Book publishers were among the first groups of industry professionals using web series to market their products. Way back in 2008, Michael Eisner's new media studio, Vuguru launched Foreign Body to promote Robin Cook's organ trafficking thriller novel of the same name. In the same year, members of Hollywood royalty and Macmillan Publishing released a four-part sparkly, self-indulgent program directed by McG showing off the glitz of the movie biz in preparation for the release of Celebutantes. Now DVD publishers are shooting web series in hopes of helping sales. Warner Brothers Entertainment teamed up with digital production and distribution house Dbg on an online series to advertise the DVD release of Sex and the City 2. Although the fab foursome from the upper echelons of a fictitious Manhattan social scene where ladies possess "the irrational and desperate belief that a man will somehow 'fix' things" haven't been relevant for...
- 10/28/2010
- by Joshua Cohen
- Tubefilter.com
Big Fantastic has one of the more impressive track records in the web series circuit, tent-poled by their international breakout franchise Prom Queen. For years they have been the goto production house for studios like Michael Eisner’s Vuguru (Prom Queen, Foreign Body), 60Frames (Cockpit) and Warner Bros. (Sorority Forever). But now as the company prepares its first non-studio original series since their debut Sam Has 7 Friends, the company announced they have signed on as a new media signatories to the Writers Guild of America, West, under the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement (“Mba”). “The Guild has done a great job of recognizing and legitimizing the efforts of online creators like us,” said Big Fantastic’s Doug Cheney. “We chose to become a signatory now because it affords us tremendous opportunities as writers while allowing our company access to the vast WGA talent pool.” There’s been a fair...
- 2/24/2010
- by Marc Hustvedt
- Tubefilter.com
Today at Natpe in Las Vegas, legendary Hollywood creative and entertainment business leader Michael Eisner, CEO of The Tornante Company and its digital entertainment studio Vuguru, shared his thoughts about originally produced content for the Web. First off, Eisner is the first to admit that he doesn't know how the industry is going to play out. "I don't know if it will be evolutionary or revolutionary...but it can't not happen" (the growth in content made for the Internet), said Eisner. He added that a "death march" has been going on for other media" (i.e., Cable, TV). They are in trouble because there is a more efficient way to share content around the world with the Internet. Regardless of the distribution strategy (TV, Cable, DVD) - it's still about making great, high quality content. He added that when his job was on the line a few times over the years,...
- 1/26/2010
- by Pam Kulik
- Tubefilter.com
In October, Vuguru announced it inked a multi-million dollar deal with Canadian media behemoth, Rogers Media. The partnership gives Vuguru - a three-year-old web television company founded by Michael Eisner - two things. One, a distribution partner with 51 radio stations, two television networks, one Major League Baseball team, and a multitude of other print publications and broadcast outlets, ranging from a Canadian edition of Hello magazine to Canada's only nationally televised shopping service. And two, an influx of cash with which to triple production and create a reported 10 to 15 new web series in 2010. Today, Vuguru named Larry Tanz president. The entertainment industry executive and digital media entrepreneur will have the responsibility of soundly spending Rogers' "significant capital investment" on "high-quality, scripted, story-driven productions" with known talent and advertiser, distributor, and audience appeal. If his resume is any indication, he'll perform very well in the new position. Before Vuguru, Tanz was...
- 12/15/2009
- by Joshua Cohen
- Tubefilter.com
In a multimillion dollar deal announced today, Michael Eisner's three year-old web studio Vuguru just landed a major investor and distribution partner in Canadian-owned Rogers Media. For Rogers, it means a multi-year exclusive on Canadian rights to Vuguru properties on all platforms including web, TV and mobile. Known for being an earlier pioneer of professionally produced web series like Prom Queen, The All-For-Nots, Foreign Body, and Back on Topps, the studio had been relatively quiet after a busy first two years. The only active series so far this year were a second season of Back on Topps and the shot but still unreleased third installment in the Prom Queen franchise, Prom Queen: Homecoming. As part of the deal, the web studio is being spun out into its own stand-alone entity, with Eisner serving as its Chairman. Vuguru was previously a division of Eisner's privately-owned Tornante Company, the same...
- 10/26/2009
- by Marc Hustvedt
- Tubefilter.com
What’s the best way to hype your product? A contest? A viral ad campaign? How about a web series? Random House, through its Bantam Dell imprint have put together a web series of their own to bring the web-buzz to Fragment, a thriller by Warren Fahy about a mysterious place where prehistoric animals thrive called Hender’s Island. The web series, which is divided into three parts and shares the same name, is a prequel to the novel and tells the story of a scientist who comes into possession of one of those animals.The creature resembles those face-suckers seen in the Alien Quadrilogy so naturally chaos ensues. The idea drawing readers in with a web series’ is relatively new. We covered a similar attempt by Alloy Marketing, which put together a web series based on the teen-mystery novels, Private. That series is set to launch sometime this month.
- 7/13/2009
- by Jacob Nahin
- Tubefilter.com
I'm not sure if spinoff is the right word here, but for lack of a better one I'm going with it. Oxygen just launched a Tori Spelling spinoff web series, Mommywood, today as an online extension her popular TV series Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Ok, technically this is a book launch web series, somewhat akin to Robin Cook's Foreign Body drama last summer or better yet, Stephen King's well-received animated series N. Spelling is, after all, a New York Times best-selling author so we learned, and the series shows on screen what she spent 256 pages writing about in the book of the same name. Spelling doesn't shy away from airing some of the family business, like when her mother, Candy Spelling, stopped talking to her after she dished out the family secrets in her tell-all book sTORI Telling. No related news.
- 7/1/2009
- by Marc Hustvedt
- Tubefilter.com
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