The Streamys Let Us All Down
I’ve been looking forward to the Streamy’s for the past few months. It’s absolutely incredible to see how quickly things have progressed since 2006 when Greg, Mesh, Amanda and I created lonelygirl15. Back then almost no one had ever heard of a web series before and there definitely wasn’t a professional society or an awards show. It was a time of breathless excitement and unbounded potential. Video podcasts like Ask A Ninja, Ze Frank, and Rocketboom were truly groundbreaking, mixing video with interactivity in ways that were previously impossible in the old mediums of television and film. These guys (and gals!) didn’t follow any rules. They were experimenting with the interactive nature of the internet and learning as they went. Shooting things quickly, putting them online, listening to the community, processing their input, and publishing something new that could only exist because that community chose to respond. This was not television. It wasn’t film. This was something new.
Unfortunately, the art preceded the business models and a lot of those pioneers left for the (dubiously) greener pastures of traditional media, or they were forced to focus on the business side of the equation, pulling them away from their art. This has been a difficult decision tree for me over the years and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for others who had offers from traditional media at a time when producing online video meant writing checks out of your own bank account. Maybe I’m dating myself, and I’m sorry if I sound like a disgruntled grandpa, but I think that we’ve lost our way. Our trailblazers have left us, and we’re wandering aimlessly in our covered wagons. I’ll be the first to admit my own culpability in this regard. In building EQAL Greg and I have focused 100% on the business side of the equation, and I’ve been so busy working to build a sustainable business that I’ve shirked my responsibility to lead the way creatively and provide guidance to a new generation of creators and to the IAWTV and Streamys. I’m not suggesting that I have all the answers or that I’m even right, I’m just saying that I haven’t made an effort to be part of the conversation. Frankly, I do my talking much better behind the camera or the desk. I’ve never liked being in the spotlight. However, after last night’s debacle, I feel like I need to speak up.
The Streamys let me down. The Streamys let us all down.
Before I continue this post, I need to make it clear that I am in awe of how hard Brady, Marc, Drew, Josh, and everyone at Tubefilter and the IAWTV are working to elevate this medium. I know that it’s a thankless job that most people wouldn’t have the guts or wherewithal to undertake, and I have HUGE respect for them and everyone who busted their asses to put on the Streamys. So, I’m not hating, I’m just trying to get at the core of the problem and provide constructive feedback. Most importantly, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is by getting more involved with the IAWTV to help make sure this doesn’t happen again next year.
I’m not going to go into a detailed review of last night’s show; many other people have already done that. Suffice it to say that the Streamys were simultaneously funny, over-the-top, crass, inspiring, crude, silly, wonderful, immature, awkward, and surreal. But most of all, they were confused. And I think that’s the problem. This new medium is facing an identity crisis, and it’s this identity crisis that underlies the problems faced by the Streamys last night. Hell, this medium doesn’t even have a name! Webisodes? Blech, so 1998. Web Series? What if it isn’t serialized… Web Shows? But, you can watch via mobile and download. Are we talking about video only? How about multimedia? Vloggers? Dramas? Comedies? Reality? What the hell is this new medium all about?
Just like blogging, it’s going to take some time for the medium to hit its stride, and I think it’s the responsibility of the creators, the financiers, and the professional societies and award shows to steer us in the right direction. Without guidance our industry will become just another evolutionary dead-end like the CD-ROM publishing industry. When was the last time you played Myst? The first step is understanding what this medium is about, naming it, and honing in on that core identity, because until we know what we are talking about we can’t give out awards for the best “whatever this thing is that we are talking about.” Quality is relative. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
So that’s what I want to do right here. Figure out the defining features of our medium. But, this isn’t about me. This is about all of us. So, this is an open thread. A dialogue. Let me know in comments below what you think defines this new medium. My goal is to find a few core principles and a name to describe our art that we can use over the next year to guide us.
Here are my core principles. These are the tenets that guide every show that EQAL has produced from lonelygirl15 to KateModern to Harpers Globe to the Real Women of Philadelphia.
