Amid rush to sign online talent, agencies ponder how to profit

For those of you who follow this blog who are in the movie/tv content biz, don't worry I haven't forgotten you. Check out this article from USA Today. A clear explanation of rollout of the future of production as seen by agents, producers and none other than Michael Eisner, whoopee. Let Dr. Media tell you whats really going on here, and it's simple. The studios and networks are off loading the cost of development and production , if possible to indies, thus reducing their exposure and allowing EVERYONE to work on spec. To them the net is a global 24/7 Sundance and indie games festival all rolled into one. It allows them let content providers to develop whatever they want, market it, see if it gets any traction, and then be scooped up by the bigboys, which fits nicely into the producers goals. Is this new? No. The film biz has been driven, and fed by this thinking, as has the TV biz , for years, this just makes it more automated, since everyone who "thinks" they have an idea for some media project, can now put it up, and find out if it's worth anything. Of course will be harder to prove that the ideas has been ripped off won't it, but thats another story. Read on!!

Amid rush to sign online talent, agencies ponder how to profit



By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY

The top floor of United Talent Agency looks the part with its expansive glass-walled offices, chic artwork and an army of fashionably dressed agents working deals for the likes of Harrison Ford.

And then there are the four guys toiling downstairs.

"This is it," says Jason Nadler, 28, waving at a crowded space that would barely cut it as a waiting room upstairs. Here, Nadler and Ryan Reber, 28, Barrett Garese, 27, and Jon Zimelis, 27, scour the Internet daily for The Next Big Thing in entertainment and pop culture.

In these dorm-room-style digs — unused foosball table, joke poster of O.J. Simpson — the young scouts who make up the talent agency's 2-year-old Web division, UTA Online, have been feverishly signing up dozens of digital mavericks in hopes of finding that rare bright light who can build a lucrative entertainment enterprise.


"There's a huge cultural change going on out there," Nadler says. "The model of how people consume their entertainment is totally up in the air."

That's not the only thing up for grabs. The foundation of Hollywood's dominance in pop culture and the entertainment industry is being threatened by the democratizing force of the Internet, which posits that anyone with a snappy idea and a video camera can dish up features to the masses.

As a result, top Hollywood agencies such as UTA, Endeavor and Creative Artists Agency are diligently mining the Web for raw talent. The process quickly has become as crucial to entertainment talent scouts as trawling smoky comedy clubs or screening obscure movies has been for generations.

Meanwhile, network executives are busy signing deals with online content producers with a knack for wooing audiences with short attention spans. This month, CBS brought on EQAL founders Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, the duo behind the first successful Web serial, LonelyGirl15, to help create unique extensions of CBS shows for the Web.

"The media companies know they will ignore this trend at their peril," says Larry Gerbrandt, principal with Media Valuation Partners, a consulting firm that advises entertainment companies. "The Internet is what cable TV was two decades ago. At first, the big guys balked at it. Now, they own it."

There are bargains to be had

There are some encouraging signs for the executives diving into an unpredictable world of entertainment fueled largely by the whims of twentysomethings:

•For companies used to spending millions of dollars on talent and programs, the Web is a bargain on both fronts.

"For what you spend on one TV pilot, you could do an endless online serial," Gerbrandt says.

Precise budgets are rarely discussed by talent agencies or networks, but producers agree a two-minute video can be made for a few thousand dollars.

"The beauty of the Web is that you can easily test an idea and move on," Gerbrandt says.

•Although media companies of all types continue to wrestle with how to make money from the Web, money is flowing into that part of the entertainment industry at a time when TV and film are finding it increasingly difficult to capture audiences.

Online advertising spending is projected to double to $50 billion by 2012, according to forecasting group eMarketer.

"There's no question this is a new and valued marketplace," says Lori Schwartz, director of Interpublic Group's Emerging Media Lab, which advises Web advertisers. "The convergence of broadcast and broadband will really make this big."

Well, maybe — if the Web can become a reliable source of watchable programming.

Right now, however, "it's nothing more than a flea market," Schwartz says, using a description that is a favorite among those studying the Web entertainment space. "There are lots of content producers and lots of sites begging you to hang around. But to find anything good really takes digging."

Even when an Internet video is a success among the masses, it doesn't mean it will be a marketing success that can be copied.

Consider the all-time king of YouTube clips, Evolution of Dance, which features motivational speaker Judson Laipply grooving through various dance crazes. It has been viewed a staggering 85 million times, but apart from perhaps boosting Laipply's speaking commitments, the video has not made its protagonist a mainstream star or a mountain of money.

Another example is comedian Will Ferrell's site, FunnyOrDie.com. It routinely showcases the work of talented A-list and amateur jokers, but the portal has yet to laugh all the way to the bank. The reason? An onslaught of competitors.

"There are 1,700 sites and counting that offer Web video content, and because that group is fragmenting, few sites are emerging as true destinations," says Chad Cooper of OVGuide.com, which studies the online video phenomenon. "As for what people will go to the Web to watch, there's still a discovery process going on."

That's why some of the giants in the entertainment world are treading carefully. In February, Disney launched Stage 9 Digital Media, whose sole mission is to generate original online-only content. It's debut offering was Squeegees, a series about window washers that was created by an L.A. foursome dubbed Handsome Donkey.

"We want to see if we can re-create the TV model on the Internet," says Handsome Donkey's Aaron Greenberg.

"Admittedly, we have a more run-and-gun style than what you normally see on television."

Not just 'skateboard wipeouts'

The style doesn't matter if the work is compelling, says former Disney chief turned Web entrepreneur Michael Eisner.

"Ultimately, what will win out on the Web is story-driven content," says Eisner, whose new-media studio, Vuguru, has produced the popular online series Prom Queen. It's a horror saga geared toward teens and young adults who want their entertainment in short (typically about two minutes), frantically paced episodes.

