Here in the US, it’s pretty safe to say, most if not all of the Hong Kong films we see are big budget, triad-themed or auteur-centered. We see Johnnie To, Wong Kar-Wai, films from stars like Tony Leung, Andy Lau, and Jackie Chan. While film production in Hong Kong has slowed way down from the highs in the 80s and 90s, there are still a number of independent and local filmmakers making films about and within the Special Region.

Among these filmmakers, relative newcomer Jennifer Thym is in a category unto herself, making films in English, directing web series, filming locally while distributing and raising funds globally.

Thym’s first major project, Lumina, a Webby Award-winning and Streamy-nominated web series, debuted in the fall 2009 on KoldCast TV. Lumina is a fantasy series of sorts, exploring the story of a woman named Lumina who finds a man in her mirror. The series goes to show Lumina increasingly entangled in an epic battle of forces beyond her world and imagination, roaming throughout Hong Kong’s cluttered streets and austere central district. Hong Kong’s glass buildings provided an appropriate backdrop for a series about the mystique of mirrors.

“Hong Kong is a good place to shoot. The city itself is just a gorgeous backdrop. You don’t have to build a set,” Thym told me in a phone interview. “You can use that to your advantage.”

Thym grew up in Virginia, going on to work in investment banking and law in Vienna and London before coming to Hong Kong and pursuing film. After working as a line producer for a short film made in Hong Kong, Thym put up her own money and shot Lumina, which would go on to become her calling card and her “film school,” using the popular RED camera.

“If you really believe in something, it sometimes easier to make your own thing,” she said.

Just two years into her film career, Thym is keeping busy directing her own projects and producing those of others. One project in development is a feature film, Bloodtraffick, a vampires versus angels action film (think Taken-style) Thym hopes will have global appeal. With action and perhaps a second shooting location in New Orleans, she thinks she can make a popular film on a budget.

“We’ve been able to milk every bit of production value out of every dollar we have,” she said.

Currently in post-production — Thym was wrapping up shooting a few weeks ago when I was in Hong Kong — is a comedy series, Mister French Taste, about a French etiquette coach coming to Hong Kong to educate a spoiled, hip hop-oriented Cantonese kid. The ten-episode series, at three minutes each, is intended for web and mobile distribution.

If Thym’s work seems particularly global, it may reflect larger truths about the Hong Kong film market. “Hong Kong is a pretty small market, which limits what you can do,” Thym said. Filming in English, soliciting funding from Europe and Asia, choosing topics and genres with wider appeal and playing with newer modes of distribution are ways of diversifying her market and creative freedom. As I researched and spoke with independent filmmakers in Hong Kong, I found this is often the case. Filmmakers make work with the world — China, southeast Asia or the west — in mind.

Does Thym plan to stay in Hong Kong? For now, she says, but, with the economy, she does have to be flexible.

“Home is a matter of mind, more than of actual place, for me.”

Below, the first episode of Lumina:

Watching the previews for Salt, I had what appears to be a common experience. The trailer for an elevator-themed film came on. It seemed strange: what is this movie? What’s it about? My confusion grew into clarity when the words “From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan” preceding the title Devil came on the big screen. I sighed, recognizing the trademark “things are not as they appear” quality to the trailer. The rest of the audience, however, groaned.

Groaning at the sight Shyamalan’s name has been reported from screening to screening. The phrase “box office poison” is now repeatedly being associated with the director’s name. Shyamalan is only credited as creating the story for Devil, but already people are asking if the film can redeem his credibility. Shyamalan has hit a nadir, causing people to question his career and brand him a failure, a has-been riding off The Sixth Sense. My question: is it true?

First let me say I’m not really Shyamalan fan. His genre is not one I regularly frequent at the theater and I’ve only seen a few of his films (the early ones).

There are at least two ways to examine a filmmaker’s success: critically and commercially. Critically, it’s near incontrovertible: Shyamalan is not doing too well. Consider the graph showing the writer-director’s steadily declining reviews since the acclaimed Sixth Sense. They are bad.

But we have to ask the question: if Shyamalan’s films are so bad then how does he consistently get funding to make them? The answer must be in his box office receipts.

Hollywood accounting is complex, to say the least, and really all the numbers industry outsiders have are suspect and basically guesses. But judging from what we have, it’s clear Shyamalan is hardly box office poison — yet. Instead, it seems his early successes have bought him some leeway for a few recent misses, suggesting he doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room in the future, but it’s not irrational he keeps getting big budget projects.

