I have mentioned Fred Figglehorn a couple of times before and I find him quite annoying. But fact is that Lucas Cruikshank a.k.a. Fred Figglehorn won Choice Web Star at the Teen Choice Awards, had apppearances on Hannah Montana and iCarly and the third Fred Film is coming out this year.You have got to give him credit for that.
Here is a little teaser: Lucas was Kelly: The girl with a bladder infection before he became Fred.
Frank teaches also webisode production at USC and Chapman
University. His students have included Streamy Award-winner Bernie Su and half-a-billion-hitter Freddie Wong. If you are interested in his USC Webiosode class, it's open to the
public and starts June 25th: www.GreenlightYourself.com
What is it with older Hollywood stars and animated web series lately?
Earlier this year I have read that Tom Hanks will be starring in an animated futuristic series called Electric City that he has been developing for years. It will premiere on Yahoo in June.
You could argue here that Tom Hanks has already gained experience in the animated genre when he played 5 different characters in The Polar Express.
But Sylvester Stallone? Ok, there are some spoofs on YouTube like that one:
But apart from that, I have never really associated him with animated movies or series. At least the topic of the animated web series called Soul Survivor seems to fit the Rocky and Rambo actor. He will play a “last-of-his kind
mercenary”, whatever that means.
But Electric City and Soul Survivor are both high-profile example of how the Internet is
becoming a new frontier for animation - pretty much in the same way as cable
television was in the early 1980s. The Web is creating new opportunities
for artists and filmmakers to distribute experimental and often
irreverent entertainment to millions of viewers worldwide without having
to go through the traditional gatekeepers: the major studios and
television networks.
I'm particularly excited about Electric City, because it is supposed to be highly interactive. The nonlinear elements will range from deep integration with social media to a
3D interactive map.
Last weekend, I watched Marvel's The Avengers at the cinema and it got me into a superhero mood. That's why I would like to present to you Held Up today.
It's a 16-part comedy web series starring It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Kaitlin Olson, The Wire's Cyrus Farmer, Jon Dore from The Jon Dore Show and writer-producers Randy and Jason Sklar.
Set in a bank branch, the outlandish series centers around a bored
teller named Ray (Dore) whose life changes dramatically after his bank is held up by two
teams of dim-witted robbers dressed as Rocky I (Farmer), Rocky II (Olson) and Batman and Robin
(the Sklar brothers). Over the course of
the series, the hostages fall victim to a comedic version of the
Stockholm Syndrome and begin sympathizing with their captors.
Here is the trailer:
It’s a character piece, and one
of things the Sklar brothers are most proud of is the love story that develops
between Ray and Rocky II. You can watch Held Up on http://www.crackle.com/c/Held_Up
Most of the web series I write about are scripted, but of course there are also unscripted web series out there. One I find particularly interesting and inspirational is called 350 South: an American journey. It's produced by international production company beActive Entertainment and is described as a “fully participatory documentary
experience” following Irish and American environmentalists on their
year-long journey from Alaska to Argentina.
How did they come up with this idea? On their website http://350south.org/ you can read that Irish guy Ian Lacey moved to Denver, Colorado in 2010 to work for an environmental non-profit
organisation called The Wilderness Society. There, he was recommended a book by Swedish adventurer Goran
Kropp – a man who cycled from Stockholm to Mt. Everest in Nepal,
climbed it without the aid of bottled oxygen, came back down and cycled
home again. Ian just knew he had
to take on a similar human powered journey. And within minutes, after
looking at the National Geographic map on his bedroom wall, it seemed
that cycling down the Americas could be a pretty nice way to spend a
year. Ian had recently met Lee, a friend who worked in a coffee shop
during the week and went rock climbing and snowboarding in the Rocky
Mountains on the weekends. After chatting about the idea, they both
realised it was about time they did something that matched their
adventurous spirits. There and then, they decided to cycle the length of
the Americas in 350 days.
They will cycle through 15 countries in total – USA, Canada, Mexico,
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. And you can follow Ian and Lee on Facebook, Twitter and watch their video diaries on YouTube or their website. Extended versions of the diaries are now also showing on Setanta Sports
Ireland.
Here is Episode 1 of their video diary:
And of couse, they are not doing it just for fun. They want to raise €100,000 for the Carer's Association of Ireland. So, if you wanna support them, please donate
here http://www.mycharity.ie/event/350south
Have you ever dreamt of becoming an actor? I have a lot of friends who studied at the drama school, but end up doing commercials instead of feature films for cinema release. I think that's a reason why a lot of actors create, write and star in web series lately. Some of them even share their experiences in their web series. One of these series is Downstage Confessions.
Peter Stray, creator,writer and director, of Downstage Confessions trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London before marrying an American and moving to the States. He went to an audition for a Shakespear play in Washington. He had prepared his native British intonations, but the director wanted an American accent....
Such experiences inspired his 17-part comedy web series about the
fictionalized lives of struggling stage actors in Washington DC’s regional
theatre scene.
Stray’s character, Max Templeton, is a clueless actor, who,
late in the series, is taken hostage by a theater groupie played by his
real-life wife, Alexandra London-Thompson. Max’s roommate and
halfbrother in “Downstage Confessions” is Stephen Wunder (Eric Messner). Check out Episode 1: "Dumpage"
You can watch Downstage Confessions every Monday at noon (EST) on It’s
viewable on vimeo.com
and funnyordie.com.
The final episode will go up July 3, at which point all installments,
most of them four to seven minutes long, will be available for viewing.