Eisner's newest offering is an episodic prequel to a forthcoming book by Robin Cook called Foreign Body. About 50 two- to three-minute videos soon will begin appearing online daily, stopping the day before the book's Aug. 5 release. The Web episodes are the work of Cook and UTA clients Big Fantastic, another quartet of friends whose Web work is leading them into the mainstream.

The group, which produced Prom Queen, also has plans to team up with Charlie's Angels director McG to create the online mystery drama Sorority Forever for TheWB.com, Warner Bros' online resurrection of its defunct WB television network.

"We want to grab a piece of land in this space and pioneer it, legitimize it," says Chris Hampel of Big Fantastic, whose attitude is echoed by a declaration on its website: "We believe Web video won't be limited to skateboard wipeouts."

Hoping to capitalize on that same episodic trend is Brent Weinstein, UTA Online's former chief who last year started 60Frames.com, which has a commitment from Oscar-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen to produce short features for the Web. Weinstein's current feature is Blood Cell, a Web-only horror thriller starring Jessica Rose.

In 2006, Rose was the star of the LonelyGirl15 online series, which began in 2006 with Rose posing as a video blogger who mused about her family and life as a teenager. Many viewers mistook Rose for a real blogger until a few viewers, suspicious about the blog's relatively slick production, outed her as an actress who was part of a production backed by Creative Artists Agency.

"Online entertainment is as different from TV as TV is from film," says Weinstein, whose company aims to have 50 Web series in production by the end of the year. "When you're telling stories in two-minute bursts, it's much more like a comic strip that you come back to day after day to see what happens. Not everyone can do it, but slowly we'll figure out who the Aaron Sorkins of the Web storytelling world are."

Great tales also are what ultimately should bring in the bucks, whether they feature unknown faces or tabloid regulars, says Interpublic's Schwartz.

"Advertisers will want variety. Some like the idea of signing up with online fare produced by big stars, while others prefer to be associated with edgier sites that might be discovering new talent," she says. "The question is which business model will ultimately work."

Talent agencies are covering both those bases. Among other things, the agencies are steering established writers and actors toward online projects that ensure broad exposure.

"The level of interest in this space by our A-list clients is expanding," says Chris Jacquemin, head of the Endeavor agency's digital department. He cites a deal Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane made to create a series of Web shorts to run on Google.

'To us, it's big bucks'

Endeavor recently signed Brandon Hardesty, a 21-year-old mimic from Maryland whose re-enactments of scenes from famous films have become hits on YouTube. But the Hardestys of the Web world are rare.

"Just because we now have the Internet, it doesn't mean there's more talent out there. In fact, it's as finite as ever," says Michael Yanover, head of business development at CAA. "We're looking for people whose talent works across many platforms, not just online."

CAA has helped to launch several video portals; it partnered with Ferrell and Silicon Valley's Sequoia Capital to start FunnyOrDie.

Says Yanover: "The Internet's emerging talent is where the future lies."

An example: David Young, 25, and Joey Manderino, 23. The two buddies from Indiana started their own website two years ago as a repository for the videos they had starting making while in college.

After developing a following on websites such as CollegeHumor.com and YouTube, the duo was signed by CAA. The result: Besides a deal with Warner Bros, the two are writing a comedy pilot for TBS with the support of fellow CAA clients Mitch Hurwitz (Arrested Development) and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum (Two and a Half Men).

"It's especially cool to have more support for our online work," Manderino says. "The budgets per episode are modest, four figures. But hey, before that, we were paying to do this out of our own pocket. To us, it's big bucks."

There's another reason Young and Manderino feel fortunate: The number of amateurs hoping to be discovered by Web talent scouts has mushroomed during the past year, making it increasingly difficult to catch an agent's eye.

"The Web's almost oversaturated with videos now," Manderino says. "It's getting really hard to stand out."

Vetting the videos

At UTA Online's office, Nadler cues up an episode of Bus Pirates, the work of a group of prospects whose online video skits imagine what it would be like for commuters to run into pirates on the Los Angeles bus system. The clip is clever, but the UTA crew doesn't quite see it as a winner.

A few minutes later, the UTA guys are united in their admiration for another video. Called Duck Tales, it features the bouncy theme song from a Disney cartoon featuring Scrooge McDuck and his brood. But the darkly outrageous scenes that unfold feature a female duck who is kidnapped, bound, tormented and returned to the front steps of her uncle's mansion.

To the UTA crew the clip is funny — and a source of frustration. Fatal Farm, the L.A.-based duo that produced the video, has resisted UTA's overtures to sign a deal.

"We're working on something right now, and prefer to talk later rather than get distracted," says Fatal Farm's Zach Johnson, 25.

That attitude might seem foolish to some. But it's a sign of confidence that springs from taking a look around at Hollywood's changing landscape.

Just ask the Handsome Donkey gang, whose group meeting places have gone from coffee shops and living rooms to offices within the Disney empire.

"When we first started getting attention, people would say, 'Hey, you've got a great steppingstone into the world of real entertainment,' " Greenberg says. "But from Day 1, we never felt the Internet was some sort of proving ground.

"It's a new platform, period."

Tony Schwartz obit

DR Media wants to acknowledge the passing of Tony Schwartz, Marshall McCluhans, colleague, and advertising man par excellence.Known for the LBJ campaign nuke ad, Schwartz's grasp of the impact and meaning of modern media was profound. See his book Responsive Chord, which although at least 20 years old, is still insightful.Schwartz understood that the media are an immersive environment, that can be utilized if properly understood, genius.



Tony Schwartz, Father of ‘Daisy Ad’ for the Johnson Campaign, Dies at 84 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

June 17, 2008
Tony Schwartz, Father of ‘Daisy Ad’ for the Johnson Campaign, Dies at 84
By MARGALIT FOX

Tony Schwartz, a self-taught, sought-after and highly reclusive media consultant who helped create what is generally considered to be the most famous political ad to appear on television, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 84.

