Blake Calhoun Interview on Koldcast TV

Check out this new interview with "Pink" director Blake Calhoun (from Koldcast TV's blog and Filmmaker Series)...

http://blog.koldcast.tv/2009/filmmaker-series/kctv-filmmaker-series-blake-calhoun/

Thanks!

New "The Bannen Way" Trailer

We're looking forward to the new series "The Bannen Way" on Crackle.com. Watch here, or for better viewing click on "Trailer" link below video...

From Crackle: Trailer

"Normal Activity"

Check out this funny parody done by our friends in the comedy troupe Four Day Weekend...



Direct link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUQiWan5eXI

Clicker.com

Clicker is a great looking resource for finding online video content including TV, movies and Web Originals. Discovery is key to success for shows like "Pink", so a service like this is very welcome indeed.

Here's the "Pink" page on Clicker:
http://www.clicker.com/web/pink-the-series/

Check it out and spread the word!

"Pink" Mention in Bannen Way Article

Nice mention of "Pink" in an article about bringing "TV style" programming to the web like Sony's new series "The Bannen Way"...

With high speed internet access becoming available to more people, prosumer video equipment getting cheaper and a trend towards unscripted scripted shows on broadcast and cable TV, the web is becoming the go to place for out of the box original programming. Scripted shows like The Guild, Pink, Legend of Neil, Angel of Death, Ctrl and Childrens' Hospital are bringing TV style programming to the web.

Read full article here

Natalie Raitano TV Interview

Just uploaded a TV interview with Natalie Raitano recorded during the production of "Pink" seasons 1 and 2...



Direct link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC-YTZG4EOk

Thanks!

Houston Screening

The Houston Film Commission hosted us for a screening of several episodes from the show (eps 1-7) along with a Q&A with star Natalie Raitano, director Blake Calhoun and editor Cliff Richhart. The screening was a lot of fun and the Q&A was very lively. Very good audience!

Here are some pictures from the event (on Facebook):
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=195973825406&id=118105963889#

Check it out!

Web Entertainment Guide Interview

Check out this recent interview director Blake Calhoun did with the Web Entertainment Guide:
http://www.webentertainmentguide.com/interviews/pink-interview-series-creator-blake-calhoun

He talks mainly about "Pink" and the future of web series.

Thanks!

Koldcast TV Redux

If you haven't watched "Pink" in a while or are new to the show you should check it out on Koldcast TV. They've "relaunched" it in their "Redux" section.

We really appreciate their support and appreciate your support too! And btw, we're still plugging away on getting a Season 4 put together. No news yet though...

Thanks!

Tubefilter Interview Part 2

Here's the second part to the interview Blake did with Tubefilter...

http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/09/09/exposed-on-deck-interview-with-streamy-winning-director-blake-calhoun-part-2/

He actually announced a new sci-fi series too called "Continuum" (www.continuumtv.com). Look for more info soon on this show, along with his new WB series "Exposed" and a hopeful 4th Season of "Pink".

Thanks!

Tubefilter Interview with Blake Calhoun

Check out Part 1 of an interview on Tubefilter with director Blake Calhoun talking "Pink" and his other web series work...

http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/09/08/pink-anniversary-interview-with-streamy-winning-director-blake-calhoun-part-1/

BTW, today is our 2nd Anniversary! We premiered our first show on MySpace two years ago today. My have times have changed too... we hardly even check our MySpace page anymore. :)

Custom URL for our FB Fan Page

At first FB said you had to have 1000 fans on your Fan Page to get a custom URL, and alas, we didn't have that many. But we guess they changed their minds because now folks are able to get them (we think with only 100 fans).

Anyway, we're happy to announce we now own http://www.facebook.com/pinktheseries.

So if you haven't, please join our FB fan page!

Thank you for the support. :)

New Season of "88 Hits"

Please check out the NEW episode of "88 Hits" from Blake Calhoun (director of "Pink")...



Direct link:
http://www.koldcast.tv/#/video:side_projects

Thanks!

Jason Priestley and Jordan Levin Interview

Nice interview about the new WB web series "The Lake". Jordan Levin is the CEO of Generate... they also produce our show "Pink".

NEW: Koldcast Studios

Koldcast TV is a player in the Web TV distro business, and now they're stepping in to the productiong side of things opening a studio to create original programming.

