From IndieWire (http://www.indiewire.com)
February 26, 2001

DAILY NEWS: DAILY NEWS: New Directors Lineup; Nibblebox News; Offline Films

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by Eugene Hernandez, Anthony Kaufman and Maud Kersnowski/indieWIRE


>> Nibblebox Unveils Second Season of Online Series

(indieWIRE/02.26.01) -- Nibblebox, an entertainment site that started recruiting audiences from campuses last fall, has released their second semester of episodic shorts. The website, with affiliates on over 150 colleges from Amherst to UCLA, screens films created by students and recent grads. Forty-eight college radio stations are also streamed on the site.

Instead of narrowing their bandwidth, as many entertainment sites are doing in response to the realization that most homes do not have broadband, Nibblebox followed bandwidth. "The most wired audiences are on college campuses and the best demo[graphic] is 18-24," David Bartis, Nibblebox co-CEO told indieWIRE. "Most of our traffic is dot-edu."

A generation ago tech giants like Apple and IBM targeted the desirable student demographic to spread the seeds of technology. Fifteen years later, Nibblebox cross pollinated this marketing strategy with the ideas behind good old fashion college radio that brings content by students to students. "When I went to college I had a typewriter..." quipped Bartis, who founded Nibblebox with Brown College classmates Doug Liman ("Go," "Swingers") and Internet entrepreneur Elizabeth Hamburg. "We wanted to please that 18-24 demo and grow out from there."

To give student filmmakers some special attention Nibblebox established a mentoring program with an impressive list of participants ranging from Wim Wenders ("Buena Vista Social Club") to Jay Chandrasekhar ("Super Troopers"), who mentored USC's Rob Kerkovich and Nick Howard during the creation of "Virtual Rob." Newly prepared Nibbles include "Bitches" by Padraic Culham, JT Bock, Patrick Connelly (Montana State University) and mentored by Joe Dante ("Gremlins"); "Ex-Tree" by Larna MacHutchin (Northwestern University); "Big Bunny" by Amy Winfrey (UCLA Graduate School) and mentored by Arielle Tepper ("Freak"). And Chris Morgan is making his parents and Boston University proud with his weekly fantasies in "Subconscious Masturbation Connection."

This weekend brought Nibblers from all over the country to Columbia University in New York for NibbleFest 2001. The web site also recently teamed up with HBO in a search of the funniest college student in America. Five finalist will be performing at the U.S Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, February 28 &Mac226; March 4.

Nibblebox is currently negotiating a deal with a cable TV station to make a pilot based on one of last semester's shows. "We're not trying to recoup that investment by streaming online we're building a community that we can go back and market to," Bartis said. [Maud Kersnowski]