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A Ride Worth Taking: MediaTrip On The Move
(continued from page 2)
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| Mark Brooks and Peter Gilstrap, creators of
Lil' Pimp and Creamburg. |
New Roads to Travel
MediaTrip's first home-grown project to make the major leap from
the Internet to feature films will be Lil' Pimp. In August,
Revolution Studios announced its theatrical pickup of the series after
inking the deal with co-creators Peter Gilstrap and Mark Brooks --
who will write, direct and produce the full-length, Flash-produced
motion picture at their Gifted Men Productions. Gilstrap and Brooks
first met up while working as columnist and art director, respectively,
on a major weekly newspaper several years ago. Brooks first approached
Gilstrap with drawings and ideas he had on a concept that would later
become their other hit MediaTrip series Creamburg. Working
with Gilstrap at night, Brooks animated over a 7 week period to complete
a 23-minute pilot which was eventually optioned by cable caster HBO.
Austin Harrison, aware of the Creamburg tape, contacted the
duo about its availability for the then forming MediaTrip.com. With
that show still tied up with HBO, Brooks and Gilstrap went home and
quickly brainstormed the Lil' Pimp concept. Within 24 hours,
they were back in MediaTrip's offices presenting their new series
creation. The Netcaster pounced on the fresh idea and later, when
it became available, picked up Creamburg for series, as well.
For a co-ownership stake, MediaTrip has funded the two Gifted Men
projects and all parties couldn't be happier with the shared trajectory
of their relationship -- especially since Creamburg is also
now being seriously considered within Revolution Studios as a television
cross-over property.
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| © 1999-2000 MediaTrip.com, Inc. All rights
reserved. |
From art studies at Colorado University to designing album covers,
Brooks has harbored a long-standing love of animation. "I really
wanted to make animated films," he laughs, "but I just didn't
want to draw that much!" Once Flash became a reality, he took
to the new technology with a vengeance. He and Gilstrap have written,
drawn, animated, voiced nearly every one of their characters and produced
all of the music for their various series (both have a substantial
history and current place on the music scene). By today's date, that
totals approximately 26 Webisodes of Creamburg, 48 Lil'
Pimps, as well as six shows for their series Adventure Men,
which is running now on iFuse.com. Accomplishing all of this in only
the past eleven months, these two creators have established themselves
as walking-definitions of major Internet entertainment auteurs. Located
at Hollywood and Vine, their studio will have to expand to handle
the creative and production aspects of their first feature film. Brooks
acknowledges, "There's just so many parts (of filmmaking) that
we kind of gloss over when we're doing these 3 minute shows but there's
stuff you need to pump up if you're going to put it onto a screen
that large." Animating within Flash but at 30 frames, Brooks
feels their work will transfer nicely to the bigger medium, adding,
"The backgrounds will all be painted offline so it will have
a painterly look, almost like an old-school '40s or '50s cartoon."
More relevant than the technical issues faced in any production format,
Brooks believes, is the whole entertainment approach one adopts in
any creative endeavor. "The question is can you draw or can you
not draw, can you tell a story or can you not tell a story, can you
act or can you not act. To me, that's more important than the technology,
really -- just the ability to make stuff interesting."
New Content on the Road
Gathering more steam, MediaTrip announced in late summer its partnership
with comedian Adam Sandler and producer Jack Giarraputo to develop
an entertainment destination called Shnorff.com. Working together,
the two entities will create original Web content including episodic
shows, animation, games and shorts for sole distribution on the new
co-branded site. Joe Roth's Revolution, who helped facilitate the
deal, will have first-look rights for Schnorff's online creative properties.
Still in the development stages, this new venture serves as an illustration
of the opportunities now presenting themselves to Harrison's still
youthful Netcasting company. And whether it's with known or newly
developing artists, Harrison feels one of MediaTrip's greatest strengths
is that, "We try to really get behind the creative people we
work with. We're definitely a viable place for artists to take their
work to the next level."
Harrison speaks from a wealth of experience as well, having begun
his new media career as early as 1995 when entertainment on the Net
was just beginning. In true pioneer fashion, he produced online broadcast
concerts for the famous Whiskey-A-Go-Go before there was even
any appreciable audience booted-up to tune in. He then did a two-year
stint as Director of New Media for CARAT, the world's largest media
agency, where he learned and honed his skills in marketing and advertising
for emerging media concerns. In 1998, he jumped back to the content
creation side by taking the producing reins for Hollywood.com. While
there, he was instrumental in raising revenue to an all-time high,
doubling per month users and managing all production staff and editorial
content. Leaving there to start MediaTrip's voyage in May of 1999,
Harrison's new online journey has been both arduous and highly rewarding.
The Trip Ahead
Though constantly investigating the surplus of technical and creative
possibilities his company and partnerships present -- in marketing,
distribution to known and emerging technologies, creative advertising
and more -- Harrison says right now his main focus remains "on
building compelling Internet experiences." Confident in the spontaneous
atmosphere of today's entertainment evolution, he continues to show
an unerring eye for finding the creations that are attractive across
many different and complimentary platforms. Harrison makes his way
into MediaTrip each morning excited by that task. He says with a smile,
"It's always like: what's another thing we can do on our Website
that is entertaining to our users? Because that's the challenge, that's
the drive, that's why you wake up day to day is to entertain people,
you know? That's the real kick."
Lee Dannacher, currently based in New York, is a supervising producer
and sound track director of over 350 half-hours of television animated
series, along with numerous home video and film productions.
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