ANDY DUGAN

The Streamys… and what to do next? Just keep producing good stuff!

I decided not to attend the Streamys last night because last year was such a letdown, and what I saw in store for this year I just couldn’t get behind. I come from the 2006 web series world, Satacracy 88, Sam Has 7 Friends, Lonelygirl15, Ask A Ninja… and I remember the events at Barbara’s at the Brewery where we were all excited to be on the ground floor of this new medium to showcase our talents and control distribution! In 2007 we were all nominated for the Webby Awards which was an Amazing experience and a classy event to say the least. I met so many amazing people at that event that I still share great friendships with. During that event, we were notified we were nominated for the first ever Broadband Emmy Award along with Big Fantastic for their series Sam Has 7 Friends and Prom Queen, plus 2 other shows. That was mind blowing, and looking back that was a real step in the right direction for Web Series as a whole. Between the Webbys and The Emmys there isn’t really a lack of amazing awards one can win for a Web Series, and The Streamys hasn’t and didn’t fill any kind of gap in the business. What the streamys did do was let down a community as a whole, in the first year out they gave all their awards to funded shows that were terrible in comparison to shows that were not funded, and they kissed the asses of celebrities like Illeana Douglas and Joss Whedon. The truth is that Easy to Assemble was terrible and Dr. Horrible was okay at best… nothing better than Sam Has 7 Friends, Goodnight Burbank, or Satacracy 88… the best series in the streamys bunch was After Judgment by Taryn O’Neill, Stephanie Thorpe and Michael Davies and they got shafted by the TubeFilter award show, I would almost go as far to say they were used by TubeFilter to say they nominated an indie for the same award Joss Whedon and the SciFi channel were up for.

I don’t care about the Streamys, honestly I have no reason to, I have both a Webby and an Emmy from a web series, however, I do care about the future of web series as a serious medium. It’s a amazing opportunity for aspiring creators to be taken seriously, and I would say much of my success thus far comes from my history on the web. My advice for the future of webtv would be for the creators, myself included, to make the best damn show you can for whatever amount of money you can make it for, and if you strike gold submit it to the Webbys or the Emmys if you want an award for it, but beyond an award, just do your best to make a damn good show! It’s entertainment! Transformers didn’t win any awards but it was good, fun and made more money than The Hurt Locker could dream to make! It’s not about awards, it’s about proving it’s a medium. If the web community can pull off a few more Satacracy 88’s, a few more Prom Queens, and a few more Ask A Ninja’s and Lonelygirl15’s then we are in a good place!

Last nights tragic show was just an example of why kissing ass and patting each other on the back isn’t the solution. The solution is hard work, creativity and passion. We made Satacracy 88 for no money at all, and Big Fantastic did Sam Had 7 Friends for pennies! We got nominated for real awards that are really respected by Hollywood, and we didn’t have to make that shit up like what the Streamys did… there are awards for you if you make a web series, but don’t make it for the awards, make it for the passion!

Feel free to roast me if you want TubeFilter, like when Brady acted like my Emmy was crap cause it came from NATAS… it was and still is respected, unlike the Streamys, and The Bannen Way is still respected, and should be respected for Jesse and Mark’s hard work to get it made, not for the raunchy award show they were acknowledged at.

Creative web series people, keep doing it, it’s people like Felicia Day, Chris McCaleb, Jesse Warren, Taryn O’Neill, Gennefer Snowfield, Me, Marc Cittadino, Hayden Black, Stephanie Thorpe, Michael Davies, Brad Winderbaum, Ryan Wise, Chris Hampel, Douglas Cheney, Kent Alan Nichols and others who made this all possible, and we all did it for passion, the awards just followed, and it’s still the early stages!