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Spill
File:Spill logo 1.jpg
Type of site
Online Film Criticism
OwnerHollywood.com
Created byKorey Coleman
URLhttp://www.spill.com/
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional

Spill.com is a movie review, news, coverage and discussion website based out of Austin, Texas. The website is light and humorous in tone and features real audio from its five resident film critics animated with cartoon versions of themselves; the animation being done by lead critic and administrator of the site, Korey Coleman. Spill currently has over 23,000 members from all over the planet but mainly in the USA and Great Britain. There are also over 14,000 videos, 40,000 photos and 1,000 groups.

The website is an offshoot of a previous Austin-based cable-access television show called The Reel Deal. Previously owned by MIVA, the site is now owned by Hollywood.com.

History

Originally launched by Coleman and a friend as an excuse to see free movies, The Reel Deal ran for 10 years, considered an impressive streak given the highly ephemeral nature of cable-access television. When his friend quit, Coleman continued the show with a rotating cast, finally settling after five years on the current group. Using each week's new releases as a focal point, the group, seated in a roundtable setting, offered its views on movies, life, and one another in an irreverent, humorous style. Airing live and unrehearsed in front of a studio audience, the crew often worked original skits in between the reviews and usually spun off into amusing tangents.

Upon ending the original show, Coleman experimented with an animated version of The Reel Deal delivered in short, Internet-digestible chunks. After seeing the new episodes on YouTube, MIVA, a business marketing services company, approached Coleman to finance his idea. Coleman worked out a deal, informing the others only afterward. "It's the way I've always done things. One person has to say, 'Hey, let's move.'" Since MIVA owns the animated character names and likenesses, the cast decided to adopt pseudonyms for the site – all save Coleman, who decided to use his real name. As he puts it, "I'm kinda screwed, but I work [directly] for them, so what can I do?"

MIVA handles all the marketing, programming, and design (as far as the coding for the site) while letting the group work independently. Coleman explains: "I've done this for a long time. I know how to do this." He also adds, "They are good about [not meddling]." After recording the audio, Coleman spends anywhere from 4 to 12 hours animating a 3 1/2 minute segment. "I create a series of these animations that you cut and paste [and then] combine them with other animations. Then you have to go back and do the lip sync. It's done manually in Flash, but I've come up with a system for myself that fits the animation and makes it a little faster."

When asked about the unusual name for the site, Coleman replied: "I challenge you to find anything that has to do with movies that hasn't been used already. That was my whole thing. I didn't want to do anything that has to do with any iconography of movies." Spill's slogan – "If its crap ... we'll tell you" – seems to resonate with a wide range of users but especially with 13- to 17-year-olds and a surprisingly large contingent of users from the United Kingdom. The site generated 1 million page views in December (270,000 unique visitors) and cracked the Top 100 websites under Hitwise's Entertainment/Movie category.

Characters

Although the five resident film critics on Spill.com are real people, all of them, save for Korey, use aliases due to legal reasons. Real audio of them is pre-recorded and then animated by Korey into the spill crew's cartoon counterparts.

  • Korey [1] - Played by Korey Coleman [2]
  • Cyrus [3] - Played by Chris Cox [4]
  • Carlyle [5] - Played by Christopher Robert Cargill [6] better known as Massawyrm, from Ain't It Cool News.
  • Leon [7] - Played by Martin Thomas [8]
  • Co-Host 3000[9]

All five are members of the Austin Film Critics Association.

Review System

The website’s review system differs from many others in that it does not assign ratings or grades based on the quality of a particular film (e.g. 3 out of 5 stars, or B+) but rather recommends the to the audience the best situation to view a film in order to get the most possible satisfaction from it – provided the film is deemed worth viewing at all. The five basic ratings are:

  • Better Than Sex! - one of the best films of all time.
  • Full Price!!! - a must-see.
  • Matinee! - it is good enough to see at the cinema and still be satisfied or a movie designed for the big screen.
  • Rental - it is only worth seeing if you don't pay good money and don't expect much.
  • Some Ole Bulls**t! - a movie that you should never pay money to watch.

There also exists an unofficial sixth rating, which like the highest “BETTER THAN SEX!!!” rating is rarely if ever given. The rating was created on the spot by Korey in his review for the film Disaster Movie [10]. The colourful review, (which begins with Korey pointing a gun to his head and threatening to kill himself) has Korey and Co-Host lambasting the film more so than any other film in the history of the website. In the end, Korey decided that the film was so outrageously terrible it wasn’t even worthy of the lowest rating, “Some ol’ Bullshit”. Korey said, “You know what? I have seen a movie worse than “Bullshit”. How’s this for a rating worse than “Bullshit”, how about a huge, resounding, “FUCK YOU!!!” accompanied by an animation of Korey sticking up his two middle fingers to the camera. The rating has only been given to a handful of movies ince its creation, such as (in chronological order); Bedtime stories[11], Cyrus; Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Korey; G-Force[12]; Leon, The Final Destination and Old Dogs, Carlyle; and I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Cyrus.

