Thanks to the person(s) who nominated me, I appreciate your vote of confidence!

Thank you for nominating me to run for a seat on the board of directors. I am very passionate about our industry and driven to uplift our achievements and professionalism. Here is an outline of my thoughts on where I feel we should take the academy in the coming months. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

International- Though the IAWTV has held meetings in Los Angeles and New York, the web series industry is not restricted to these cities and we should be mindful not to exclude our international membership. As an international member (Canadian), I proposed the live-stream for the last meeting in Los Angeles and I feel it’s important to continue this inclusive way of thinking, and to encourage the international community, with the help of the Membership Committee, to join the academy and help educate and build the communities in their area. All this can be simple with some basic equipment and guidance from the Technologies Committee.

Education- Education is a wonderful tool to build exposure and community in our organization. I’d like to help the Events Committee oversee regional (local) member-organized workshops, public live-streamed peer-group panels, and blog posts on the IAWTV web site to help build our community involvement, knowledge and industry as a whole.

Advocacy- It’s time to get back on track to advocate our professionalism and devotion to this field by following up on the many issues that have recently plagued our community (e.g. Net Neutrality, IMDb excluding web series, etc.). I would like to work together with the Communications Committee to prepare statements on the issues, help the Industry Standards Committee create standards and best practices, and assist the Events Committee in facilitating protests.

Awards- I feel it’s important to celebrate our community and its’ achievements by giving it the awards show it deserves. Like many of you, I was dismayed by this year’s Streamy Awards and would like to work together with the Awards Committee to oversee the script, content, security and guest treatment guidelines for next year. Our show needs to represent the spirit and hard work of our industry and its’ stars (whether they be from the web or the mainstream) in a respectful tone.

About me: I have been working in the web TV industry since 2005 and have appeared in over a dozen web series. I have written about the industry for The Guardian, spoken on numerous panels across Canada and the US, and coordinated open community-based meetings to share knowledge with those interested in the field. Aside from being a member of the IAWTV, I am also a judge of the Canadian New Media Awards and have organized meetings with SAG and AFTRA on behalf of New Media West to discuss the details of their new media contracts. I have a Diploma in Communications, a Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies and worked as a diplomatic assistant before pursuing my career in new media full time. I speak English, French and Korean. (For more, see my biography and resume.)

Casey McKinnon
New Media Producer/Actress

All candidate statements should be emailed to the IAWTV membership and posted on the forum today. May the best candidates win.

Just before the 2010 Streamy Awards, Rocketboom host MemeMolly and producer Leah D’Emilio dropped by my apartment to shoot this interview. Stay tuned to the end for a special surprise guest… ;)

I’m really busy this week (yay!), so I’m not going to go into details here… instead, I encourage you to listen to the new episode of New Mediacracy that was recorded last night with post-meeting comments from me, Barrett Garese, Brett Register, Chris McCaleb, Rudy Jahchan, Steve Woolf, Tony Valenzuela, and Zadi Diaz.

And, if you’re an IAWTV member, I encourage you to do two things:

1. Register to give your say on the official IAWTV forums;
2. Send a message to volunteer some free time to help our organization accomplish something valuable.

I, myself, have registered (pending approval) and volunteered. I think what I’d like to do next is try to help the Executive Director of the board with tech tutorials. It’s time to build this academy with the tools that make our industry so cutting edge and accessible to all.

Last night Rudy and I had a very candid conversation with one of the folks at Tubefilter. He’s a great guy that I’ve known since early 2007 and he’s never fed me any bullshit. As a result, he finally talked with us about what’s been happening behind the scenes.

Firstly, I’m not going to reveal the details of our conversation since he made it clear that this wasn’t something Tubefilter wanted to discuss online. As forward-thinking as they are with their online presence, they feel it’s important to keep certain business affairs off the web. Completely understandable. But, if you read Liz Miller’s article on NewTeeVee today, you’ll see the gist of what we talked about.

Over the past few months there’s been a lot of bullshit surrounding the Streamys and yesterday’s blog post just reflected that I can’t take any more of it. You know the expression “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”? At this point, I feel like they’re trying to fool us a fourth time and it’s really trying the community’s patience. Some of the community wants to fight, some want to forget, all want to move on.

Here’s what I think should happen:

1. Tubefilter should stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes and be completely honest with us from now on.
2. IAWTV members should appoint a new chair and board of directors (not necessarily 100% new, but definitely approved by the community) made up of a devoted selection of creators and executives that have the time to be involved. I don’t think it’s necessary that Tubefilter have two people on the board of directors, as long as they have one liaison for the Streamys.
3. The two organizations should work together to plan the 2011 Streamys.

Yes, I really did just say that.

From what I’ve heard and seen over the past few weeks, Tubefilter (although they never properly apologized the way we wanted them to) has their tails between their legs and wants to prove that they can still make a great award show. I think we should give them a chance… but under the supervision of the IAWTV. I would like to see the Chair (or an appointed board member) overseeing all the decisions made for next year, and members of the IAWTV volunteering to help with the preparations.