His daughter, Kayla Schwartz-Burridge, said the cause was aortic valve stenosis, a condition involving the narrowing of the heart’s aortic valve.

“Media consultant” is barely adequate to describe Mr. Schwartz’s portfolio. In a career of more than half a century, he was an art director; advertising executive; urban folklorist (in one project, capturing the cacophony of New York streets on phonograph records); radio host; Broadway sound designer; college professor; media theorist; author; and maker of commercials for products, candidates and causes.

What was more, Mr. Schwartz, who had suffered from agoraphobia since the age of 13, accomplished most of these things entirely within his Manhattan home.

Of the thousands of television and radio advertisements on which Mr. Schwartz worked, none is as well known, or as controversial, as the so-called “daisy ad,” made for Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign.

Produced by the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach in collaboration with Mr. Schwartz, the minutelong spot was broadcast on Sept. 7, 1964, during NBC’s “Monday Night at the Movies.” It showed a little girl in a meadow (in reality a Manhattan park), counting aloud as she plucks the petals from a daisy. Her voice dissolves into a man’s voice counting downward, followed by the image of an atomic blast. President Johnson’s voice is heard on the soundtrack:

“These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.” (The president’s speech deliberately invoked a line from “September 1, 1939,” a poem by W. H. Auden written at the outbreak of World War II.)

Though the name of Johnson’s opponent, Senator Barry M. Goldwater, was never mentioned, Goldwater’s campaign objected strenuously to the ad. So did many members of the public, Republicans and Democrats alike. The spot was pulled from the air after a single commercial, though it was soon repeated on news broadcasts. It had done its work: with its dire implications about Goldwater and nuclear responsibility, the daisy ad was credited with contributing to Johnson’s landslide victory at the polls in November. It was also credited with heralding the arrival of ferociously negative political advertising in the United States.

In interviews and on his Web site, tonyschwartz.org, Mr. Schwartz said he had created the daisy ad in its entirety, an account that was disputed by members of the Doyle Dane Bernbach team. (The ad was modeled directly on a radio commercial for nuclear disarmament that Mr. Schwartz had made for the United Nations in the early 1960s.) What is generally acknowledged is that Mr. Schwartz was responsible, at minimum, for the audio concept of the daisy ad — the child counting up, the man counting down, the explosion — and for producing the soundtrack.

Mr. Schwartz helped develop advertising campaigns for hundreds of political candidates, most of them Democrats, among them Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. (All made the trek to Mr. Schwartz’s home to be filmed.) He was also known for creating some of television’s earliest anti-smoking commercials.

In news articles and profiles, Mr. Schwartz was often described as an impassioned visionary and occasionally as a skilled trafficker in truisms with a talent for self-promotion. His work was likened — sometimes approvingly, sometimes not — to that of the media scholar Marshall McLuhan, a mentor and close friend. (He was also sometimes confused with the Tony Schwartz who was a co-author of memoirs by Michael D. Eisner and Donald Trump.)

But detractors and admirers alike praised Mr. Schwartz as a pioneer in putting sound to more effective use in television advertising. He was credited, for instance, with being the first to use real children’s voices in television commercials, beginning in the late 1950s. (Advertisers had considered young children too intractable to deliver lines on cue; theirs had traditionally been recorded by adult actresses trying to sound like children.)

Anthony Schwartz was born in Manhattan on Aug. 19, 1923. He was reared in New York City and Crompond, N.Y., near Peekskill. As a youth, he was a ham-radio operator and interested in visual art. At 16, he went blind for about six months as a result of an unspecified episode of “an emotional type,” as he told People magazine. His blindness strengthened his already deep connection to the auditory world.

Mr. Schwartz earned an undergraduate degree in graphic design from the Pratt Institute, followed by service during World War II as a civilian artist for the Navy. Afterward, he worked as an art director at ad agencies and later ran his own agency, the Wexton Company, which later became Solow/Wexton.

Mr. Schwartz bought his first wire recorder around this time. Slinging it heavily over a shoulder, he began to harvest the intoxicating sounds of the city: foghorns and folk singers; street vendors hawking their wares; a shoemaker plying his trade; a Central Park zookeeper waxing poetic on the care and feeding of lions; hundreds of taxi drivers; and a host of ordinary New Yorkers, just talking.

Mr. Schwartz also built an important archive of folk music, recording young artists like Harry Belafonte and the Weavers performing in his home. Through correspondence with other, far-flung audiophiles, he augmented his collection with their recordings of music from around the globe.

During the 1950s and afterward, Mr. Schwartz produced more than a dozen record albums, most for the Folkways label. Among them were “Sounds of My City”; “1, 2, 3 and a Zing, Zing, Zing,” featuring the songs and games of New York children; and “A Dog’s Life,” which captured the sounds in the first year in the life of a real dog. (Many of these recordings are available from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, folkways.si.edu.)

Because of his agoraphobia, Mr. Schwartz confined his fieldwork to his neighborhood on Manhattan’s West Side. One result was the recording “New York 19” — the number denoted the district’s old postal zone — which documented the “music” Mr. Schwartz encountered there, from street performers to immigrant speech to a pneumatic drill singing its achingly familiar aria.

For 31 years, from 1945 to 1976, Mr. Schwartz was the producer and host of “Around New York,” a radio program on WNYC. He was also a sound designer for several Broadway plays.

Mr. Schwartz was a shrewd observer of mass communications, in particular advertising. The aim of advertising, Mr. Schwartz said, should not be to introduce viewers to new ideas, but rather to bring out ones that were already lurking subconsciously in the mind.

