Quirky American comedian Kristen Schaal's web series Penelope: Princess Of Pets could be made into a pilot for Channel 4.
She and double-act partner Kurt Braunohler made five episodes of the offbeat show for now-defunct website Super Deluxe.
And now Schaal, who plays obsessed fan Mel in the Flight Of The Conchords TV series, says it ‘looks like' they will be developing the offbeat show for Channel 4.
She told US website Punchline: ‘This year, it's going to be me trying to figure out how to make a pilot in London.'
Gladwell covers Dear Frankie, the Death of Diana, The Interpreter, and nobody knowing what constitutes the sublime.
And a great summary here from The Krieger Group:-
Several years ago, Malcolm Gladwell gave an interesting talk for The New Yorker Festival in which he reported on a group of researchers who had developed algorithms to predict whether a script could be developed into a hit movie. The researchers used a technique called neural networks to predict, based upon elements of the script, if the movie would be a box office smash. In fact, the researchers were able to predict the profitability of a movie accurately 6 out of 9 times, even before the director or cast was chosen. In several cases they were within several million dollars. Now 6 out of 9 may not seem great, but Hollywood’s record is poor; successfully predicting gross revenues on only 1/3 of their movies (after all, if they did not think it was going to be profitable they would make the film, unless its Woody Allen).
You'll either find the next four columns extremely useful, or a complete waste of screen space.
Either way, they will be permanently linked with all the other WRITINGRESOURCES in the sidebar down the right hand side. Suppose they could also work as first names, Christian names, or company names too. Over 1300 below.
(HTML code for splitting this blogger post into 4 columns found here)
- don't know why that big gap appears above the lists though...
Technogeekboy said...
Generator Land also has a lot of tools for writers inluding name and character generators, town name generators, plot generators, etc.
Sorry if you have seen these posts before, but I'm reposting my favourite storygas links through August - because these are the ones I like the most (Plus, they seem to have disappeared from search engines after I lost my www.storygas.com URL)
So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:
1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours.
3. Put the hours in.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
7. Keep your day job.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
14. Dying young is overrated.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
16. The world is changing.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
19. Sing in your own voice.
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.
24. Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
25. You have to find your own schtick.
26. Write from the heart.
27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
28. Power is never given. Power is taken.
29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.
30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
31. Remain frugal.
32. Allow your work to age with you.
33. Being Poor Sucks.
34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.
35. Savor obscurity while it lasts.
36. Start blogging.
37. Meaning Scales, People Don't.
38. When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams.
From Tokyo to Fukuoka,
one long distance relationship.
The distance, over 1000km.
The relationship, 2 and half years so far.
A man from Fukuoka, a woman from Tokyo,
to prove their love, they run.
This documentary is, until the saintly night of Dec 24th when the reunion happens, broadcasting the two's running paths. Their text messages, blogs and video chats, are open to the spectators in real-time.
This documentary will, for about a month, continue living in real-time.
We the audience, is going to observe their love relationship for the next one month to reconsider this monster, "love".
In order to virtually experience their long distance relationship, a male is directed to "a man" site, a female is directed to "a woman" site, in other words, you will be separated apart. This takes away internet freedom.
To tell a truth, this documentary is an advertisement. On the saintly night of Dec 24th, the client will be revealed. CF will be produced through the next one month.
Here's a frame from the introductory video.
And here's a screengrab of the live feed.
The pink and the blue show the progress of the couple getting together.
And you can track the two 'runners' on a live interactive map.
This one isn't a webseries - it was a one-off web event - which, in itself is an interesting take on how to use online release to create a buzz and possibly a community around your project?
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a 43-minute musical film, initially produced exclusively for Internet distribution. It tells the story of Dr. Horrible, the aspiring supervillain alter ego of Billy; Captain Hammer, his nemesis; and Penny, their mutual love interest.
The movie was written by writer/director Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack Whedon (a television writer) and Jed Whedon (a composer), and Jed's fiancée, actress Maurissa Tancharoen. The writing team penned the musical during the WGA writers' strike. The idea was to create something small and inexpensive, yet professionally done, in a way that would circumvent the issues that were being protested during the strike. On October 31, 2008, Time Magazine named it #15 in Time's Top 50 Inventions of 2008.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon’s web series, is a bold experiment in online distribution — the series will be available for free for just one week before becoming available on DVD and possibly download — but it’s also damn entertaining.
The tale of an aspiring supervillain told mostly in song, this WGA strike-spurred project treads an odd line between the professional and the amateur, making full use of Whedon’s considerable resources while still carrying a whiff of we-don’t-need-no-stinking-permits filmmaking. The end result is kinetic and inspired, while still bearing the trademark wit and pathos of a Whedon project.
