EXCERPT: Illeana Douglas may be quite the name in web series circles now, especially after landing six Streamy nominations for her popular comedy Easy to Assemble, which just wrapped its second season earlier this year. It even spawned a spinoff series Sparhüsen, which nabbed its own Streamy nod. But aside from those two, the Emmy-nominated TV and film actress has yet to venture into a web series where she isn’t the one calling the shots. Looks like that’s about to change.

Douglas just wrapped shooting a two-episode guest starring arc on Spherion-sponsored office comedy The Temp Life in New York this week, playing cold hearted CEO Eve Randall. Also shooting a guest spot this week is Taryn Southern who reprises her gumpy midwest IT tech Nancy Roder for a few more episodes.

The connection between Easy to Assemble isn’t hard to piece together. Temp Life creator Wilson Cleveland—who also plays the former temp agency boss Nick ‘Trouble’ Chiapetta—heads up CJP Digital Media the web arm of Manhattan-based marketing firm CJP Communications. Easy to Assemble teamed up with CJP for its latest season with Cleveland’s team helping score a suite of new distribution deals for the show including The Hotel Network and a lucrative one with My Damn Channel.

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Equally exciting was seeing recent Temp Life guest stars David Nett ("Scott Richeson") get a nod for his series: Gold and "Stevie P." himself Sandeep Parikh receive a Best Actor nod for The Guild (one of our favorites) AND Best Director/Writer nods for The Legend of Neil (another huge favorite).

As always we're incredibly grateful not only to you nice people who've killed hours of temp job tedium by watching our little (Streamy-nominated) show these past four seasons, but to our killer temp agency sponsor Spherion for letting us produce a comedy series that makes fun of...temp agencies! 

There are A LOT of great nominated Web shows just waiting to be discovered during your 5-minute bathroom break or 15-minute lunch break so check them out here. So wish us luck on April 11th and we'll be sure to tell you how you can watch the ceremony which will be streamed live from L.A. 

Now get back to work.

A show that lovingly rips on temp agencies is actually sponsored by a temp Agency.  That makes Spherion cool for having a sense of humor about themselves.  The show is riddled with appearances by familiar faces from the web such as Taryn Southern (Private High Musical, Sorority Forever) and Sandeep Parikh (The Guild, The Legend of Neil, Effinfunny creator, and guy who is writing this blog right now, maybe you've heard of him?).  Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed being in it.  Here are my episodes: my video resume and my office bromance.  And this is Taryn's hilariously homely character(she'll be in more later).

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When it comes to TV, I have always loved a good spin-off, re-boot or crossover (so far this season, Temp Life has crossed with 2 of my favorite Web series: 'Hedge Fund and Groupthink); but my FAVORITE thing to watch was a good reunion show. A Very Brady Christmas? Sign me up! Eight is Enough? Facts of Life? Dallas? Brenda Walsh back on 90210?! Try and stop me! When the stars aligned last month and three cast members (and friends) from one of my all-time favorite Web shows: AFTER JUDGMENT, happened tone in NYC at the same time, I just had to reunite them on Temp Life!

Getting the chance to work even briefly with Taryn O'Neill, Joel Bryant and Stephanie Thorpe (and Temp Life writer/Break a Leg creator Yuri Baranovsky of course) was so very cool. Getting them to ham it up as temps who are being secretly recorded with a not-so-subtle Flip cam was a blast and a complete 180 from the 'Rapture-riffic' drama of After Judgment's post-apocalyptic L.A.  We're super-grateful they took the time to reunite on our show!

An added benefit for IAWTV members is, you can use the Temp Life app as a mobile 'Streamys Screener' should you want to, of course :).

As we all work toward bringing more deserved attention to the Web TV space, creating things like mobile apps will (hopefully) improve discovery not just for Temp Life, but for the thousands of top-notch Web shows that can help any clock-watcher get through the work day!

Download the Temp Life iPhone app from the App Store: http://bit.ly/TempLifeiPhoneApp and if you like it, write a review!

Now get back to work.

-Wilson

Susan Martin, editor of IKEAfans.com was generous enough to include a blurb about about The Temp Life in her post about IKEA/Illeana Douglas' Web comedy Easy to Assemble (FD: CJP both produces Temp Life and handles marketing/distribution for Easy to Assemble).

Excerpt: In addition to improved production factors, IKEA’s distribution model has been wildly successful, in large part due to the marketing efforts of Wilson Cleveland, founder of CJP Digital and the force behind getting “Easy To Assemble” propelled to the top position in terms of exposure for web series.