This may not be what either Tubefilter or the IAWTV want to do, but a compromise has to be made in order for us (the community) to move on to other issues (e.g. union agreements, IMDb credits, etc.). I think that giving them another chance, but under heavy supervision, is a fair idea. What do you think?

[Above photo (cc) Matthew W. Jackson]

We need to talk…

It’s been over three weeks and the web series community has been waiting to voice their opinions to the International Academy of Web Television and the Streamys organizers about the future of the Academy and the awards. I sent an email a couple of weeks ago to Michael Wayne, Chair of the IAWTV, to suggest a meeting and he responded saying they will be holding two meetings (in NY and LA) very soon to address our concerns.

Since then, I’ve heard rumblings that the IAWTV may be trying to separate themselves from the Streamys organizers and “taking back” the Streamys. Sounds great! The thing is… Tubefilter were a big part in creating not only the Streamys, but also the IAWTV itself. As a member, I believe the IAWTV should be independent and representing our community interests. And frankly, if Tubefilter hadn’t of founded the IAWTV, our community advocacy group New Media West would’ve founded something similar instead!

Today Tubefilter announced the launch of a new site called Rebuild the Trust. At first glance this looks like an admirable idea, but when you look at it closer you can see the agenda. This is a preemptive strike against the Board of Directors of the IAWTV.

Some quick points (because, otherwise, this would turn into a waaay longer blog post):

• Why a new site? Control. The ideal solution to the Streamys problem would’ve been to create a community discussion board on IAWTV.org, but since Tubefilter has already lost control over the IAWTV, it seems clear why they created a whole new site.
• What is the “Manifesto of Change”? Politics. It’s a manifesto created by Tubefilter, but written to sound like it was created by the community. If they get lots of “signatures” they can then use it as leverage in negotiations with the IAWTV.
• Isn’t Point 1 of the manifesto ironic? Totally. Why would we trust the people who established the close door policies in the first place? It’s time for the community to take charge, without having words being placed in their mouths.
• Why is Point 4 of the manifesto a really bad idea? More control. Privately a lot of community members agree that the Streamys organizers (Tubefilter) is to blame for the StreamyFail. That said, why would we tell them it’s a good idea to “officially” partner the IAWTV with the Streamy Awards? In my opinion, the Streamy Awards still have a lot to prove and making a formal agreement this soon is a bad decision. We need to give this relationship time and figure out what works along the way.
• Why now? Preemptive strike. The IAWTV is finally having meetings with its’ members (today there was a meeting in NY, and a meeting is being planned for LA next week). It seriously looks like Tubefilter launched the site today as a way to place blame on the IAWTV first and to get reactionary responses from their readers before listening to members’ opinions at the meetings.

The real community to me is the non-profit that is the IAWTV. Granted, they’ve been slow to get a decent web site together and it takes them forever to plan meetings, but these (among other issues) are all concerns that will be addressed at the upcoming meetings. I ask that you do not react to the new Tubefilter site thinking it’s the real opinion of the community. And be sure to read and understand the manifesto thoroughly, and make sure you understand the intentions behind it, before you decide to sign it. I will not.

I look forward to the IAWTV members meeting in LA. I don’t have the details yet, but I’m sure it will be a very heated and productive day.

And last, but not least… the annual Galacticast intro re-creation (and boobie grab):

Sunday’s Streamy Awards has been replaying in my head for the past two days and I’ve been thinking a lot about the self-deprecating jokes made at our industry’s expense. One target in particular has been bugging me, the notion that no one is making money in web video. This bothers me because I’ve been working in the industry for almost 5 years and have seen most of my friends go on to make a living on web video, not to mention myself.

A comment on yesterday’s Streamys post by Amanda Congdon sparked a new thought in my head. She said,

“…many of us *are* making $$$ in web tv (or in my case mobile tv)… and the jokes just aren’t that funny anymore. They seemed very 2007.”

Very 2007 indeed. And 2008. And 2009. And 2010!

The reason there’s an ongoing joke that no one’s making money in web TV is because every year there are more and more people coming into this industry (awesome), but they don’t know anything about the history and past achievements of others in the industry (shame). Anyone who only started paying attention to web video after The Guild and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog wouldn’t know how Congdon, the first Rocketboom anchor, got picked up to make video blogs for ABC in 2006, or how Wallstrip was acquired by CBS for five million dollars in 2007, or how A Comicbook Orange and The Jetset Show (now Epic Fu) were both picked up for license agreements under Next New Networks in 2007.

And those deals were just the beginning. Every year more people are launching web shows and more people are getting offers of licensing deals and buyouts. Why, then, are people still asking us to show them the money?

The reason is simple: It is in the nature of the Web TV industry for people to start with no money. As long as there are new people starting their own show, there will ALWAYS be people making content for free.