Re-posting my favourite links through August - and taking another look at some old web series (and by old, in webseries terms, that's 3 years it seems...)
Really liked watching CLARK AND MICHAEL at the time - and now it's all but buried on CBS' youtube channel. So, sorry many of the links below are broken, but they might help you hunt down more if you want to see more of this show.
"Clark and Michael is a CBS Internet television series created by and starring Clark Duke and Michael Cera. The series takes the form of a mockumentary following Duke and Cera's ambitions to write and sell a pilot for a television series. Influences on the show include comedy group Stella, Arrested Development, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross' Mr. Show, British mockumentary The Office, comedian Larry David, The Larry Sanders Show and the Adult Swim block of Cartoon Network.
Duke and Cera play fictionalized versions of themselves, Cera describing the characters as "more idiotic and more deluded". The series is a low-budget affair, filmed on handheld cameras by friends of the duo. The cameras are acknowledged by Clark, Michael and others, who will sometimes address them or those operating them; in one scene, an upset Michael shouts a cameraman out of the bathroom, after which Clark angrily points out to the crew that their contract states "no bathroom stuff". Boom mics are often visible, and the crew have also intervened in fights between Clark and Michael."
*****STORYGAS INTERACTIVE RATING!***** CLARK & MICHAEL
Can you embed? YES - from youtube
Can you comment? YES - but seems to have stopped
Also on youtube? YES - but buried on CBS channel
Forums? not found
Blog? YES but seems to have stopped
**************************************
After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences, with a complex story universe involving "trait positive girls" who are sought by an evil organization called "The Order".
Lonelygirl15 first came to international attention ostensibly as a "real" video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube. The show was eventually proved as a hoax by suspicious viewers as featuring a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.
The three creators of Lonelygirl15, first revealed by the The New York Times, were Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, California, Miles Beckett, a surgical residency dropout turned filmmaker, and Greg Goodfried, a former attorney with Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, LLP.
The series began on June 16, 2006, and was slated to run through August 1, 2008. New videos appeared, at a clip of four to five a week, first on YouTube and lg15.com, also on MySpace. As of July 2008, the series has had more than 110 million combined views."
Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried - creators of Lonelygirl15 and Kate Modern and founders of new media company EQAL - talk with Josh Cohen of Tilzy.TV about LG15: The Resistance, why the series is different, and how the LG15 world comes to life.
"We call the shows that we produce 'social shows,' and they're very different from a TV show or a film,"
"The way that you actually construct the narrative, the way that the plot points flow over the course of the week, the way the site interplays with the video, the way the community works together and talks to the videos and talks to the characters, is all different,"
Partly to pick out anything useful, partly because some have gone missing from my blogger search box. This is so Google doesn't forget me.
The reason this is a favourite is because I wrote on Season 2. It's what got me into web series.
The Lonelygirl15 creators gave me a glimpse into a world where you can have a two-way interaction with the audience.
It's nuanaced. Somewhere between a focus group and being heckled on stage.
Everyone who works on the show are fans of the show - alongside the other fans of the series.
The mistake I made, and alot of people in the TV industry still make, is to compare webseries to TV Drama.
If you're disparaging about this show - the writing, the acting, the quality of production... then surely the traffic and number of video and profile views it gained in one year is all the more disproportionate and remarkable.
I think it, and Lonelygirl 15 shows the way for having good interactive storytelling technique. The production values are intentionally low - it was meant to look as if the characters were uploading themselves - but that aside, I think these shows are landmarks in showing how a community can be built around a show, rather than a one-time-viewing audience figure.
KateModern is the sister series of lonelygirl15. The series, which was announced on April 16, 2007, began filming on July 9 and the first video, Fight and Flight, was released on July 16. The show is produced by LG15 in partnership with Bebo. It ended on June 28, 2008, slightly less than a year following its original release.
KateModern is set in East London, England, and bears many similarities to its parent series. Both Kate and Bree are avid video bloggers and carry a dark secret. There is an alternate reality game component of the series as well.
"KateModern ran from 16th July 2007 to 28th June 2008 and was produced by the creators of lonelygirl15 - EQAL. During it's highly successful year long run it was nominated for two TV Craft BAFTA awards, a Webby Award and won the Broadcast Press Guild Award for Innovation 2008."
Kate Modern herself was killed off at the start of the second series; a bit of a bold move you might think, but the format of the show means it is constantly breaking new ground.“You can interact with the story, talk to the characters, comment on the plot – we get feedback all the time,” explains Rushton.
“What I find so interesting is the fact that people are coming together and discussing the show, but they’re also coming together to discuss things that lie outside of the show that affect them. People actually come to you on Bebo and share their experiences and they feel like they’ve got a place to do that. It’s the way that communication is going.”