“The best political commercials are Rorschach patterns,” he wrote in his book “The Responsive Chord” (Anchor Press, 1973). “They do not tell the viewer anything. They surface his feelings and provide a context for him to express these feelings.”

Mr. Schwartz also wrote “Media: The Second God,” published by Random House in 1981. He taught media studies at several universities, including Fordham, Columbia, New York University and Harvard, using a variety of technologies to conduct classes from his home. He liked to say that he had delivered lectures to every continent but Antarctica, all without leaving the house.

Besides his daughter Michaela Schwartz-Burridge, who is known as Kayla, Mr. Schwartz is survived by his wife, the former Reenah Lurie, whom he married in 1959; a son, Anton; a brother, Lasker, known as Larry; and one grandchild.

Among Mr. Schwartz’s most famous television ads is one he wrote and produced for the American Cancer Society; it was first broadcast in 1963, a year before the Surgeon General’s warning on the dangers of smoking was released. The ad showed two children dressing up in adult clothes. The announcer’s voice said, simply: “Children love to imitate their parents. Children learn by imitating their parents. Do you smoke cigarettes?”

He later produced an evocative television ad in which Patrick Reynolds, a grandson of the tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds, named the members of his family who had died of cancer, emphysema and heart disease.

Mr. Schwartz’s commercial clients included Coca-Cola (for which he created the well-known TV ad featuring a sumptuously sweating bottle with the sound of pouring liquid as the only audio element); American Express; Chrysler; Kodak; and Paine Webber, among many others.

In 2007, Mr. Schwartz’s entire body of work from 1947 to 1999 was acquired by the Library of Congress.

To the end of his career, Mr. Schwartz was often asked about the daisy ad. To the end of his career, he defended it.

“For many years, it’s been referred to as the beginning of negative commercials,” Mr. Schwartz said in an interview with MSNBC in 2000. “There was nothing negative about it. Frankly, I think it was the most positive commercial ever made.”

Web TV is a hit. So where's the big money?

Dr Media says so this is where we are. Talented people can do shows which are made for nothing, and then, if they are lucky, get discovered ,get a deal with a network/studio.See the Mark Gill talk from Indiewire for more on the state of the market place.He tells it like it is, and this article about these young producers, shows the way to being discovered, maybe. As I have said in other blogs, there is nothing new about the scenario of studios wanting to not spend money on development and waiting to cherry pick the good ideas and talent downstream,afterall what is the Sundance film festival, and as Gill points out, 20 years ago it was 500 films submitted, now its 5000.
See the next post for the Gill article and my comments.




Web TV is a hit. So where's the big money?

Web TV is a hit. So where's the big money?

Reyhan Harmanci, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, June 23, 2008
Clockwise from upper left: Crystal Young, Yousef Abu-Tale... Vlad Baranovsky (left) and his brother Yuri (center) crea... Cast from the web telecast "The Burg." Photo by Zandy Man... Ask A Ninja. Photo courtesy of Scott Manning & Associates More...

With an average monthly viewership of 1.5 million people, "Break a Leg," the Internet video series about the making of a sitcom in San Francisco, is ahead of its time. Brothers Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky the 24- and 30-year-old co-creators of the show, along with co-producers Justin Morrison, 25, and Dashiell Reinhardt, 25, have created something out of nothing. Without a business plan, industry connections or television experience, they've won over critics and attracted ardent fans. They've also distinguished their show through high production values: They use multiple locations and a cast of more than 10 actors and release new material weekly.

"Break a Leg," though, is no cash cow. Even with a YouTube partnership, contest winnings from Internet video clearinghouse Metacafe and other recognitions, "Break a Leg" has grossed about $2,500 for two years' work.

"We're in a funny place," admitted director-producer-star Yuri Baranovsky. "I don't know how many people get how much work it is to make this."

"Break a Leg" embodies the key contradictions of the brave new world of online video entertainment. It's easier and cheaper than ever for individuals to produce their own work and put it up for global audiences - on sites like YouTube, Revver, Veoh and My Damn Channel - but it's almost impossible to make a living outside of the established TV and film industry. While media analysts agree that the future of television will be online - the number of viewers who access video via the Web is expected to nearly quadruple by 2013 to at least 1 billion, according to a new study from ABI Research - no one knows what form Internet TV will take or how it will make money.

But that doesn't mean people aren't trying to strike gold. During the past few years, as the press has rushed to cover the few breakout stars of the form - "LonelyGirl15," "Ask a Ninja," "The Burg," "The Guild" - entertainment goliaths have rushed to create online studios, such as Michael Eisner's Vuguru, Fox-owned MySpaceTV and Disney-ABC's Stage 9.
No good revenue model

Creative types, such as local writer Julianne Balmain, believe that there's a place for shows tailored to the Internet viewing experience. Her series, "Engaged," produced with Purple Truck Media, will premiere later this summer and feature 5-minute segments.

"A lot of people have seen this moment as a transitional phase. We've watched Hollywood struggle with made-for-Web episodes," she said. However, "there's really not a good revenue model. We're kind of groping in the dark, figuring out how we are going to fund this."

One of the problems facing Web TV is that audiences are accustomed to free content on the Internet. The delay in Web advertising standards has made selling ads across platforms almost impossible: That is, since a show like "Break a Leg" can be watched on MySpace, YouTube, Breakaleg.tv, etc., ideally an advertiser would buy ads to show on all sites. But since sites use different metrics to measure viewing, there are no ad-pricing guidelines. And big advertisers are holding onto their pocketbooks and waiting.

While it makes sense for some traditional media companies with edgy brand profiles to back new online ventures, most companies have no interest in investing in unknown online video.

"What's really happening in online video is that there are millions, or thousands, of unproven works, produced by someone you don't know," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. "It's a Wild West video experience out there."

