for the viral distribution of your films. We have placed a payment gateway within the Player, and by aligning the point of discovery with the point of sale, a film-lover doesn’t have to leave that site to buy or watch the film. It’s quite simply the easiest way to watch a film.”

Dynamo

Founders: Will Coghlin and Rob Millis (Millis runs Dynamo full-time)
Founded: March 2010
Content it hosts: Primarily independent film, though not exclusively — examples including the web series Anyone But Me, which used the player for a fundraising drive.
Can any creator use it? Yes.
What the creator gets: 70 percent of each sale.
What it costs the viewer: Creators set their own prices, as well as the length of rental period.
What makes it different? According to Millis via email, “Dynamo Player offers producers and distributors the fastest, most effective way to offer online rentals on their own sites, Facebook pages and anywhere else online without any up-front cost. Simply upload, set your price and then embed the video player on your own site or anywhere else online. We give you total control over pricing, rental period, geoblocking, and the ability to include all the bonus content you want, or bundle a complete season of episodes for a single price.”

Just the Story.tv

Founders: Carter Mason (CEO) and Matthew Arevalo (COO)
Founded: February 2012
Content it hosts: Web originals including previously-released series like Asylum, GOLD, and Vampire Zombie Werewolf. This spring, JTS will have the exclusive on the first seasons of Generic Girl and Continuum, as well as the second season of Jeff Lewis 5-Minute Comedy Hour.
Can any creator use it? JTS is curated, but creators can submit their series for consideration.
What the creator gets: A certain percentage of 50 percent of the subscription revenue, determined by viewcounts. As Mason explains via email, “If a show got 10 percent of the views in March, it will receive 10 percent of the creator’s pool. 50 percent of all subscription revenue we receive goes into the pool.”
What it costs the viewer: $3.99 a month for unlimited access.
What makes it different? According to Mason, “We’re more like HBO for Independent television than other distribution platforms out there for web series. In fact, ‘distribution platform’ probably does not accurately describe JTS.TV, and we prefer to be characterized as a premium independent tv network… While we do try to look at anything sent our way, we select our shows, screening them for quality and the willingness of the show’s producers to work within the JTS.TV system. We get several submissions weekly from producers who would like their show to be on JTS.TV, and most of them do not meet the high bar we set.”

Prescreen

Founders: Shawn Bercuson, Dan Rummel, Tyler Seymore, John Smart, Wes Donohoe, Lee Wilson
Founded: September 2011
Content it hosts: A limited selection of independent films, which are available for at least 60 days. Titles include From Time to Time, starring Maggie Smith and Dominic West, and the Australian blockbuster Tomorrow, When the War Began.
Can any creator use it? Prescreen is a curated service, but filmmakers can submit their work for consideration.
What the creator gets: 50 percent of the revenue from the film.
What it costs the viewer: Film prices range from $2-$8 (usually $4).
What makes it different? According to Rummel via email, “For the consumer, we pride ourselves on a curated selection of films, some of which are pre-theatrical and/or exclusive. Also we are a highly social platform that provides exclusive access to filmmakers and members of the cast. For the film industry, we collect unprecedented amounts of data that will enable the film industry to rejuvenate and optimize both their marketing and investment strategies.”

VHX for Artists

Founder/CEO: Jamie Wilkinson and Casey Pugh
Founded: March 2012
Content it hosts: Aziz Ansari released his new stand-up special through the service just this week; the program is not yet open to other creators.
Can any creator use it? Limited to a project-by-project basis, though Wilkinson hopes to open it up to all in the future, and welcomes creators to email artists@vhx.tv for more information.
What the creator gets: “We have not finalized costs or revenue sharing specifics, but we like the Kickstarter model: sharing in the profits invests us in our artists, because we share in their success,” Wilkinson said via email.
What it costs the viewer: TBD — Ansari, like Louie CK before him, is charging $5 for his special.
What makes it different? According to Wilkinson, “[Pugh] and I have a long history with Internet video and online communities, and our goal is to help both consumers and creators achieve media nirvana in an increasingly post-TV environment. What differentiates VHX and our technology is a laser-focus on the video and the user experience… Success stories like Kickstarter and Louis CK’s special really demonstrate the latent economic power that exists inside fan communities. It’s clear that if you take a new approach to Internet distribution — ditch old-media-mandated DRM and region-restrictions, and just make it easy for people to buy your awesome videos — that people are not only willing but excited to support artists directly. In the process consumers get a much better experience — fast, restriction-free, easier than torrenting! — and artists make more money and retain more control.” UPDATE: Also, Wilkinson adds, “We actually provide downloadable files! We’ve seen incredible response to that one small fact. People want to own it, put it on their PS3, iPad, Xbox, Kindle Fire… we’ve been really quite amazed.”

