It's Berlinale time!
Berlin hosts film professionals from all over the world at the moment. Therefore, I decided to present a German web series today which is set in the German capital.
It's called Made in Berlin and is about five creative people with different backgrounds, from different cultures, who come together in Berlin in order to produce a theater play.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to bring a play alive on stage? Look no further, but check out episode 1 of this behind the scenes web series:
Netflix's first original series started this month. Beau Willimon, who also wrote The Ides of March, has developed House of Cards specifically for the American streaming network Netflix.
The political drama series which is directed by David Fincher, is about ruthless
and cunning, Congressman Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey)
and his wife Claire (Robin Wright) who stop at nothing to conquer
everything. It penetrates the shadowy world of
greed, sex, and corruption in modern D.C.
Here is the trailer:
You can watch all 13 episodes now on http://nflx.it/HouseofCards
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in an interview that they released all episodes of its first season on the same day, because they have learnt from their data that their viewers prefer to watch the whole season within 24 hours. No commercials, no waiting. Enjoy the future of TV drama 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!
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.
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!