Kathleen Grace and Thom Woodley, for example, the creative team behind the Internet sitcom "The Burg" about people in their 20s in trendy Brooklyn, made one of the first scripted online shows in 2006 and got Motorola to sponsor a nine-episode run. Yet the show fell victim to the uncertain rules of online content: The money from Motorola enabled them to pay their actors at a union-negotiated fee, but when that money ran out they couldn't afford to make any more episodes with their SAG card-carrying stars.

"Thom and I both made literally about $500 from the Motorola sponsorship," Grace said. The exposure from "The Burg" did land the team another Internet show, financed by Vuguru, called "The All-for-Nots," which follows a fictional band around the country.

Even with the headaches, working online allows for much freedom. "A plus is that we can actually do it," Woodley said. "When we're on our game, we can come up with an idea, the next day shoot it, the next day edit it and the next week it's online. If we were working in TV, we couldn't turn around content that fast."

The downside, Grace said, is that "Thom still has a day job and, as of next week, I'll be unemployed. For me, that's the nature of being freelance. But still."
TV is the goal

Although the road from Internet shows to the big leagues is littered with failures, every day brings an announcement from offshoots of major studios about new online video programming. Vuguru premiered a 50-part online series called "Foreign Body" in late May, designed to promote a new Robin Cook thriller about medical tourism; and NBC will begin hosting the Rosario Dawson sci-fi Web series "Gemini Division" in July. "LonelyGirl15" producers landed a contract with CBS in May to produce online content.

"Break a Leg" began on a whim. In March 2006, while working on an indie film in San Francisco called "Life Noir," Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky heard about a contest on MySpace to make a five-minute pilot for a TV show. With help from their "Life Noir" friends, the brothers from Kiev, Ukraine, managed to pull together a short episode.

"Break a Leg" draws heavily from "Arrested Development" - it's about a misfit cast and crew making a TV show set in San Francisco. While they didn't win the MySpace prize, YouTube put the Baranovskys' work on its home page. The brothers whipped up another script, and then another. "Break a Leg" now has nine finished episodes with the season continuing through October.

For established Hollywood figures, moving back and forth between the Internet and broadcast TV or film is becoming more common. Will Ferrell's Funnyor Die.com has signed a deal to produce 10 half-hour blocks of programming for HBO. ABC is promoting the Web series "In the Motherhood," starring Chelsea Handler and Jenny McCarthy, to midseason sitcom status. "305," a parody of last summer's movie "300," is selling itself as the first online short to become a feature film.

Webisodes are relatively cheap for the established studios to make. "Foreign Body" cost Vuguru $10,000 an episode, while an episode of a single-camera, half-hour network comedy runs between $1.6 million and $2 million, according to Chris Albrecht from NewTeeVee.com. ("Break a Leg" costs its creators roughly $500 an episode.)

Still, the future of Internet shows remains uncertain.

"There's still no evidence that the Web format will be a dominant rather than supplementary format," said analyst McQuivey, who pointed out that 18 percent of Internet viewers are now connecting their computers to TV monitors, eliminating the need to produce video for computers. "Will this new visual language morph back into the established language of television? What is the long-term role of these short-form shows?"

Yuri Baranovsky, for one, has no desire to limit himself to online video work. He sees "Break a Leg" as his calling card to the television industry and its hard-to-reach executives. "It's like we're at the door of success, knocking, and we should be let in," he said, laughing. "Someone, open that stupid door!"

Get more: See a list of some other popular Web shows. E3

*The viewership numbers cited here are approximate and were reported by the series' creators.
LonelyGirl15

www.lg15.com

What: A 2006 Internet video series about a teenage girl named Bree who made confessions before a Webcam. Several months into the series, Bree was unmasked as an actress (Jessica Rose), whose words were scripted by the show's creators, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried.

Viewers*: More than 100 million views in total, with 200,000 to 500,000 views per episode.

Cost: Not available, but the creators say it was done on the cheap, shot with a $130 camera.

Sponsors: LonelyGirl15 was a pioneer in product integration, scoring deals with Hershey's, Twentieth Century Fox and others. It even featured a character written to promote Neutrogena.

And now? The series continues, though without Bree. The creators have launched a series spin-off, "Kate Modern," and have signed a development deal for online video projects with CBS.
Break a Leg

www.breakaleg.tv

What: A 2006 Internet video series about the making of a TV sitcom in San Francisco, created by Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky.

Viewers*: 1.5 million monthly visits.

Cost: $500 per episode.

Sponsors: Holiday Inn Express paid for a four-month run from July to October 2008.

And now: The series continues, with an October season finale.
The Burg

www.theburg.tv

What: A 2006 Internet video series about hipster life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, created by Kathleen Grace and Thom Woodley.

Viewers*: Initially 10,000 viewers; now 5 million viewers.

Cost: Initially $1,000 an episode, but costs skyrocketed after the cast became members of the Screen Actors Guild.

Sponsors: Motorola sponsored a nine-episode mini season in June 2007.

And now?: The show is on hiatus, due to lack of funding. Grace and Woodley have produced the Web series "The All-for-Nots" for Michael Eisner's Vuguru.
Ask A Ninja

www.askaninja.com

What: A 2005 Internet video series featuring a ninja who answers absurd e-mailed questions, created by comedians Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine.

Viewers*: 2.7 million monthly viewers.

Cost: $7,000 per episode.

Sponsors: Microsoft, Toshiba, Doritos, EA, GM and Google, among others.

And now?: The series continues. Its creators have written a book, "The Ninja Handbook," and are working on a feature film, a remake of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."
Other popular shows:

"The Guild" ( www.watchtheguild.com), "Young American Bodies" ( www.ifc.com/youngamericanbodies), "iChannel" ( www.connectwithi.com), "We Need Girlfriends" ( www.weneedgirlfriends.tv).