This is a great thing for New Media in our opinion, but the pioneers before them have died a quick death... 60Frames anyone? However, since Koldcast already has a nice sized audience to their destination site (www.koldcast.tv) they have a head start on the competition, and not to mention a very driven and enthusiastic founder/CEO in David Samuels. That's probably the biggest part.

Our show "Pink" of course plays on the Koldcast site along with the series "88 Hits" from director Blake Calhoun, and we plan on pitching some other shows to them in the future.

Read the story here from Tubefilter.

Do You Want to Date My Avatar?

Check out the new music video from our friend Felicia Day and her show "The Guild"...

"The Lake" - New Web Series

Check out "The Lake"... a new web series from Generate (the company that co-produces "Pink" with us). The show is directed by Jason Priestly of 90210 fame. If you like good soapy dramas, then you'll like this. Btw, our next series "Exposed" premieres on TheWB.com soon too.

Watch...

Hulu
TheWB
iTunes

Thanks!

10 Lessons from a Studio Exec on Web Series

Great post on "lessons" for producing online content from Tubefilter and and exec from 20th Century Fox TV...

http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/08/05/10-lessons-from-a-studio-exec-for-web-series-creators/

We think "Pink" fits into this mold pretty well!

Online video viewing soars...

Interesting piece from Revolution Blog:

It's an epidemic! Online video viewing soars among young web surfers

Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com, 30 July 2009, 3:20pm

LONDON - The number of young adults watching online video on sites like YouTube or video-on-demand is at "near-universal" levels, according to new research.

One third of young web users use sites like Hulu everyday

A study by Pew Research found that nine in every ten internet users between 18-29 years old watch content on video sharing sites, with one-third saying they do so everyday.

In fact, the number of people watching online video has nearly doubled since 2006, with 62% of adults saying they watched online video this year, up from just 33% three years ago.

The study said: "Over time, online video has become more deeply integrated into daily life, and has started move into the spaces that are typically reserved for traditional television viewing."

Overall, 19% of internet users say they use video sharing sites on a typical day. In comparison, just 8% of internet users reported use of the sites on a typical day in 2006.

While most of the content being watched is user-generated, there is also a growing archive of professional content available through YouTube and newer network-sponsored video portals like Hulu.

Efforts to lure viewers to these portals appear to be paying off, as more than a third of internet users (35%) now say they have viewed a television show or movie online.

In comparison, just 16% of internet users said they had watched or downloaded movies or TV shows when asked a similar question in 2007.

As internet users become accustomed to regular on-demand video viewing online, many are choosing to watch from the comfort of their couch.

Among those who watch TV shows or movies online, 23% say they have connected their computer to a television screen so they could view video from the internet on their TV. That amounts to roughly 8% of all internet users.

Watching online videos on sites like YouTube is more prevalent than the use of social networking sites - 46% of adult internet users are active on such sites, the study found.

This is great news for web video content creators (like us). :)

Sheree Wilson Interview

Check out this interview with "Pink" star Sheree Wilson. She talks "Pink", "Dallas", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Easy Rider" and even horses...

NEW Solo "Pink" Twitter Account

Okay, so we have Twitter accounts for the director of "Pink" (@blake_calhoun), our main production company Loud Pictures (@loudpics), and now we have a solo account for just "Pink" (@pinktheseries).

Catch all that?

We used to simply run "Pink" and all things "Loud Pictures" through the one @loudpics account, but we think that FANS of "Pink" might be interested in a fan-centric Twitter feed instead of a tech/filmmaking/production feed that we've been doing. We'll still do some of that in the new account too though...

So, long story short, if you're on Twitter please follow "Pink" @pinktheseries. :)

Thanks!

PINK in HD Video Pro Magazine

There is a good article on web TV including PINK and GEMINI DIVISION in the June 2009 HD Video Pro magazine. It's on most newsstands including places like Barnes and Noble and Borders.

Check it out if you can! Thank you! :)

Talking PINK...

We're talking to our distributor and producing partner about the (hopeful) next round of PINK episodes. We really would like to do more soon. And you guys will be the first to know!

In the meantime, please check out the great looking Hulu embeds of the current episodes on our main site. It's nice to watch the shows again (especially season 1 which we hadn't watched in a while) in a higher quality video player.

Thanks!