We told you last month about the planned wrap-up of KateModern, the very successful Internet television show exclusive to the AOL-owned Bebo social network.
Well, today’s the day that all is put to pasture. KateModern is having its finale, and it’s going out with 12 episodes in 12 hours. The countdown to the series close began earlier this morning and will stretch to 7PM EST, with hourly videos releases complemented by live chats with and among the fanbase.
In fact, due to its viral achievements EQAL was able to secure both a $5 million Series A funding round and CBS partnership in the space of a single month.
BEBO's Kate Modern has become an internet sensation since being launched a year ago.
More than 66 million people have logged on to view the interactive online drama's 'webisodes' since July 2007.
TV Biz has an exclusive preview of this week's season 2 finale for your pleasure. It features Ralf Little and man-of-the-moment Noel Clarke - who wrote, directed and starred in the Kidulthood and Adulthood films.
Who killed KateModern? It's the question that has been occupying several million minds since the beginning of the year, when the heroine of the eponymously named online drama met her end. Kate, for those who have been living in a bunker since July 2007, is, or rather, was, a troubled teenage university art student living in London. She had a dark past that she was unable to remember and was somehow connected to a secret organisation called The Order.
Social networking site Bebo is to shock fans of hit online drama Kate Modern by killing off its eponymous star in the first episode of its new series.
The series' first sponsors - which get to see their products placed within the video - will be Cadbury's Creme Egg and Toyota's youth-targeted car Aygo. Sponsors of the first series included Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Warner Music, Paramount and Orange, which each paid up to £250,000 to appear within the show.
No figures have been revealed about what each company might pay to be involved with the second series.
However, each company stumps up cash based on the amount its brand is integrated into the storyline, which includes monitoring the number of times it appears in the video and is mentioned in the script.
KateModern, the flagship online drama broadcast by social networking site Bebo, will wrap up for the last time at the end of June, it was announced today.
The last part of series two will air on June 28, with Bebo promising a "high octane" ending with multiple episodes.
Featuring Royle Family star Ralph Little, the interactive drama has run for more than 300 four-minute episodes since it launched in July last year, racking up more than 57 million views.
Bebo wanted the show to "encourage unprecedented interactivity" with its audience and has also tried to distinguish itself from rival social networking sites by building up original content.
Users are given interactive tools to "talk" to KateModern characters and producers from the series, suggest storylines and solve puzzles in the plot.
The Bebo president, Joanna Shields, said KateModern has "created a new genre and demonstrated the power of media on a social network with gripping storylines and peerless production values".
I once read a post where a blogger said that they had seen the creator, Felicia Day, putting up a flyer for her webseries in a coffee shop somewhere in LA, even though it was a couple of years after the launch of The Guild, and well after it had many many followers.
Such is the dedication of a successful web series creator.
The Guild is a independent sitcom web series about a group of online gamers. The show started in the late summer of 2007, and for the first season was financed solely by Paypal donations from LOYAL FANS. Since season 2, The Guild has been distributed by Xbox Live and Microsoft and sponsored by Sprint.
Episodes vary from 3-8 minutes in length, and follow the Guild members’ lives online and offline.
Click here for the story behind The Guild.
Seems like a bunch of writers and actors got together... and just made it, and uploaded it themselves...
"The guild was inspired and written by Felicia Day, an avid gamer, who until 2006 had been playing World of Warcraft.
After a 2 year gaming addiction Day decided to make something productive from her experiences and wrote the series as a sitcom pilot. Day hoped to show that the stereotype of a man living in his parent's basement is not the only kind of gamer.
Due to concerns that a wider (television) audience would not be receptive to the comparatively niche setting, she decided to follow through with it online with Jane Selle Morgan and Kim Evey. Day already knew Sandeep Parikh and Jeff Lewis from the Empty Stage, a Los Angeles based comedy theatre, and their roles were written for them. The rest of the cast was filled through auditions.
After filming the first 3 episodes in just two and a half days they faced the problem of funding. After putting a donation link to Paypal the 4th and 5th episode were almost solely financed by donations"
...web drama, online comedy, online narrative, interactive drama, internet television series, multi-platform storytelling, webseries, web series, web tv, webisodes, transmedia, multiplatform or interactive narrative... whatever you call it, we're watching.
The links below help sort what you're looking for.
HAVE A LOOK THROUGH THE COMPLETE LISTS OF WEB SERIES BELOW!
Leave us a comment... send us a question... or link... or show... or anything else! (Easiest way is to click on "COMMENTS" under each post - Feel free to say hi!)
From Chortle.com:- 
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