Interestingly, Cleveland may actually have single-handedly launched the category of branded entertainment web series when he created The Temp Life for Spherion Staffing Services in 2006. In its fourth year, The Temp Life is the longest running branded web series on which Cleveland writes, markets and stars as ‘Nick (Trouble) Chiapetta’.

In 2009, while working with Tubefilter on securing sponsors, speakers and studios for OnFronts, Cleveland developed a professional relationship with Douglas in hashing out the details of her presentation at the event. Says Cleveland,

I believe so strongly in what smart, creative, media-savvy producers like Illeana, Rob Barnett, Jordan Levin and Felicia Day are doing in the Web TV medium.

It seems Douglas believed in him too, because IKEA hired CJP Digital to run marketing and distribution based on Douglas’ and Executive Producer Dominik Rausch’s recommendation. Read Full Post at IKEAfans.

Excerpt: The Temp Life (add them on Facebook too!) has released a new episode and it’s easily my favorite. If you don’t know, the Temp Life was one of the first sponsored shows on the web, started a little after Break a Leg by Wilson Cleveland — a man who just about everyone knows and has been rufied by in the “web series business.”

Mr. Cleveland hired me to write the current season (which was really just an arc of short episodes) and apparently liked me enough to hire me for the next batch as well (Felicia Day was busy). Wilson, by the way, pays a writer better than just about anyone else — plus, he bought me lunch when I was in NY, which pretty much means I owe him my first born (who will sadly be named Wilson).

Sandeep Parikh of The Guild and The Legend of Neil guest stars in this batch (and I’ll make an appearance too — you just wait and see!) and he’s funny as per usual.

This season is being shot by Andrew Park and Jato Smith and their company, Tailslating — they created the web series, the Hayley Project, which you should also check out because you love web shows. And by you I mean the royal you. All of you. And the King (“royal you” is a bizarre turn of phrase, isn’t it?).

From Alec at VisioWeb.tv, a great site for reviews of Web series:

Already into its fourth season, The Temp Life is quickly becoming one of the best shows on the web.

Its beginnings were humble. The first few episodes, although well written and performed, still suffered from some sound and editing issues, as well as a low upload quality. But besides that, there was much potential. Viewers can’t be fooled. They know a good show when they see it.

As the seasons progressed, so did the quality. More emphasis was put on the right characters and the fun never stopped. Seriously, you gotta love/hate the absolutely hilarious Nick ‘Trouble’ Chiapetta (is it just me or does that last name make me think of clay figurines?), played to perfection since the first episode by series creator Wilson Cleveland. Unlike his character ‘Trouble’, Wilson is anything but a noisy loser. In the web series industry he has become somewhat of a house-hold name (in case you live in a house were web shows are a big thing). He has served as creator, producer, performer, marketer, distributor or sponsor for nearly 20 successful branded and independent web series and has been an industry pioneer in creating original branded web video and series as marketing communications vehicles.

With so much weight in the web TV industry it is no wonder that he brought in a series of web series names to join him in The Temp Life. The show is rife with web series cameos: Sandeep Parikh and Rachel Risen, to name only two.

Now at season 4 and no end in sight, Temp Life is a formidable contender for this year’s Streamy. No doubt many of us will get our click on and show some Streamy love.

Excerpt from from the Big Bother Blog.  Thanks Justin :)

The Temp Life:

One of the longest-running shows on the web is The Temp Life. They’re about to launch their 4th season (Imagine 10th season in TV world) in which Nick “Trouble” Chiapetta (Writer and creator Wilson Cleveland) returns to work at the temp agency after his 33-week vacation. Employee Mark Sebastian (Mark Jude) informs “Trouble” that he has been demoted from CEO to temp. WebTV fans will recognize many faces in this office: Sandep Parikh from The Guild and The Legend of Neil, David Nett from Gold, Taryn Southern from Private High Musical and Sorority Forever, and Wendy Rosoff and Angela Espinosa from:

Excerpt from Gorno Blog: RACHEL RISEN is already one of the most dazzling web personalities on the net and she’s well on her way to more digital greatness! The stunning jewel of the online world has charmed her way into the hearts of many with performances in not 1 but 2 Streamy Awards Nominated web series namely ‘THE HAYLEY PROJECT’ and ‘THE TEMP LIFE’.

Hayley’s flair for comedy can also be seen in the ‘THE TEMP LIFE’ as know-it all obsessive compulsive lady boss Alina Deloris….it’s deadpan sarcasm at its glorious(we hate that but secretly we love watching people bear the brunt of it).

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