Anatomy of a Viral Video
Moderator: Amber J. Lawson, Comedy Publisher, Babelgum
Jared Neumark, Landline TV
Todd Beiber, UCB Comedy
Matt Kirsh, The Onion
Michael Showalter, "The Michael Showalter Showalter & The Making of..."
Laurie Viera Rigler, Author, Sex and the Austen Girl web series, Confessions of a Austen Addict Penguin Book Series
Presented by Babelgum
Click here for photos from this panel at the fall summit.
Moderator: Amber J. Lawson, Comedy Publisher, Babelgum
As Comedy Publisher, Amber J. Lawson oversees Babelgum’s international comedy business to develop, produce, package, program, market and distribute original series across Babelgum’s IPTV, fixed and mobile platforms. Lawson quickly had successes with The Onion Exclusives and Babelgum/Landline Originals series Kids Reenact & In 60 seconds which are consistently featured on Huffington Post, Mtv and Digg. This year, Lawson aggressively expanded the Comedy division, launching more than twenty new series and rolling them into Film and TV properties. In April 2010 she partnered with Streamy Award-winning Kevin Pollak for his directorial debut of VAMPED OUT to critical acclaim. Her work resulted in a 2009 Mobile Excellence, four 2010 Streamy’s nominations and a CTIA Award.
Before joining Babelgum, Lawson reigned as VP of Programming for maniaTV and EVP of Branded Entertainment. She used her integration expertise to work with numerous brands including ATT mobility, Wrigley’s, Doritos and Samsung.
Established as a true transmedia expert, Lawson’s speaking credits include Digital Hollywood, NATPE, NAB and SXSW. She discusses everything from monetizing original digital content to the mobile entertainment marketplace.
Lawson is a member of the Interactive Peer Group at the Academy of Television Arts & Science, IAWTV, WOW and Producers Guild of America. She is also the chairman of the IAWTV Awards committee.
Jared Neumark, Landline TV
Jared Neumark is the CEO and co-founder of Landline TV. In very little time Landline has established themselves as a top source for viral comedy on the web, making the most of their independent status by partnering with a wide array of online vendors (Babelgum, College Humor, MSN, Berman Braun, Revison3, Next New Networks, Atom, as well as maintaining a popular Youtube page). Wired.com called Landline "the future of parody" and MSNBC “Saturday Night Live for the Twitter age.”
Todd Beiber, UCB Comedy
Todd writes and directs videos - mostly comedy and documentary, or some combination of the two. He is currently Director of Content and Production for UCB Comedy. Previous to this he worked at the Onion News Networks as Footage Coordinator, occasional Director of Photography, and a freelance Contributing Writer during their Peabody Award Winning year. His various viral videos have been watched over 13 million times and have been featured on New York Times' website, Entertainment Weekly's website, Huffington Post, and his Mom's Facebook Wall.
Matt Kirsh, The Onion
Matt Kirsch is a Brooklyn-based writer and web producer, who has been working on all things digital with The Onion for the past 3 years. He is one the inaugural members of the Writers Guild East under their new digital media initiative, and is the creator/writer of the Webby-honored web series, duder. (duder.com)
Michael Showalter, "The Michael Showalter Showalter & The Making of..."
Michael Showalter was a founding member of the sketch comedy troupe, The State which ran for three seasons on MTV. He is a member of the comedy trio Stella, and starred in their eponymous COMEDY CENTRAL series, along with Michael Ian Black and David Wain. His other credits include: Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, Michael and Michael Have Issues, and The Michael Showalter Showalter. In 2010, Michael Showalter produced his web series “The Making of...” with Babelgum, which gave a behind the scenes look at today’s popular commercials. He has also been working on a memoir which is due to be released in early 2011.
Laurie Viera Rigler, Author, Sex and the Austen Girl web series, Confessions of a Austen Addict Penguin Book Series
Laurie Viera Rigler is the best-selling author of the novels CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT and RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT, both published in North America by Dutton / Plume and in the UK by Bloomsbury (RUDE AWAKENINGS to be released Feb. 2011). CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT has also been published in the Netherlands (Archipel) and Italy (Sperling & Kupfer).
Both CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT and RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT were nominated for a Jane Austen Award/Regency World Award, which are sponsored by the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England, and the CONFESSIONS audiobook won a Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award.
In addition to writing her Austen Addict novels, Laurie Viera Rigler is the creator of SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL, the Babelgum original comedy web series inspired by her books. Laurie has also contributed a short story to the upcoming Random House anthology of Austen-inspired fiction entitled JANE AUSTEN MADE ME DO IT.
Prior to confessing a severe case of Austen Addiction, Laurie teamed with Richard Roeper of Ebert & Roeper fame to write a humorous, gender-specific guide to movie rentals entitled HE RENTS, SHE RENTS: THE ULTIMATE FILM GUIDE TO THE BEST WOMEN’S FILMS AND GUY MOVIES for St.Martin’s Press. She also coauthored POPPING THE QUESTION: REAL-LIFE STORIES OF MARRIAGE PROPOSALS, FROM THE ROMANTIC TO THE BIZARRE for Walker & Company.
Having spent several years writing her first novel and reading all those proclamations about how aspiring novelists were more likely to win the lottery than ever get published, Laurie is passionate about encouraging other writers. Prior to coming into her own as a novelist, she spent an exciting decade as a freelance book editor working with authors of fiction and nonfiction. She periodically teaches classes in storytelling technique at Vroman’s, Southern California's oldest and largest independent bookstore.
In addition to teaching writing workshops, Laurie blogs for her own site, Jane Austen Addict (http://janeaustenaddict.com), and is a frequent guest blogger on various book and culture sites, including PBS.org's Remotely Connected. She has also taken up tweeting Jane Austen’s NORTHANGER ABBEY in 140 characters or less, having recently completed a Twitter version of PERSUASION.
In an earlier lifetime, Laurie worked in film and television in a variety of capacities, from production coordinating features to producing short films. Two of the short films she produced were commissioned by Showtime and featured comedians Robert Schimmel and Mike McDonald. A third short, Blind Curve, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival's Semaine de la Critique.
A longtime resident of the very same Echo Park / Silverlake neighborhood in Los Angeles in which RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT is set, Laurie now lives nearby in Pasadena, California, with her filmmaker husband and their cat.
“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” Oh, yeah. Education. Laurie graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a B.A. in Classics. That good enough for you, Mr. Darcy?
Photos from the fall panel