Using BoxOfficeMojo, Wikipedia and other random web sources, here’s what I’ve gathered about Shyamalan’s past pics. I have estimated production budgets for each, but I’m missing distribution and marketing for many.

SHYAMALAN’S TRACK RECORD AS OF 7/2010:

The Last Airbender (2010): $280 million to make and market; $150 million gross so far.
The Happening (2008)  – $57 million to make ($70 million to market?), $163 million gross
Lady in the Water (2006) – $150 million to make and market, $72 million gross
The Village (2004)  – $71 million to make, $256 million gross
Signs (2002)  – $72 million to make, $400 million gross
Unbreakable (2000) – $73 million to make, $248 million gross
Sixth Sense (1999) – $40 million to make, $672 million gross

Let’s assume, reasonably I think, that the distribution and marketing for Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, Village and Happening came in on average at 100% of production (consistent with what we know from Lady in the Water and Last Airbender, though it may be an over/underestimation depending on the film).

With that assumption, a more complicated picture emerges. Five out of seven of Shyamalan’s movies have been successful, and his earlier films — especially Signs and Sixth Sense — were undeniable global blockbusters.

I could be wrong, of course, very wrong. I’m making a lot of assumptions. Certainly Airbender is a huge bomb, and his most expensive bomb to date. Lady in the Water was a failure and The Happening failed to make any meaningful mark. These three facts explain the “Shyamalan is box office poison” thinking at the moment. To be sure, when audiences recoil at the mention of your name, your career is not headed in the right direction.

What this also might suggest, however, is the bar for a Shyamalan comeback might be considerably lower than critics and journalists may think. One more big hit could easily restore faith in the director.

Shyamalan has a number of projects in development at the moment. I’m sure he feels the pressure. His mojo is gone, but not yet ancient history.

If you’re following the discussion around Inception, you’ll notice there have been three clear waves of public opinion: hype or praise (Nolan is a genius; film is cinema classic); dissent (the New York critics — Observer, New Yorker, Magazine, Press); and assimilation (rampant theorizing).

We’re in the third phase now. I’m ready to call the next phase: resignation.

I have to admit, I’ve been glancing through all the theories, and I’ve hit fatigue. I wasn’t even going to write anything about Inception, giving many inches have been used up already. And boy are there a lot of theories. There’s even a — frankly, inevitable — website dedicated to them. Here are some of the key ones:

NYMag: An Inception Within Inception

Actor: The Top Stops

Faraci: Metaphor for filmmaking (also, Awl)

Cinematical: Many theories, all the theories you need to know

Slate: 5 ways of reading the film

Me? I’m done before I started. Why?

1) There’s obviously no right answer.

2) The fact there is no right answer actually seems to work against the point of theorizing in the first place. The meta-point about the movie, at its most abstract, is about the power of the human psyche and our own culpability in defining what is real vs. fantasy. Therefore, any attempt to decide one way or another is not only futile, but goes against the premise of the film.

3) Cobb doesn’t care. Cobb’s character turns away from the spinning top. He doesn’t care if it falls or not. So neither do I.

4) Seeing the film allegorically is great, but most meta-films are allegories for lots of things.

5) I actually think David Denby is right when he mentions a big hole in Inception: the corporate intrigue. I understand why Nolan dropped the fallout from the inception: if we know what happens to the big companies it ruins the illusion that the whole film is a dream (DiCaprio wouldn’t care about two fictitious companies who could potential control a lot of energy resources). But this plot hole makes the whole practice of theorizing the film, for me, a bit a concession game. The prequel comic, which was pretty cool, sets up the importance of a the corporate intrigue. This suggests possibilities beyond the human pysche. If you don’t particularly care about Cobb seeing his kids — which I kind of don’t — there should be something else for you: imagining a world beyond the self or imagining the self within the world. That’s what interests me, but Inception gives me little to go on.

I love when people talk about film, and I’m always happy when films like The Matrix and Inception come along that get people completely engrossed in cinema, and it’s really hard to write those movies (Nolan spent as much time on Inception as Cameron did Avatar; does this show Nolan is smarter?). I’m just resigning myself to my lack of interest in the details.

For me, Inception is valuable as a vote of confidence by Hollywood in the power of giving a good director lots of cash to create something original. I weigh it against all the sequels and franchises we have (plus Avatar) and, against them, it comes out on top.

But I’m not sure how much lies beneath the surface, and if it’s there, if it’s worth my time going there. In the end, the film is about how we come to grips with reality, and, particularly, one man’s journey to find himself, and he does, through his own imagination and grit. Said simply, it sounds nice. For me, I’m not sure how much more there is.

Kickstarter once again proves itself to be a nimble little site! It is, apparently, Kickstarter week at my blog.

Adam Quirk recently started a Kickstarter project “to buy 100 vuvuzelas and hire 100 vuvuzela players off Craigslist to play in front of BP’s International Headquarters in London for a one-day flash mob.” That project ended one week ago, July 7, having brought in nearly $7,000, well above the $2,000 he’d proposed, some of it with the help of Babelgum ($2,000) and Cheezburger ($1,000, half of which through Kickstarter).

Babelgum sent a film crew to document the stunt on Tuesday, intended as a corrective on BP’s PR machine (though with BPGlobalPR overshadowing the giant’s own operations, and talks of a buyout, I don’t think the British petro company is at its strongest). Babelgum is also hosting the video, released this week. Cheezburger will also distribute the vid.

It’s great when everybody wins — except, of course, BP. Adam Quirk raises awareness and funds for the oil disaster, which is, remarkably, still not 100% resolved. Babelgum gets some hot content — timed as close to the end of the vuvuzela-filled World Cup as possible — and more branding consistent with its content on environmental awareness. For Cheezburger, well, it’s funny. Everybody does some good and we all get to laugh!

In case you’re wondering, does it take $7,000 to get vuvuzelas outside of BP? Nope. Quirk donated a large sum to a project to end offshore drilling.

Enjoy!

Two years ago, Matthew Lessner could not have imagined his script for a Lord of the Flies-inspired feature film would take him from the woods of Oregon to a rooftop in Brooklyn, all because of a newfangled website.

Lessner’s film, “The Woods,” financed on credit obtained before the financial crisis, is one of the projects showcased Friday at the Kickstarter Film Festival, in partnership with Rooftop Films. The fest is an offshoot of microfinance site Kickstarter, which helps creative types raise money for their dream projects, whether they be films or world trips, websites or industrial design.

“The Woods” was already shot when Kickstarter premiered, but after the financial crisis froze his credit, Lessner was left with an unedited film. The filmmaker then took to Kickstarter to raise money to finish his first feature.

“It felt sort of validating,” Lessner said of the online response that raised over $10,000. “The bulk of the people participating are people that I’ve never heard of. Suddenly it seemed like there were all these other people who had a stake in the film.”

Film is particularly popular on the site, said Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler, who added that the site allows people to maintain control over their dream projects. “Kickstarter is just a marketplace for creative ideas,” Strickler said. “I think that Kickstarter has proven itself to be a very good springboard for opportunity.”

Click here for the rest of the post.

I have a post over at Tubefilter looking at Kickstarter as a tool for funding web series and giving tips on how creators can harness the full potential of the site, partially intended to coincide with the website’s first film festival, held Friday in Brooklyn.

After the jump, the first half of the post — the basic information — head over to Tubefilter for the rest!

Creating a web series is challenging at every step, from production to marketing, but perhaps the biggest hurdle is among the first: getting money. Kickstarter, a site for crowdsourcing arts funding, is increasingly become the go-to source for web series creators unable to secure grants, industry money or private funds to get production going. We Are With the Band, for example, used their Kickstarter funds to upgrade their camera and sound equipment. GOLD used the site to finance their first season DVD.

Kickstarter is simple. Creators develop a pitch on the site, using video, text or both. They set a fundraising goal and have 30 days to reach it. Users donate money – it’s not an investment – to the projects and if the project reaches its goal, creators get the money. For more information, click here.

“We like for Kickstarter to be a tool,” co-founder Yancey Strickler said, noting how funds can be used for anything from production to traveling to a film festival. “We’re happy to just fill in gaps or be a way to get from X to Y.”

Over 5,000 projects have used Kickstarter for funds, and of those just under half have reached their goal. But the number of projects is accelerating: 2,500 campaigns are currently in progress and 300 new projects are added each week, Strickler said.

How many web series are using Kickstarter? I found over 100 producers who are currently soliciting or have already solicited funding through the site. I decided to take an informal snapshot of 100 of these projects and crunch some numbers. I also took a look at some of the most successful pitches to see what works and what doesn’t.

First, the facts. Out of 100 projects I chose on Kickstarter, 28 reached their funding goal, 40 were unsuccessful, and 32 projects are still working on it (of those, only three are more than 70% of the way there). All in all, more than $200,000 had been pledged to web series, and the vast majority, about $180,000, is already in the hands of producers. That’s a lot of dough! Among those projects that reached their goal, the average sum received was about $6,400.

