As the teams are hard at work getting the word out about their shows for the Audience Choice Award, which is open for voting until Tuesday the 15th at 10 AM and the Celebrate the web crew is hard at work putting together the screening on the 16th at 8 PM, I thought I’d take a moment to introduce the esteemed panel of Judges, who will be joining myself in awarding the Judges’ Prize for CTW5.
Taryn O’Neill is an actor, writer and web series producer originally from Vancouver, Canada. A former competitive figure skater and national medalist in Ice Dancing, Taryn has a degree in Economics, with Minors in Film and Drama from Duke University. She worked as an agent trainee at the William Morris Agency and as a junior manager at Alliance Atlantis Communications before pursuing a full time career as an actress. She has appeared on ‘Navy N.C.I.S.’, ‘The Inside’ and ‘Lie to Me’, various indie films, and works steady in commercials, including national campaigns directed by The Coen Brothers, Januz Kaminski, Michael Bay and Barry Levinson. She became deeply involved in the new media community in 2008, producing and starring in the multiple 2009 Streamy Award nominated post apocalyptic scifi webseries ‘After Judgment’ (for which she received both Best Actress and Best Dramatic Webseries nominations), and produced it’s follow-up, the scifi comedy ‘Hurtling Through Space at an Alarming Rate!’ financed and distributed by Babelgum.com. She has acted in numerous web productions, including the recent fan film trailer for revered comic ‘Elfquest’ (with an official panel at Comic Con 2011), atom.com’s Video Game Reunion, Black Box TV, and in the critically acclaimed webseries ‘Compulsions’, for which she won Best Supporting Actress at the 2010 Indie Soap Awards. She will next be seen in YouTube star, Mystery Guitar Man’s first scripted webseries. She added writing to her repertoire after starting a blog in 2009, and in 2010, her first comedy script, “The Very True Adventures of the Madoff Girls,” was chosen as a Finalist in the NYTVFest FOX Comedy Pilot Contest. Her first passion, however, is science fiction. She has written an episode of Black Box TV and has a number of ambitious scifi projects at different stages of development. In her free time, she blogs about digital media and her journey to become a martial arts badass, and is co-producer of Celebrate The Web.
My Damn Channel is the brainchild of its Founder/CEO, Rob Barnett. My Damn Channel is an entertainment studio and distributor of premium original programming by established and emerging talent from film, TV, and the Internet. Since 2007, Rob and his team have built My Damn Channel into a successful brand and business where top talent, loyal fans, and major advertisers come together to create the TV network of the future.
Rob has produced radio, television, film, and new media with hundreds of diverse communicators including President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, The Rolling Stones, Bono, Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, Johnny Rotten and more. He was the President of Programming for CBS Radio from 2004-2006, where he oversaw content development for more than 179 stations, and launched new formats in 30 markets. He was a production and a programming executive at MTV and VH1 for more than 11 years, where he produced news, specials, and series for both outlets and oversaw all network programming. At VH1, he was VP of Program Planning during the network’s surge in the late 90s with iconic hit shows including “Behind the Music.” Rob worked as an independent producer for projects including “Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues,” a multi-part, PBS film series; “Staffers,” a reality TV series on politics; and “Inside the Bubble,” a documentary feature film on the 2004 presidential campaign. In the earlier part of his career, Rob worked at rock radio stations in Boston, Dallas, and Los Angeles. He was on-air talent in all three markets, and the Program Director in Boston and Dallas. In 1981, Rob convinced Mick Jagger & The Rolling Stones to play a secret, club gig as an exclusive promotion for his radio station, WAAF. Rob is passionately dedicated to giving My Damn Channel artists the respect, freedom and financing to do their best work – which in turn gives My Damn Channel viewers consistently original programming that doesn’t suck.
Molly Templeton is signing, managing, developing and discovering individual video creators as well as building audience engagement across the My Damn Channel network. She manages all of our My Damn Channel programming on YouTube and works closely with all of our top talent to help their videos break through. Prior to joining the company in 2011, Molly was the host of long-running daily web show, Rocketboom, where she also wrote, produced and programmed content.
A video blogger herself under the username, ‘mememolly’, she has worked in web video since 2006, gaining over 50 million views and a nomination for Best Commentary in the 2007 YouTube Awards. Molly grew up in England, before moving to Ottawa, Vancouver and finally New York City, where she has found herself at home with people equally fascinated with internet culture and community. In her spare time, she likes to bake, play the ukulele and drink fancy beer. Follow her on Twitter.
Stephanie Thorpe is an actor, producer and content creator. Born and raised in Vancouver, she studied at Oxford and received a Master’s Degree from the University of Toronto. She’s been a driving force as a producer and actor in numerous web projects including the critically acclaimed After Judgment (6 Streamy nominations), Asylum (just picked up by BET), Babelgum’s Hurtling Through Space, Tyler Mane’s The Mane Show and the newly launched the comedy series Shelf Life. Most notably, Stephanie produced & directed the fan fiction trailer ElfQuest (based on the 34yr old comic series) which was featured in the New York Times, io9 & Attack of the Show among other publications, and had a Gala hosted by SAG New Media. She was honored to speak on a panel at this year’s San Diego Comic Con about her production to a packed room. Stephanie has been proud to host the last five Celebrate the Web Events: two of them at Comic Con over the last two years. She is one of the founding members of The League of Extraordinary Ladies—a group focused on fostering geek connections IRL. Stephanie continues to work in TV/film and garnered Best Actress in a Drama at the NYFilmFest. Her web acting credits include guest appearances in the long-running Elevator and The Temp Life. She most recently starred in the Parsec Award-winning GOLD spin-off Night of the Zombie King, for which she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress by Indie Intertube in 2011. You can follow her on Twitter.
Marc Hustvedt is an Internet entrepreneur, writer and new media producer. He has guest lectured at the UCLA Anderson School of Business and has been a panelist at numerous conferences, including Digital Hollywood, New York Television Festival (NYTVF), Streaming Media West, Independent Television Festival and SXSW. Marc is a co-founder of the Streamy Awards, the first awards show celebrating excellence in Web television, and the International Academy of Web Television, a professional organization of online entertainment content creators, producers and talent dedicated to the growth of the online entertainment industry. Marc is regularly quoted by press including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Wired, and the LA Times.
Bernie Su is a Writer and Producer of scripted original online series. He received the 2010 Streamy Award for the acclaimed digital series Compulsions as well as winning the Best Original Web Drama award by Clicker.com He has also written several episodes for the anthology thriller series BlackBoxTV and co-created the locked camera sitcom Game Room for Machinima. Bernie currently runs the monthly IAWTV Writers’ Group Workshop, a writers’ group build to nurture short form digital content in its scripted form.
Olga Kay started her journey to internet stardom as a Russian girl who ran away to the circus at 14, and came to America (on her own) at 16. She started her first YouTube channel to showcase her juggling skills and has since built a Moosh Army of over 400,000 loyal YouTube subscribers.
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Last night, 15 web series pilots created in a week using 3 elements were screened to a sold-out crowd at the ACME Comedy Theater in LA, followed by an Awards presentation. We wanted to share the results here for anyone who might have missed it:
