So, before I get into to problems and solutions, let me just say that I appreciate all the volunteer work people have been doing to prepare for the Streamy Awards. I’ve been waiting four years for the 2nd Annual Vloggie Awards (not gonna happen), so it’s vitally important to me that the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards are successful and that the event continues for years and years to come. That said, however, these are the early years of the awards show, an adjustment period where we need to work through the kinks and adapt our methods to best serve the medium; web series.

A lot has happened over the past week: members of the IAWTV voted to finalize the nominations for the Streamys; official nominees were announced; and a For Your Consideration mail plan appeared online (later to be removed after many community members disapproved). As with any new award show, there are some issues that need ironing out… in an effort to keep this blog post brief, I’ll try to do some of this using point form.

Streamy Awards voting process

The nomination process, as judged by members of the IAWTV, was a long and difficult one. Members were sent an email on February 21st with a link to a web form on Polldaddy.com and were given until February 27th to complete it. The biggest problem was that there were hundreds of videos to watch and no way to save the form as you went through the different categories. This meant that voters had to either do it all in one sitting, or keep their browsers open and computers on until they completed it. Personally, I was scared my browser was going to crash… luckily it didn’t, but apparently Zadi Diaz’s did. FIVE TIMES! Perhaps a lot of this stress could have been alleviated if we had an ability to save our progress and continue another day.

Another issue was the videos themselves. Some videos were embedded in the header of the poll, but they weren’t necessarily the videos that were submitted by creators in the $10 certified submissions. In fact, they included videos published in 2010 and trailers, both of which shouldn’t count in the voting process. These mix ups, and the fact that not all shows were embedded in the header, meant that we had to visit every web site of every web series – which caused more issues since not all sites clearly displayed the date their videos were published (pretty important since we’re judging videos published in 2009).

Note: Streamy organizers are aware of the embed problem. If they embedded the wrong video for your series, please contact Joshua Cohen at joshua at streamys dot org with the proper embed code.

For Your Consideration program

Yesterday I noticed an email in my Spam Filter confirming our nomination for Best Hosted Web Series (W00T!). The email was sent on March 2nd and had detailed information on dates and deadlines for sending materials to help prepare for the final voting process and the Streamys ceremony. For those who were following Matt Enlow’s and my blog posts on For Your Consideration Screenings and DVD Screeners, this is where things get a little more controversial.

Screenings
It was announced in this email that there were going to be IAWTV For Your Consideration screenings in Los Angeles and New York on Thursday, March 11th. Nominees were asked to submit a one-minute video of their show by March 6th to screen at the events. This sounds pretty cool, I gotta admit, but there are a few issues that arise from this:

• How much can IAWTV members get out of a one-minute clip?
• Can people submit one-minute sizzle reels and trailers? Is that fair?
• Independent nominees may be too busy to make custom videos for the screenings, won’t major studios have the upper hand since they can hire someone to edit and submit this for them?

I love meeting my colleagues (especially at Tubefilter’s legendary meetups), so this is a fun idea, but I’m not sure showing one-minute of each show is going to give people a really good look at what’s out there.

Mail outs
Also included in the email was a link to the new For Your Consideration program, which offered nominees a chance to send DVD screeners or an email to IAWTV voting members. This was the pricing breakdown:

• DVD Screeners: $5.89/DVD. You send to all 220 members for $1295.80, or you could choose a smaller number of members to send them to that fits your budget (members are random).
• Emails: For $99, the Streamy Awards can send an email to all 220 members on your behalf.

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Upon hearing of this, many of us took to Twitter to get our frustrations out. Shortly thereafter we started to chat on TinyChat to discuss our concerns (unfortunately for me, my mic wasn’t working so I couldn’t really explain my stance… which is why I’m writing this blog post today). Over 50 industry professionals joined the discussion, including Streamys organizer and Tubefilter co-founder Brady Brim-DeForest, ICM agent and IAWTV board member George Ruiz, and many web series creators. A few things that came out of that conversation were:

• Members of the community are concerned and we really need to talk about these issues
• A group should be established (whether in virtual space or in the real world, or both)
• New media is all about new technologies. Why follow old media models of mail outs and screenings when we already have access to a free world-wide screening room already? (The web)

If anything, the best thing I think to come out of this discussion is that we’re creating a dialogue. Creators and Streamy organizers are having meetings and organizing the future together instead of apart. This is important, especially if you want the awards show to last and not fall victim to the same politics that killed PodTech’s Vloggies.

Note: The Streamys 2010 For Your Consideration Program (mail-out) is no longer available. It was taken down after the discussions last night.

A Potential Solution

As I said before, new media is about adopting new technologies. So why not create a web site around the nomination and voting process?