Web series pitches seem to make it about 40% of the way toward their desired goals, which isn’t bad. It’s a steep curve, however. Most projects never make it past 10%, though several projects raise much more than they asked for. So how do you become one of those few success stories? Take the example of “Little Brass Bird,” a web series starring adorable plush toys. Little Brass Bird is a very modest project by web series standards. The producer team had a goal of $1,200 and eventually raised $1,427, or 20% above the their goal. How did they do it?

“We promoted and networked the heck out of ourselves,” writer-director Rhodrick Magsino told me. He and artist Robin Poppert were on all the usual suspects: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. Facebook helped them reach out to friends and their friends; MySpace helped spread the word to the fans of the bands developing music for the show.

But much of money came in the old fashion way: showcasing their show. “The real spike in funding occurred when we released our first teaser episode. Once people physically experienced the show’s potential, the pledges just started rolling in,” Magsino said. The producers used the funds to buy rights, merchandise, production materials, and establish their business. The show is being screened at the Kickstarter Film Festival in Brooklyn tonight.

Click for the rest.

Stars abound on XTube, but none stand out more than Cole and Hunter, the self-described “maverickmen” of adult online video who have dominated the site for months. Glance at the “most viewed” videos for any given week and you’ll see their clips scattered about, easily overpowering most of their competitors.

After nearly two years of posting videos on the adult answer to YouTube, the couple of 10 years have started their own website — MaverickMen.com — with the help of Manhunt and its parent Online Buddies, one of the many studios and companies who approached the two with deals.

Their success — tens of millions of video views, thousands of faithful fans, and a track record of having fans pay for content — suggests Cole and Hunter might be among the few Ragged Dicks in the world of porn 2.0. Can amateurs turns professional? Can their new site grow their success? After the jump: my thoughts on the ever-maturing market for amateur adult video and an interview with the sought-after couple.

“It’s a TON of work, but we absolutely love doing it for our fans,” Cole said. “The new site in some ways is like having a child; we love it very much, but it’s very demanding and needs constant attention.  We hope it will grow up and take care of us in our old age, lol.”

Unlike in mainstream film, television or even web video, the line between “amateur” and “professional” is much more porous in adult video. The physical “skills” for being an adult video star require little training or contacts, just everyday practice, and Cole and Hunter appear to have a lot of it. In the industry, amateurs become stars fast, going from unknowns to brands in a matter of years — TommyD, Mason Wyler, Cody Cummings, and the like, not to mention veterans of Sean Cody (Colby Keller!) and Randy Blue — and starting one’s own franchise or company is almost de rigeur — Pierre Fitch, Brent Corrigan, Ty Lattimore, and on and on. Of course, MaverickMen is not the first pure amateur-to-professional case (TimTales is, for me, a notable example), but it is as clean a grassroots to fame story as you’ll hear.

The MaverickMen have a lean operation. Their “guest stars” (most videos are threesomes) are fans, not paid actors, giving the videos excitement and spontaneity, something the two hope to preserve, even as they upgrade.

“All of the guys in our videos are fans first, then friends.  We don’t work with for-pay models like all the other studios do.  It is a very difficult way to work, but it’s also much more organic and exciting for us,” Hunter said. It’s a rarity right now in web adult video. Fans like getting a glimpse into their bedroom, and their casual, handheld-style is a big source of the appeal. Their videos are also fairly diverse, a possible asset; they work with white, black and Latino models, and the couple’s own age difference probably brings in a larger audience. [In some videos they bareback, a practice oft-debated by the industry but very popular on XTube; they address it here.]

Right now, the two are traveling around the U.S. scheduling encounters with the dozens of potential boytoys who contact them each week. They’re considering acting as reps for newcomers and even have a book coming out next year.

Below, the couple spill the beans on how it all started, how often they play off-camera, their style and schedule, and their deal with Manhunt.

How and why did you start making home movies? Did you make them privately first then start posting on XTube?

COLE: I have always loved taking photos.  I have been fascinated by film and photography since I was a teenager. I have a camera with me wherever I go.  It’s my passion.  I always document special moments in my life and meeting Hunter was, and continues to be, a very special time, so naturally when we met I had to photograph him. At that time, I had purchased a new digital camera with video capability so I started filming our life, sex, and fun times together.  In the beginning, it was just for us alone to view.  Then, we discovered Xtube and loved the concept, so we decided to post some short clips there to see what the reaction would be.  It was instantly crazy and very, very flattering.  We got so many email messages that we were jamming Xtubes old server, lol.  We started making friends with people on line and were constantly asked when we would be posting more videos.  We just kept posting video after video and people kept going nuts.  They still are today; we have over eighty five million video views on our Xtube page.  It’s a global fan base and it’s still so shocking and exciting to us.

