Announcing the ‘Women in Webseries Panel’ at Geek Girl Con

When I first heard about Geek Girl Con, which is being held in Seattle Oct 8 and 9, I had two thoughts:

• What a fantastic idea – OMGWTFBBQ it’s going to ROCK!!
• Why has no one thought of it before??

As a sometime born-again geek, brought back into the fold after years of denial (yes, because working in IT is completely not geeky, is it? I was even in denial about that!), the idea of a Con ALL ABOUT ME was fantastic. We really are living in a golden age (/The Master).

After I got over the initial excitement I started to think about what I would love to see there: Geeky women passionate about their geekiness, bringing other people into their sense of wonder.
What is my passion? That would be writing and webseries. I started to hope that there would be programming about webseries, waiting to hear if some of my favourite creators would be there.

And something struck me. If I wanted to meet and share stories, ideas and experience about working on web TV, maybe I should propose a panel.  Our latest webseries, ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ premieres next week and we have lots to talk about…

So on May the 4^th (an auspicious day, always) I asked people on the weekly Twitter #webserieschat hosted by @slebisodes and @minglemediaTV whether anyone was interested in taking part in a panel. The response was immediate. I quickly had a list of women webseries creators who wanted to be involved. I had ideas about what I wanted to do so I sent out a proposal to those interested and within a couple of days we were set. The enthusiasm was amazing from this list of talented women:

Josephine Hoy (Mind My Brains, Darling!)
Vanessa Driveness (Standard Action)
Joannna Gaskell (Standard Action)
Glynis Mitchell (Causality)
Susan Bernhardt (Miss Behave)
Jillian Clare (Miss Behave)
April Grant (Destini) (Indie Intertube)
Amanda Shockley (Shadhavare) (Indie Intertube)
Trin Miller (The Dirty Do Gooders)

I sent off the proposal and then we waited…

On Monday this week I receieved the email saying our Panel “Women in Webseries: Indie TV and Getting Out There” had been accepted – fantastic news! Except for one thing. The maximum number of people allowed on stage was 9, and we had 10 people who wanted to participate. Everyone wanted to be part of the panel and everyone had unique perspectives and experiences to bring. What could be done?

Now, in traditional TVsoapland this would be the cue for infighting, backstabbing and hair pulling, because isn’t that what women do?

No. They don’t. Passionate and professional women set out the options, discuss them and come to a consensus. Trin Miller very graciously came forward first and said she would sit out in the audience instead. This set the ball rolling and the discussion that followed was illuminating. Josephine Hoy, Susan Bernhardt and Jillian Clare also offered to drop out. The truth is no one wanted to miss being on the panel, but everyone wanted it to be fair.

In the end a compromise was reached. Trin Miller will not be officially on the panel (only because we need to fulfill the GGC requirements) but she would be acknowledged by the panel and will conduct the audience participation parts. Because when you come to our panel, you’re going to have fun. And lots of it. Are you excited yet?

I had confirmation today that our panel will be on SATURDAY OCT 8, and will be a 90 minute panel. Better book your tickets for Geek Girl Con soon because it's going to be legendary!

Clicker, Indie Intertube and more: The Awards kick off

The Best of Clicker 2010 Awards announced...
...and there were some familiar names among the winners. The Guild took 'Best Web Comedy (Serial)' and The Jeff Lewis 5 Minute Comedy Hour took 'Best Web Comedy (Episodic)'. This is the second year of the Awards and over 200, 000 people voted. I interviewed Patrick Sullivan from Clicker about the awards last week in PinkRaygun. One of the thing that was most pleasing about the Clicker Awards was the number of categories for web content and the range of shows nominated. This bodes well for the future.

The Indie-Intertube Awards 2010
This week also saw the announcement of the nominations for the Indie Intertube Awards. With a huge raft of categories and shows this will likely be the most comprehensive listing this year. The weekly Indie Intertube podcast is always the place to start if you want to know what is happening this week in the the webseries world, and so it's no surprise that many of the nominated shows are new to me. That is one of the joys of Indie Intertube (apart from Destini and Shadhavar, of course!) - the fact that they have introduced me to so many shows I had never heard of before.

You can also vote for the Audience Choice Award on the Indie Intertube website. The Guild, The Jeff Lewis 5 Minute Comedy Hour and  many others are among the nominees, so you will be spoilt for choice. It's a good job you can vote every 30 minutes!