At Social Site, Only the Businesslike Need Apply - NYTimes.com

Dr. Media says this is interesting. NOT because Linkedin is boring relative to Facebook, but because it turns out, surprise, surprise, that just like in the real world--remember the real world-- people separate work and play. I like the note that people over 30--how they know that for sure is interesting, since, rumor has it that some people lie about their age online-- use Facebook to play Scrabble. So Linkedin is like getting dressed up for a job interview. Of course rumor has it that some people misrepresent themselves in job interviews as well, oh well, in the real world people sometimes make up stories too, I think.
The ability of linkedin to maintain its old school presence has made it appear to be a place where "serious" conversations can occur,that means you can control the spigot on what you consider serious,or interesting, as well as who can contact you. What a neat idea.That is what makes it somewhat interesting, although Dr. Media doesn't know about how man y people have gotten jobs from these contacts, now THAT would be interesting to know, as well as meaningful, and serious.


At Social Site, Only the Businesslike Need Apply - NYTimes.com

At Social Site, Only the Businesslike Need Apply
By BRAD STONE

SAN FRANCISCO — For a Web site, it could hardly look less exciting. Its pages are heavy with text, much of it a flat blue, and there are few photos and absolutely no videos.

But LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, is dull by design. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, the site is aimed at career-minded, white-collar workers, people who join more for the networking than the social.

Now, in the midst of Silicon Valley’s recession-proof enthusiasm for community-oriented Web sites, the most boring of the social networks is finally grabbing the spotlight.

On Wednesday, LinkedIn will announce that it has raised $53 million in capital, primarily from Bain Capital Ventures, a Boston-based private equity firm. The new financing round values the company at $1 billion. That heady valuation is more than the $580 million that the News Corporation paid for MySpace in 2005, but less than the $15 billion value assigned to Facebook last year when Microsoft bought a minority stake.

LinkedIn’s investment round delays a rumored initial public offering, which would have finally tested the public market’s interest in social networking.

“What we didn’t want is to have the distraction of being public and to be worried by quarterly performance,” said Dan Nye, the buttoned-down chief executive of LinkedIn, who would not be caught dead in the Birkenstocks and rumpled T-shirts favored by MySpace and Facebook employees.

LinkedIn, which says it is already profitable, will use the investment to make acquisitions and expand its overseas operations.

“We want to create a broad and critical business tool that is used by tens of millions of business professionals every day to make them better at what they do,” Mr. Nye said.

The average age of a LinkedIn user is 41, the point in life where people are less likely to build their digital identities around dates, parties and photos of revelry.

LinkedIn gives professionals, even the most hopeless wallflower, a painless way to follow the advice of every career counselor: build a network. Users maintain online résumés, establish links with colleagues and business acquaintances and then expand their networks to the contacts of their contacts. The service also helps them search for experts who can help them solve daily business problems.

The four-year-old site is decidedly antisocial: only last fall, after what executives describe as a year of intense debate, did the company ask members to add photos to their profiles.

That business-only-please strategy appears to be paying off. The number of people using LinkedIn, based in Mountain View, Calif., tripled in May over the previous year, according to Nielsen Online. At 23 million members, LinkedIn remains far smaller than Facebook and MySpace, each with 115 million members, but it is growing considerably faster.

LinkedIn also has a more diversified approach to making money than its entertainment-oriented rivals, which are struggling to bring in ad dollars and keep up with inflated expectations for increased revenue.

LinkedIn will get only a quarter of its projected $100 million in revenue this year from ads. (It places ads from companies like Microsoft and Southwest Airlines on profile pages.) Other moneymakers include premium subscriptions, which let users directly contact any user on the site instead of requiring an introduction from another member.

A third source of revenue is recruitment tools that companies can use to find people who may not even be actively looking for new jobs. Companies pay to search for candidates with specific skills, and each day, they get new prospects as people who fit their criteria join LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is set to undergo a radical shift in strategy to find other sources of revenue. Instead of catering primarily to individual white-collar workers, the site will soon introduce new services aimed at companies. It is a risky move that could alienate members who prefer to use the networking site to network — without their bosses peering over their shoulders.

One new product, Company Groups, automatically gathers all the employees from a company who use LinkedIn into a single, private Web forum. Employees can pose questions to each other, and share and discuss news articles about their industry.

Soon, LinkedIn plans to add additional features, like a group calendar, and let independent developers contribute their own programs that will allow employees to collaborate on projects.

The idea is to let firms exploit their employees’ social connections, institutional memories and special skills — knowledge that large, geographically dispersed companies often have a difficult time obtaining.

For example, in a test of the feature by AKQA, a digital ad agency in San Francisco, an employee based in Amsterdam recently asked her 350 colleagues on LinkedIn if the firm had done any previous work for television production companies. Executives in San Francisco, New York and London promptly responded to the query.

“This is a collected, protected space for employees to talk to each other and reference outside information,” said Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s founder and chairman.

Becoming even more corporate is something of a gamble for LinkedIn. Many companies might resist the idea of confidential corporate information circulating on LinkedIn’s servers — and perhaps being exposed to former employees who are included in the group because they have not updated their LinkedIn résumés. (LinkedIn says every member of a company group can remove people whom they identify as former workers or interlopers.)

Diffusing the purpose of the site might also repel some users.

“It will be extraordinarily challenging to simultaneously serve as a corporate tool and yet promote the ‘brand of me’ in an emerging free-agent nation,” said Keith Rabois, a former LinkedIn executive who is now vice president at Slide, a maker of applications for social networks.

Jeffrey Glass, a partner at Bain Capital, says his firm invested in LinkedIn primarily because it is now becoming popular enough to introduce these kinds of products to companies and other organizations, like universities.

“This is a powerful tool because inside the corporation, there are massive bodies of knowledge and relationships between individuals that the corporation has been unable to take advantage of until now,” he said.