HUNTER: In the beginning, we just shot ourselves having crazy hot sex.  Eventually, we started bringing in other guys into the mix and our fans went nuts for it.  We made a promise to each other a while ago that we’d only keep doing this if it was fun to us.  It’s been over two years and we are still having a blast; it just keeps getting better and better.

Do either of you have jobs outside of videomaking?

COLE: We did but now MaverickMEN.com is our full time job.  It’s a TON of work, but we absolutely love doing it for our fans.  The MaverickMEN.com site is primarily a free blog with tons of hot pics and free videos.  We also have a video-on-demand theater were you’ll find many of our classic videos as well as exclusive-to-the-site content, and all of it is in it’s original, and uncut format in some cases our older content is as much as three times longer since we have no size restriction now.  The new site in some ways is like having a child; we love it very much, but it’s very demanding and needs constant attention.  We hope it will grow up and take care of us in our old age, lol.

HUNTER: Luckily, we’ve both been able to leave our nine-to-five jobs and focus on this very exciting and stimulating new work.  It also allows us to spend so much more time together, which is a dream come true for both of us.

How did you develop your signature “handheld” style? What did you shoot on then and now?

COLE: My camera of choice?  Well, that is a closely guarded secret.  But truthfully, Hunter and I have fucked and filmed so many times that we have a created unique style that was born of necessity and habit.  We know when the other should pass the camera based on our sexual experience with each other. We love our camera; it sits on my bed-side table.  It’s like the 3^rd person in our relationship.  I’m not really sure if one would call how we shoot a “style”, but someone once described it as Blair Witch meets Alfred Hitchcock meets Jean Daniel Cadinot.

What made you realize you could actually make money off your videos?

HUNTER: Well we never thought it would be possible.  There are just so many people out there that don’t and won’t pay for porn.  But in the beginning, we just kept getting so many messages from fans asking us why we didn’t charge for what we do.  So we decided to try it, and a few months after we both quit our jobs and we’ve been focusing on making our reality-based amateur porn ever since.

Is XTube Amateur good to its content creators?

COLE: They have been very good to us.  I can’t speak for others, but they have been very cool to us, especially Adam and Kurtis.  Those two guys are the top brain-men at at Xtube.  They fucking rock!  When we have any issues, they are on top of it and try to fix what they can right away.

HUNTER: Absolutley.  The Xtube gang has been so supportive of us from the very beginning.  We’ve been through a lot with them.  That site is enormous and gets a ton of traffic; that ain’t an easy ship to sail.

What made you want to go to the next level with MaverickMen.com?

COLE: It’s been something we have been thinking about for a long time.  We needed the right people to help us create the kind of quality site we knew we had to have.  We’ve seen tons of wonky sites out there and wanted to wait and do it right with reputable people in the industry that we could trust with our fan base.

HUNTER: Being represented on sites other than our own has been a frustrating experience.  Besides, Cole is such a creative person, we had to have our own site so that we could finally show off all his amazing talent.

What’s your relationship now with Manhunt/Online Buddies? What other kinds of deals were you looking at?

COLE: We have an awesome relationship with the ManHunt gang.  Originally, we were hit up by the Webmaster at On The Hunt, Gary Blumenthal.  He convinced us that we were insane for not starting our own site.  And he LOVED our stuff and was very upfront and open and assured us that we would have total creative control.  We met with the two owners, Jonathan Crutchley and Larry Basile, as well as the CEO and CMO.  It was a bit intimidating at first.  They have an amazing operation and it’s pretty shocking how high tech it all is.  Their offices are MASSIVE but they were extremely cool and totally receptive to how we do our thing.  We hit it off we all click perfectly it’s a dream come true.  They knew how very important it is to us to have total creative control and how strongly we feel about staying true to our fans.

HUNTER: We were approached by several of the major studios.  Everyone seemed very excited to work with us, but nobody really seemed to understand what it was about our content that made it so special, except the guys at ManHunt.  We continue to get offers from other companies, which is very flattering.  We are so happy that we’ve partnered with a group that sincerely gets what we are trying to do, in addition to providing us with vast resources.

