News

We’re back with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting recent independent horror news sent our way. Today’s feature includes details on The ABCs of Death 2 contest, a new clip from Muirhouse, a Q&A with Lauren Lakis from Horror House, and much more:

The ABCs of Death 2 Contest Details: “We’re in the midst of our contest to find the 26th Director for ABCs Of Death 2. The contest runs until Halloween, and we’re hoping to secure many, many more submissions by then. We’re looking for new, inventive content!”

For more information, or to learn how to participate in the ABCs of Death 2 contest to be the 26th director, visit: http://26th.abcsofdeathpart2.com/

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New Clip from Muirhouse: “In 2007 Phillip Muirhouse began a promotional book tour on supernatural phenomena. As a publicity stunt he was to be filmed inside a local tourist trap, The Monte Cristo Homestead,...

Wonderland Sound and Vision’s Jeff Grosvenor has joined Rashida Jones & Will McCormack‘s production company as Evp overseeing development. The hire stems from the two-year pod deal Parks and Recreation co-star Jones and her writing partner, fellow actor-writer McCormack, signed with Warner Bros. Television in January to develop, write and produce comedy and drama projects for broadcast and cable. “Jeff is the perfect fit for us,” McCormack said. “He has a sharp eye for story and development. We are ecstatic he has joined our team to help bring our voice to TV.” The new gig keeps Grosvenor in the Wbtv fold as McG’s Wonderland Sound and Vision also was based there. Grosvenor joined the company in 2005. He was promoted to Manager of Television in 2007 and to VP Television in 2011. During his eight-year tenure at Wonderland, Grosvenor worked on such shows as Chuck, Human Target, Supernatural and Nikita. In addition to television,...

We have the latest indie horror news sent our way in this weekend’s edition of the Indie Spotlight. Continue reading to learn about The Collection at Screamfest, I Didn’t Come Here to Die‘s theater release, a photo shoot from Umbrella Corp. Denver, and more:

The Collection Opens Screamfest: “Screamfest® kicks off its 12th annual festival on Friday, October 12 at 8:00 p.m. with the opening night horror The Collection, directed by Marcus Dunstan (writer of Saw IV, V, VI and Saw 3D: The Final Chapter). Screamfest®, the preeminent horror festival in the country, and what the La Weekly calls “the best place to get a jump on tomorrow’s cult hits” presents the festival in Los Angeles on October 12 through October 21 at La Live Regal Cinemas (1000 West Olympic Blvd., La, CA).

From the writing-directing team Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Saw IV, V and VI) comes The Collection,...

Continuum is one of those anticipated independent series on our list long due to a check-in. It was after all, announced back in February of 2010 as Streamy-winning Pink director Blake Calhoun’s next project. Now the series is finally teasing out on the interwebs with a special Facebook-only exclusive release of the first three episodes. Continuum is a move into the more heady sci-fi realm for Calhoun and co., in what they are billing as “a futuristic thriller in the noir-ish tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien.” Melanie Merkosky (Harper’s Globe, lonelygirl15) stars as a Reagan, a woman waking up inside a space ship without any memory whatsoever of why she is there. Taryn O’Neill voices the ship’s computer—or at least eventually does about midway through the first episode. Related News:‘Contiuum’ Next Up For ‘Pink’ Director, Taps Melanie Merkosky, Taryn O’Neill ‘Pink...

Erica Leerhsen (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wrong Turn 2) is set to star in Phobia, a horror/murder mystery to be directed by Jon Keeyes (American Nightmare, Living & Dying) and produced by Blake Calhoun (Killing Down, Pink) from a screenplay by Anne Gibson. Read on for the gory details!

Rounding out the cast are Chase Jeffery (Exposed, American Virgin) as Val Drakul, a man tormented by a family curse; Matthew Tompkins (Killing Down, Missionary Man) as I.M. Casey, a mysterious stranger tracking Val; Jonathan Brooks (The Next Door Neighbor, Seasons of Gray) and Nicole Leigh (Small Timers, Karma Police) as Guy and Marcia Krusek, Val’s cousins and owners of the Theatre du Macabres; and Matt Moore (Super, Premonition) as a young Sigmund Freud.

Combining Gothic horror and an Agatha Christie style murder mystery, Phobia will be produced by a seasoned genre crew including Director of Photography Richard Clabaugh (The Prophecy,...

Warner Bros. had high hopes for original web series when it launched its own network back in 2008. TheWB.com came out with guns blazing, part of a re-launch of the defunct former TV channel TheWB, signing big productions from the likes of McG (Sorority Forever) and Gary Auerbach (Rich Girl, Poor Girl). Now there are just 10 web original series still available on TheWB.com, and all of them are mid-2010 releases or earlier. The summer 2010 release of a flurry of series like Downer’s Grove and Exposed was thought to be the return to original web series on the network, but turned out to be its final bow. This week’s email newsletter (below) from the network plugged full episodes of aging (and off-air) TV series like The O.C., One Tree Hill and Friends and movie trailers for the The Hangover Part II: Related News:‘Ghostfacers’ Pairs McG and...

