Monday, January 28, 2013

Video Game High School - second season web series

I read an article the other day about how 2013 is becoming the year of the web series second season. It's true there aren't too many web series out there that make it past a first series. But it's only end of January and a couple of successful web shows have already been renewed.

One of them is Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Have you watched an episode of the first season? I thought it was hilarious, so no wonder it got renewed.
Another one that will continue is Burning Love, produced by Paramount and Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Digital for Yahoo. It stars Hollywood actors including Kristin Bell, Rob Marino, and Malin Ackerman. So no surprise here either.

I'm also not too surprised about Video Game High School returning, because they racked up 31.5 million views in its first month online, but nontheless I'm very pleased about it. The video game comedy series is set in the near future where video gaming elevates its best players to stardom by its position as the world's most popular competitive sport. Have a look at the trailer: 


For the second season, they have turned once again to Kickstarter, using their first season campaign as a model and asking for $636,010, which was the exact cost of the first season. The second season format, according to Kickstarter, will be six “TV-length” episodes, though, with a total runtime of 160-180 minutes.

Coming back to the statement that 2013 is the year of the second season, it might also be a sign that web series become not only more and more popular and but also more and more profitable. Happy 2013!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Galaman - a Hong Kong web series

大家好 (Da Jia Hao)! 

Galaman is a very interesting Chinese series I would like to introduce to you. It is a mix of superhero and game-style comic animations with a number of episodes online (available with English subtitles).
What's particularly interesting about this web series, is that every episode holds underlying social and political criticism towards the Hong Kong society and sometimes reacts to recent trends as well.

Here is an episode to get an idea of the look and feel of this animated series:


It's produced by a young start-up called Minimind Studios which are part of the HK Design Centre incubation programme. You can primarily find Galaman on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/minimindstudio?feature=watch
But Minimind Studio managed to also find syndication effects with Yahoo Hong King and they offer a whole catalogue of merchandising articles for all its characters.

Episodes are released only every 2-3 months, but you can become a fan on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/galamanhk and stay updated by visiting their website: http://minimindstudio.com/galaman/

Monday, January 14, 2013

Niña Repelente - a Spanish animated web series

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had wonderful holidays with your family and friends and maybe had some time to watch some web series. I certainly did and since I was on holiday in Spain, I thought let's start the new year with a Spanish web series.

Niña Repelente is a web series from Andalucia, en el Sur de España.
The “Niña Repelente” (obnoxious girl) who is actually called Margarita (meaning “daisy” in Spanish), is the stereotypical bratty girl. While her trademark obnoxiousness is universally understood, her language and the situations she encounters are very much rooted in the popular culture of working-class Sevilla. This cartoon series is at heart a work of poignant realism. 
Have a look:


If you wanna watch all episodes and find out more about the obnoxious girl, please check: http://www.niñarepelente.com/
And when you visit their blog; http://frikibot.com/blog/ you'll get the Niña Repelente Christmas Special episode as a treat. Que lo pases bien!