Oregon daily emerald., January 23, 2001, Page 43, Image 57

How do you make
RAND! BARNES, ICEBOX.COM
More than a handful of twentysomethings
with a little vision have recognized the web
as an ideal venue for showcasing their work.
These creatives have turned to Hollywood’s
dot-coms to distribute and bankroll their
projects and, if everything works out, to
pave their way into traditional media.
Tamir Halaban, 27, is one such visionary.
After hacking his way through a string of
Hollywood jobs where he felt overworked
and underappreciated, Halaban moved to
New York City, where he followed the devel
opment of digital video production with
intense interest.
When The Blair Witch Project arrived in
theaters, Halaban and his brother, Boaz, saw
the first showing on opening day. Both real
ized the film was ripe for lampooning, and
within a few weeks Tamir returned to L.A.
to shoot “The Making of the Blair Witch
Project: The Blair Witch Project Project.”
The short spoof garnered makers Tamir,
Boaz, and their friend Paul Beauvais some
industry attention and ended up on
AtomFilms.com, one of the premier sites
for showcasing Internet films.
Realizing that spoofs were a hot ticket on
the web, the trio, as the joint partners
behind Fiasco Films, started work on
“Scream 3373,” a parody of the Scream hor
ror films. With contacts at a variety of
Internet sites and one hit already behind
them, Tamir and company were able to
start a bidding war over “Scream 331/},”
eventually selling it to Warner Brothers’ site,
Entertaindom, and inking a deal to make 26
more digital videos for the site. Their next
effort, “Mission Imp,” received 200,000 hits
on its first day on the site.
As a result of their success, the trio has
been on a slew of pitch meetings with dot
coms, including Icebox.com, Mediatrip, and
Shockwave. The Fiasco team has also par
layed Internet success into meetings with
Fox, CBS, NBC, MTV, Comedy Central,
Artisan, and Miramax. “We think the