Have you ever heard of the "Al Thompson hustle"? It's a specific kind of hustle familiar to web television aficionados. For years, actor-producer Al Thompson made his mark by selling independent web series to major online networks. Most of us came to know him after his 2009 Nytvf winner Johnny B. Homeless was sold to Atom (now Comedy Central Studios). His sci-fi series, Odessa, won development deals with SyFy and Bet last year. What makes Thompson remarkable is not only his race -- black web series, with the exception of Issa Rae's Awkward Black Girl, have historically been a harder sell -- but also his strategy. Most indie creators release shows before getting exclusive distribution. Thomspon typically keeps his series from the public so he could work with bigger distributors who want exclusive content. In other words, he's a web producer who operates like a TV producer. "That’s one...
- 10/11/2012
- by Aymar Jean Christian
- Tubefilter.com
The New York Television Festival is a celebration and showcase inspired by the independent film movement with the goal to “construct a new and innovative platform for program development.” It will celebrate its eighth year in operation when it commences this October 22, 2012 in New York City. It will also honor more members of the indie TV community with guaranteed development deals from major network and studio partners of the Festival than it has at any other point in the event’s history. A total of 17 of said guaranteed development deals are up for grabs to television and online video content creators. They include: Comedy Central’s Short Pilot Competition, a handful of development opportunities exclusively for UK content producers living across the pond, the deals offered as part of the Independent Pilot Competition from IFC, MTV, and VH1, A&E’s Unscripted Development Pipeline, and the offers given to the...
- 1/31/2012
- by Joshua Cohen
- Tubefilter.com
Al Thompson has enjoyed a very good year. His digital production company ValDean Entertainment closed pickup deals with all of its active series—including two of them Lenox Avenue and Odessa scoring Bet Networks deals. Now fresh off winning the Syfy “Imagine Greater” honors at Nytvf last month for Odesssa, Thompson is heading to Los Angeles to premiere the drama at the NBCUniversal Short Cuts Film Festival next Wednesday the 26th. (Free tickets to the event are available below.) Cast includes Richard Herd (Star Trek Voyager), Fulvio Cecere (Battlestar Galactica), Skai Jackson (Disney’s Jessie), Clayne Crawford (A&E’s The Glades, Fox’s 24), James De Bello (Cabin Fever) and Al Thompson (The Royal Tenenbaums). In case you wonder just what makes the mind of Al Thompson tick—something we’ve affectionately dubbed the “Al Thompson Hustle“—we tried to get a few pages from his playbook out of him in a recent interview,...
- 10/20/2011
- by Marc Hustvedt
- Tubefilter.com
If you like your daily dose of Tubefilter’s online video news supplemented with a weekly video or two featuring our very own Marc Hustvedt’s talking mug waxing knowledgeable about new media things you should know, then do we ever have the web series for you. In this second installment of our brand spakin’ new Tubefilter Video Blog, Marc breaks down how the #apeswillrise web video and social media campaign potentially brought in millions of dollars at the box office for Rupert Wyatt’s Planet of the Apes reboot, skims over some of this year’s New York Television Festival Independent Pilot Competition selections, coins the phrase 'Al Thompson Hustle,' and more. Look for future installments of the Tubefilter Video Blog every Monday on our newly redesigned Tubefilter Channel on YouTube (which you can subscribe to by clicking here). Also keep an eye out for footage from live...
- 8/11/2011
- by Joshua Cohen
- Tubefilter.com
Even today, when I mention I write about web series, I get nonplussed looks and requests for examples. But there is one series I see friends consistently cheer and evangelize: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. "Have you seen it?!" I hear. "You have to see it!" It's quite a feat for the low-budget indie from creator and star Issa Rae. "I love this web space," she said in an interview. "This is fertile land. We can take advantage of it in any way we want to at this point." Rae is already on the leading edge of a rapidly growing wave of black web producers, alongside the likes of Al Thompson (Johnny B. Homeless, Lenox Avenue, Odessa) and Robert Townsend (Diary of a Single Mom). Recently she's been everywhere. Arianna Huffington name-dropped her series when introducing Huffington Post's BlackVoices - Rae wrote an inaugural piece. She's been profiled in Essence,...
- 8/10/2011
- by Aymar Jean Christian
- Tubefilter.com
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