You Suck at Photoshop is a 2 season, 20 episode Webby award winning web series that chronicles fictional character Donnie Hoyle’s messy divorce and rampant emotional problems through a series of Adobe Photoshop tutorials. You Suck at Photoshop is unique in the sense that no characters are ever shown on screen, and instead the viewer is presented with a screencast of Donnie’s computer monitor. The dialogue is all presented through voiceover, along with Skype calls from Donnie’s friend sn4tchbuckl3r, who seems to be constantly begging for Donnie to join him in World of Warcraft. Occasionally, minor characters such as Donnie’s wife or his characters can be heard talking to Donnie off screen.
Although You Suck at Photoshop contains a well thought out story arc, each episode stands on its own not only as an informational Photoshop tutorial, but also as a piece of comedic fiction. While Donnie presents his information condescendingly to the audience, the techniques he uses are actually quite useful and it would be relatively easy to learn the basics of a professional level program just by watching this series.
You Suck at Photoshop was initially distributed through YouTube, and it was meant to be a one-off series. However, Troy Hitch and Matt Bledsoe (voices of Donnie and Sn4tchbuckl3r respectively, and the masterminds behind the series) were contacted by Rob Barnett, who had been formerly employed by MTV, VH1, and CBS and asked to create Barnett’s web television channel, MyDamnChannel.com. Much of You Suck at Photoshop’s success can likely be attributed to many of the episodes reaching the front page of the popular social news website Digg, as well as many users speculating that the series was voiced by popular comedians Dane Cook or Dane Cross. Due to viewer demand, the series was brought back for a second season, as well as spawning a spin off series titled Sn4tchbuckl3r’s Second Chance.
You Suck at Photoshop makes it apparent that with a good idea and clever writing, you don’t need massive resources to create quality web television content. Hitch created the first episode in only two and a half hours, which is amazing compared to the week long shooting schedules per episode of other web series. By working within the confines of what the team had, they were forced to rely on something more than fancy production techniques. Donnie was a character that the audience could relate to, and effectively made learning fun. You Suck at Photoshop can be equated to Sesame Street for the now nearly grown up Generation Y.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Dorm Life
by Steve D'Ambrozio
Web TV, is the new form of entertainment in the 21st century. There are a variety of shows on the web. From ‘The Guild’ to ‘Casual Sex’, to the Streamy award winning ‘Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog’, they all have a mass following.
The web TV show, I chose to review is ‘Dorm Life’. This show is based at a college on a dorm floor. The tag line for the show is “This isn’t Real Life. This is Dorm Life.” The show is a comedy. Season one which the show calls ‘semester 1’ has 20 episodes. Currently there are seven episodes of semester two. Attention Span Media are the producers of Dorm Life. According to their website “Dorm Life is a multifaceted, mockumentary-style series targeting 18-25 yr olds. It follows the lives of ten-college student thrown together on the same dorm floor. Full of mischief, adventures, rivalries, and romance, the comedic series carries a broad appeal from teenagers to college graduates of any age. The series launched Feb 4th and is centered around the www.dorm-life.com portal. It was a 2008 Webby Honoree.”
Two of the cast members have previous acting experience and one of them is involved in future productions. Jack De Sena who plays Shane and Nora Kirkpatrick who plays Courtney. Nora will be staring in the upcoming movies Transformers 2, Growth, and How to make love to a woman. Jack does not have any upcoming films.
Hulu has a ranking of TV shows that are shown on their website. Looking at Hulu.com and the Most popular shows category, as of 4/6/09 ‘Dorm life’ was the most popular TV Web show of ‘All Time’, ‘Today’, ‘This week’ and ‘This month. The second place for all time is Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog. This shows that Dorm life has a great retention rate. According to the Attentionspanmedia.com Blog site Dorm life beats the rest of the top 50 web TV shows. “Dorm Life Episode 1 to 8 retention was 170% higher than the average top-50 web series.” and that dorm life “retained 95% of viewers from episode 2 to episode 8.” Which was during Season 1.
Dorm life’s budget for the first season was approximately $300,000. They shot the show at a small university in LA on an actual dorm floor. The producers got the whole dorm building to themselves. Having an entire building to your-self to shoot episodes I think is ingenious. This saves on production costs. The cast was able to move into the dorm rooms and actually live there and develop a relationship with the other cast members and they’re surrounding.