PINK now on TiVO

If you have a broad-band connected TiVO DVR you can now download episodes of PINK for FREE.

Check it out here

This is part of our distribution deal with the good folks at Koldcast TV.

So, thank you to them and to all our fans of the show. :)

Natalie Raitano TV Interview

Check out this fun interview with "Pink" star Natalie Raitano on the Gordon Keith Show...

88 HITS on iTunes and Zune

No new PINK episodes for a while, so what should you do? How about watch director Blake Calhoun's new web series 88 HITS on Koldcast TV.

And you can now check out the show on iTunes and Zune. If you have an iPod, iPhone or Zune simply subscribe and then sync your device and the show will be right there. Oh, and did we mention it's FREE. :)

Click here for iTunes

Click here for Zune

And of course please check out PINK on iTunes too if you haven't already...

Thanks!

New Series from PINK's Director

Blake Calhoun, the producer/director of "Pink" has a new comedy series out today called "88 HITS". It's about a dysfunctional mob family trying to make ends meet.

Please check it out on Koldcast.tv

And here's a blurb about it at NewTeeVee:
http://newteevee.com/2009/05/05/vid-biz-nbc-yume-warner-bros/ (bottom of page)

Thanks!

Season 3 Finale!

So... what happens next? :)

Webby Honoree for Drama: Individual Episode

PINK is an Official Honoree at the 13th Annual Webby Awards!

Check it out

We're well, honored, to be honored out of so many entries (thousands we're told). Be sure to check out the other Honorees and Nominees too.

Thanks!

NEW Episode of PINK out today!

ONLY TWO episodes left this season!!!



Thank you for watching!

More Pictures from the Streamys

We just posted some more pictures from the Streamys on our website...

Check them out here

Only 3 more episodes of PINK left this season!!!

Many thanks!

Episode 32 Song Download (for FREE)

You can download the cool new song from PINK Episode #32 right here (right click and "Save Target As") - and it's FREE.

The song is by a Dallas indie band called The As Is and it's called "Missing You The Most". Please spread the word!

Thank you!

12 Seconds of Fame!

After director Blake Calhoun won the Streamy Award they grabbed him backstage to do a 12 second interview for www.12seconds.tv. It's kind of like Twitter for video. You only have 12 seconds. So anyway, here is Blake's moment in the limelight and he went over his 12 second limit as you'll see. :)

http://12seconds.tv/find/blake+calhoun

And here's a link to ALL the other winners and their 12 seconds (including Natalie Raitano):
http://12seconds.tv/channel/streamyawards

Thanks!

LA Weekly Story on Streamy Awards

Nice piece in LA Weekly about the show...

"Pink" is not mentioned, but it's still a good read. :)

Streamy Award Winners

Check out all the Winners from the Streamy Awards:
http://www.streamys.org/go/winners/

We are in very good company!

Thanks!

Watch Nat get a Tat...

PINK star Natalie Raitano gets a tattoo in this episode of "California Kickin":



Click here to watch video in proper aspect ratio

Remember, new episodes of "Pink" every Tuesday through April!

WINNER BEST DIRECTION in a Dramatic Web Series

Blake Calhoun the director of PINK won the Streamy Award last night for Best Direction in a Dramatic Web Series!

A good friend to the show (and Nataile) posted a video on YouTube that was recorded off his computer from the live stream...



Thank you to all the fans who watch and support the show!!!

Texas Film Scene Podcast

Pink's director Blake Calhoun was recently interviewed for a great podcast by Curtis Wayne called the "Texas Film Scene".

Check it out on iTunes

Thanks!

Top 5 Online Video Providers

The numbers are in, and the winner is...

YouTube, of course.

But, Hulu is now #2 and making great strides - and actually has a good chance of becoming more financially successful in the long run (YouTube doesn't make money...yet).

YouTube had 5.1 billion streams in February (yes, billion with a "b"), and Hulu had 308.8 million.

Advertisers seem to be much more inclined to work with Hulu because of their content, not their numbers. Professionally produced TV shows and movies, along with short form series (like "Pink") are what set them apart.

Read entire Cable/FAX story here.

Twitter

Please follow us on Twitter now at...

http://twitter.com/loudpics

We'll update everything PINK and also our other new media, TV and film productions.

Thanks!

