Just the other day Zadi and I were walking up the stairs to our apartment here in Los Angeles and we looked at the shelf where the mail carrier leaves oversized mail. And on that shelf was a circular for a local retailer with t-shirts for sale. What was on those t-shirts, you might ask? Fred.
Nothing short of a YouTube phenomenon, Lucas Cruikshank, the creator and star of the Fred videos (link to the show site), crossed a milestone the other day when he signed up his one millionth subscriber to his YouTube channel. It's incredible when you think about it. Some things just take on a life of their own, and when you try to deconstruct why something caught fire and took off, it can help you understand what went right.
Re-blogged from the Smashface blog
On March 28, 2009 at the Wadsworth Theater in Los Angeles, new media changed. At the first annual Streamy Awards, over 1300 people came out looking their best and took part in an event that moved online video -- or at least a part of it -- into the realm of Hollywood-style entertainment.
There was a red carpet, lots of press coverage, and a ceremony that looked very much like something you might see for the Emmy Awards. There were celebrities, new content creators, and familiar faces from our travels that looked energized, surprised, and in some cases, not entirely sure what to make of the whole thing. In fact, it's taken me a couple of days just to process everything and get a perspective on the evening.
Somewhere in the course of the evening, EPIC FU won one of the awards for which we were nominated, Best Hosted Series. I can sincerely say that we did not expect to win, given the quality and popularity of the shows nominated in our category (all of them friends). I can remember the moment when the presenters of our category, Jace Hall and Bob Kushell, announced EPIC FU as the winner. Zadi and I just looked at each other and said, "Holy shit!" Then we took a breath and realized we needed to get up and get on stage.
Re-blogged from the Smashface blog.
We came, we interviewed, we edited! During the three days of PBS's SXSW online video studio, we shot 31 interviews, featuring an all-star assortment of filmmakers, online video creators, and social media visionaries. They're all handily embedded above in the YouTube playlist player (click the control button to the right of the "play" button to bring up a menu). Our interview with Felicia Day has nearly 70,000 views alone!
We met Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab in 2007 when we invited them to give the closing keynote at Pixelodeon. They delivered a memorable talk about the process of creating Channel 101, a website founded in 2003 that invites comedy filmmakers to create pilots for original short web shows which are then screened for an audience who votes on which shows get a return engagement.
Dan and Rob took the idea for Channel 101 to television with Acceptable.tv on VH1, and they have also been creating other awesome tv shows, like The Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central, which they co-created with Sarah Silverman. They also wrote the screenplay for Monster House, which won the 2007 Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
Hey, we love The Guild, we love Felicia Day, we love independent artists doing their thang. So why not pick up a copy of The Guild on DVD and help support production of Season 2! We did!