The producers also see the show as a franchise. The current characters will move on but new freshman would move onto the floor. This keeps the show continuing past four ‘semesters’ and an opportunity to attract new viewers. If the producers keep using the model for success that they are now then the retention rate will continue to remain high and be one of the most popular web TV shows around.
Overall, Dorm life is a goofy, campy and fun show that shows the trials and tribulations of dorm life in a college. This show was a great find and is a must see for anybody who is looking for some college humor on a rainy day.
References:
http://www.tilzy.tv/dorm-life-returns-for-a-second-semester-with-carls-jr.htm
http://news.tubefilter.tv/2008/10/25/love-is-in-the-air-as-dorm-lifes-romance-with-hulu-continues/
Web TV, is the new form of entertainment in the 21st century. There are a variety of shows on the web. From ‘The Guild’ to ‘Casual Sex’, to the Streamy award winning ‘Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog’, they all have a mass following.
The web TV show, I chose to review is ‘Dorm Life’. This show is based at a college on a dorm floor. The tag line for the show is “This isn’t Real Life. This is Dorm Life.” The show is a comedy. Season one which the show calls ‘semester 1’ has 20 episodes. Currently there are seven episodes of semester two. Attention Span Media are the producers of Dorm Life. According to their website “Dorm Life is a multifaceted, mockumentary-style series targeting 18-25 yr olds. It follows the lives of ten-college student thrown together on the same dorm floor. Full of mischief, adventures, rivalries, and romance, the comedic series carries a broad appeal from teenagers to college graduates of any age. The series launched Feb 4th and is centered around the www.dorm-life.com portal. It was a 2008 Webby Honoree.”
Two of the cast members have previous acting experience and one of them is involved in future productions. Jack De Sena who plays Shane and Nora Kirkpatrick who plays Courtney. Nora will be staring in the upcoming movies Transformers 2, Growth, and How to make love to a woman. Jack does not have any upcoming films.
Hulu has a ranking of TV shows that are shown on their website. Looking at Hulu.com and the Most popular shows category, as of 4/6/09 ‘Dorm life’ was the most popular TV Web show of ‘All Time’, ‘Today’, ‘This week’ and ‘This month. The second place for all time is Dr. Horribles Sing-Along Blog. This shows that Dorm life has a great retention rate. According to the Attentionspanmedia.com Blog site Dorm life beats the rest of the top 50 web TV shows. “Dorm Life Episode 1 to 8 retention was 170% higher than the average top-50 web series.” and that dorm life “retained 95% of viewers from episode 2 to episode 8.” Which was during Season 1.
Dorm life’s budget for the first season was approximately $300,000. They shot the show at a small university in LA on an actual dorm floor. The producers got the whole dorm building to themselves. Having an entire building to your-self to shoot episodes I think is ingenious. This saves on production costs. The cast was able to move into the dorm rooms and actually live there and develop a relationship with the other cast members and they’re surrounding.
The producers also see the show as a franchise. The current characters will move on but new freshman would move onto the floor. This keeps the show continuing past four ‘semesters’ and an opportunity to attract new viewers. If the producers keep using the model for success that they are now then the retention rate will continue to remain high and be one of the most popular web TV shows around.
Overall, Dorm life is a goofy, campy and fun show that shows the trials and tribulations of dorm life in a college. This show was a great find and is a must see for anybody who is looking for some college humor on a rainy day.
References:
http://www.tilzy.tv/dorm-life-returns-for-a-second-semester-with-carls-jr.htm
http://news.tubefilter.tv/2008/10/25/love-is-in-the-air-as-dorm-lifes-romance-with-hulu-continues/
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Can a web series make the Jump?
by Ryan Albahary
College Humor started out as a website years ago created by two college friends, Rick Van Veen, and Josh Abramson. The website contains pictures, videos, blogs, and other articles about many different topics that the college aged kid would be interested in, there is something for almost anyone inside. The website has many original web-series created by the producers and founders of the site. The site also features original videos from the producers that are short one-time packages. The site features a way for the public to upload their own original idea. For the most part these are just friends having fun and making a living doing it. Over the years their popularity has grown and it landed them their own TV show, which they based off of a few web-series, they created in order to fill a full half hour time slot. The show takes place in the College Humor office staring actual employees.