The new services could help LinkedIn fend off some new competition. Microsoft, long covetous of rapidly growing social-networking properties, is internally testing a service called TownSquare that allows employees of a company to follow one another’s activities on the corporate network.

Executives at Facebook, meanwhile, have recently said that they see networking tools for professionals as a primary avenue of growth. The site recently added networking to the list of options that new users select when they are asked to specify what they intend to do on the site.

Mr. Hoffman was an early investor in Facebook and says he does not want to disparage the competition. But he said that most members of Facebook who are older than 30 use it for entertainment, like playing Scrabulous, a version of Scrabble — not for doing their jobs.

“Scrabulous is not work, and it does not enable you to be an effective professional,” he said.

Amid rush to sign online talent, agencies ponder how to profit

For those of you who follow this blog who are in the movie/tv content biz, don't worry I haven't forgotten you. Check out this article from USA Today. A clear explanation of rollout of the future of production as seen by agents, producers and none other than Michael Eisner, whoopee. Let Dr. Media tell you whats really going on here, and it's simple. The studios and networks are off loading the cost of development and production , if possible to indies, thus reducing their exposure and allowing EVERYONE to work on spec. To them the net is a global 24/7 Sundance and indie games festival all rolled into one. It allows them let content providers to develop whatever they want, market it, see if it gets any traction, and then be scooped up by the bigboys, which fits nicely into the producers goals. Is this new? No. The film biz has been driven, and fed by this thinking, as has the TV biz , for years, this just makes it more automated, since everyone who "thinks" they have an idea for some media project, can now put it up, and find out if it's worth anything. Of course will be harder to prove that the ideas has been ripped off won't it, but thats another story. Read on!!

Amid rush to sign online talent, agencies ponder how to profit



By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY

The top floor of United Talent Agency looks the part with its expansive glass-walled offices, chic artwork and an army of fashionably dressed agents working deals for the likes of Harrison Ford.

And then there are the four guys toiling downstairs.

"This is it," says Jason Nadler, 28, waving at a crowded space that would barely cut it as a waiting room upstairs. Here, Nadler and Ryan Reber, 28, Barrett Garese, 27, and Jon Zimelis, 27, scour the Internet daily for The Next Big Thing in entertainment and pop culture.

In these dorm-room-style digs — unused foosball table, joke poster of O.J. Simpson — the young scouts who make up the talent agency's 2-year-old Web division, UTA Online, have been feverishly signing up dozens of digital mavericks in hopes of finding that rare bright light who can build a lucrative entertainment enterprise.


"There's a huge cultural change going on out there," Nadler says. "The model of how people consume their entertainment is totally up in the air."

That's not the only thing up for grabs. The foundation of Hollywood's dominance in pop culture and the entertainment industry is being threatened by the democratizing force of the Internet, which posits that anyone with a snappy idea and a video camera can dish up features to the masses.

As a result, top Hollywood agencies such as UTA, Endeavor and Creative Artists Agency are diligently mining the Web for raw talent. The process quickly has become as crucial to entertainment talent scouts as trawling smoky comedy clubs or screening obscure movies has been for generations.

Meanwhile, network executives are busy signing deals with online content producers with a knack for wooing audiences with short attention spans. This month, CBS brought on EQAL founders Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, the duo behind the first successful Web serial, LonelyGirl15, to help create unique extensions of CBS shows for the Web.

"The media companies know they will ignore this trend at their peril," says Larry Gerbrandt, principal with Media Valuation Partners, a consulting firm that advises entertainment companies. "The Internet is what cable TV was two decades ago. At first, the big guys balked at it. Now, they own it."

There are bargains to be had

There are some encouraging signs for the executives diving into an unpredictable world of entertainment fueled largely by the whims of twentysomethings:

•For companies used to spending millions of dollars on talent and programs, the Web is a bargain on both fronts.

"For what you spend on one TV pilot, you could do an endless online serial," Gerbrandt says.

Precise budgets are rarely discussed by talent agencies or networks, but producers agree a two-minute video can be made for a few thousand dollars.

"The beauty of the Web is that you can easily test an idea and move on," Gerbrandt says.

•Although media companies of all types continue to wrestle with how to make money from the Web, money is flowing into that part of the entertainment industry at a time when TV and film are finding it increasingly difficult to capture audiences.

Online advertising spending is projected to double to $50 billion by 2012, according to forecasting group eMarketer.

"There's no question this is a new and valued marketplace," says Lori Schwartz, director of Interpublic Group's Emerging Media Lab, which advises Web advertisers. "The convergence of broadcast and broadband will really make this big."

Well, maybe — if the Web can become a reliable source of watchable programming.

Right now, however, "it's nothing more than a flea market," Schwartz says, using a description that is a favorite among those studying the Web entertainment space. "There are lots of content producers and lots of sites begging you to hang around. But to find anything good really takes digging."

Even when an Internet video is a success among the masses, it doesn't mean it will be a marketing success that can be copied.

Consider the all-time king of YouTube clips, Evolution of Dance, which features motivational speaker Judson Laipply grooving through various dance crazes. It has been viewed a staggering 85 million times, but apart from perhaps boosting Laipply's speaking commitments, the video has not made its protagonist a mainstream star or a mountain of money.

Another example is comedian Will Ferrell's site, FunnyOrDie.com. It routinely showcases the work of talented A-list and amateur jokers, but the portal has yet to laugh all the way to the bank. The reason? An onslaught of competitors.

"There are 1,700 sites and counting that offer Web video content, and because that group is fragmenting, few sites are emerging as true destinations," says Chad Cooper of OVGuide.com, which studies the online video phenomenon. "As for what people will go to the Web to watch, there's still a discovery process going on."

That's why some of the giants in the entertainment world are treading carefully. In February, Disney launched Stage 9 Digital Media, whose sole mission is to generate original online-only content. It's debut offering was Squeegees, a series about window washers that was created by an L.A. foursome dubbed Handsome Donkey.