- A Home – The show needs a home for the community. Typically this is a website dedicated to the show and the community that incorporates a variety of social and publishing features. We use Umbrella, but this could be WordPress, Ning, Tumblr or other platforms. It could be an iPhone or Android app (I’m a huge proponent of the web as the ultimate application platform and agree with Mark Suster’s assessment that “app is crap” but that’s a post for another day).
- Video and More – The show needs to incorporate video. Otherwise, it’s a blog. But, it can’t just incorporate video. It should make full use of the rich media publishing capabilities of the web, leveraging photos, text, and even audio to create the experience.
- Interactive and “real-time” – This is the most important tenet and it’s an absolute requirement. The show must be interactive and it should be produced and distributed in such a way that it feels like it is responding to the audience in real-time. We call it a “call-to-action loop” where the show calls out to the community to perform some action, the community acts, and the show is somehow influenced by the actions of that community.
What’s even more important is what I left out. The show doesn’t need to be scripted. The show doesn’t need to be a specific genre. The show doesn’t need to be serialized. The show doesn’t need famous actors. The show doesn’t need a beginning, middle, or end. The show doesn’t need a huge budget or a huge crew. Let me say that again, the production values don’t matter. This might sound sacrilege, but “premium content” doesn’t require a “premium” budget, it just needs passionate talent driving the experience, and the scope of production should match the budget and show aesthetic. The most popular channels on YouTube are still shot with consumer equipment. ‘Nuff said.
Now, for the name. Greg and I like “social shows.” We debated internally for months and discussed a ton of different variations, but ultimately we liked this because it’s short and sweet and not too limiting. It’s a show that’s social. Simple as that. The word “show” implies “entertainment” and “performance,” and the word “social” gets to the interactive and real-time nature of the art form. We think it differentiates “these things” from blogs, and properly aligns them with their historical connection to television, film, and theater. In keeping with the theme, we call our medium social entertainment. So, social shows and social entertainment.
Like I said, this is a conversation. This is how I feel and these are the principles that guide EQAL, but I want to know what you think should guide this community over the next year. Let me know in comments. Thanks for listening.
UPDATE: Great apology from Brady on NewTeeVee.
April 12th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I like the use of social shows but in my article I used the term web entertainment. Not all web series use a social aspect (although I believe that those that do could potentially be more successful. However if you look at a show like the Guild it doesn’t use the social aspect as much as it uses other things in order to make its show successful.
I have a theory that the success of web (or social) entertainment is finding your niche audience and making them happy, and then if you make it big you do. Because, like Felicia Day said last night, the web is really about making your own entertainment because you can’t find anything like it anywhere else. But that’s just my opinion.
Your blog post is spot on… the pioneers do need to take the web back. In other words… Please please please come back to making shows! We miss LG15 and shows like Harper’s Globe that I believe use the social aspect of the show well and to its fullest ability.
April 12th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Thanks Angelique, great comment. I really like the Guild, but I think of it more as a “short form” television show rather than a “social show.” This kinda gets to the heart of our problem as a medium. I would love to see what Felicia and company would do if they had the tools and the inspiration and the encouragement from the financiers to produce a more interactive version of the Guild. I bet the community would be even bigger and more engaged.
April 12th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
There needs to be room for individuals who makes web videos, the pioneers, and those following in their footsteps.
Maybe we should take a step back and look at what we did at vloggercon.
Teach. Share. Create.
April 12th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Thanks Miles!
Yeah I think this year the just suffered from complacency of the membership to just let the streamys happen. And by membership I mean me and you and the other og members.
The tube filter guys are extremely competent and proactive on a lot of fronts and last year the streamys were a good first effort. But that lead to the second problem — hubris.
There were no substantial rehearsals at the venue to work out the technical kinks, cut bits that went on too long or simply didn’t work, and just generally get everyone on stage to be comfortable. Couple that with a bigger vision and you’re bound for trouble.