Andy Landen hasn’t even graduated film school yet, but already has an impressive string of web series under his belt—Do Whatever, a branded comedy series for Subway that racked up around 500,000 views on My Damn Channel, and his most recent, After School Club, an indie dark comedy. That’s not to mention the string of videos and even a feature film, Carried in the Whale, that he has collaborated on. Landen embodies the latest iteration of film school grads, a generation native to the internet, whose laboratory is an endless jungle of upvotes, likes and comment threads. The Ontario, Canada native—yes, Canadians do seem to be all over online video—picked up the filmmaking bug while making videos of his younger brother skateboarding. This even led to a documentary film on skate culture, Amateur, that made waves on the festival circuit scoring awards along the way. With...

Want to show off a three-screen internet service as a universal entertainment platform? Well, you're going to need some entertainment content that isn’t already locked up in prohibitive platform-specific licensing deals. (Premium TV, I’m looking at you there.) So why not use a polished web series instead? At&T did just that in its national media push for U-Verse by featuring Blake Calhoun’s Exposed in the campaign that launched this past fall. We asked Calhoun, who directed the series, just how this opportunity came to be. “It was really completely out of the blue,” he told us. “At&T wanted to feature a web series in their new U-Verse campaign and we’re told they reviewed close to 200 shows, then narrowed it down to three (we don’t know who the others were), and ultimately chose Exposed. So far the spot has run for two 13-week cycles...

In the form of podcasts, even beyond that of the video-based entertainment we focus on, an entire world that I’ve only recently become familiar with is alive and thriving – audio-based entertainment. Along with audio novels that allow writers to showcase the written word in a medium you can consume while working or driving, creative talents have proven that a medium older than television is still viable in the modern day – that of the radio drama. Anyone who played or enjoyed the ILoveBees campaign after the fact can attest, radio dramas can craft emotional and explosive stories that, were they in visual form, would have the budget of Inception. Yet with a good sound recording setup, quality actors, great writing and plenty of ingenuity, the story of a zombie apocalypse has unfolded over the course of a year and a half (and is still continuing!) in the form of We’re Alive,...

Back in August of 2008, when we covered the launch of TheWB.com along with their impressive list of their upcoming web originals, it seemed like WB was going to be a major force in web series. After starting with a strong push behind series like Sorority Forever and Rich Girl, Poor Girl, the teen network cooled on web originals, opting instead for reruns of TV shows like The O.C. and Gilmore Girls. Several of the original 2008 slate of web shows stayed on the shelf despite being largely anticipated, including the animated Chadam and the McG-backed Exposed. Two years later, these two still have yet to hit the web. That all changes today, as TheWB.com releases their slate of summer programming. And in a unique move, they are not only launching four shows, but also releasing half the episodes of each of the shows in one huge chunk. Says Blake Calhoun,...

Streamy-winning director Blake Calhoun (Pink) has announced his latest web series project today, a sci-fi drama set in space called Continuum. The series will star Harper's Globe and loneylgirl15 star Melanie Merkosky (left) as Reagen, a young woman who awakes on a space ship without any memory of what she is doing there. Her only companion on board is the ship's computer, a female spin on 2001's "Hal," voiced by Taryn O'Neill (Compulsions, After Judgment). Also announced for the cast is Brad Hawkins (Pink) as Tipton. Calhoun and co. are calling the project "a futuristic thriller in the noir-ish tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien." Loud Pictures, Calhoun's production company is producing along with Alternative Fuel, a multiplatform company he co-founded with Pink producer Mike Maden. Also producing is Cjp Digital Media, with Wilson Cleveland involved on distribution and marketing of the series, as it does for The Fall of Kaden,...

Click me Click me!

I don’t know about you but Keanu Reeves took one look at this poster and said “Whoa.” I said something like that but far less memorable, my point is — I haven’t seen the first Tron film. I can hear your mouse clicking away from this page, but wait! You’re obviously a fan of the first Tron (or like me you can’t imagine how you haven’t seen the first and are hoping Hulu, Netflix or Blockbuster will come through before December 17th, 2010). Okay, so I’m going to watch the original much sooner than the release date of Tron: Legacy but you get my point — I was wrong in not seeing Tron. It has been on my list for some time but it hasn’t been on any of my movie channels to DVR (sorry Disney Channel, I won’t DVR...

Life is not looking good for Terminator Salvation director McG.

Disney has decided to indefinitely can the Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea project (surely to be a 3D CGI adventure-fest) and McG has stepped away from the film, which was slated to begin production in a little over two months from now. There has still been no big casting news for the film, which could have been a reason why Nemo has been canned.