On the College Humor website the company has had many successes with web series such as “Jake and Amir”, and “Hardly Working”. College Humor was one of the front-runners in web-television. These web series work very well online as short snippets of comedy. Some shorts tend to be better than other but one bad show isn’t going to turn away viewers. This is different when it comes to a TV show. The show needs to start off big and keep its viewers intrigued to tune in every week and wanting more. This is where The College Humor show falls short. It caused viewers to not want to watch the show after the first episode. College Humor has played out their comedy. Although it intrigues some, it is no longer all that original but after watching the same joke over and over again for 20 minutes it gets old.
The show doesn’t hold up for a full television series. The combination of “Jake and Amir” and “Hardly Working” doesn’t work together for that long of a period of time. The show was made to be watched on a smaller screen in shorter periods of time. Each episode of The College Humor show can be split up into at least three or four webisodes and they would in fact work better that way. It is easier to ignore story and character arc in a short webisode where you usually don’t have time to start to care about the character and get to know them. There is no character arc or story arc in any episode. Every episode could be the first episode. Nothing from past episodes are ever brought up and there is no real story line that follows through the series except the co-workers relationships with each other that doesn’t change. Each character stays exactly the same throughout the series and it gives you no reason to want to watch the characters after awhile. You tend to not care for the characters after awhile because they keep doing the same dumb things and it never works out as they planned.
The story throughout each episode barely holds up. After each commercial break you come back and the main story of the episode is not being paid attention to at all. The show is missing a substance that makes you want to keep watching it and the acting doesn’t hold us as a legit show. The show is shot in mostly medium shots, and medium close ups. These shots are more than often captured with a camera being hand held instead of steady on a tripod. Now when used appropriately the hand held shot is fine but when used for almost a full episode the shake becomes more of a disturbance and with no emotion being showed it doesn’t add to the attitude of the show. The shake is also more noticeable on the TV screen versus a smaller player such as the one used on their website.
In short The College Humor Show get ahead of itself when attempting to make the switch to the silver screen. After watching many of their web series and Television series it is safe to say that College Humor is best kept online. I viewed a few episodes of the series on TV and the ones I missed I watched online and I was able to enjoy it slightly more online but still found my self breaking up each episode and not watching them fully through. The College Humor Show had a good idea however it didn’t work out right and it’s a shame that it has gotten some bad publicity because of the show.
References:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/01/24/050124fa_fact2
http://www.collegehumor.com/thecollegehumorshow
http://newteevee.com/2009/01/27/collegehumor-serious-about-its-tv-show/
http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/13/the-college-humor-show-sucks-balls/
http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/13/the-college-humor-show-sucks-balls/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CollegeHumor
College Humor started out as a website years ago created by two college friends, Rick Van Veen, and Josh Abramson. The website contains pictures, videos, blogs, and other articles about many different topics that the college aged kid would be interested in, there is something for almost anyone inside. The website has many original web-series created by the producers and founders of the site. The site also features original videos from the producers that are short one-time packages. The site features a way for the public to upload their own original idea. For the most part these are just friends having fun and making a living doing it. Over the years their popularity has grown and it landed them their own TV show, which they based off of a few web-series, they created in order to fill a full half hour time slot. The show takes place in the College Humor office staring actual employees.
On the College Humor website the company has had many successes with web series such as “Jake and Amir”, and “Hardly Working”. College Humor was one of the front-runners in web-television. These web series work very well online as short snippets of comedy. Some shorts tend to be better than other but one bad show isn’t going to turn away viewers. This is different when it comes to a TV show. The show needs to start off big and keep its viewers intrigued to tune in every week and wanting more. This is where The College Humor show falls short. It caused viewers to not want to watch the show after the first episode. College Humor has played out their comedy. Although it intrigues some, it is no longer all that original but after watching the same joke over and over again for 20 minutes it gets old.
The show doesn’t hold up for a full television series. The combination of “Jake and Amir” and “Hardly Working” doesn’t work together for that long of a period of time. The show was made to be watched on a smaller screen in shorter periods of time. Each episode of The College Humor show can be split up into at least three or four webisodes and they would in fact work better that way. It is easier to ignore story and character arc in a short webisode where you usually don’t have time to start to care about the character and get to know them. There is no character arc or story arc in any episode. Every episode could be the first episode. Nothing from past episodes are ever brought up and there is no real story line that follows through the series except the co-workers relationships with each other that doesn’t change. Each character stays exactly the same throughout the series and it gives you no reason to want to watch the characters after awhile. You tend to not care for the characters after awhile because they keep doing the same dumb things and it never works out as they planned.