How many videos (scenes) do you shoot weekly/monthly? I imagine it might be hard work. Do you have a schedule in place?

COLE: We do what we can, and it’s kinda hard work (pun deeply intended) but seriously we try to get as much content as we can when it’s possible.  Getting content is actually the fun part for us, we have made some awesome friends with the guys we do videos with. As far as a schedule, well we don’t need one because we work on the filming, editing, posting and messages each and every day it’s a full time job 7 days a week 365 days a year.

HUNTER: It’s tough for us to set an actual shooting schedule.  Because we don’t ever work with agencies to find talent, we have to be ready to shoot no matter where we are, or what time it is.  All of the guys in our videos are fans first, then friends.  We don’t work with for-pay models like all the other studios do.  It is a very difficult way to work, but it’s also much more organic and exciting for us.

How many requests do you get to appear in videos? Which actor has been the best to work with? And what makes someone bad to work with?

COLE: We get lots and lots of requests to do videos for other studios, but we only fuck on camera for our own company.  We’ve filmed scenes of other models for OnTheHunt.com, and we are interested in filming for other studios, too.

HUNTER: We get a lot of requests from fans to be in videos, and we love it.  The first three hours of ever day for us is spent returning emails from our fans, and at least ten of those are new requests to be in a video with us.  None of the guys in our videos are actors; they are fans that have contacted us to star in a video.  That’s one of the things that makes our content stand out.  We won’t compromise on that, if we did we’d end up looking like two guys trying to emulate studio porn.  And fortunately for us, since we stick to that formula, all the guys that we’ve shot with have been a blast to be around.

Do you ever play with just the two of you — no cameras?

COLE: Haha are you kidding, yes we have a very high sexual appetite for each other, we fool around way more than Normal I think lol

HUNTER: Oh yeah, all the time.  If I don’t get with my man at least twice a day, I’m a very cranky boy.  And he knows it; he can tell when I need a nice fat cock in my mouth, and he never fails to deliver.  Plus I’m always happy to return the favor.

What are your future plans?

COLE: Our plans are to explore other places around the world, while filming our fun. Currently we have been hitting Pride events near us.  We live in Boston so we did pride there.  Then we hit RI, then NYC, all back to back.  It’s been very interesting, and yes we made a video at each event lol. But our biggest project right now besides MaverickMEN.com has been our book.  Several months ago we were approached by a great guy named, Anthony DiFore.  He proposed doing a series of books on Hunter and I, and how we met, and how we started making videos. “Maverick Men” is an erotica/non-fiction (erotic biography) title set for release in Fall 2010 by inGroup Press.  The book is authored by us, and is being published by Anthony, a newcomer to the LGBT publishing world.  “Maverick Men” will be available in paperback and as an e-book.  In paperback, the book will be available for purchase on Amazon.com, in local LGBT bookstores, and on the publisher’s website.  The e-book will be available in PDF format, and on the Kindle, Nook, and iPad/iPhone.

HUNTER:  This is a VERY new and cutting edge idea the marriage of paper and digital, written erotica and web porn : In the books, which are XXX and VERY hot by the way, we write about our true adventures and the videos that we’ve been making and then directly link and cross reference it with our site MaverickMEN.com so when you read about the hot scene in the book, you will actually be able to go to our website and see the specific video that you were just reading about its never been done before as far as we know.  We’ve had a blast writing together we are voracious readers, so it was important to us that the book be good not cheesy or sleazy.  They are planning a book tour for us in the Spring/Summer of 2011.

Web series festivals are becoming a significant outlet for publicizing and distributing online content. A lot of web series show at feature-film and short film festivals, but events focused on web series are particularly fruitful, I think, since the form has a different pace and culture than film.

Someday, I’m going to have to compile a list of all the festivals out there (I’ll admit it and be unpopular: I like lists. Once a journalist, always a journalist). If you’re in New York tomorrow, check out this LGBT web series festival, which looks pretty amazing, and, according to the press release sent to me by Drama Queenz creator Dane Joseph, is free.

I’m quite happy to see that the line-up for the festival includes many of the shows listed on my LGBT web series list (still, by the way, the most popular page on this blog). The highly rated and critically acclaimed Anyone But Me is sure to please; Drama Queenz is a pioneer; Gay’s Anatomy, In the Loop and Brooklyn is for Lovers are quite hilarious and smart; The Real Girl’s Guide to Everything Else is a fresh take on the Sex and the City formula. It’s a great line-up and I’m glad to see a number of series I’ve been fortunate to spotlight will be showing up — and at least some of the creators will be in attendance! I wish I was in NYC (still traveling in Asia, now in Singapore)!

