Rob Delaney sent me a link to Parrot for State Bird on YouTube, a really well-done fake political news short starring himself as the snarky host.

The video showcases a debate between a parrot and a valley quail, who argue over which should be official state bird of California (currently the quail).

The video refers to the upcoming legal deadline for California drivers: that they must use hands-free devices for their cell phones starting July 1, 2008.

The video encourages the viewer to check out ParrotNotQuail.com, and only after visiting did I realize that the video was an attempt at localized viral humor, and backed by hands-free device maker Parrot.

The site itself is as good a satirical political site as I’ve seen online. It features a parrot holding babies, walking wing-in-hand with a racially diverse group of people, a open letter to Arnold, and even a chance to win $10,000.

One problem. The video only has 3.328 views on YouTube.

What went wrong? The video is high-quality. The site design and satire is top notch. Perhaps the target market is too niche: Californian drivers who use cell phones and are paying attention to upcoming laws that affect them.

Or perhaps the “just upload it and it will get a million views” strategy doesn’t work. You can have all the right elements, but if you don’t generate conversation and marketed attention to your media, you will end up with just over 3,000 views. (3,000 is the friends-and-family viewcount, btw)

Some advice for Parrot in the days leading up to July 1 (your viral video’s deadline as well): pitch bloggers on the site. Contact your distributors and give them brochures that will drive traffic back to the site. Stage a PR stunt. Go to local zoos. Generate a conversation.

It takes time and energy (and money) to draw an audience. Otherwise, you’re just taking a low-odds risk. You should work just as hard at generating traffic as you did making your content. There are too many other birds squawking in the online video market for you not to.

Bob found this and shared it with me: Wordle.net (a visual representation of your blog).

WSJ reported today that BMW (and their ad agency) took credit for a 30-minute mockumentary about a German town building a ramp to literally launch a new 1-Series BMW car to America.

The story was leaked to blogs and traditional press, and has apparently gathered some big attention for the German auto-maker, and for a fraction of the cost of a traditional 30-second TV commercial.

More than the film itself, which is a Guffman-style mockumentary about a independent film director discovering the strange event called Rampenfest, the creators continued to build out the world in which the events transpire: creating Web sites for the film The Ramp, the filmmaker Jeff Schultz, the event planner Franz Brendl, and the fictional Bavarian town of Oberpfaffelbachen. Many characters also have Facebook profiles.

What’s more, a store on cafepress actually sells the T-shirts and other merch featured in the movie. With a big enough viral push, this “commercial” could even turn profitable.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend of mine who makes short films. We talked about the purpose of short films these days and how short films really don’t need to go the way of the film festival anymore.

With production and editing so easily assessable to the masses, and the ease of which anyone can upload short form content to the Internet for exposure, why pay the $50 plus entrance fees for each festival?

Next, add to that the traveling expenses to the actual festival - all the while hanging on hopes that a production executive might take a liking to your film, and might consider calling you about being involved in a project?

I see the only purpose of film festivals for short films these days is to help creators (and all those involved) to stand out from the ever-growing crowd. My beef is that the same thing that can be achieved through a few online competitions such as Crackle’s Comedy Pilot Contest, a few ongoing online festivals like on filmaka, and a little marketing.

Don’t get me wrong, uploading to different sites and often getting friends and fans to vote does take time, but it has the ability to reach just as many of these production executives (who subsequently don’t want to spend that much time at festivals in the first place). What it doesn’t take is money out of your pocket.

So today I took action on my beliefs and canceled all my e-mail notifications from the Film Festival uber-site WithoutABox (owned by IMDB/Amazon), because I realized that I ignore every film festival e-mail they’ve sent out (and for good reason: film festivals still have their place for independent feature films looking for distribution and niche films that could never garner a mainstream audience, but that’s it).

Then today I received an e-mail which further proves my point. I was forwarded a video of the 2008 Online Cannes Short Film Festival winner. Apparently they were all featured on YouTube for people to vote for. Simple and poignant like all great short films. I hope you enjoy it.

[It looks like it's since been taken down from YouTube, which doesn't make sense. From YouTube's point of view, they really need to be associated to the Cannes Film Festival, and each short's creator should re-upload it immediately to get all the exposure they can.]

HISTORIA DE UN LETRERO (THE STORY OF A SIGN)

Webby-award winning online drama The West Side is simply the best-shot series online. Shot in a self-proclaimed “urban cowboy” genre, it’s purely black-and-white and features gorgeous shot after gorgeous shot.

I spoke last week about tone, and The West Side has tone to spare. Problem is, it’s a little too slow and lacks enough story to really keep my interest.

