Makes you want to go out and buy extra graham crackers, now doesn’t it? Bravo, Honey Maid.
Category Archives: Creativity
Submissions Only
For the record, I LOVE Submissions Only. Start with season one and work your way up to season three, coming soon!
We’re thrilled to present at long last our first look at Season 3 of @SubmissionsOnly! Coming soon! #SubOnly3 Trailer http://t.co/q5eePzypbv
— Submissions Only (@SubmissionsOnly) October 1, 2013
How “Husbands” Predicted The Future For Gay Marriage And Digital Hollywood
How “Husbands” Predicted The Future For Gay Marriage And Digital Hollywood.
Fortunately, Husbands has not had to worry about suffering from performance issues. When Bell and Espenson launched it two years ago as a web series on YouTube, it won a rave from no less than The New Yorker, and generated enough of a passionate fan base that the duo was able to raise $60,000 on Kickstarter for a second season. That season, which debuted on YouTube last year, saw a roughly 35% boost in viewership. “Everybody has access to the ability to make their own product now,” says Espenson. “It really is ‘the best will thrive.’ Like, whole networks are set up to guess what people are going to like. You don’t have to guess anymore. You can put it up and see what they like. That’s what we did. And they liked us.”
Excellent article and interview with Bell, Espenson and Hemeon about the impact of Husbands and finding new venues for content.
Husbands’ co-star Sean Hemeon is flanked by series co-creators Brad Bell and Jane Espenson at the 2013 Entertainment Weekly San Diego Comic Con party. The much-lauded marriage equality series centers on Hemeon and Bell, who play a hilarious mismatched married couple in the crisply written show. | Image: Chelsea Lauren/WireImage.
It’s very interesting to me that the trio no longer use the phrase “Web series” to describe the show, now beginning its third season (and this time on CW Seed, the companion site to the broadcast network), but rather simply call it a “series.”
I think they are right — and it’s very interesting to see language and usage change — sometimes practically overnight.
Says Espenson: “There’s nothing on YouTube that you can’t see on your smart TV. There’s nothing on TV, essentially, that you can’t find online in some form. So [saying “Web series” is] like saying, “I heard a radio song” vs. “a CD song!” Well, what’s the difference? You can get it either place.
I’ll have to start checking myself.
Meanwhile, you can watch — please do; it’s terrific!! — the new season of Husbands on CW Seed.
Watch the first two seasons and some behind-the-scenes videos HERE.
Read some of the Husbands-related posts I’ve made over the last year HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Then There’s This “All American”
You’ve probably seen 22-year-old Steve Grand’s self-funded video, All American Boy, on YouTube. More than a million people have. It’s the latest example of this particular generation breaking barriers that seemed so insurmountable just a few short years ago. Also, the song’s damn good.
Grand seems a genuine good sort and after a lot of the stuff he’s been through, it shows two things: the resiliency of the human spirit and that karma’s a real bitch!
Here are a few links:
Good Morning America
All American Boy video
Steve’s Facebook
Steve’s Bandcamp Page (donate a buck or more and download the song).
Great Advice Flowchart
Kickstarter Responds to Zach Braff Critics
Kickstarter Responds to Critics of Zach Braffs Campaign.| Mashable
Kickstarter has been criticized on and off in recent months for allowing celebrities to use the crowdfunding service to raise money — most recently Zach Braff, who raised more than $2 million on Kickstarter for a follow-up to his movie Garden State. Now, Kickstarter has decided to break its silence and address the issue.
This crap annoys me. It’s a kind of reverse snobbery that gets right up under my fingernails. Why should Zach Braff be barred from crowdfunding projects on Kickstarter? Because he’s well-known? Because he was once on a quirky TV comedy? Because he may have contacts that may get him access to other funds?
I’m calling bullshit on it all.
Behind the camera, filmmaker and actor Zach Braff. Image: Kickstarter and Zach Braff via Mashable.
Look, who’s going to be the arbiter of who is too famous or too wealthy or too connected to participate on your crowdfunding site? The arguments don’t hold water. If the idea is for the artist to have more control, how does the notoriety (or lack thereof) of the artist in question matter? If Zach Braff doesn’t want to make a movie with studio funds — and studio strings — why is he any damn different from Joe Smith from Flushing, Queens?
One of the Kickstarter guys said earlier that he hoped that [insert name of someone famous here that I’ve forgotten already] wouldn’t run their crowdfunding project on Kickstarter because it might scare off the person looking for $500 to fund her lithography project.
Guess what? That’s Kickstarter’s problem. It’s called marketing. You have to tell people how to raise $500 and tell people how to raise $50 million. OR cap the amount of money you’re going to allow people to solicit. Other than that, shut up already about your enterprise being TOO successful.
PS – The link above also contains a jump to an excellent video with Braff explaining his take on crowdsourcing, social media and interacting with fans.
Steven Soderbergh on Art
It was on the wall of a cave in France 30,000 years ago, and it’s because we are a species that’s driven by narrative. Art is storytelling, and we need to tell stories to pass along ideas and information, and to try and make sense out of all this chaos. And sometimes when you get a really good artist and a compelling story, you can almost achieve that thing that’s impossible which is entering the consciousness of another human being – literally seeing the world the way they see it. Then, if you have a really good piece of art and a really good artist, you are altered in some way, and so the experience is transformative and in the minute you’re experiencing that piece of art, you’re not alone.
from a speech given by Soderbergh at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival
via The Dish. (Thanks, Andrew Sullivan, for posting this. Most excellent, indeed)
Texts From Hillary Named Tumblr Of The Year By Shorty Awards
Texts From Hillary Named Tumblr Of The Year By Shorty Awards.
This Tumblr has been one of my guilty pleasures over the last year or so. TFH transcended it’s blog origins and became a full-blown meme with everyone submitting TFH’s all over the place. I love that power of social media to spur creativity on.
Now, if we could just get that pesky world peace problem solved!
Gay Web Dramas Flourish
Gay web dramas flourish as TV networks cling to the status quo | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk.
Good article in The Guardian about the proliferation of gay-themed content in web series and how this might be the next new content delivery method for this type of entertainment. (Duh.) As Husbands co-creator Jane Espenson says, “We consider Husbands television. It’s just television that arrives in a different box.”
Some us have been ahead of The Guardian in reporting this. Ahem. See many links below. H/T Tommy Heleringer’s Facebook.
(l-r) Hunter Canning, Sasha Winters and Adam Goldman star in the exceptional Web series, The Outs. Photo: Interview/Unusually Fine Photography
Tom Goss is ‘Awesomesauce’
[Interview] Tom Goss is ‘awesomesauce’.|GA Voice
The cut below is from a pretty good interview done by Laura Douglas-Brown for GA Voice. Goss is a particular favorite of mine. His live recordings feature lots of rambling interaction with the audience and it makes him come across as incredibly human and genuine. Also, he writes some lovely stuff. Click the photo for his website.
Singer/Songwriter Tom Goss. The D.C.-based troubadour performs all over the country. Photo: GA Voice|Tom Goss.
Years ago, Tom Goss planned to be a Catholic seminarian. Now he’s headed to Atlanta to help raise funds for a bunch of fake nuns.
An acoustic singer-songwriter known for both his music and his messages, Goss performs at Atlanta’s First Existentialist Congregation on Saturday, March 9, to benefit the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the group of drag nuns dedicated to community service for LGBT people and beyond.
“I’ve met Sisters all over the country; I love their energy and their works,” Goss tells GA Voice.
And while Goss will join the Atlanta Sisters as performer rather than priest, he still packs powerful meanings into his music.
One Last Word 