The Shorty Awards
...are also underway, and apart from loving the fact that @TheBloggess is again rocking the 'government' vote, there are some interesting nominations and categories. For a start, there are multiple nominations for Felicia Day but under different title, so she does not show up on the 'Actress' leader board as yet. Top of the Actress board is Stana Katic, which is great for us Castle fans. Nathan Fillion is also doing well in both the 'Actor' and 'Green' categories. I'm hoping that Browncoats: Redemption will do well in the charity category - they are 4th so far.

More Awards Coming Up
The Streamys and the new IAWTV Awards will be coming up later in the year, which will be well worth following closely. After all the discussion, changes and community growth over the last 12 months, people will be waiting to see what happens.

Felicia Day and Kim Evey have long been hinting about new projects they are doing and Felicia teased some more this morning:

Maybe next year there will be even more nominations heading her way....

What other Awards are you looking forward to?

Seasons Picks! All I want for Christmas...

Isabelle illustrates the opposite of my last few weeks

'Tis the Season to make lists!
I actually enjoy making lists. To illustrate that fact, here's a list of the lists I've made recently:

• Things To Do. 
• Christmas Things To Do.
• Really Important Things To Do.
• OMG IF YOU DON'T GET THESE THINGS DONE TODAY THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT WILL END!!!!! TO DO.

One of the items on all the lists was 'do some frakking blog posts you lazy frakker'. This is really unfair because:

• I've been really busy and not at all lazy
• calling yourself names when making lists is probably a sign of mental distress
• the distress being caused by have too much to do, which underlines the fact that I'm not lazy. 
• Meh
• I have a cold *cough* *cough* 

EDIT: I started this yesterday and our interview with PopCultureMonster has since come out so here's another category: Something to Read: Interview with Higlet Films.

Back to the lists...
I have some wonderful seasonal diversions and gift suggestions that might have passed you by and I'm going to try something new - the 'Something to watch/Something to buy/Something to listen to/Something to support' list. If it works out I may do more - so let me know. YOU'RE WELCOME!


Something to Watch
Sean Becker. Jeff Lewis. Assorted Guildies and associates. Mix, lace with profanity and serve shaken, not stirred, over a humorous bed of NSFW. That is the The Jeff Lewis 5-Minute Comedy Hour.

Here's the latest (shot on location) - Episode VI: Hawaii


Something to Buy:

"Songs The Brother's Warner Taught Me" - this album from the indomitable Megan Lynch (@may_gun) is a Christmas Gift winner on many levels (warning, new list ahead):

• So many memories from a youth spent glued to the TV watching Loonie Tunes
• A wide range of styles and moods all brought together in one delicious album
• A unique collection of songs, many of which have no other recent recordings
• Supporting a truly independent and hugely talented artist
• Bonus tracks if you download/buy NOW!

I reviewed the album here and you can find out about her Holiday Giveaway on her site.

Something to listen to:
I'm going to cheat on the list straight away and recommend 2 shows. I don't always get time to listen to longer podcasts so they are stacking up at a rate of knots. This week I listened to:


New Mediacracy Episode 18
Zadi Diaz, Steve Woolf  and Chris McCaleb are joined by Barrett Garese, Brett Register, Craig Frank and Jamie Blair and chat about what web video entertainment is/should be/could be/isn't. Fascinating debate from this all-too-infrequent podcast.

Indie Intertube Episode 48
This weekly podcast is broadcast live (usually on a Wednesday) and has an active online forum. Destini and Shadhavar are great hosts with an encyclopedic knowledge of the webseries community: the people, the shows and the gossip :) Last week covered lots of webseries including Pretty, Diary of a Single Mom and Hard Drive 13. Plus they usually devote the second half to call-ins and this episode includes Joe Wilson (Vampire Mob). You can tune in this week for more updates and guests.

Something to Support:
Ok, cheating again as there are two causes you should know about, and you can vote daily for both:


Knights of The Guild - Podcast Awards: Entertainment category
Kenny. Jenni. Guildies. News. Views. Interviews...this show has everything if you are even remotely interested in The Guild, so vote for them because they are awesome.


Browncoats: Redemption - Mashable Awards: Most Creative Social Good Campaign
There was a write up of the award today, and if you don't know about Browncoats: Redemption, the fan-made film set in the Firefly/Serenity 'Verse that is raising money for charity, then get over to their site and order your copy today! Mine has pride of place :)