As for the categories, sure they can be tweaked, but the streamys are the pr tool for the industry in Los Angeles and as such they need to be a cohesive and polished vision of who we are and what we want to project to the greater media at large.
April 12th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
First I’m so pumped you’ve decided to actively engage Miles. I have so much to say, I don’t know where to begin. My guiding philosophy is vision is the ability to see things before they happen. Many of the pioneers had the vision to get there first and the ones who stuck around are trading on the name they made back then and resting on their laurels. Very few have had more than one success and quite frankly are occupying a spot that could go to someone else. Fish or cut bait.
I agree we have some confusion with identity. I always hated the term Web TV. Is that supposed to be like Cable TV? Except most of us get the net through cable and we don’t watch it on a TV. I feel like we need to have a term the uninitiated can grasp. While I’m not in love with webisode it’s quite obvious it’s a episode of a something found on the web. I think that’s important, it points a person in our direction. At face value you can’t infer much from social show. It’s pretty general. Is it a multi-platform term?
There is a very large group that favors a broad term. It’s quite obvious to me it’s because they feel that’s the backdoor to the traditional media world, that when TV and the web collide they’ll be grandfathered in. I believe film belongs in a theater, television belongs a tv set, web content belongs in front of a keyboard and mobile content belongs on a phone. You wouldn’t except to have the same experience watching a film on your phone and vice versa. The same holds true for web content. And maybe how I envision it with interactivity makes it more game like and something even further unique that’s quite possible but I know what it’s not and that’s TV.
Once we get our terminology in order the next thing is to focus on awareness and discovery. We have done nothing to communicate who we are, what we are and where we are. We just started putting stuff out there and wondered why no one has shown up. Joss Whedon has the juice that motivates people to find his work- the rest of us don’t. In my mind that has to happen on 3 levels, as an industry, on by the distributors and the shows themselves. It’s only happening on the show level. We have to be proactive in creating an audience and reaching out to convert the TV audience.
No one knows better than you things currently are drifting toward branded ent. attached with names, that and big budget independent projects. If that trend continues we are heading toward an independent film model where indie producers make passion projects for festivals. What we really need is a producer’s association. More to say-quitting while I’m ahead. (hopefully)
April 12th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Really appreciate this post, sheds light on something that is quite literally miles away for those of us who produce in New York. I’m disappointed to hear the Streamys were not all they were dreamed to be, but I also know (as so many of us do) that a burgeoning business needs time to grow into a mature and possibly stable entity. What I hope for all of us is that businesses and financiers continue to wake to the merits of what the online community can offer, and foster the type of innovation that has apparently gone missing. My apprehension concerning the term “social” is that it can denote frivolity. “Cultural” is also an element in what we do, as is “educational” and “interactive”. Would love some more words to choose from too! Anyone?
April 12th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
If you read the twitter search feed for “streamys”, you may get a different perspective on the evening. I realize it must have been tough to sit in that theater, in the midst of all that mayhem — and the majority of the streamy tweets would back up that sentiment. There’s a full account of bad jokes, technical miscues and even nude guys stealing the spotlight. However, if you can get through all that, you will see a sprinkling of posts that express disappointment with the event, but also clearly mention the discovery of new shows. These are people who were seeing “The Bannen Way” for the first time, people who were just realizing how talented the Gregory Bros are, even people who were finally figuring out why everyone is fascinated by Felicia Day.
Amidst all that noise of bad jokes, all that chaos of failing technology and all that mayhem of anonymous party crashers, people were still able to discover new voices and find something that spoke to them. Sounds like the internet to me.
April 12th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
@stevegarfield I completely agree. I for one feel like I’ve done a bad job at the teaching part of things. We did a workshop awhile ago in Australia and it was a lot of fun and really gratifying. We’re gonna be re-launching EQAL.com soon and we have some other things brewing and I plan on taking the time to write blogs and reach out more to the community and teach whatever I can.
@kentnichols Well said! Let’s do it! I’m serious about getting more involved this year and not just letting it happen. We definitely need to be part of the conversation.