Disney is looking for big tentpole films to fill the Pirates of the Caribbean vacuum with Prince of Persia, Tron Legacy and Nemo, but it’s likely that the only success they’ll achieve in that endeavor will be the inevitable fourth entry into the Pirates franchise, which Rob Marshall will direct in May.

Meanwhile, McG’s other project, Terminator 5, is also in limbo until the rights to the film are properly settled.

Is...

In Vinyl Addiction, Jesse Hernandez interviews designers toy artists and enthusiasts. In one episode, Hernandez spends time with Joe Hahn of Linkin Park to see his art and toy collection and tour Hahn's store Suru. Hernandez's work as an artist and animator helps make Vinyl Addiction a very slick insider's look at the vinyl toy phenomenon. Each episode features bold graphics and great images of vinyl toys, art, street-wear and more. Tubefilter talked to Hernandez to learn more about the seriously fun world of designer toy art, the making of Vinyl Addiction episodes, and how the world of art toys embraces the show. Tubefilter: Your art and toy designs combine traditional indigenous styles with urban street themes. How did you develop your style? Jesse Hernandez: My style is always evolving. The themes have stayed the same, but as an artist you must always continue to learn. Tubefilter: Who are some of your favorite toy artists?...

Encoding and uploading problems? Seems even the pros have their share of them. Back on Tuesday we ran the news that Lindsay Campbell is back in the web series world with her new series out of Next New Networks called Small Business Rules. the show was supposed to go live that day but a set of uploading issues with the Amex Open Forum site, where the show is exclusively distributed for now, caused the release to be delayed until late last night. So today people are finally getting a look at the series, though for some reason there are no embeddable versions of it. Um, just a hunch, but there are probably more people that would dig this show than the handful that hang out on Amex site. Their sponsor branding, after all, is built into the episodes. Kind of a launch fail if you ask us. In other web...

This is the second part of our interview with Streamy-winning creator-director Blake Calhoun (Pink, 88 Hits, Exposed). Be sure to read Part 1 of the interview first, it's that good. Tubefilter: What can you tell us about your next web series project, Exposed? What has it been like working with McG? Calhoun: Pink really opened a lot of doors for Mike and I. We sold the show to Generate and subsequently got to produce 25 more episodes (Seasons 2 and 3) and right now we're in talks to do a new Season 4. We'll hopefully have news about this soon. We also got to go around town and pitch several other ideas and sold one to Warner Bros. and TheWB.com. We've had the great opportunity to work with the studio along with McG's company Wonderland Sound and Vision on this new project (McG is the Exec Producer). We're currently finishing it up right now...

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the premiere of Streamy Award-winning series Pink and what better way to celebrate than to hear from series creator-director Blake Calhoun? I had the pleasure of interviewing Blake via e-mail to get the lowdown on his past and future projects, his directing process, and insight for those hoping to break into the New Media industry. Tubefilter: You were one of the early creator-directors on the web series scene with Pink in '07. What inspired you to go into the field? Blake Calhoun: I had recently finished directing my third indie feature (an action/thriller called Killing Down) and was developing a new feature - a project in the vein of Boogie Nights about the early 1980s professional wrestling scene - and had hired Mike Maden to write it. We finished that script in spring 2007 and were playing the "finding money" game to make that film (btw,...

Agora Entertainment and Final Fate Features announced the completion of their revenge-driven horror movie, "The Final." Written and produced by Jason Kabolati (Pendulum, Mad Bad) and helmed by first time director Joey Stewart, "The Final" stars Marc Donato (Degrassi tv series, White Oleander), Jascha Washington (Big Momma’s House 2) and Julin (Spirit Camp). The Final is a "terrifying story," according to publicists, that follows a group of high school outcasts who host a costume party and employ an arsenal of physical and psychological torture to avenge the years of humiliation and torment they suffered at the hands of the popular students. Shares director Joey Stewart, “The Final is about being picked-on, bullied and tormented, and the retaliation and revenge that it incurs. As the outcasts begin to feel that life has no meaning, they make a pact for revenge and suicide that they believe will teach these kids a valuable life lesson.

How McG (yes, that's his name -- he directed the new Terminator movie) evolved from bubblegum auteur into a tinseltown killing machine.

On a July day in 2004, the director known as McG sat in his car outside the terminal at Burbank Airport where Warner Bros. keeps its private jet fleet. He could see the Gulfstream g550 he was to board and feel the vibration of the engines' auxiliary-power unit. All he had to do was open the car door, cross the tarmac, and climb the stairs. The plane was bound for Australia, where McG was to shoot the new Superman movie. After his massive successes with the Charlie's Angels franchise, Warner was counting on the filmmaker to deliver a much-needed blockbuster to match. But McG couldn't move.

He'd spent the prior year planning storyboards and concept art, and making casting decisions based on a script he had commissioned from J.J. Abrams.