"We want to see if we can re-create the TV model on the Internet," says Handsome Donkey's Aaron Greenberg.

"Admittedly, we have a more run-and-gun style than what you normally see on television."

Not just 'skateboard wipeouts'

The style doesn't matter if the work is compelling, says former Disney chief turned Web entrepreneur Michael Eisner.

"Ultimately, what will win out on the Web is story-driven content," says Eisner, whose new-media studio, Vuguru, has produced the popular online series Prom Queen. It's a horror saga geared toward teens and young adults who want their entertainment in short (typically about two minutes), frantically paced episodes.

Eisner's newest offering is an episodic prequel to a forthcoming book by Robin Cook called Foreign Body. About 50 two- to three-minute videos soon will begin appearing online daily, stopping the day before the book's Aug. 5 release. The Web episodes are the work of Cook and UTA clients Big Fantastic, another quartet of friends whose Web work is leading them into the mainstream.

The group, which produced Prom Queen, also has plans to team up with Charlie's Angels director McG to create the online mystery drama Sorority Forever for TheWB.com, Warner Bros' online resurrection of its defunct WB television network.

"We want to grab a piece of land in this space and pioneer it, legitimize it," says Chris Hampel of Big Fantastic, whose attitude is echoed by a declaration on its website: "We believe Web video won't be limited to skateboard wipeouts."

Hoping to capitalize on that same episodic trend is Brent Weinstein, UTA Online's former chief who last year started 60Frames.com, which has a commitment from Oscar-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen to produce short features for the Web. Weinstein's current feature is Blood Cell, a Web-only horror thriller starring Jessica Rose.

In 2006, Rose was the star of the LonelyGirl15 online series, which began in 2006 with Rose posing as a video blogger who mused about her family and life as a teenager. Many viewers mistook Rose for a real blogger until a few viewers, suspicious about the blog's relatively slick production, outed her as an actress who was part of a production backed by Creative Artists Agency.

"Online entertainment is as different from TV as TV is from film," says Weinstein, whose company aims to have 50 Web series in production by the end of the year. "When you're telling stories in two-minute bursts, it's much more like a comic strip that you come back to day after day to see what happens. Not everyone can do it, but slowly we'll figure out who the Aaron Sorkins of the Web storytelling world are."

Great tales also are what ultimately should bring in the bucks, whether they feature unknown faces or tabloid regulars, says Interpublic's Schwartz.

"Advertisers will want variety. Some like the idea of signing up with online fare produced by big stars, while others prefer to be associated with edgier sites that might be discovering new talent," she says. "The question is which business model will ultimately work."

Talent agencies are covering both those bases. Among other things, the agencies are steering established writers and actors toward online projects that ensure broad exposure.

"The level of interest in this space by our A-list clients is expanding," says Chris Jacquemin, head of the Endeavor agency's digital department. He cites a deal Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane made to create a series of Web shorts to run on Google.

'To us, it's big bucks'

Endeavor recently signed Brandon Hardesty, a 21-year-old mimic from Maryland whose re-enactments of scenes from famous films have become hits on YouTube. But the Hardestys of the Web world are rare.

"Just because we now have the Internet, it doesn't mean there's more talent out there. In fact, it's as finite as ever," says Michael Yanover, head of business development at CAA. "We're looking for people whose talent works across many platforms, not just online."

CAA has helped to launch several video portals; it partnered with Ferrell and Silicon Valley's Sequoia Capital to start FunnyOrDie.

Says Yanover: "The Internet's emerging talent is where the future lies."

An example: David Young, 25, and Joey Manderino, 23. The two buddies from Indiana started their own website two years ago as a repository for the videos they had starting making while in college.

After developing a following on websites such as CollegeHumor.com and YouTube, the duo was signed by CAA. The result: Besides a deal with Warner Bros, the two are writing a comedy pilot for TBS with the support of fellow CAA clients Mitch Hurwitz (Arrested Development) and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum (Two and a Half Men).

"It's especially cool to have more support for our online work," Manderino says. "The budgets per episode are modest, four figures. But hey, before that, we were paying to do this out of our own pocket. To us, it's big bucks."

There's another reason Young and Manderino feel fortunate: The number of amateurs hoping to be discovered by Web talent scouts has mushroomed during the past year, making it increasingly difficult to catch an agent's eye.

"The Web's almost oversaturated with videos now," Manderino says. "It's getting really hard to stand out."

Vetting the videos

At UTA Online's office, Nadler cues up an episode of Bus Pirates, the work of a group of prospects whose online video skits imagine what it would be like for commuters to run into pirates on the Los Angeles bus system. The clip is clever, but the UTA crew doesn't quite see it as a winner.

A few minutes later, the UTA guys are united in their admiration for another video. Called Duck Tales, it features the bouncy theme song from a Disney cartoon featuring Scrooge McDuck and his brood. But the darkly outrageous scenes that unfold feature a female duck who is kidnapped, bound, tormented and returned to the front steps of her uncle's mansion.

To the UTA crew the clip is funny — and a source of frustration. Fatal Farm, the L.A.-based duo that produced the video, has resisted UTA's overtures to sign a deal.

"We're working on something right now, and prefer to talk later rather than get distracted," says Fatal Farm's Zach Johnson, 25.

That attitude might seem foolish to some. But it's a sign of confidence that springs from taking a look around at Hollywood's changing landscape.

Just ask the Handsome Donkey gang, whose group meeting places have gone from coffee shops and living rooms to offices within the Disney empire.

"When we first started getting attention, people would say, 'Hey, you've got a great steppingstone into the world of real entertainment,' " Greenberg says. "But from Day 1, we never felt the Internet was some sort of proving ground.

"It's a new platform, period."