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Afterworld
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"Afterworld" survives. First launched in February on Budweiser's online disaster BudTV, the animated post-apocalyptic adventure has gone from YouTube fame to corporate immortality -- picked up by Sony, and now webcasting on News Corp.'s MySpace, with all the marketing firepower they supply.
Even though the series has been around the web for several months, MySpace TV's general manager Jeff Berman told the LA Times, "We're confident this is going to be an enormous success." Starting Monday, new episodes will be released daily over the next several weeks. The series is also being broadcast on television on the Sci-Fi network in Australia.
Created by TV producer Stan Rogow ("Lizzie McGuire," "Nowhere Man") and written by Brent Friedman ("Mortal Kombat," "The Twilight Zone"), the web series – split into 130 3-minute episodes – chronicles the exploits of a Seattle man on a business trip in New York who survives a mysterious catastrophic event that makes 99% of the earth's population disappear and destroys all working technology. He eventually tries to find his way home.
While the static 2.5D style animation may prove too slow for the kids, "Afterworld" is well made, with an ominous mood and a compelling conspiracy-laden storyline that speaks well for the potential of longstanding online entertainment in the mold of "lonelygirl15" or "Prom Queen."
"What we're trying to do is create a unique form of entertainment as well as an original business model," said Rogow, who recently launched the digital studio Electric Farm Entertainment, which is responsible for producing "Afterworld."
While the MySpace page currently has little information beyond a registration page and some stats on the series' protagonist, the Times story reported that the website will allow fans to explore the journey of the series on their own. "Fans also can suggest plot lines, solve puzzles and interact with some of the characters, who will have their own blogs on MySpace," reported the paper.
"The idea was to create a new hybrid medium for entertainment using these different forms of technology, so that fans can get their daily snack of entertainment when and where they want," Friedman said.
In addition to a second season of
"Afterworld," Electric Farm will also produce two other Web series that combine live action and animation, one about zombies in L.A. called "Woke up Dead" and
"The Gemini Division," starring Rosario Dawson as a New York cop
investigating the bizarre murder of her husband.
-Anthony Kaufman
Stan Rogow
Drama, Web Series, Animation
$3,000,000
Stan Rogow, Brent Friedman and Jeff Sagansky
Brent Friedman