Podcasts

In addition to movie review and discussion, the website also releases several weekly podcasts.

  • A Couple Of Cold Ones (ACOCO) was Spill's first podcast. It involves Korey and Carlyle sitting around and drinking beer while discussing the top five movies at the box office on the particular week, followed by some free form discussion and concluded by answering Emails submitted by members of the site. Carlyle usually opens the show by announcing (while doing a bad impersonation of a sports announcer), “LIVE from the Spill studios located behind a liquor store on the I35 interchange, it’s time once again, for 'A Couple of Cold Ones', with Korey and Carlyle”. This podcast is the shortest in duration, normally lasting just over an hour.
  • The League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen (LEOG) was the second Spill podcast. It features Cyrus and Leon, along with other members of the “League” sitting in an area dubbed the “League Lounge” and discussing Comic books, science fiction & fantasy related books, movies, video games and TV shows, and many other aspects of geek culture. It is easily the most organised of Spill's podcasts. The show is concluded by discussing Email sent by fans and the group proclaiming in unison “Long live the League!”[13]
  • Let’s Do This! (LDT) was the third of Spill's podcasts. It began accidentally. Co-Host was filling in for Carlyle on ACOCO for several weeks and the fans loved it so much that they created a new podcast. The members were to pick the name and Let's Do This won narrowly over I'm a goat and I eat my own milk. It starts with a disclaimer warning listeners that they are professional bullshitters and that you should not try this at home. It is a completely free form discussion podcast that has Korey and Co Host (With an occasional guest or replacement for an absent member) talking about topics such as, new movies coming out, past movies they both love and hate, current events, funny or amusing things they’ve found on the internet, their personal lives, and frequently graphic and exaggerated discussions about their own sex lives and the sex lives of others. The show has been known to frequently descend into nonsensical craziness when Korey and Co Host latch on to a particular topic and begin discussing it in highly exaggerated terms often leading the discussion into realms that make little or no actual sense but nonetheless remains highly entertaining to listeners. The show concludes with an Email section called “Fuck Yo Thoughts!” in which the pair claim to “fuck the thoughts” of various listeners. The show is always ushered in by the duo building each other up by asking the themselves if they’re “Ready” repeatedly, then both proclaiming loudly “Let’s do this!” followed by a heavy metal guitar solo by their mascot Goatsie (not to be confused with Goatse), their resident bipedal, death metal goat who supposedly “eats his own milk” . (Actually a sample from the song “Get to Da Choppa!” by Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute band Austrian Death Machine). Usually ranging from an average of 2–3 hours.
  • A fourth Spill podcast involving Korey and Leon has become increasingly likely. This is because they have been good friends for basically their entire lives and have many stories and had many adventures. They will probably talk about other parts of popular culture that Spill have previously ignored, such as music, books, sport, news, global issues, politics and food and drink. The name of the show is yet to be announced. The length of this podcast is unknown.
  • While not an official part of the site, many members of the site have started their own podcasts

Awards

In 2009, Spill.com won the award for best podcast in the Movies/Films sub-category of the Podcast Awards [14]. It was both the first nomination and the first win by the website in a mainstream awards show.

Spill Party

There have been several Spill parties which involve Korey, Cyrus, Carlyle, Leon, Co-Host 3000 and other members of the site getting together. There have been two Spill parties in Austin, Texas and two in London, England. There have also been suggestions to have parties in Japan and in the Netherlands.

Notes

  1. ^ http://my.spill.com/profile/Korey1
  2. ^ http://www.austinfilmcritics.org/korey_coleman.html
  3. ^ http://my.spill.com/profile/cyrus001
  4. ^ http://www.austinfilmcritics.org/chris_cox.html
  5. ^ http://my.spill.com/profile/Carlyle001
  6. ^ http://www.austinfilmcritics.org/bob_cargill.html
  7. ^ http://my.spill.com/profile/Leon001
  8. ^ http://www.austinfilmcritics.org/martin_thomas.html
  9. ^ http://my.spill.com/profile/cohost3000
  10. ^ http://www.spill.com/Movie-Reviews/MovieReview.aspx?Name=Disaster%20Movie&VideoId=449875
  11. ^ http://www.spill.com/Movie-Reviews/MovieReview.aspx?Name=Bedtime+Stories&VideoId=389191
  12. ^ http://www.spill.com/Movie-Reviews/MovieReview.aspx?Name=G-Force&VideoId=419022
  13. ^ http://my.spill.com/group/theleaguelounge
  14. ^ http://www.podcastawards.com/
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