Last Sunday Epic Fu was honored with a Streamy Award for Best Web Series Host. It was the first award of the night, and Zadi and I were obviously thrilled and rather surprised given the calibur of people who were nominated in the same category. Kevin Pollak, Michael Buckley, Alex Albrecht, and Kristyn Burtt are all people who either have well-established followings or are in the process of building them. So that was an honor. We did not expect to be nominated, so the win was truly unexpected and immensely appreciated.
Since that eventful night, the Streamy Awards themselves have been the subject of much discussion. Suffice it to say there were technical problems and tonal problems and length problems and other problems that left much of the online video world confused and dismayed. This blog post isn't about that night. This is about last Thursday at an event called the Streamy Winners Celebration, a.k.a. Celebrate the Web, organized by Kim Evey and Jenni Powell, and sponsored by Blip.tv and Jinx. Celebrate the Web was designed to wash away some of the bad taste left in the mouths of attendees and viewers of the Streamys by getting a community of content creators together in an intimate atmosphere to enjoy the things that got us here, with no distractions of pageantry, awards-style comedy bits, or pretension.
A little belated on our blog post for it, but this was a very nice surprise! Epic Fu's Zadi Diaz has been nominated for Best Host at the 2010 Streamy Awards! That's two years in a row for the host category. Last year Epic Fu won the Streamy for Best Hosted Web Series, but we didn't win for Best Host.
Since we put out so few shows in 2009, we didn't actively campaign for a nomination for the Streamys. But there's a lot of momentum, at least in Los Angeles, around the Streamys this year, so it's nice to be a part of it again. For one thing, it's the first time there's a second year of any web video awards ceremony. You have to hand it to the guys who founded the Streamys and the IAWTV, the voting body that selects nominees and winners for the Streamys. It's definitely not easy to sustain a large awards event in this economic environment.
Congratulations to all the nominees, including tons of friends! See you on April 11th!
Hello out there in Internetvision land! I'm really happy to be writing this blog post, because I get to let the world know that we're launching a new season of Epic Fu on January 21, 2010!
To celebrate we're going to drink a lot, and you're invited. But before we drink, the great folks at Tubefilter will feature Zadi and me in an onstage discussion as part of their monthly Web Television Meetup to talk about the show and our experiences creating and iterating it over the years. Our deals with Next New Networks and Revision3, our almost-multi-year cable television deal, assembling a team, building a brand, dealing with the ups and downs of new media -- it's all up for grabs.
From the Tubefilter announcement:
For the January edition of the Hollywood Web Television Meetup, we are proud to present a very special evening with popular internet culture show EPIC FU as they launch the new EPIC FU network. Join us as we screen the premiere of one of the web’s most revered and award-winning series, followed by an intimate discussion with its creators, Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf. The evening is sponsored by HP and Intel, who will be onhand to give away a free HP Envy laptop and a free HP DreamScreen for Meetup attendees. This is definitely a night not to be missed!
A Special Evening with EPIC FU
Thursday, January 21, 2010
7:30 pm – Panel / 8:45 pm – Mixer
Location:
Busby’s East (Mid Wilshire)
5364 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90036
Years ago I had a VHS tape in my possession about the history of the New York Knicks (NBA basketball team for anyone unaware). I watched this tape dozens of times, as I was an absolute die-hard Knicks fan (until they abandoned Patrick Ewing and the owners ran the team into the ground, but that's a story for another time). On this tape was an interview with Bill Bradley, who played the position of small forward and was a core member of two championship Knicks teams in the early 1970's. Bradley was discussing the two championships in 1970 and 1973 and remarked about something that always stuck with me: what he was most proud about was being a member of a special team for a period.
Someone up there is smiling on us, because last Tuesday we woke up to discover that we were nominated for the Webby Awards on Online Film/Video for the third year in a row for EPIC FU. Not only that, we received two nominations, one for Best Reality/Variety Host, and one for Best Variety series.
In case you're not familiar with the Webby Awards, this is the 13th year of the event. The gala will be hosted by Seth Meyers from Saturday Night Live for the second straight year. Here's a snippet from their website:
Hailed as the "Internet's highest honor" by The New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile web sites. Established in 1996, the 13th Annual Webby Awards received over 10,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide. The Webby Awards is presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
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.
