I hate VGHS, and wish FreddieW and his friends would use their considerable talent and money to make a REAL movie instead of more internet/video-game fan-wank.

I enjoy The Guild although I kinda stopped watching halfway through season 4 or somewhere around there. Not because it got bad or anything, I just never really had any strong desire to keep watching. (I'm neither an MMO-er or anything even close) Though I'll probably get around to watching the rest eventually.

I haven't seen any of VGHS but I've seen enough of his youtube stuff to know what he does, and while technically pretty decent, I just don't care.

Ya, it's more just not my cup of tea. I can see how it was funny when they started out, but it's kind of crazy that the series is still going and actually trying to justify storylines and mythologies and what-not, and that stuff doesn't work for me. I think I'd have loved this thing back in high-school (and I really remember the days of Halo machinama being a big deal in my friend circles), but I think I've outgrown it and looking back, it's pretty silly.

With the animation team they have now though, and the apparent free reign from Microsoft to do whatever, I wish they'd just do a spin-off series or something that's not connected to the old series. I think with a more serious bent and better writing they could do some outstanding stuff. It kinda reminds me of that Starship Troopers CG cartoon from the early 2000's.

I see 0 reasons why someone can't, I just don't see anyone stepping up and attempting to do so. The guy who made Monsters is now doing the Godzilla reboot, Totally Rad Show guy's portal fan film largely got him a big studio gig, and the there's Paranormal Activity, which has turned Oren Peli into somewhat of a horror brand name. If the youtube generation isn't graduating, it's their own damn fault for not taking any chances, and I think BigDamnArtist is completely right about the reasons why.

Not everyone has to make movies. FreddieW and other people like it don't trick you into watching their stuff. They're pretty open about the fact that they love Transformers type of movies and enjoy making short, goofy action shorts. They make that they want to make, have fun while doing it, millions of people love it and they get paid. On top of that it doesn't cost you anything to watch it and you can ignore it if you want to. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Theres more people doing it then you would think, I mean how often do you get kickstarter spam from someone wanting you to pay for their feature?

whilst very few distributors seem interested these days in features without a 'name' for them to stick on the poster and there is a lot of talk of self distribution theres no 'hub' for them. No equivalent to an indie band sticking their album on itunes where everyone can find it.

You know, unless you get a sales agent who will put it on itunes and between them take something like 70% of your sales.

Theres also the logistical side of things, you can shoot a youtube short in an afternoon, a feature takes weeks (unless your going French New Wave) and getting locations, crew and cast to commit for that long is not nearly as easy.

But I agree theres no Robert Rodriguez or Kevin Smith to inspire the latest bunch of filmmakers in a way the dude who made Red State and the Spy Kids guy never will.

isn't the idea that there isn't a market for small genre films more a perception of hollywood suits that has trinkled down to the creative types?

I don't really understand the point of doing a web series. Like shorts, it's hard to make any money from them, so when they announce a Halo 4 series or a Battlestar Galactica prequel series, but it's a web series format, I know what they really mean is either a series of extended adverts to push something else or that they didn't think the story was good enough to bring to TV (which in turns means very little money since the return is minimal). As commercials, they're limited and as shorts, they're limited.

It's one thing to have a TV series that is distributed via the web, but that seems not to have occurred. Everyone appears to be making frustratingly too long or too short shorts.