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Vote for my panels in the SXSW 2015 Panel Picker

I’ve been invited to participate in two panels at next year’s SXSW festival.  Please vote for one or both of them, so I can go eat barbecue. :) 

Watch: The Birth of a Fandom

What does the “big bang” of fandom look like? How do people go from liking a new piece of content to becoming a community that blogs about it, creates art and fan fiction, conventions, even a movement? 
In this panel, we’re going to find out the answer by conducting our own grand social experiment to generate a fandom for a piece of original content and watch as it unfolds. Everyone in the room and online will be invited to participate in forming and defining a community that illustrates all that a fandom can do, which we’ll check in with in-between panel discussion. 
Panelists will tell us the story of a franchise unfolding and provide content for fans to react to – imagining a world that exists as a comic, TV show/webseries, and film series, with a variety of creators as well as a “voice of the studio” for our imaginary production. Our Fanthropologist moderator will live-orchestrate the viewing of interesting fan responses and content during the panel. 

Who’s Going to Fund My Webseries?

The modern webseries has become a form for emerging and veteran creators alike to tell edgy & innovative stories, often in a deeply artistic manner, exploring controversial or socially urgent subject matter. These creators are reaching wider audiences than ever, building community, and creating proof of concept for bigger projects, like TV series & feature films. So what is the recipe for a successful webseries, and more importantly, who can help you get yours off the ground? Thankfully, with new opportunities for funding, development, production and distribution than ever before, the answers are numerous. On this panel, meet the industry leaders developing, funding, and supporting independent webseries in new ways, paving the way for creators of bold new episodic content online. We’ll discuss what they look for, how their programs work, and talk with veteran creators about their development strategy, and what are the opportunities for webseries in today’s digital landscape. 

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Uncategorized Jay Bushman Uncategorized Jay Bushman

Speaking Event: Transforming Hollywood 5 Panel On IndieTV

The Internet broke the network bottleneck. Through platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo, creators release series directly to fans who follow shows and share them with friends. Web-content creators can write stories in whatever length, style and genre they choose, on their own schedule, and with actors of their choosing. The result is a truly open television ecosystem, where creators, talent and fans work together to realize stories they want to see. Each of the producers on this panel contributes to this new vision of television by producing series for the Internet that are being shaped for traditional TV as well; (several of these web series are being developed for HBO). Issa Rae created “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” with a small team and expanded the show using a successful crowdfunding campaign. Rae went on to produce additional series, including Amy Rubin’s “Little Horribles,” which Rubin released via her own Barnacle Studios. In the process, “Little Horribles” has become a hit with fans and with critics at Variety, LA Weekly and Splitsider, among others. Dennis Dortch and Numa Perrier launched the Black & Sexy TV network to showcase indie comedy, releasing their own hit series “The Couple,” and releasing additional series created by other emerging Hollywood talent. Jay Bushman helped “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” grow into a deeply engaging transmedia phenomenon, which prompted viewers of the Jane Austen-inspired series to follow characters from YouTube to Twitter and Pinterest. Raising tens of thousands of dollars from fans, Adam Goldman created and wrote two critically-acclaimed dramas, “The Outs” and “Whatever this is,” exploring the realities of being insecure in New York City. After showrunner Brad Bell co-created “Husbands” with Jane Espenson, the indie hit caught the eye of CW executives, who used the series to launch their new online network. As these examples convey, the Internet has become an incubator for talented, next-generation web creators and web celebs, who, in combination with fan followers, are reinventing television for the digital age. Panelists: Brad Bell - Co-creator and star, “Husbands” Jay Bushman - Producer and writer, “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” Adam Goldman - Writer and director, “Whatever This Is:” Numa Perrier - Co-founder, Black & Sexy TV Issa Rae - Creator and star, “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” Amy Rubin - Creator and star, “Little Horribles” Moderator: Aymar Jean Christian - Assistant professor, Northwestern University
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