@anthonydelosa Yeah, I’m not a fan of Web TV. I agree with your assessment of the word “webisode” I guess I just have flashbacks to the 90’s, but you’re right that it is accurately descriptive. We liked “social show” because it doesn’t have any baggage. In terms of branded entertainment, although it’s taking me creatively away from new productions, it’s great for our business and I think it’s fantastic for the industry because it’s bringing money into the equation which absolutely will filter into more creative projects. We’re working on trying to make this happen.
@BurnieBurns Yup, it was definitely a hodgepodge of emotions. Good and bad.
April 12th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Miles: That’s sort of reminds me of the actor who takes the summer blockbusters in order to have the financial freedom to take an indie film. I have no doubt you can pull that off but only a small few get to accomplish that. It’s not a model anyone could follow. It also doesn’t help monetize the creative projects. You’re basically saying you’re hoping to take the revenue from branded to fund passion projects. Now if there is parallel development or you were contributing something, even if it’s just leadership to the growth of the creative side, that’s a different story. Otherwise you are growing one aspect of the industry over the other which will ultimately lead to the outcome I forcasted.
April 12th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
@anthonydelosa Oh, I didn’t mean for me personally. I meant from a business infrastructure standpoint, parallel development like you’re talking about. We’re primarily focused on unscripted lifestyle shows right now (Paula Deen, The Kind Life, etc.), but the money is flowing from branded content to those partners. So, yeah I’m talking big picture how the money flows from brands to branded content to partners, and that will enable producers to create content that is ultimately generating revenue from advertising dollars (and probably other streams like subscriptions and merchandise).
April 12th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
This might be the best news that could have come out of the Streamy debacle.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
@Mathieas Wow, thanks! Great article by the way! I just linked to it in this post.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I am thrilled to hear from you, and I sense huge creative bursts in the near future all across the board: Lg15 was definitely the pioneer in social entertainment, and continues to be as LG15 was definitely the first of its kind, KateModern showed the possibilities of a full story arc combined with interaction and even advertising, The Resistance was the launch pad of Umbrella and with The Show is Yours you are literally the forefront of community and user generated content.
I really look forward to EQAL’s climb up this latter: and I REALLY hope this means good things for original in-house productions.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
@PJ Thanks! Yup, baby steps. Little by little we’re growing and helping the industry grow around us. We’re definitely excited about “The Show Is Yours” and have more planned for that which I’ll post about in the near future…
April 12th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Been calling what I do ‘Internet TV’ since 2005 - ultimately though the point you were making about something being ‘entertaining’ and a social experience should be addressed in all content. Here’s hoping this was just a Sophomore Slump and wishing the best for 2011’s show.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
This is so on the money!
My suggestion for next year: Have fans submit videos of why they like to watch shows on the web and play the best during the show.
Build community is building audience.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I had to think how i would write this to not insult you Miles, because i think we both know where each other stand.
You mention EQAL will be relaunching, right? And you said you want to engage with the community?
So let me start, EQAL has done a good job with the company aspect, but you have neglected the community that builds your company. Over the last year i have been a part of ever Umbrella site to go up, and i have seen a lot of the same community members from LG15 joining those sites to support EQAL. You may believe that EQAL hasn’t abandon the members, but truly EQAL has walked forward and never looked back. You must remember that in the end of the day you need the members, your company is about interaction, so do it.
I know that this seem disrespectful, and it’s not intended to be.
I have supported EQAL since the LG15 days, even if there has been a lot that has happened with my name. i stuck around, for you guys. why don’t EQAL do the same for everyone else that is a member of the community?
And if you want, you know where i am and you have my email.
I know this is a surprise for me to comment like this, but i want you to know that if EQAL does not show respect to their members, that will be the end of EQAL. Involve THEM.
Thank you for your time.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
@VampireMob Thanks, I definitely think more community involvement and interactivity would go a long way to improving the Streamys.