Our industry, like many others, is like climbing a ladder. You have to prove you can make good quality, engaging content before you can make a dime. Whether you want to join the YouTube Partner Program, get your show picked up as the next Crackle series, or sell your TV pilot to the SyFy channel, you need to start at the bottom like everyone else. If you’ve never made anything before, how is anyone supposed to fund your seedy idea? You need to show them the content before they can show you the money.

And, sure, not everyone will be able to climb the ladder, but that’s life. If you’re having difficulty finding an audience, sit back and take a good look at what you’re doing. Is your target audience online? Where can you go to find them? What can you do to get them to watch? All valid questions that I can’t answer for you.

With all that in mind, let us all stop making snide comments about how there is no money in web video. If you’re not making any money, you need to be asking yourself why. Does your content suck? Does your pitch document suck? Do you need to cut down the number of times you put “vagina” in your script? Maybe. One thing is for sure, Web TV is a very public growing process and, like any other career you’re passionate about, you have to work hard at it to truly excel.

Keep on truckin’.

[Above image courtesy of Kevin Dooley]

Last night, after months of campaigning, nominating, voting, publicizing, etc. the Streamy Awards finally took place. My show A Comicbook Orange was nominated for Best Hosted Web Series, one of the toughest categories in the ceremony since we were up against some of the best shows online. I spoke to Alex Albrecht before the award show and told him I’d be totally cool losing to him, and he agreed he’d be happy to lose to me too. In the end, he won… and that’s cool, he’s a great dude.

The day, on the whole, was a textbook definition of epic fail. Many people have been writing about this today and I agree 100% with their assessment of what went wrong (I suggest reading Jace Hall, Blake Calhoun and Barrett Garese’s blog posts for the full lowdown). My biggest personal issue with the show was that it disrespected the professional industry that I (and many others) have been working so hard to build over the past 5 years. The constant jokes about lack of funding in web series, lack of viewers, etc. cheapened our hard work, especially when a lot of the attendees ARE making money and have more viewers (and less publicists) than cable television shows.

The awards show was embarrassing and there are so many more issues I can get into, but I won’t. What I will get into are my favorite moments from last night, which actually have nothing to do with the actual ceremony:

• Meeting people IRL: Always the best part of any get together, I was so happy to finally meet Nick Holmes, James Gunn, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Zoë Bell and Gennefer Snowfield in person. Whether we were getting some “air” in the lobby during the show or having heated discussions at the after party, these people all made my night.
• Technical difficulties working in my favor: Whilst getting some “air” in the lobby, the show was having major tech problems. At one point the DVD replayed nominee videos, including this clip of A Comicbook Orange, and the video apparently paused on my face. FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES!!! I heard about it afterwards and thought it was pretty funny… I only wish my agent George Ruiz’s contact information was up on the screen too! ;)
• Ted Raimi is my new best friend: At the after party, Ted gave me a passionate 3-5 minute talk about how I should have won. I had heard this from a few friends before, but Ted was truly adamant about it. Zod bless him, and Zod bless Suzanne Keilly who backed him up on it all. Love you guys…
• Zoë Bell wins the Community Award: Though the after party took place at a restaurant, no food was served. Zoë wins my Community Award for ordering 10 pizzas at the after party for everyone! Hell, she even got kicked out of the after party for doing it! This chick fucking rocks… and if I was serenading her at karaoke, I would sing “Just What I Needed” by The Cars in her honor.

Congrats to all the winners, including my friends Zadi Diaz, Alex Albrecht and Felicia Day. I was especially touched by the emotional acceptance speeches by Mark Gantt and Jesse Warren, Bernie Su and Rachael Hip-Flores, who all make me feel a little teary-eyed with pride for our community and our industry.

A special thanks goes to Chris Hardwick and Ze Frank for bringing real comedy and class to the event. I would be ecstatic to see either of these guys hosting the Streamys next year. Pretty please? *Bats eyelashes*

And last but not least, thanks to everyone who believed in us and helped us get nominated for a Streamy. Your sweetness does not go unnoticed… I read all your tweets and Facebook messages with shiny eyes. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

[Above photo courtesy of The Bui Brothers]

Disclaimer: We highly respect all the Streamy nominees we’re “attacking” in the following videos and mean no disrespect.

Above: Best Hosted Web Series nominee A Comicbook Orange attacks Best Vlogger nominee Brigitte Dale.

Above: Best Hosted Web Series nominee A Comicbook Orange attacks Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series nominee Zoë Bell.

Above: Best Hosted Web Series nominee A Comicbook Orange attacks Streamy nominee Felicia Day.

About these videos: Rudy and I came up with this idea a few weeks ago while talking over Mexican food. Initially, we thought it would be funny to “attack” our actual competition (The Totally Rad Show, Know Your Meme, Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, and Diggnation), but then we realized it would be funnier if we “attacked” people we’re not even up against. We wrote these scripts in an hour, shot it on green screen in another hour and I spent my extra time editing it between episodes of A Comicbook Orange.

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.