It’s interesting HBO picked up the eight-episode show, which I hope was due to an interest in the rising creative class and DIY movement in this country. It’s also interesting that HBO is acquiring web-originated content, because I’ve been surprised by HBO’s lack of a cohesive online strategy. I say this not just as an outsider who’s disappointed whenever I visit their website or try to watch their content online — or as someone who wondered what they were going to do with HBO Lab (answer: nothing) — but also as someone who’s pitched an online project to them twice. Exhibit A is their whack embedded player:

I tried to resize it, but HBO’s technology hasn’t caught up to 2007. Impressive, guys. Instead, here’s the YouTube version:

The Neistat Brothers airs on HBO every Friday at midnight.

Has anyone seen the show? What do you think?

Two questions spring to mind:

1. Is this too soon for the Hollywood adaptation, ala Oliver Stone’s W.?
2. How are they going to address the challenge of making computer use dramatic? Lesser filmmakers have stooped to having fellatio performed on computer users in an attempt to make typing interesting.

What do you think? Come October, will you be interested in paying money to see a movie about the founding of a website you use for free?

The trailer features the only Phoenix song currently in my iTunes, Love Like a Sunset, as well as one of dozens of The Strokes songs residing in my library (in this case, the serene I’ll Try Anything Once, a demo version of You Only Live Once). But for some reason this trailer reminded me most of a Kanye West song — We Major — because of its abrupt transition from girls-as-objects to girls-as-offspring. Kanye waxes philosophical about such a transition (NSFW lyrics, or something):

Feeling better than some head on a Sunday afternoon
Better than a chick that say yes too soon
Until you have a daughter, that’s what I call karma
And you pray to God she don’t grow breasts too soon.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just reading too much into the trailer. We’ll see in December when the film hits theaters…

[via Mashable]

I watched this episode on TV and, in terms of the DSLR cinematography, thought they did a terrific job –specifically in how they control highlights (the overhead spotlight that roams most of the episode is totally convincing as a helicopter spotlight, yet the scene is always perfectly exposed and the bluish light rarely blows out to “electronic white”). Their camera switch was justified by the cramped underground setting of the episode (although I thought they could’ve gotten even more claustrophobic with the DSLR). From a writing standpoint, the episode also delivers, as the crux of House’s character is that his dickishness makes him a better doctor. What would be worse, then — being a bastard and being right, or compromising and being wrong?

After you’ve watched the episode here — or if you caught it on TV — let me know your thoughts. How did it look to you?

I’m not saying this is the greatest thing since sliced bread — which, unless you’re eating whole grain or wheat bread, isn’t that great itself — but I think the elephant in the room with web serials is that everyone knows they could be a boundary-pushing creative medium, but instead what we’re seeing most of the time is just wannabe Hollywood stuff. Anyone caught any good web series lately?

[via Tubefilter]

[via No Fat Clips]

“The Last 3 Minutes” Behind the Scenes

Making of “The Last 3 Minutes” Janitor Scene

Making of “The Last 3 Minutes” Vietnam Scene

[via Hurlbut Visuals]

Last Day Dream by Chris Milk

The Last 3 Minutes by Po Chang

What do you think? Is The Last 3 Minutes a blatant rip-off of Last Day Dream, or is it just coincidence? Could this be an instance of cryptomnesia? Which video do you like more?

I’m not just posting this because I sat on a panel with Timo once — he’s a character — but I find his collaborative filmmaking site Wreckamovie to be an interesting (and apparently successful) concept. He’s explained it thusly:

Collaboration works so that each production has its own production leader, a person – maybe director, or producers – who sets up tasks that are required in the production of the film, and the community takes part in those tasks, gives their suggestions and collaborates with each other to create what the producer has asked for. The final cut still stays in the hands of the production team/director.

Here’s the Iron Sky trailer, which they’re using to try to raise the remaining 15% of the film’s $8.2 million (!) budget.

I suppose if you’re Nazis living in space for 75 years, you might as well build your space station in the shape of a swastika. What else are you going to do, right?

[via NewTeeVee]

[ via Ted Hope]