A break-out attempt

THE warning signs of a medium that may be reaching decrepitude are obvious: say, multiyear plummeting box office receipts, untrammeled product placement, sequel numbers in the double-digit range. The signals that an infant medium has reached its rambunctious adolescence are probably less clear. But one of them surely must be the ability to gather enough practitioners together to stage large-scale competitions. To be specific: large-scale comedy competitions with police and jail themes.

Such a coming of age is being celebrated this month at the site of Web comedy providers JibJab (best known for the Kerry versus Bush “This Land Is Your Land” satire widely circulated in 2004). This summer, JibJab began recruiting sketch comedy troupes from across the country to participate in “The Great Sketch Experiment,” a bold challenge to erstwhile comics to create the funniest three- to five-minute prison-themed video ever created, with a $10,000 JibJab development deal on the line for the winner.

This still being the early, if post-infancy, stage of Web entertainment, utilitarian limits drove the artistry -- the prison theme was selected, according to JibJab Chief Executive Gregg Spiridellis, after a police station set became available to them. “Part of the challenge,” he explained in an interview at the JibJab HQ in Santa Monica, “is to make the budgetary limitations part of the creative process. The way the ‘This Land’ video used that herky-jerky animation, we wanted people to use this one set and plan for a quick shoot.”

The Jabbers narrowed down the more than 50 scripts they received to six finalists chosen to go before the cameras. And bringing in some Old World savvy to the fledging contestants, JibJab secured the services of legendary comedy director John Landis (“Animal House,” “The Blues Brothers”) to direct the six films.

In September the finalists, who were from Los Angeles, New York and Seattle, gathered in L.A. for a crammed two days of rehearsing before Landis led a marathon shoot of the films, putting all before the cameras in three days. The resulting sextet explores a range of prison-themed Web humor, including a 1940s-style mock newsreel “So You Want to Be a Cop” and a stagy interrogation room scene in which the policemen switch from playing good cop/bad cop to tall cop/short top, followed by rich cop/poor cop and hot cop/cold cop.

The winner was scheduled to be announced Friday. The strong front-runner was a piece titled “Shawshank in a Minute,” a condensed retelling of “The Shawshank Redemption” as a rap musical. Written and performed by a comedy duo called “Famous Last Nerds,” the video opens with a courtroom scene in which star Jordan Allen-Dutton, in the Tim Robbins role, faces off against his partner, Eric Weiner, who portrays the judge. They share a rap duet:

Judge: Please state your name.

Andy: I’m Andy Dufrenes.

Judge: You’re on trial for murder in the state of Maine. You murdered your wife and we found where she was buried.

Andy: You mean Susan Sarandon? We’re not really married.

Judge: No! Your wife in the movie.

Andy: I didn’t do it. Please don’t doubt it!

Judge: I sentence you to life.

Andy: But, but ...

Judge: No buts about it.

Soon, the piece explores some of the film’s harsher themes. A pitch-perfect Morgan Freeman sound-alike raps as Andy is taken to his cell:

When Andy arrived, I remember that day.

I liked him right away but not because I’m gay.

But those guys are. And you’ll see what I mean,

When they gang rape Andy in the very next scene.

Reached by phone in Amsterdam where their hip-hop translation of Shakespeare, “The Bomb-itty of Errors,” is being performed (translated into Dutch), the Last Nerds said after being recruited into the competition that “Shawshank” was actually not their initial choice of themes. “When we first heard the guidelines,” Allen-Dutton said, “that it has to take place in a prison, we immediately thought of, ‘Sodomy, the Musical.’ ” That was shot down. “Our next choice was ‘Abu Ghraib, the Musical.’ ” Only after those failed to pass muster did they settle on “Shawshank.” “We were attracted to the format of trying to cram a movie in the shortest length possible.”

Indeed, that is key to what seems to make “Shawshank” work. It’s the quality that Jib co-founder Spiridellis refers to as density that makes it likely you’ll find yourself drifting back to the JibJab site during your workday to take in repeated screenings. “Viewers online” he said, “are more reflexive than on the couch. At the computer, you need to be hitting them nonstop. The storytelling has to be sharper.” Every JibJab video, he emphasized, strives to have a visual joke underscoring the line or lyric in every frame.

Allen-Dutton of the Nerds stated it more succinctly: “You have to imagine your audience is a bunch of gerbils on cocaine.” His partner, Weiner, continued, “On TV you have maybe a few dozen channels you’re flipping between. On the Web there are millions.” The pair, in common with their JibJab overlords, are believers in the value of music to hook a Web audience to stay through a video.

Indeed, more than a decade after MTV walked away from music videos as the basis of their programming, music seems to drive some of the most circulated films online. “You need something to grab audiences by the throat and hold them there and music has a great way of doing that,” said Spiridellis.

The site is working on a video for one of the pioneers of the golden age of music videos, who has seen his career resurrected and propelled to new heights thanks to the Web -- Weird Al Yankovic. After his career hit a sharp downturn in the ‘90s, Yankovic regrouped and created a new following by airing his songs and videos on MySpace. Remarkably he’s becoming one of the most popular denizens of the social networking site. Driven by this new fan base, his new album, “Straight Outta Lynwood,” debuted at No. 10 in October on the Billboard charts, the first Top 10 album of Yankovic’s career. His new JibJab-produced video, an animated parody of “American Idol” champion Taylor Hicks’ “Do I Make You Proud,” premiered on the Web on Wednesday.

Littleloca’s back atcha

LAST week, Web Scout reported on a ruckus shaking the YouTube video community, one in which several of the most popular YT auteurs have been accused of gaming their way onto the site’s most-viewed list by subscribing to their own videos under faked accounts and using technology to create inflated page view numbers. The most prominent of the video bloggers caught in this melee, Stevie Ryan, a.k.a. Littleloca, has called the Web Scout to respond to the allegations.

To the accusations that she has created fake accounts or cheated her way onto the YouTube list, Ryan categorically denies any such behavior. “There wouldn’t be a point of me doing what I’m doing if I was cheating,” she said in a phone interview. “I enjoy making videos, I’m a video maker. I want to be a filmmaker. I’m not trying to be the greatest thing ever made. I just like posting my videos and see what people are saying and get people’s suggestions.”

As to the accusation that she has created fake accounts to prop up her numbers, Ryan said, “I don’t have enough time in my life to do that, but I do have genuine people that like me and watch me and stick up for me, my little army.”

In her video on the subject, Ryan as Littleloca accused other prominent YouTubers of cheating, a j’accuse that seems to have earned her the wrath of many in the community. But Ryan claims Littleloca’s finger-pointing is not inspired by her personal ire, but by what she thought would be her combative alter ego’s authentic way of jumping head first into the fray. She says of her first response to the issue, after watching a fellow v-blogger’s entry on the subject: “I watched Boh3m3’s video and I thought I would call people out because it’s just something Loca would do.”

Far from being disturbed by the controversy, however, Ryan believes it is a net positive for the YouTube community, by the “no such thing as bad publicity” rule. As for its effect on her: “It’s so great. It’s a little drama in my life. It’s really fun.”