Web video behemoth, YouTube, had their first online Live event today. Attended by the geekerati, YouTubers (Lisa Nova, Michael Buckley, Tay Zonday), and pop stars (Katy Perry, Will.I.Am) alike, the Live event seemed poised to be an online event to end all online events. So how did it do?
Apparently I'm super-late to this video, but file it under Incredibly-Awesome or If-It-Doesn't-Make-You-Feel-Good-You-Have-No-Soul, if only for the woman toward the end singing along. Awesome marketing for the group Naturally 7. Bravo, fellas. You make me miss NYC.
[ Via: via: soupsoup ]
Artemis Eternal is a movie created by filmmaker Jessica Stover that aspires to create a studio-quality short film, but without the studio. She could have gone to wealthy private investors to raise the money, but instead she is using crowd-funding to raise the budget needed to shoot her picture. This is a very new type of model for movies that only the web could have enabled, and with the right energy and approach, it definitely sounds like she is really going to make it happen.
Our friend Brian Lerner co-created and writes a new web series that has been showing some damn funny promos the past few weeks, and today the first episode launched! We always get excited any time people associated with the show do their thing. Let's not forget that Brian was part of the team for the first few months when we rolled out Jet Set Show back in June, 2006, and recently did a correspondent interview with the band Drive A. So we go waaaaay back!
Our amazing friend Bre Pettis has been a staple of innovative online video for years, and has a television pilot on tonight called History Hacker! From Bre's blog:
My TV show pilot called "History Hacker" airs this upcoming Friday at 8PM and Midnight on the History Channel. I'm the host of the show and I check out inventors in history and take a hands-on look at their inventions. I need your help to make the show go from a pilot to a real TV show.
The pilot is all about Nikola Tesla and the war of the currents between Tesla and Edison. In the show I learn how to blow a neon tube, explore wireless electricity and build an AC generator from a bike. I also go to Boston to visit an MIT space lab to see how the principles that Tesla pioneered are being applied to space propulsion.
The look of the show is awesome. The folks at History gave the producer, director, and director of photography permission to take my DIY style of making videos with lots of jump cuts and direct talking to the camera and push it forward into a longer format. It doesn't look like anything else on TV.
It really does look amazing -- just check out the sizzle reel embedded at the top of this post! If anyone should be the mainstream media emissary for DIY video makers, it's Bre Pettis. You rule, Bre!
photo credit: adriana m. barraza
This past weekend Sarah Silverman accepted two Emmy awards for the internet video sensation, I'm Fucking Matt Damon, which she had made for then boyfriend, talk show host and comedian, Jimmy Kimmel.
The video, which although premiered nationally on Kimmel's late night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," really went crazy when it hit the web -- racking up over four million views on You Tube alone.
The video racked in awards for Best Original Music and Lyrics and for Picture Editing.
How cool for the people at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) in Seattle this weekend! The awesome Jonathan Coulton and the multi-talented Felicia Day did a duet of "Still Alive" with the crowd. Enjoy!
In case you've forgotten, Jonathan was on our first episode back, and we talked to Felicia Day just before Dr. Horrible came out and she took over the world!
What a special time this is for new media people!
If you haven't heard yet, Don LaFontaine, otherwise known as the "In a world..." guy passed away yesterday of complications from a collapsed lung. He was 68 years old.
LaFontaine had done over 750,000 television spots and 5,000 movie trailers. Wow.