Watchbox

Founder/CEO: Jerad Anderson, Matthew Staver, Tienshiao Ma
Founded: January 2012
Content it hosts: Films, short films and web series, including 100 Monkeys – Live in Concert and the web series Whole Day Down, starring Sex and the City‘s Willie Garson.
Can any creator use it? Yes.
What the creator gets: 50 percent of the rental price.
What it costs the viewer: Creators set their own pricing, with a minimum price tag of $1.99.
What makes it different? According to Anderson, “We allow any content owner to upload to the site and set a price for rent. We give content owners total control of their content and provide a dashboard for analytics and transparency.”

Any more we should consider adding? Let us know in the comments!

Picture courtesy of Flickr user edenpictures.

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Over the past few months, head of talent management Sarah Evershed and CEO Steve Raymond have transformed what was once called The Cloud Media into Big Frame, a hybrid production/management company focused on, in Raymond’s words, “helping creators find their voices and build their audiences.”

As part of that, Big Frame has launched Bammo, a YouTube channel aimed at those who “want to create cool video content,” according to Raymond. With a production team headed up by Streamin’ Garage founder Mike Rotman, Bammo is currently putting out five shows a week, headed up by known YouTubers, under the following schedule:

• Monday: Tay Zonday‘s Lock Out
• Tuesday: DeStorm‘s Upgraded
• Wednesday: Mike Diva Presents
• Thursday: Mystery Guitar Man‘s Sandbox
• Friday: Behind the scenes of Bammo’s upcoming web series Sync

Sandbox is the clearest example of Bammo’s focus on helping aspiring creators improve their content — each week, Mystery Guitar Man introduces a theme challenge put to the YouTube community, such as “time” or “backwards,” and selects four favorites to showcase. It’s an interesting premise, enhanced by a smart use of YouTube annotations that essentially creates a remote control allowing viewers to check out the submitter’s home page or (more importantly) skip past video submissions they’re less interested in.

While Bammo may expand to include one or two more shows, Raymond aims to keep the channel relatively small. “Five shows, one every day — that’s a pretty big gamble for a company this young and this small. We don’t think we need to have thousands and thousands of channels in order to be successful.”

But Big Frame’s strategy also includes deals with outside programming. Last Friday, creator Matt Enlow launched his new show Squaresville in partnership with Big Frame — the first web series to do so.

Highly anticipated after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Squaresville is a quirky and charming coming-of-age story along the lines of dearly beloved series like Daria or Freaks and Geeks.

Enlow, in an IM interview, said that as part of his deal with Big Frame, he’s been offered “a ton of production resources.”

“I need extra help in the graphic design area, so they’re going to help me reskin my pages on YouTube and Tumblr,” he said. “And they have already given me access to sound and music libraries, which is tremendous.”

In addition, Enlow is actively working to collaborate with YouTube creators to help spread the word about the series. “That’s something that the web series world misses out on sometimes,” he said. “And Big Frame has definitely opened doors for that to happen. Even with other YouTubers [not affiliated with Big Frame], it lends a big degree of credibility that the show wouldn’t have if we were solo.”

Evershed sees Big Frame’s primary goals in 2012 as steady, sustainable growth in its network, both through new channel acquisition as well as developing their own content, and seeing new creators break out into the mainstream. “As YouTube started growing and expanding, I felt that a management company wasn’t a scalable business,” Evershed said. “But creating community has always been a through-line for what I’m doing.”

“We look at Big Frame as a new kind of media company,” Raymond said. “Because there is no formula for finding an audience — the most important thing is finding them.”

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According to product manager Austin Haugen, since opening up the Timeline platform this January over 3,000 Timeline apps have been launched, and their implementation has generated huge growth for brands. Two examples that Haugen gave were Pinterest (whose daily active user base has grown by 60 percent since launching its Timeline app) and Goodreads (which has increased daily traffic by 77 percent).

App makers were frequently asked by event attendees “What’s your verb?” — referring to the word defining the app’s updates on Facebook, from “Watch” to “Read” to “Listen,” that group the updates according to category. For apps like the fashion-focused Pose or epicurist Foodspotting, updates link users back to the original sites for in-depth details about the food or fashion being shared.

