Amazing feature in this month's PR Week about the success of the second season of Leap Year and how it helped drive sales for our clients at Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Download the full article PDF here and watch the Leap Year season 2 play list below:
Leap Year, the scripted series we produce for Hiscox Small Business Insurance, won Best Drama Series at the IAWTV Awards at CES this week!
Leap Year , the show we produce for Hiscox, has been nominated for 3 Streamy Awards: Best Branded Entertainment Series, Best Writing (Drama) for Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky and Best Guest Star: Eliza Dushku. Congrats to all the nominees! See the full list of Streamy Award nominees here.
We're thrilled to announce Leap Year, the original series we produce for our clients at Hiscox Small Business Insurance has been nominated for 3 IAWTV Awards including Best Ensemble Performance, Best Writing (Drama) and Best Drama Series. This year's awards will be held at CES in Las Vegas Tuesday January 8th. Read the full list of nominees here. Congrats to all. See you in Vegas!
Wilson Cleveland, the executive producer and star of the Silicon Valley dramedy Leap Year on Hulu and the founder of new media studio Unboxd, is this week's guest curator of TVGuide.com's recently launched mobile app.
The WGAE’s Digital Media Education Program offers members a range of opportunities to learn about digital media theory, economics, and style, and to develop concrete skills. We were honored to be asked to discuss the topic of branded entertainment in these 3 videos:
Recipients in categories ranging from Branded Entertainment Series to Online Video Personality will be honored during an awards presentation hosted by our friend Alex Albrecht at noon on Wed, Jan. 25 during NATPE 2012 in Miami. The event will also be streamed live at www.natpemarket.com/digilumi.
Read the entire NATPE announcement here.
"Make no mistake my friends, 2011 will be remembered as the year sh*t got real in online video. This year the bastions of web video, no longer satisfied with “digital dollars,” made some of their boldest grabs yet at television’s multi-billion dollar advertising business by emulating the look, feel and business of…television. Welcome to progress."
Read the full post here.
Great to be included in Liz Miller's GigaOm piece with superstars like Tim Shey, Steve Woolf, Phil DeFranco and BlackBoxTV creator Tony Valenzuela.
“I think the ‘web series’ concept has evolved from being a type of entertainment that was ‘platform specific’ to one that’s ‘platform agnostic,’” Cleveland said. “The evolution of digital technology has been the most significant change agent in the evolution of the ‘web series’ simply because the delivery platforms have changed.” Cleveland’s Hiscox-branded comedy Leap Year, for example, was distributed via Hulu Plus, and was thus watchable across all platforms, including television.
We were lucky enough to discuss the topic of branded web series with Wilson Cleveland, a creator whose work in this field is among the most varied and successful.
This week CJP Digital's Wilson Cleveland joined Alloy Digital's Christian Busch, Revision 3 VP of Programming, Ryan Vance and AOL Video VP, Karen Cahn on the "Why is Branded Entertainment 'Brand vs. Entertainment?' panel at DigiDay Video in NYC. Above is the full 40-minute panel moderated by DigiDay's Corey Kronengold.
We were honored to be a part of this year's Variety-sponsored Producers Guild of America "Digital 25: Leaders in Emerging Entertainment" reception, hosted by Illeana Douglas, honoring digital innovators like Alicia Keys, Pixar, Sony, Seth Green, Zooey Deschannel, Funny or Die, Kickstarter and our buddy Felicia Day for her work as creator of The Guild. Congratulations to the honorees!
Here is Variety's coverage of the evening:
Variety: Books are for Schnooks - PGA, Variety Honor Leaders in Emerging Digital Entertainment
Attended the season 3 premiere of the IKEA©-sponsored web comedy: Easy to Assemble last week. Craig Bierko, Julie Warner, Mark Gantt and the 'Leap Year' cast/producers were there. You can watch the new season on My Damn Channel.
Lets just stop calling online shows “web series”- instead go with “original series” on x platform - thoughts?
I found after Tweeting an intial response, I had more to say so here goes:
Short answer: AGREED! Long answer: Whenever possible, I avoid the term ‘web series.’ Sometimes a client will insist upon qualifying whatever we’re producing as such (typically a scripted, longer-form series) and I do my best to convince them we’re better off going with ‘original series’ and here’s why: The average media consumer judges their entertainment by the platform it’s released on. They just do. I’ve always believed one of the more obvious roadblocks online programming faces in achieving mainstream awareness (and mainstream money) lies with how the mainstream perceives the web itself.
I recently asked my 64 years-young mother to email the Hulu link to the trailer for ashow I was working on to 10 of her friends of similar age and introduce it as an “original series.” All 10 watched and responded favorably. Then I asked her to send the exact same link to 10 other friends of similar age, but call it a “web series.” This time, 4 people claimed “the link doesn’t work;” 2 said the “video won’t play;” 1 asked “what channel is this on?;” 1 asked “How do I find this so I know when to watch? Only 2 out of the second 10 watched the trailer without any questions or issues.
Not exactly a scientific study but it made me wonder even more if placing the word “web” in front of “series” or “show,” is hurting our cause at raising the broader awareness we need to grow? Send a link promising a “original series,” it gets opened with no problem; send the same link but call it a “web series” and suddenly the same content becomes confusing and inaccessible. Just something to think about.