@TJ Sorry you feel that way, we do our absolute best to address the community needs. It’s very challenging now that we are managing millions of visitors across all of our sites, and we’re working hard to improve both our internal process with our community moderators and our technology which allows us to run and manage our sites. I think everyone here is doing a great job, but we aren’t perfect. If you have any specific issues, feel free to email me and I’ll see if I can help. But, we are going to be doing more to involve the community and build the community. We have been focused on the business, but that’s a necessary evil because we need to keep the lights on.
April 12th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Every single member of the Academy is responsible for this and that includes you Miles. It especially points to a massive failure on the part of the Board of Directors and the way the Streamys and IAWTV have been run. If you are a member of the Academy you have responsibilities to the community that it is supposed to represent.
I have posted this elsewhere but here you are again:
“One really needs to wonder who thought this would go over well?
We have long called for more transparency in terms of how the @IAWTV is run and how it makes decisions. The IAWTV needs to engage in an active dialogue moving forward. The organization needs to open itself up to a frank discussion with the entire web series community.
The @IAWTV cannot or should not continue to act as a closed “society” because in the end it is accountable to the entire web series community and we have just seen what happens if we just let those in power “run with the ball”. Like it? No? Then we need to see a total change in the way the @IAWTV is run.
I think we can be pretty sure that the majority of the members and possibly even some on the Board of Directors of the IAWTV had little knowledge of what was going to happen. That does not make them any less accountable.
Those who did not like what happened need to step forward and work with the community at large to foster the change that is needed. We can move forward and we can make things better but only if there are substantial changes in how the IAWTV is set up and operates.
An apology is only as good as how well the person making it understands and articulates exactly what they did wrong. So far there has been little more than lip service. We need accountability and that begins with those responsible stepping forward and telling us how things went SO far wrong.
Then there needs to be changes. BIG changes. The day of brushing things under the IAWTV carpet is over. We are a world wide community and we need to take our genre back and make sure that this organization aligns itself with the entire community… not just an insider faction.”
April 13th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Like you said, there’s been enough commentary on the Streamys elsewhere, so I’ll stick to my opinion on your three tenants.
On the first one, I’m with you 100%. A show needs a home to call its own. I appreciate the online networks that carry dozens of shows and give the creators access to a larger audience than they might otherwise have, but there’s a lot that’s given up in that bargain. Without a home website, a show often has no place to provide more information, house extra content, downloads, etc, set up a shop, and probably most importantly, no good way to build a community. I must have this conversation at least once a week.
I tend to agree with your second point, in that producers are foolish not to make use of what the web can do, but the show should still be the heart of the production. Some producers might not have the resources to include a lot of bells and whistles, and I understand that, but there needs to be more than just a video player and a Twitter feed.
As for your third point, I agree in the broad sense that content creators shouldn’t ignore their audience. However, the style and degree of interactivity can vary widely from project to project as it suits the objective of the production. The first show I worked on was very low in interactivity, probably to its detriment. It was pretty much limited to discussions about the industry the show was about. While there were ways of adding fan interaction (perhaps giving them a way to play along with the mystery that unfolded throughout the season), the general objective was to have something akin to a traditional sitcom. The show that I’m currently in preproduction for won’t have any way for the audience to interact with the main story, since we have a very specific story arc in mind, but there will be ways to make suggestions and possibly submit viewer-generated content for the instructional videos that will accompany the main show as we seek to educate our audience and learn from them as well. I’m also in the very early stages of designing another show. This one will rely heavily on audience interaction to get from one episode to the next. We won’t know what show will air from week to week without viewer input. I wish I could say more, but there are a lot of details to be hammered out. In each case, the degree of interactivity is connected to the goals of the show. As you said, though, these are your core principles and they make sense for what you’ve set out to do.
As for what to call what we do, I’m starting to think there might be too many different things going on online to get one all-encompassing name. For now, I pretty much stick with saying I do work in New Media. If pressed, I’ll be more exact and say that I work on a web series (or some similar name that the person is likely to understand without too much explanation) since that’s the primary home for what I work on and it’s serialized.