Public Submissions
Firstly, it’s really nice that we have the public submission option, but why not separate it from the certified (or creator) submissions? We could have a 100% fan-submitted (non-IAWTV) award for each overall series category. The Streamy Awards may choose whether they’d like to include this in the official ceremony, or if they’d prefer to announce the winners at the Craft Awards Ceremony, or even a live stream! (Online fans might prefer the latter) Separating the public submissions from certified entries would make it easier to manage the next suggestion I have for the future of voting.

Certified Submissions
Create a private site where creators can:

• Submit their own series for consideration; and
• Manage a profile that includes the name of the series, a brief description, up to 3 embedded videos (not including trailers or sizzle reels, and must be published in the correct calendar year), as well as a link to the series’ web site.

These profiles will make it much easier for voting IAWTV members to navigate through the hundreds of series they have to review (there were over 60 nominees for Best Comedy Web Series ALONE!) and find the videos they should be watching. This site can give all series a level playing ground when the member voting opens. Much like the Polldaddy form used this year, a similar form can be built into the web site linking to the series profiles, and giving IAWTV members voting accounts that allow them to make their choices and SAVE them along the way.

Once the technology is completed, this will actually give Streamy organizers LESS work. They won’t have to collect so much information because creators would have already done it themselves!

Your feedback

And you may find yourself… asking whether the certified submissions for this new site will cost. Let me know what you think of that idea. Should it be free? Are you willing to pay a small fee (this year’s certified submission was $10)?

And you may find yourself… wondering how to submit an embed code for your series since some corporation owns your work and you can’t upload it publicly? Blip.tv offers a private upload and embed service. You can upload your video there, set it to private, take the Flash embed code and submit it to the new site!

And you may find yourself… disapproving of the site because you want to judge on the show’s interactivity on the web? Fine! Link to the original web site to go see for yourself, especially in the case of Best Interactive Web Series. Again, I don’t want to take traffic away from the original sites, I want to make it easier for voting members to see the correct eligible videos and give everyone a level playing ground to be “screened”.

What is your opinion on all this? What do you think of my proposed solution? Have an idea on how to improve the process? Suggest it in the comments below!

Note: Keep in mind that some comments may be held for moderation, there is no need to submit your comment twice. Please do not use this as a way to promote your web series, but as a way to find the best solution for the future of the Streamy Awards. And, lastly, please be patient and kind with your fellow creators’ ideas… let’s keep this civil! We should come to a logical solution, not a revolution.

We have had no screenings and sent out no DVDs, so we hope that this is enough to adequately showcase our talent.

Thank you, in advance, for taking a moment to watch our humble web series. We pray to Zod that we have your support!

Last night I was interviewed live on the season finale of The RadNerd Show. Thanks to everyone who tuned in live! It was lots of fun, as you can see in the video, even when I had no idea what was going on! (Note: I wasn’t sure how the Trivia portion worked because I was filling out a release form while they were explaining it to me! )

Be sure to tune in next season for more from these very rad nerds!

Poli-Sci-Fi Radio celebrated their 100th episode this weekend (congrats, guys!) and I was a guest on their show along with my favorite comic writer Brian Wood, and a few others. Be sure to have a listen and subscribe to their podcast!

I was asked to be the guest on the season finale of The RadNerd Show… and being a rather radical nerd, how could I say no?

Tune in tonight at 10pm PST for the live show with me at thestream.tv!

“It’s been a long road… getting from there to here.”

Well, after a long campaign of reluctantly asking my fans and colleagues to nominate A Comicbook Orange for a Streamy, I can finally sit back and concentrate on the show while the voting process takes place. Wait, no? People are setting up For Your Consideration screenings and sending out DVD screeners? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

At first glance, the new For Your Consideration trend in web series looks like fun. Who doesn’t love getting dolled up and hanging with their friends and colleagues at a shwanky bar/theatre in Hollywood? But the more I think of it, the more I cringe.

A lot has changed over the past 5 years. When I launched Kitkast back in 2005, the Yahoo Videoblogging Group was up in arms over the fear that “shows” will overtake the personal vlogs that they loved so dearly. In time, they embraced the change and new fears emerged. Fears that Hollywood will come in and stake their claim on our turf.

All of these fears have now come true. Most web series getting recognition in mainstream press are big studio productions, the unions now have new media contracts and a lot of web series are throwing red carpet premieres for their work. The good thing about all this is that it generates more interest in the industry bringing in new viewers, more acting talent and a classy image. The sad reality, however, is that it also makes it more difficult for low-budget (and no-budget!) productions to get noticed.

So when it comes to hearing about For Your Consideration screenings and DVD screeners, I feel a little uneasy. Here’s why:

• The Streamys are for web series. Not for (how does it look and sound on my) TV series or (look how glorious this could’ve been as a) film.
• The Streamys are for international web series. Not for Los Angeles based producers with the time and budget to make DVDs and throw parties.

