Felicia Day accepts (one of) her Streamy Award in 2009
They say you always remember your first time...
...and I certainly remember the First Streamys. It was a dark and stormy nig....er, no, that's not quite right. It was a highly exciting night. No one was sure of what to expect. Who would be there? Who would win? Who would scream the loudest if the live stream didn't work?
Sandeep Parikh and Felicia Day kick off the action in 2009
Breathlessly waiting
Like many people gathered on Twitter and WatchTheGuild chat room, I anxiously waited for the live feed to finally start. After a couple of small hiccups we were thrust right into the heart of the Streamys. Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh set the ball in motion and the awards came thick and fast. For a great summary read this article from Tubefilter. It was an uplifting evening.
Jane Espenson (we are not worthy) tells us that BSG is like chopped liver in her 2009 Streamys acceptance speech
So many winners, a few surprises and lots of hard work rewarded. It's a bit of a blur but I managed to remember enough about it to cobble together a blog post. So what will we see this year?
Joss Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen accept the Dr Horrible Streamy in 2009
Vanity Fair gives us a taste Surprisingly (to me, anyway), the only place I've seen any real hint of what's going to happen on the night has been in this article. No real spoilers except that Keanu Reeves will be there....and no word if NPH will sneak along just for the heck of it (we can hope).
Neil Patrick Harris thrills at the Streamys 2009 with tales of Nathan Fillion's junk
Submit to a night of web history There will be winners and losers but we can all share in the experience of seeing the future of web entertainment blossoming before our very eyes. The red carpet pre-show starts at 3:30 PST and the ceremony itself starts at 5:30 PST. Make sure you are locked onto http://www.streamys.org/ to be a part of history and I'll see you there (and on Twitter)! I'll be adding pictures from the ceremony on my Flickr account as quickly as they will upload.
The Guild looked fabulous last year but....
Who hopes that The Guild will show up in their Avatar costumes?!?
Remember how exciting The Streamys were last year?
How awesome it was to watch them LIVE on the Internet while tweeting with your friends from around the world? How magnificent all the stars looked and how gratifying it was to see the people who had worked so hard receive the recognition they deserved? It was a blockbuster of a night and the post I did after was a glimpse of the highlights I remembered.
Felicia Day makes my night
Along with the fact that The Guild and Felicia won so many awards (yay!), the stand-out memory for me was the speech that Felicia made. It was short, passionate and moving. And here it is:
When I've received rejection letters from agents I often think of this speech. It helps me send out the next batch of letters.
VOTE NOW!
I'm not going to lie to you. The voting system for The Streamys is not a quick-click-and-you're-done affair. I've just voted for all the people from The Guild and it took about 12 minutes. But once you get in your stride it's not too bad. And the organisers are going to look at the voting again for nest year. But for now you need to know that you can vote every day until Jan 15th and every vote counts towards making the People's Choice shortlists - so keep voting!
Who to vote for?
I'm not going to tell you that. I'm sure you have favourite series. If you are Guild fan and you want to vote for everyone you can then a list of names is here. And @jennipowell has a whole set of suggestions on her blog. And Tubefilter always has lots of links and information about all kinds of webseries. So go on - vote!
But at first I could only hear it. The Streamys Red Carpet started at 6:00 PM (Pacific) and I duly tuned in to the Streamys' website but there was no feed. A quick check on Twitter confirmed that I wasn't the only one in the dark. After some delays, though, the live streaming started in time for the Awards. And what a ceremony it was!
The Felicia and Joss show
No long after it had started I realised that I take screen grabs, which sent me into a frenzy. The picture - live streaming on my 15" Macbook screen - was brilliant. So I was there, trying to follow Twitter, The Guild chat, the Streamys, making comments and taking screen grabs. Next year I will deploy more screens!
And the first hosts are - Sandeep and Felicia!
It opened with two very familiar faces. Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh were the first presenters and set the tone for the whole night - funny, snappy, professional and awesome. Sandeep hammed it up magnificently and it was great to see the obvious chemistry between these two friends.
It gets a bit blurry
As I said, I was approaching systems overload with the monitoring so many things at once while coping with the emotions of seeing people I have been following not just receiving the recognition they deserve, but showing why it is deserved. If you were following my Twitter stream last night I apologise for the disjointed nature of the posts!
Some highlights
Neil Patrick Harris' speech where he dissed Nathan Fillion and asserts that he "...pads his junk..."
Felicia's speech where she thanked everyone who had ever rejected her and forced her to do it for herself. And the way she thanked her boyfriend. And Kim Evey (who was sadly absent). And all the fans....it was a great speech
Joss' speech where he thanked Felicia for being his mentor
Jeff Lewis' speech where he thanked the fans. Over and over again. In hilarious fashion. Also, he was nervous (Jeff we love you!) and Vince looking fab (I just wish Robin Thorsen and Amy Okuda had taken the stage too)
Cameos from Felicia and Kim Evey (as Kiko) in the 'How to make a web video' short - hilarious!
Maurissa Tancharoen receiving the Dr Horrible award
Jane Espenson's speeches and how much effort they put into making sure the BSG webisodes were complete pieces of art and not just tacked on for the sake of it (she put it so much better!)
Lisa Kudrow - I'm not sure what was going on but it amused me!
Felicia almost not getting onto the stage for the Best Comedy award because she was behind scenes having a drink
There were many other great moments. For better and more complete coverage please see these:
I've put up the screen grabs up on my Flickr account - there's 46 of them. There are probably more, so I'll check later and upload them. And tag the ones that are there.
Summary
The future is here. And it's web television! The Streamy Award ceremony was awesome. I need at least a day to recover, and I wasn't even there!
"After months of campaigning and hundreds of tweets, the Streamys nominees were finally announced. Predictably, heavy hitters like Dr. Horrible, The Guild, and Legend of Neil swept the nominations. Kudos to them. They’ve had great years, great shows and they deserve the recognition (isn’t that the point?)...."
But there has a bitter backlash...Why? This is an interesting article for anyone who love webseries and has been awaiting The Streamys. For what it's worth, my opinion is that the people who have been nominated, and the members of the new International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) are all at the forefront of web television. They have worked hard to get the recognition they have gained and deserve to see success because of their hard work.