The potential for Timeline apps is just being discovered by many of the brands. For example, Fandango’s current implementation just allows users to share their movie-watching decisions, but representatives said that future iterations could include the ability to coordinate film-going with friends.

The Onion‘s Timeline app, just launched yesterday, updates the user’s profile with the articles they’ve read and videos they’ve watched, and also now includes The Onion’s “Our Dumb Readers” feature. “Our Dumb Readers” feature highlights what content individual friends are consuming at the top of the site, and also allows users to curate the Onion home page to show just the stories and videos being consumed by their friends.

But while the name of the Timeline app game might be sharing, many of the apps, including Fandango and Vevo, also enable users to turn off the sharing function, which will be important for those users who perhaps don’t want to broadcast how many times they’ve watched the same Taylor Swift video.

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Dypiangco and Epino are independent filmmakers who began the National Film Society in September 2011, choosing the name deliberately because, as one of their friends put it, it was “the very opposite of what you expect when you see two dudes on YouTube.”

“We don’t say which nation we represent,” Dypiangco said via Skype.

“We will never say,” Epino added.

While neither Dypiangco or Epino had much on-camera experience, they discovered a natural chemistry after shooting their first video together, a short answer to the question of whether or not you should attend film school. “We can both look into a camera and not flinch,” Epino said. And indeed, their on-camera camaraderie as well as relatively strong production values makes the NFS shorts fun, compelling viewing.

Though relatively inexperienced, especially in comparison to YouTubers who have been uploading for years, Dypiangco and Epino have managed to leverage each opportunity into a larger one. Their first notable video was an interview with Oscar-winning short filmmaker (and personal friend) Luke Matheny, which helped them get more interviews, which eventually led to receiving press credentials for Sundance.

Those press credentials led to a partnership with Filmmaker Magazine, which gave them the opportunity to interview festival attendees like Frank Langella and Tim and Eric — and now making videos for PBS. Next stop: SXSW.

NFS doesn’t have huge viewcounts — the most-viewed video on the channel, Awesome Filipino Americans In Movies, has less than 10,000 views. But their focus on documentary and independent film — and maybe, according to Dypiangco, an ad on VidStatsX.com — brought them to PBS’s attention.

“We were looking for someone with a really unique voice, someone you wouldn’t necessarily associate with PBS — [they're] still a nascent channel, but have a reputation and a following, and they brought in a new perspective for us,” senior director of PBS Interactive Jayme Swain said in a phone interview.

Being somewhat different from the expectations that come with the PBS brand was a big factor in the creation of the PBS Online Film Festival — the fest’s slogan is “Watch Us Surprise You,” and the festival features an eclectic selection of short films drawn from various partners. “You’re going to get something high quality here, but what you’re going to see isn’t what you should expect to see. It’s PBS with a twist,” SVP of PBS Interactive Jason Seiken said via phone.

Part of the Online Film Festival’s goal is to alert PBS’s latent audience to the original content available on the PBS digital platforms — Seiken is quoted in a press release as saying “We think many will be surprised by the depth and breadth of video content that’s available on PBS.org.”

Dypiangco and Epino’s hosting duties consisted of the intro video as well as five short videos introducing each of the categories — the video for the “Growing Pains” category features a short appearance by Growing Pains star Alan Thicke, who agreed to a quick shoot after a producer at PBS dug up a five-year-old AOL address (Dypiangco and Epino showed up at his front door wearing their PBS T-shirts). A People’s Choice winner of the fest will be determined by audience voting at PBS.org.

As fests go, it’s pretty minimalist, but according to Swain that’s because it’s very much the first step in a larger experiment; depending on this year’s success, subsequent years may feature an open call for submissions — as well as a physical component, making use of the fact that PBS operates both on a national and local level through its member stations.

This year, the fest draws on short films produced by organizations including the Independent Television Service (ITVS), POV and the National Minority Consortia — a Dream Team of public broadcasting organizations, as the NFS puts it in the introductory video.

“For [PBS], it’s about these producing partners coming together,” Dypiangco said. “It’s really cool for them to join forces, cross-pollinate audiences and show what you can do online.”

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But some nominees have been out long enough to be available on digital platforms. And here is a list of them:

You don’t need perfect vision to notice that this year, Netflix is lagging on the nominees front, with only two nominated documentaries being available on the service. However, there is some good news for Netflix subscribers: Thanks to The Weinstein Company’s recent pact with Netflix, expect to see nominated films The Artist, My Week With Marilyn, The Iron Lady and Undefeated available on the streaming service soon.

In addition, all the nominated short films are available on iTunes.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Davidlohr Bueso

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