Here’s the press release:

Festival features LGBTQ web series to be proud of

June 15, 2010 (New York, NY)—On Saturday, June 26, 2010, stellar lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer web series will be honored at Out of the Box 2010: LGBTQ Web Series Festival. Festivities are free and open to the public, and will be held at New World Stages in New York City (340 W. 50th St.) starting at 7pm, featuring talkbacks with show creators, drink specials, and delicious appetizers to enliven the occasion.

This first annual event during New York City’s Heritage of Pride festivities is intended to celebrate and give honor to the Internet innovators who are filling a void in traditional media by offering a dizzying array of award-winning, niche programming for the web, and will be hosted by the boys of the breakout blog The Future Forward  (www.thefutureforward.net)

In total, 14+ critically acclaimed, eclectic series will be screened during the festival, including:

·      AfterEllen Visibility Award winner Anyone But Me (anyonebutmeseries.com)

·      The Broadway-studded musical comedy The Battery’s Down (thebatterysdown.com)

·      Streamy Award nominee Brooklyn is for Lovers (bi4l.tv)

·      SheWired.com lesbian talk show Cherry Bomb TV (cherrybombtv.com)

·      Celebrity blogger Dwight O’Neal’s Christopher Street TV (christopherstreettv.com)

·      Film festival favorite Drama Queenz (www.dramaqueenztheseries.com)

·      The hilarious spoof Gay Top Gun (youtube.com/whiplashpictures)

·      Critical darling Gay’s Anatomy (gays-anatomy.com)

·      Ha! The Series featuring Bruce Vilanch and Broadway-vet Perry Ojeda (hatheseries.com)

·      Deliciously campy Homewrecker Houseboy (boysrboys.com)

·      Gay reality show In The Loop (youtube.com/intheloopseries)

·      LA Web Fest winner The Real Girl’s Guide to Everything Else (therealgirlsguide.wordpress.com)

·      Indie Soap Award Winner Seeking Simone (www.seekingsimone.com)

·      Theatre-crowd favorite Weiner & Weiner (weinerandweiner.com)

Out of the Box 2010 is an official Heritage of Pride event and is endorsed by the Writers Guild of America-East.  The event is produced by Novo Novus Productions, a company committed to defying the traditional hindrances that restrain creativity; thinking outside the box in order to fully realize quality.

For a complete schedule and more information, visit www.otbfest.com.

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CONTACT
Dane Joseph, Executive Producer
Dane@NovoNovus.com
248.219.8302

In Brooklyn one night in May I was treated to my very first performance from Monstah Black, an artist who defies categorization, but whose show I would characterize as part-rock concert, part-live art theatre, with a black queer bent. Despite my awe I managed to divert my eyes long enough to dwell on the audience, mostly avant-hip black Brooklyners, but with two notable exceptions: indie filmmaker and artist Hanifah Walidah and, looking a touch out of place, internationally renowned artist Chuck Close.

I started thinking that something rather trendy was going on. Monstah Black seemed to be just one of a several black artists, performers and personalities working today trafficking in what he calls “genderfuckery.” (Though maybe I was just flush from an unusually art-glamorous day at internationally renowned artist David Salle‘s salon with such art world luminaries as Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman and Eva Respini in attendance!).

Has black queer (and, in many cases, black androgyny) come back in style?

Monstah Black

Well, first, there are probably three immediate responses to that question, depending on who’s reading this: 1) What do you mean by “back,” it never left!, 2) What do you mean by “back,” it’s never in!, 3) What do you mean by “black androgyny” or “queerness”?

I won’t respond to 2) because the charge lacks merit. I’ll respond to 1) in a bit. Identifying the starting/stopping points of cultural trends is futile. My question is more of a provocation. It seems to me, for those who are aware, it has become easier than ever to access images of black artists playing with the Holy Trinity of cultural studies: race, gender and sexuality, my rather expansive definition for “androgyny.” (A better word might be “queer.” Ah, language.)

WHO IS HOT TODAY**

Andre J

The list is small but mighty. We have Kalup Linzy, pictured above with James Franco, who has over the past several years become the toast of the art and fashion worlds, headlining lush events, booking major museum shows, getting major fellowships, collaborating with major designers and, well, James Franco. Monstah Black appears to have amassed a loyal following in New York and rising visibility by the press. We should all remember personality Andre J, who a few years ago made the cover of Paris Vogue and continues to produce. Though decidedly less queer, out artist Kehinde Wiley had made a name for himself deconstructing masculinity…and selling sneakers. Andre Leon Talley‘s celebrity is blossoming, becoming an obsession of the gossipy press, most notably Gawker; his America’s Next Top Model colleague, Miss J, isn’t doing too bad either.