Streamy Awards Nominations

"Pink" has been honored at the 1st Annual Streamy Awards by being nominated twice for two awards. First one is Best Directing in a Dramatic Web Series and the second one Best Cinematography in a Web Series.

This new event is being pushed as "The Oscars for the Internet". So, it's prett cool. Nominations came from the newly created International Academy of Web Television from over 100,000 submissions.

The ceremony will be held at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills on March 28th. It will also be streamed live online (we'll let folks know where soon).

In the cinematography category we're up against JOSS WHEDON'S "DR. HORRIBLE"... that is some tough competition. Who knows how we'll do, but as they saying goes, it's just an honor to be nominated. :)

Here's a direct link to all the nominees:
http://www.streamys.org/nominees.shtml

Wish us luck!!!

TheWB.com Redux

We are partnered with TheWB.com to distribute "Pink" and so we were happy to hear about the recent "redesign" of their website.

The look is slightly cleaner and easier to navigate, but the most important thing is now the video playback is much smoohter and reliable. We're big fans of the site and happy they are making the improvements!

Check out the new look

The WB.com as a Web Contender

Check out this article in the NY Times about TheWB.com. "Pink" plays on their site too.

PINK in Texas Monthly

PINK is featured in the new February issue of Texas Monthly magazine. Article can be viewed online or on news stands (in Texas). Registration is required to read online, but it's quick and painless (and FREE).

However, if you'd prefer to just read the text we've copied it into this post (no photos, etc. here)...

-----------------------------------------------------------

February 2009

Bottoms Up

How Texans in Hollywood are overturning the traditional top-down content model.

by Christopher Kelly

Meet Natalie “Nate” Cross (Natalie Raitano), a tomboy by breeding (her father taught her to hunt animals when she would have much rather been playing with dolls) who’s now all grown up, with bee-stung lips, a yoga-rific body, a glow-in-the-dark-tattoo-covered back, and a reputation as one of the finest assassins around. In the Internet series Pink, co-created by the Dallas-based team of Blake Calhoun and Mike Maden, an incarcerated Nate strikes a Faustian bargain with the warden (Sheree J. Wilson): If she kills ten people on the warden’s mysterious hit list, freedom is hers. But that’s merely the beginning of a madly convoluted saga that leaps backward and forward in time to chronicle Nate’s tough-love childhood, her hopeful adolescence in foster care, her seemingly carefree college days, and her current plight, as a ruthless killing machine who would prefer to settle down and start a family of her own. The real marvel of Pink, however, is that such a surprisingly deft example of old-fashioned serial storytelling—a show whose multiple story lines and shifts from reality to fantasy could easily give Lost a run for its money—unfolds in three- and four-minute segments, to the sped-up, attention-deficient rhythms of the digital age, on the screen of your laptop or iPhone.

Welcome to the decidedly topsy-turvy entertainment industry circa 2009, in which film, TV, and media companies continue to wrestle with the same daunting questions: How do you adapt creative content to the Internet, with its community of users insistent upon controlling how that content is consumed and distributed? How will new talent be developed, when ad dollars and seed money are quickly migrating elsewhere? And, perhaps most essential, how do you make money on the Web, where just about everything is given away for free? For at least a handful of ambitious Texans, though, the answers to these questions aren’t necessarily dire. “The ultimate value resides in content,” says Jordan Levin, a University of Texas graduate and former CEO of the WB network who is the co-founder of Generate, a company that provided funding for the second and third seasons of Pink and has its hand in a number of similar Web serials (see “Spinning a Web”). “A lot of people were ascribing value to the technology. But at the end of the day, the technology is realized by content.”

Put it this way: We might very well have seen the last of big-budget, old-school Hollywood spectacles like Australia. If NBC’s recent decision to place Jay Leno on prime-time TV five evenings a week is any measure, hour-long dramas are probably also headed the way of the dinosaur. But efforts like Pink, or another Levin-produced project, Republicrats, suggest that classic storytelling isn’t dead just yet and that—more to the point—serious-minded artists will find a way to carry on, even as their tools continue to break down and reconstitute.

In the case of Calhoun, who has a second Web project, Exposed, premiering on WB.com this month, the filmmaker took a route that, certainly to those of us who spend our days evaluating the entertainment industry’s more conventionally developed product, sounds positively revolutionary. After writing and directing a number of low-budget features, he teamed up with Maden and conceived Pink. The script was written in May 2007; the first ten episodes were shot in July, in the Dallas—Fort Worth area, on high-definition digital video; the project was edited in August; and the first episode premiered on YouTube that September. (The show kicked off its third season in late January; in addition to WB.com, it can be viewed at hulu.com/pink-the-series and myspace
.com/pinktheseries).

