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Saw producers debuting new project online Twisted Pictures, the production company behind the Saw franchise, is debuting its new project, tentatively titled The Internet Killer, on video website Break.com. The movie will be posted in a series of three-minute daily segments. The project will likely screen in foreign theaters and see a domestic DVD and TV release after it premieres online. No director has been selected yet, but Twisted hopes to release the movie this summer. It will be the first feature to debut online and air as a series of segments. (Variety) Richman, who began his career in Silicon Valley and bought Big-Boys.com with his own money, said he created that brand by highlighting the site's best videos. To keep the more talented amateurs from plastering their work across the Web, Break offers them $400 for their rights. YouTube, in contrast, doesn't pay for amateur content, while Break has paid out $400,000. But Break may have a harder time distinguishing itself as more sites begin to pay amateurs for videos and share advertising revenue with them. The most talented amateurs are going to demand better deals, Jupiter Research analyst Joe Laszlo said. Richman sees the investment in professional video as a way for Break to ensure a stream of good programming. But he doesn't want to leave his site's amateur contributors behind. He says he hopes to help them find a way onto television, just as TV producers are finding their way onto the Internet. But as the subject of one popular Break video learned, a runaway hit on the Internet doesn't guarantee a clear path to show business. A year and a half ago, two friends told Joanna Repsold, a pastor's daughter and a student at Claremont McKenna College, that they would go to church with her if she ate a live praying mantis. She did. They videotaped the feat and, attracted by the $250 that Break offered, posted the clip online. It was viewed more than 11 million times. Repsold was featured on VH1 and Dateline. But the aspiring actress is now living in Los Angeles, working as a waitress at BLD Restaurant and wishing she had earned more than the $75 her friends gave her after divvying up the money from Break. "If I earned a dollar for every time that video has been viewed," she said, "I wouldn't have to work for the rest of my life." |
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