I don’t know if there is one core identity for people using the web as a medium any more than there’s a core identity for the various types of programming to be found on television, such as news, sitcoms, serialized dramas, sports coverage, and made for TV movies. There might be too much going on online for one awards show to handle.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for bearing with me.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:14 am
“As for the categories, sure they can be tweaked, but the streamys are the pr tool for the industry in Los Angeles and as such they need to be a cohesive and polished vision of who we are and what we want to project to the greater media at large.”
Oh Los Angeles. Ahhhh now i get it. The rest of the World does not matter. I guess it was really silly to think the World actually included anything outside Los Angeles. My bad. Now I see it all so clearly.
This is half the problem. The Streamys have become a subset of the LA BUBBLE.
Its the World Wide Web people. The future is now.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Also, treating the craft nominees like they are not part of the show. Not cool. No clips shown from our show after asking for them. Good enough not good enough to be shown at craft awards or in the main show at all?
When 40 minutes of padding would have fit the entire craft show right in the “important show” instead of an unrelated “dance number or bit” Not cool.
Not very nice. Not being in the retrospective of the year when the nominees were supposed to be the best of the year makes you wonder why you came to this. No carpet, no clip?
Makes you feel like if you got craft nominated, you weren’t anything.
We were told even as craft nominees we weren’t supposed to walk the Red Carpet. How does that make you feel when the only level higher than nominee is winner of the awards? Isn’t that the only “bone” we get thrown? A chance to talk about out show to press for once as nominees? Why did we show up?
Finally, being put up in the top of the balcony away from the nominees instead on ensuring nominated people got to sit together whether they were craft or “real” would go a long way to the shabby “general public” feeling you gave us as nominees.
No after party tickets for the craft nominees because after all we were just craft nominees was the final insult to a pointless appearance by our cast, friends and celebrity guests.
They show made me ashamed. How could you go up after that abortion and say it meant anything to you or anyone when you were in a vulgar roast of what you do?
We went into a business meeting before the Sunday show and said we are a Streamy nominated series and got a pitch meeting. We had a meeting Monday after and when we mentioned we were a Streamy nominee the conversation turned to “oh my god you are part of that??” which went on to a 30 minute dissection of errors and embarrassment and then no real meeting for us.
Next time, I guess it will be best if we omit the part about our show being Streamy nominated if we want to have a sponsors meeting for the next season.
How upside down is that?
April 13th, 2010 at 10:23 am
I did not make out to the Streamy Awards this year and was honestly glad I did not. I agree with @Burnie Burns about it being a positive tool for discovery of new shows, but all in all still get the sense of a very small club being formed (which is very negative).
The great thing about this open media outlet is for NEW voices to be heard as well as old. I have had some time in the spotlight from time to time (since 2004 so am very old by these standards), but can never support an awards show (or community) until I feel that it is spending the time and resources to find what is best about open distribution (and best out there on the web).
I am fond of many of the people involved in the making of this event and content that has won awards, but feel that the danger of making the community of creators “seem” small when a million + videos go online everyday is foolish. I agree completely on finding definitions that allow the public and advertisers access to what we and many others do, but am very concerned about the potential incestuous feeling that I felt watching this event and attending the last one.
To me for this to work for benefiting the medium - this should never be about stamping ourselves as legitimate for our own personal brands - it must remain giving to the open distribution medium itself and those that embrace it.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
@modelmotion I saw your comment on Tubefilter and agree with your thoughts.