The story throughout each episode barely holds up. After each commercial break you come back and the main story of the episode is not being paid attention to at all. The show is missing a substance that makes you want to keep watching it and the acting doesn’t hold us as a legit show. The show is shot in mostly medium shots, and medium close ups. These shots are more than often captured with a camera being hand held instead of steady on a tripod. Now when used appropriately the hand held shot is fine but when used for almost a full episode the shake becomes more of a disturbance and with no emotion being showed it doesn’t add to the attitude of the show. The shake is also more noticeable on the TV screen versus a smaller player such as the one used on their website.
In short The College Humor Show get ahead of itself when attempting to make the switch to the silver screen. After watching many of their web series and Television series it is safe to say that College Humor is best kept online. I viewed a few episodes of the series on TV and the ones I missed I watched online and I was able to enjoy it slightly more online but still found my self breaking up each episode and not watching them fully through. The College Humor Show had a good idea however it didn’t work out right and it’s a shame that it has gotten some bad publicity because of the show.
References:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/01/24/050124fa_fact2
http://www.collegehumor.com/thecollegehumorshow
http://newteevee.com/2009/01/27/collegehumor-serious-about-its-tv-show/
http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/13/the-college-humor-show-sucks-balls/
http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/13/the-college-humor-show-sucks-balls/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CollegeHumor
Private High Musical: How Music Grabs an Audience on the Web
by Stephanie Haas
Private High Musical is a seven episode web series which parodies the Disney movie High School Musical. The series is about a girl who is a virgin at a new High School and is trying to find her place. The lead role is played by Taryn Southern who is a becoming a celebrity in the web series industry. Private High Musical also stars Mr. Belding’s Dennis Haskings who, according to tilzytv.com, is the star of the series. He plays the perverted school teacher who gives words of wisdom in the episode entitled “First Period.” Despite the great cast, the series is based off song and lyrics because without it, the web series may not have been as popular or recognized as it is.
The musical lyrics for the songs used throughout the series tell a story of what is going on and the whole theme of the series is supposed to be about learning how to get laid and getting high. This theme mixed with stereotypical high school characters creates humor for the viewer. With lyrics like “Welcome to our senior class, you’ll never have a problem getting any ass,” it is easy for the viewer to stay tuned to the next episode in hopes of hearing a new song that rhymes with sex. According to webtvhub.com, “if you’re looking for an actually entertaining musical, look no further than ‘Private High.”
Since Dr. Horrible, there had been no other web series that used music to capture their audience and tell a successful story. The series has been so successful that the series has gotten picked up my MTV to be turned into a television series. Tubefilter.com reports that “as part of the deal, MTV acquires the rights to the series, though Southern will remain a producer and actor in the show.” The use of music and witty lyrics, this web series has the potential to be successful and while maintaining its raunchy humor.
Private High Musical is a seven episode web series which parodies the Disney movie High School Musical. The series is about a girl who is a virgin at a new High School and is trying to find her place. The lead role is played by Taryn Southern who is a becoming a celebrity in the web series industry. Private High Musical also stars Mr. Belding’s Dennis Haskings who, according to tilzytv.com, is the star of the series. He plays the perverted school teacher who gives words of wisdom in the episode entitled “First Period.” Despite the great cast, the series is based off song and lyrics because without it, the web series may not have been as popular or recognized as it is.
The musical lyrics for the songs used throughout the series tell a story of what is going on and the whole theme of the series is supposed to be about learning how to get laid and getting high. This theme mixed with stereotypical high school characters creates humor for the viewer. With lyrics like “Welcome to our senior class, you’ll never have a problem getting any ass,” it is easy for the viewer to stay tuned to the next episode in hopes of hearing a new song that rhymes with sex. According to webtvhub.com, “if you’re looking for an actually entertaining musical, look no further than ‘Private High.”
Since Dr. Horrible, there had been no other web series that used music to capture their audience and tell a successful story. The series has been so successful that the series has gotten picked up my MTV to be turned into a television series. Tubefilter.com reports that “as part of the deal, MTV acquires the rights to the series, though Southern will remain a producer and actor in the show.” The use of music and witty lyrics, this web series has the potential to be successful and while maintaining its raunchy humor.
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