But this breakneck process didn’t result in something that feels slapdash and incoherent. Quite the opposite, Pink displays a freewheeling pop urgency that’s informed by but not burdened by the traditions of graphic novels, comic books, and music videos. (Imagine Kill Bill with all the boring stretches siphoned out.) And whereas its frequent time shifts would probably come across on television as jarring and confusing, on the Internet, broken up into easily digested, cliffhanger-reliant segments, Pink proves marvelously supple.

Part of me thinks, of course, that online is no place to consume entertainment, even of the most lighthearted sort: Because my home DSL connection is unpredictable, I ended up viewing the first two seasons of Pink on my desktop computer at the office. Mostly, though, the possibilities here seem elastic. I watched a rough cut of Exposed on DVD in my living room, where the relatively linear story, about a young man (Chase Ryan Jeffrey) trying to keep a very dark secret from his girlfriend, played just fine. With minimal tweaks, the eighty minutes or so of material could easily be transformed into a feature film. Calhoun says he’s also busy developing “meta-verse” for Exposed: Facebook pages for his characters, say, or “behind-the-scenes” video footage that one of the characters in the show is frequently seen recording. The idea is that viewers might encounter the program via many different platforms and that fans can immerse themselves in Exposed’s fictional universe and help to expand the mythology of that world.

As for the (literal) million-dollar question—how can work that is viewed for free online ever be financially viable?—well, according to both Levin and Calhoun, it’s all about keeping production budgets low (the average episode of Pink costs a few thousand dollars, compared with a few million for an episode of a network show), drumming up advertiser and sponsor revenue and thinking across multiple platforms. A show like Pink, theoretically, could be packaged as a DVD or adapted into a graphic novel or spun off into a video game or—if the gods of entertainment truly decide to smile down upon Calhoun—remade into a large-scale Hollywood action movie. The ride will be bumpy, and the risks will be considerable (Calhoun says he still hasn’t earned back the money he spent on the first season of Pink, much less been able to turn a profit). And it’s only going to get harder and harder for Web-based artists to get noticed amid so much clutter (when Pink first started, there were only a handful of high-production-value Web shows; a year and a half later, there are dozens, and they just keep multiplying). But with the likes of Calhoun, Maden, and Levin in the mix, one can’t help but be hopeful that entertainment will still remain widely accessible, even to the technophobes, and that a little bit of humanity will remain as we throttle headlong into a brave new world.

Spinning a Web: What Jordan Levin is generating.

“In order to create a voice in the marketplace that has any resonance, it’s going to be difficult to do it in only one medium,” says Jordan Levin. In 2006 Levin co-founded Generate, a production, distribution, and talent management company that means to make inroads into TV, film, book publishing, and the Internet. Its most intriguing output thus far: Republicrats, a serial comedy that ran last fall on MSN.com about a former Fresno weatherman who decides to compete as a third-party candidate against Barack Obama and John McCain, and Chocolate News, a Comedy Central series that plays like a mash-up of The Daily Show and In Living Color, starring David Alan Grier. Both projects have their flaws (the creators seem to be amusing one another a lot more often than they amuse us), but they are also models of offbeat efforts aimed at niche audiences that—with a little bit of massaging and a whole lot of word of mouth—have the potential to go viral.

Christopher Kelly is the film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Copyright © 1973-2009 Emmis Publishing LP dba Texas Monthly. All rights reserved.

THINK PINK Sweepstakes Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered the Sweepstakes. The response was great!

The winner is...

Geoff Kaufman of Columbus, Ohio. Congrats Geoff!

We will post of photo of him holding the new Flip MinoHD camera soon.

PINK Season 3 Online Now!

PINK 21: Speed Dating Kills 2



Click here to watch in HD!

Also, nice mention of premiere on Tubefilter. Check it out!

PINK Greatest Hits #1

Here's the Greatest Hits episode as voted on by YOU, our fans. Thanks to everyone who voted. It was a very close race, so watch the video and check out the Top 3.



To watch this in HD click here.

Thanks!