There may be no surer sign of seismic change in Hollywood than a prominent movie producer launching a studio that will make videos of a few minutes each for the web.

But that describes Gene Kirkwood, who was an executive producer of “Rocky.” He’s teamed up with two partners to start BiteSize Entertainment in the heart of Hollywood. The studio plans to produce droves of short videos for the web.

Kirkwood and his partners hope to entertain beyond the screen, using their high-traffic location at the base of the W Hotel in Hollywood to make their all-but constant shoots into public spectacles. The conspicuous activity may even help attract performers to star in the videos.

“It’s going to be a mecca for talent,” Kirkwood said. “It’s ahead of the curve.”

When the studio opens – scheduled for the fall – Kirkwood and his partners, producer Ross Elliot and tech entrepreneur Ron Bloom, hope to ramp up production and make about 1,000 videos each month for 75 different programs.

About 30 pilot episodes for the programs have already been shot. Planned programming includes a series about an Elvis-themed wedding chapel in Las Vegas, shows that take an insider’s look at making movies in Hollywood and segments in which a host tells viewers their horoscopes. Each video will be between 90 seconds and five minutes.

The idea is to appeal to today’s digital audiences, who might be less inclined to watch 30-minute scheduled sitcoms on television and more inclined to watch small doses of entertainment when they want throughout their normal day, whether that is zoning out at work or browsing their tablet before going to sleep.

BiteSize will make money by selling ads that run before videos, as well as banner ads on its web page. The studio has yet to pick its domain name; at first some videos will be posted on the video portal of BiteSize’s parent company, Mevio Inc. of San Francisco.

But when the studio is complete, the plan is to shoot the vast majority of the videos at the half-dozen soundstages that are now being constructed in the space at Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle Avenue – which will be visible to passers-by who may peer into the studio’s windows.

As BiteSize tries to make its impression on digital audiences, it has the chance to help its neighborhood, said Leron Gubler, president and chief executive at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

“Absolutely I view it as a positive,” he said. “We are trying to create energy and vibrancy. That location lends itself to that.”

Low profile

The BiteSize location, near the entrance to the hotel and the Hollywood and Vine subway stop, is as Hollywood as it gets. But its roots are in San Francisco, where Mevio is based.

Mevio already produces hundreds of web videos of a few minutes each per month. With BiteSize, the output will be tripled and the orientation will be on Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Despite a low profile in Hollywood, Mevio has attracted about $39 million in backing from venture capital firms, including Northern California’s Sequoia Capital and DAG Ventures, since launching in 2004. The company secured an additional $10 million in debt financing earlier this year, which helped bring it to Hollywood.

Mevio.com had about 1.5 million unique visitors in June, according to website tracking service Comscore, which ranked the portal as the 54th most popular place to watch videos on the web.

Bloom, chief executive of Mevio, said it is profitable. He wouldn’t disclose the size of Mevio’s investment in BiteSize, but said millions of dollars are going into the studio. He said the investment will address what he sees as a lack of funding for creating content, as venture capital has largely targeted the technology platforms to host the videos.

“We feel that there is a great, open sweet spot between television on the right and YouTube on the left,” Bloom said.

To make an impression on Hollywood – the company announced its launch at no less a venue than the Cannes Film Festival – Bloom got film industry players on board.

That’s where Elliot came in, whom Bloom knew from his previous career as a musician. Elliot was his manager. The two discussed going into business on a digital studio together, and Elliot brought in his production partner, Kirkwood. They are finalizing an agreement to fold their production company, Kirkwood-Elliot Productions, into BiteSize. As a result, they will each get an equity stake in the studio.

The majority ownership in BiteSize will still be held by Mevio, whose co-owners include Bloom.

Unusual characters

BiteSize is Kirkwood’s entry into web videos. Already, Kirkwood has begun work on a web series that will feature the performers and unusual characters who populate Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. He said episodes will clock in at about five minutes each.

Meanwhile, Kirkwood and Elliot plan to use short online videos to promote their upcoming future film releases, such as “Nina,” a movie that will star Mary J. Blige as singer Nina Simone. The movie, which has been in development for years, is not a BiteSize production.

However, Kirkwood and Elliot already have a handful of films in development at BiteSize, with planned budgets from $3 million on the low end to more than $40 million on the high end.

The slate includes “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” which will star Colin Firth as playwright Noel Coward and focus on Coward’s stay at a Las Vegas motel in the 1950s. There are also plans for a movie about Isaac Newton, directed by Rob Cohen, whose credits include “The Fast and the Furious,” as well as a project about Rebekah Brooks, the former News of the World editor implicated in the News Corp. phone-hacking scandal.

Part of the plan is to tie in the web productions to the movies, which Kirkwood and Elliot said is a growing opportunity.

They think people increasingly want to see how movies are made and that providing such behind-the-scenes videos can be a cheap way to market the movies. Meanwhile, the studio will also take a look at adapting successful web videos into movies.

“If somebody new is out there doing something cool, our mission is to be the people who find them, bring them in and propagate them,” Elliot said.

‘Seems fantastical’

In going for maximum video output, BiteSize plans to film just about everything it can. That could include meetings with studio executives or the filming itself.

In fact, plans call for cameras to be mounted on the exterior of the studio, facing Hollywood Boulevard, to capture the action taking place on the street. Already, there are cameras in the unfinished studio to film the construction. An unofficial motto at the studio is “The network is the show,” meaning that just about everything is fair game for broadcast. The studio has hired about 10 workers so far, with plans to employ about 30 to 40 when things are up and running.

Still, some in the digital media industry wonder if producing web video in such high quantities can only happen at the expense of quality.

“The trend of technologists investing in media who continue to confuse quality and quantity continues,” Jason Nadler, a founder of Santa Monica digitally focused production company Serious Business, said in an e-mail. “Producing 1,000 videos per month reeks of content farming and some sort of grand (search engine optimization)/too-clever-by-half distribution strategy that reads great on an investor deck but elicits yawns from real audiences.”

He added: “There is no association between Mevio.com’s current slate of production and anything approximating the word ‘premium.’ That they want independent films to mesh with their current output seems fantastical. But if a filmmaker can eke out a green-lit script from this influx of cash, fantastic.”

For his part, Bloom said his content will get money and attention.

He said his company has access to plenty of capital to fund productions, and that each short episode will have “the same amount of thinking and love that goes into making a television series.”