Also, while it’s nice to see the show win accolades and press, its social network numbers are low (87 fans on Facebook, 74 MySpace friends).

All this makes it clear to me that the creators are not necessarily looking for an online hit, as much as for The West Side to be either picked up as a TV show or movie, or simply to serve as a stepping stone to a bigger deal.

If I were a studio producer, I’d give these guys a shot. What they’ve done with long, sweeping shots, and high contrast is nothing short of filmmaking genius.

I wrote last week about how YouTube is releasing some new tools for creators, and this week, Mark Cuban ups the ante.

He rips the online video giant in his latest Blog Maverick post. His primary complaint is that, while YouTube has huge traffic numbers, it can only sell ads against a small percentage of its hosted content, which makes for an unsustainable business model.

He praises Hulu which has a much smaller audience, but clearly a collection of higher-level content, and a business model that allows for it to monetize 100% of its content.

“Youtube hides behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hulu is a media site that presents videos with advertising. It can do whatever it wants. Youtube ts a hosting service. Its not allowed to know what videos are uploaded by users and its not allowed to generate revenue against those videos. It can only sell advertising around videos it has licenses to.”

I met with Christine Park of Paulist Productions a few weeks back, and aside from having an amazing office on PCH that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, they have a new web series from which I learned a good lesson.

Tyler’s Ride is a 12-episode series [guest] starring Christian music star Jeremy Camp. The company is self-hosting the video files, so viewership numbers aren’t readily available, but I’m really interested to see what a niche star like Camp brings to the table. The Tyler’s Ride MySpace page has 1546 friends, if that’s any indication.

The show is a prodigal son-type story with Christian undertones (and overtones, I hear, later in the story). I’m also really interested to know what kind of reaction the audience will have to the “course-shift” in the story. Could this show carry a secular audience and then keep them with the introduction of overtly Christian themes? I think not.

Then again, Jeremy Camp will likely only draw young Christian fans, and without a big marketing campaign, the series probably won’t gather a broad audience to begin with.

But that’s the power of the Web, right? To deliver content to a niche audience. If your production values are good, you can produce on the cheap, and you have a compelling story, you can monetize a project that wouldn’t have made it to TV.

Christian content is certainly an interesting market, and for too long has felt either too hokey or too preachy. Certainly, online distribution can give new voice to new relevant artists, which is a good thing no matter what you believe.

SNL alumni Tim Meadows and David Spade join forces to do a Web series called Carpet Bros. under the 60 Frames banner.

Well, the term “web series” is a stretch. There’s no interactivity. It’s just a vehicle for short-form videos with big talent delivered online. It’s TV junior, I say. Nothing wrong with that. This is, essentially, what SNL was doing in the 1990’s. Wayne’s World (and the like) were essentially little scenes that carried a loose story week to week.

Riddle me this: why is this 4-minute clip so much more watchable than comparable videos online? Three reasons:

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A few months ago, we interviewed quarterlife’s creator Marshall Herskovitz, who in the days prior to its launch on NBC, was already tepid about his online series’ chances in the “big leagues.”

NewTeeVee has a nice video follow-up interview, where Marshall lays out some of his rethinking about online vs. televised media. He also expands on his plans to leverage quarterlife.com as a creative community to raise up projects. Artists (and agencies) are becoming the new studios.

The Hollywood Reporter reported yesterday that a fake movie trailer posted online will be made into a feature film. Seems like the breakthrough moment that we’ve all been looking for, right?

Sure, except that “Seth and Jay vs. The Apocalypse” was created by Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel, already big name stars (Knocked Up, Freaks and Geeks, Superbad, etc.).

What’s next? The Landlord Trilogy?

Don’t take this as sour grapes: those guys are funny and they are the “in” young comedians for movies right now. While it doesn’t seem “fair” that big Hollywood names are using online media (the medium of choice for the independent/aspiring writer-producer), a story like this makes me realize that online entertainment still exists within the ecosystem of big-money entertainment, so the same rules apply.

Except in rare cases, it takes a star to get a project off the ground. A friend of mine is producing an independent film with Cuba Gooding, Jr. Apart from being a good actor, he’s a recognizable face that will help sell DVDs (at Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, etc.). Adding Cuba to the cast made the project profitable.

We’re starting to see this kind of tactic creep into online media, too.

• Gemini Division, a forthcoming Web series created by writer Brent Friedman (Afterworld) and recently picked up by NBC, stars Rosario Dawson.
• HBO announced to today that it bought a 10% stake in FunnyorDie.com, featuring content from partners Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Chris Henchy, and Judd Apatow.

This only represents the start of the intermingling of movies, TV, and Web entertainment.

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