@EricOwens I completely see where you are coming from, but this is what I was trying to get at with my post. My point is that whether we like it or not, we have to draw lines in the sand and create definitions or there will be no way to differente our art form from other art forms. So, my point is, if a show isn’t interactive EVEN IF IT’S DISTRIBUTED ONLINE then it isn’t a social show. It’s still valid entertainment if it’s well done, but I’d just call it a “TV show” even though it’s being distributed on the web. An 8 minute, serialized, video show IS a TV show… the only difference is that it’s a little shorter in length. But, that’s not substantive. TV shows already can be an hour, a half hour, or two hours, and even in those boxes there is a lot of variability in the actual run-time of the episode. So, even though it’s a misnomer to call it a TV show when it’s being distributed online, on iTunes, or via mobile, if it’s not interactive I would still call it a “TV show” (note the quotes). Even if the word “social show” isn’t perfect, my point is that there is something different about What The Buck, Philly D, HotForWords, Epic Fu, Rocketboom, Jake and Amir, that truly makes them different than non-interactive serialized content. Even if it isn’t TRULY interactive and real-time, something about them feels like it is (and most of them actually are), and for me that’s core to this medium. I understand the challenge of trying to tell a pre-planned storyline and also incorporate audience interaction, but it’s definitely doable and when you do it right the audience connects in a way that’s magical. One thing that I’ve been bad about is publicly talking about how we’ve managed to learn through trial and error what works and what doesn’t and I’m going to be doing more of that going forward. lonelygirl15, KateModern, and Harpers Globe were all HIGHLY scripted, pre-planned, and tightly orchestrated productions, but they were also interactive and felt real-time. Thanks for your comment and continuing the conversation!
@Tom Well spoken. Couldn’t agree more.
@Jesse Yeah, we do ned to spread the word. Defining our art is the first thing we need to do, then we can shout it around the world for everyone to hear.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
@Jesse I just realized you did “Drawn by Pain” very cool! Love the mixture of animation and live action. I would love to see what you would do with a “social show” format. I felt like there was so much room for community involvement and interactivity with your series.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Miles,
As many have said to you so far, I completely agree with your post. Even the streamy preview videos were a little awkward. I dont get who in their right mind would decide to head that route with such an epically young show that is there to recognize people’s work. Anyway, thats already been said and done, and im not going to continue going on about how the Streamys were wrong, instead Ill go back to what you said in the beginning; “Getting more involved,” and this is what I have to say–
Bring us back what we loved the most. When you say each show needs a home, and that home is a website, I think you all at EQAL have successfully found those places (for your multiple shows). its been a year and a half almost, and while many of us are standing patient, awaiting for our favorite web show to return, many have felt that you’re “not looking back” as one user said above.
I have pretty much posted in most of your team’s insideLG15 articles saying the same thing, we need a direction too. We want to know if there is ever a possibility of this community being able to connect with YOU FOUR and the CAST of LG15TR personally, like we did before, and like we have been doing since “Bree”. You guys DEFINED the term, “Web Show” and like you said above, there was no such thing until the original lg15. Its horrible to see you guys gone when you were at the top, but we’ve all been hangin’ in there for you guys to see what you can bring us, because we truly are your FANS. I know you guys have definitely expanded, and obtaining more traffic than a million people in and out of your websites can be difficult to deal with, but we need a direction. We want to hear what your plans are for the month.
Im sorry if I took your article and starting running in a different direction than many who spoke up above, but I feel they’ve said what I already would have, and this issue is what has been on my mind since mid 09. The streamys were, of course, a major disappointment, and will likely not happen again next year; in which case we all will learn a few things from this years show, like its not the GRAMMYS so they dont need to present it that way, and that satire can only be pushed so far until it becomes obscene and just plain rude. I hope that I do not sound like I am insulting any of you, because quite frankly, EQAL is, and has been my favorite company in developing web shows (lg15, and lg15tr) since day one– even if I havent seen a new episode in a year and a half. Im still hoping for something, and probably always will be,
but not many are like me.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Thanks Miles. Working on a new series now that should do more of it. Feel free to drop an email and say hello. No idea where you card went from last year
-Jes
April 14th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
I really liked Drawn By Pain! I kind of like Facebook better than Myspace now, but I found out about DBP from Myspace, and that series was awesome!
As for LonelyGirl15…I feel that while The Last and Outbreak great series, LG15 needs to go back to it’s original story, the one that was left behind at the end of the Resistance. I can’t help but feel that Mason was trying to force things in that direction with his last video in Outbreak, saying he’d done his part and asked Tachyon to hold up her end of the deal. He ended up creating a new plot hole in doing so: how does Tachyon have Jonas?