The Streamy Awards are designed to recognize outstanding achievement for shows produced originally for broadband distribution, and we're thrilled that EPIC FU is nominated in two categories, Best Hosted Web Series, and Best Host!
This is the Streamy's inaugural year and they held an open nomination process that received over 100,000 submissions. Three of the top industry blogs that cover online video are behind the Streamy's, GigaOm's NewTeeVee, Tubefilter, and Tilzy.TV. They've done a bang-up job with the site, and the official nominees were announced on March 14.
The International Academy of Web Television is the voting body behind The Streamy Awards, and Zadi and I are extremely honored to be among the inaugural Academy Members. Our fellow members are all very accomplished and influential in their respective fields, and we are all pleased that online video is taking bold steps forward as it gains more and more notoriety in the mainstream.
Kudos to Drew Baldwin, Brady Brim-DeForest, Joshua Cohen, Marc Hustvedt, Liz Shannon Miller, and Jamison Tilsner for their tireless work to put all of this together. Join us at the ceremony and gala on March 28th at the Wadsworth Theater in Los Angeles!
We don't post often to the Smashface blog because we're usually busy making content and staying involved with the online video community. But when we do post something, it usually has to do with a major event or announcement. This falls into that category.
Seems like we just posted the announcement about EPIC FU joining forces with Revision3 in a web licensing deal, but about a week ago Revision3 let us know that despite a year of record revenue and viewership, they are feeling the effects of the economic crunch and need to make some urgent and tough decisions. As of the end of 2008, Revision3 will no longer be the web licensing partner for EPIC FU, and we'll be leaving their network of shows. We wish Revision3 luck in the coming months and remain a fan and supporter of their shows.
There's been some well-documented contraction in the tech world lately, and the online video sector is feeling the effects. A harsh fourth quarter downturn in advertising sales combined with the decrease in licensing revenue for EPIC FU means that Smashface has also had to scale back by laying off three members of our production team. If you're looking for talented production personnel, Zadi and I heartily recommend getting in touch with Rick Rey, who produced 30+ episodes of EPIC FU and has been involved in creating the show for over a year. We will also miss Sarah Atwood, who co-produced over a dozen shows with us, and Daniel Merlot, a talented and versatile editor.
As we have since June 1, 2006, we will continue to produce the show each week and our long-term goals remain the same: find the best partners to grow and expand the EPIC FU brand across different mediums. With over 30 million views across the web since we launched, we know we've only scratched the surface of what we can do with this show. Although this economic climate is likely to stay with us for an extended period, the future of online video is too large to be permanently affected by this tough time.
I'm pleased to announce that Smashface signed an agreement with Revision3 to exclusively licensing and distribute EPIC FU across the web! Wait, what -- oh -- you mean, you've already heard? And saw it here, here, and here???
Yeah, I guess you can call this blog post long overdue, but we are thrilled to be working with the folks at Revision3! They've been doing the online video thing going all the way back to 2005, and the core fans they brought with them from TechTV have built a really passionate audience.
The deal between us got finalized very quickly, and we've been so busy creating two shows a week that we've barely had time to keep up with everything else! I've had this blog post on my to-do list for 3 weeks already.
But now we're starting to scale our show, with Rick Rey as a full-time producer, Sarah Atwood co-producing, Annie Tsai as our production assistant, and a couple of freelance editors pitching in, too. We have big, big plans, and we're glad to have a company like Revision3 on the same page with us, helping us get to our mutual goals.
Ok, enough talk. Back to work!
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Judging by the number of inquiries we get every day asking about EPIC FU from our truly amazing viewers, a lot of you have noticed that we haven't posted a new episode of the show since late March. We'll be back in about a week, but the hiatus we've taken has allowed us to refuel the creative gas tanks and think about the future of the show.
As we come up on the two-year anniversary for EPIC FU in early June, we can't help but think about how much the show has changed over the years. The early JETSET episodes were constituted as a variety and sketch show. We spent those first nine months identifying our viewers and transitioning into the format that became a resource and hangout for so many more people than we could have expected.
In March of 2007 we entered a licensing partnership with Next New Networks, and in the past year EPIC FU has come into its own. We benefitted from the advertising relationships they created and from their super-distribution strategy, which helped us bring in audiences at video hosting sites across the web. We were always on the same page about the importance of creativity, community, and interactivity as core elements of everything related to the show.