Along with Kalup Linzy, a number of these personalities maintain a strong presence online. Much has been written on B. Scott, who is remaking celebrity online and has been working hard by blogging, hosting his own radio show, vlogging on YouTube, and appearing on various television shows. My students keyed me into KingsleyBitch, the 19-year old who has amassed over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube in less than a year by kvetching, vlog-style whenever he feels like it. It’s the kid of transgression endemic to YouTube, the kind that Mr. Pregnant, who is a kind of queer figure, takes to the next level. New York-based performer Britney Houston moved from online to offline, making a name for herself doing music video remakes on YouTube then making music and performing live in NYC, much like Monstah Black and Kalup Linzy have, but with more pop. Online, black gay narratives are another small but mighty bunch, including Christopher Street, Drama Queenz, Lovers and Friends, Anacostia and Buppies.*

(UPDATE: Reader suggestions (of people I missed): Jonte’; Jean Paul Paula)

WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE

Peter Sewally

We have been here before. Some would say we have never left, and they might be right. (Warning: really sketchy and incomplete history to follow).

But Ru is still here! The diva’s show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, is giving Logo is best ratings ever and has given the star, who turns 50 this year, a second (or third or fourth) revival.

So the pivotal question is “why now?” If there’s something special about this moment, there has to be a reason to explain it all.

It’s become a pat answer, but certainly the rise of new media — I know, I’m sorry for bringing it up! — has contributed to the heightened visibility of these narratives, at least for those, like myself, who are looking. The proliferation of blogs, vlogs, Facebooks, Twitters, websites, film festivals, cable channels, etc. has given performers an increasing number of venues for publicity and distribution.

Culturally speaking, I think it’s certainly possible the desire to consume in niches, a process beginning in earnest in the 1990s, has led people to marginal corners of cultural production, the same impulse driving TV watching to cable.

At the same time, I think a small group of people are now becoming dissatisfied with the relatively cookie-cutter predominately white gay representations we see on television and film (and even on television, we are somewhat far away from the mid-2000s of Noah’s Arc, Will & Grace, The L Word, and Queer as Folk). Black queer might just be fresh, especially in the the NY-LA epicenters.

WHAT DOES BLACK QUEERNESS LOOK LIKE TODAY

Is there anything that differentiates black queer performances today from those of yesteryear? I’m not an expert. However there are a few interesting cultural threads I see running through the examples I’ve been noticing.

I’d have to do more reading on this, but it seems there is a consistent pull (and always has been) among minority-produced media between resistance and integration. The desire to integrate oneself into mainstream society and the need to push against it. This perhaps most clear in Paris is Burning, focusing as it does on how performers articulate desire for fame, fortune and the American dream while still residing on its outskirts.

Today, this means black queerness can sometimes conjure the neoliberal (individualism, self-determination, self-help) and the spiritual alongside the anarchic and the transgressive. It can be as soft as it is sharp; it goes down easy, at times, and fights its way down at other times. To be popular is to compromise, to be marketable and trendy is to integrate oneself into easily understandable ideas.

Yet with markets and niches, someone can sustain their art and still hold true to some artistic ideals. It depends on one’s aspirations and industry. Artists like Linzy and Wiley have a relative degree of autonomy. Burgeoning celebrities like B. Scott have more constraints.

It takes more than one to map out a cultural moment. I’d love to here your thoughts on a) any big names working right now that I missed (because I know I missed a whole lot), b) any perspective on what it means to be black and queer today, c) any thoughts on the importance/limitations on being “hip,” d) anything else. In the meantime, here’s Kalup Linzy hanging with James Franco!

*That all these performers are men is a discussion that needs to be had.

**It’s important to note that many of these artists may not identify as “queer” or even “gay”. The point of this article is not to call anyone’s sexuality — as in sex — but rather cultural performance. So someone like Eddie Izzard, who is straight, can be read as queer, same goes for someone like Dennis Rodman or John Leguizamo, you get the idea.

I’m on vacation! Well, not a complete vacation. I’ll be relaxing, attending the International Communication Association conference and a summer research program in Hong Kong.

Nonetheless I’ll be gone from June 5 until July 10. I may do a bit of blogging, but right now I don’t expect to!