I can’t convince people to refrain from holding screenings or sending out DVDs to promote their work, but I can make decisions for how I will vote as a member of the International Academy of Web Television. As such, I make the following statement:

I solemnly swear to judge Streamy nominees based on their web series on the web.

If I get a DVD in the mail, I won’t watch it… and if I go to a screening, I’ll go for the networking opportunity, not the viewing.

Think of it as net neutrality, but for web series. All producers should be judged on equal ground… that ground is the web.

We finally launched season 5 of A Comicbook Orange yesterday and it feels great! I’m dancing around my apartment today like a complete idiot. And, to make a day better, I also just got off the phone about something really exciting… so keep your fingers crossed for me

Also out this week is an interview that Rudy and I did with The Web Files. The interview turned out even better than I thought it would because of the awesome editing! Take a look:

And, lastly, thanks to Tubefilter for the blog post yesterday, and thanks to YouTube and Blip.tv for featuring our new episode! 2010 is off to a great start… XOXO

• Best Hosted Web Series – A Comicbook Orange
• Best Web Series Host – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Guest Star in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, Hurtling Through Space at an Alarming Rate
• Best Editing in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Art Direction in a Web Series – Josh Allard, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Visual Effects in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Original Music in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange (for my Dr. Horrible prequel song)

Thanks,
♥ Casey XOXO

The 2009 Streamy Awards was the first awards show since the 2006 Vloggies to be devoted entirely to web video. As a result, it was a wonderful celebration of what I’ve been passionate about doing and advocating for the past 4+ years. Unfortunately, since my 2008 was spent relocating to Los Angeles and trying to get established, it was the ONLY year that we hadn’t made enough episodes of a web series to qualify for a nomination! Still, we watched contently as many of our good friends won for their shows. (We were probably most proud of our friends at Epic Fu who won for Best Hosted Web Series.)

2010 is going to be different. No longer are we in production limbo, we are back in full force.

The 2009 Streamys gave me the drive I needed to come back with a vengeance. Along with the support of my partner and co-writer Rudy Jahchan, the passion of our new director Josh Allard, the encouragement of our friend (and first Season 3 interviewee) Ben Templesmith, the assistance of Meltdown Comics for providing a location for our interviews, and our devoted A Comicbook Orange fans, I worked my little ass off to bring the show back.

And we did it all for free… because that’s how we roll.

So this year I ask you to please help keep us driven. If you love what we’ve been doing, please nominate us in as many categories of the Streamy Awards that we’re eligible to enter. Here’s a list:

• Best Hosted Web Series – A Comicbook Orange
• Best Web Series Host – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Guest Star in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, Hurtling Through Space at an Alarming Rate
• Best Editing in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Art Direction in a Web Series – Josh Allard, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Visual Effects in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange
• Best Original Music in a Web Series – Casey McKinnon, A Comicbook Orange (for my Dr. Horrible prequel song)

And thanks to all of you who encouraged us to bring A Comicbook Orange back. Friends, fans, comic connoisseurs… you are the reason we do what we do.

♥ Casey XOXO

My guest appearance on sci-fi comedy web series Hurtling Through Space at an Alarming Rate went up last month! Be sure to check it out, if you haven’t already. There could be a Streamy Award nomination for Best Guest Star in there somewhere…

I was really excited when creator Mike Davies suggested I play the role of Kalm. Not only am I a lover of old Trek, but I’ve even read The Eugenics Wars series that explained the rise and fall of Khan Noonien Singh (which I was critical of, but still quite enjoyed) and, as an actor, I was ecstatic to be stepping into Riccardo Montelban’s Shakespearean shoes.

My only disappointment was that I felt the final edits downplayed the lesbian undertones I was going for with the character. However, to their defense… the character wasn’t written with lesbian undertones in mind, that was just my creative interpretation. In fact, at one point we were even talking about having a lesbian kiss between me and Taryn O’Neill! I felt that after Mike Davies grabbed Hottie McHotterson to make out in the middle of the video game face off, Kalm’s naturally vengeful reaction would be to grab Taryn’s character and kiss her, therefore undermining Mike’s attempt to throw Kalm off. I even got the “ok” from my boyfriend Rudy… what a forward thinking man!

Unfortunately, we never shot the kiss and the lesbian flirty looks between me and Taryn O’Neill were pretty much cut out… but I can always hope that Mike’ll write it in a future episode… Right, Mike? Pretty please…?

And, for the record, I’m not the only one who wants more hot girl-on-girl action… here’s the IM chat I had with Rudy just after he showed the episode to his co-workers: