
Leaders in Emerging Entertainment
Honorees for the 2014
Digital V.I.P. Awards are:
VISIONARIES:
Ø Patricia Wilson, Executive
Director of Make-A-Wish Foundation, Edwin Lee, Mayer of San Francisco, and the Citizens of San Francisco for “Batkid”
Breaking the bounds of alternative reality entertainment
while creating social good, Make-A-Wish Foundation helped "Batkid"
turn all of San Francisco into an elaborate flash mob, livestreamed special
venue. After conquering a series of staged crime battles, “Batkid” earned the
key to the city and won the hearts of thousands of volunteers and millions of
social media followers.
Ø Netflix Originals: Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of
Netflix
When historians pinpoint exactly when serialized
online content went mainstream, they will identify the Feb 1st 2013 debut of
“House of Cards,” Netflix $100 million political drama from David Fincher as
the moment.
INNOVATORS:
Ø Wattpad; Alan Lau,
CEO and Ivan Yuen, CTO
A mobile social storytelling platform with over 26 million
13-30 year olds sharing and collaborating on stories. Users spent over 40
billion minutes on the site in 2013. It continues to grow at over 70,000 new
registrants a day. Millions of YouTube trailers have been created for stories
on Wattpad.
Ø Snapchat: Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy, Co-Founders
The disappearing photo messaging app gained a slew of new
tools this year while users found a number of secret features. Snapchat
incorporated "Stories" into the app, which essentially created
timelines of collected snaps from a 24 hour period.
Ø Vine; Co-Founders Dom
Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll
Twitter's video app, Vine, was one of the big breakout hits
of the year. The app lets you share six-second videos that continuously loop.
PRODUCERS:
Ø Brian Robbins, CEO of
AwesomenessTV Network
The AwesomenessTV Network is a network for young adults who
are building their channels on YouTube and want to learn to make better video.
They have enabled over 150,000 channels.
Ø Alfonso Cuaron and Framestore for GRAVITY
With a modest budget these honorees pushed visual effects to
a new dimension. All told eighty percent of the film is substantially a
visual-effects creation and the other 20 percent contains a significant amount
of effects work.
Ø Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell, Creators of Veronica Mars
Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell orchestrated having the fans
bring back the TV show by paying for it in advance of production.
Ø Sam Houser, Co-Founder and President of Rockstar Games for Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto grossed more than one billion in three
days, signaling the expanded influence of both video games and proven
franchises in the new entertainment ecosystem.
“In the past year we have seen exceptional
invention and ingenuity in the world of digital media,” said Mark Gordon and
Hawk Koch, Presidents of the Producers Guild of America. “In an intensely
competitive environment, these individuals and companies have managed to stand
ahead of the pack by creating supreme standards for innovation, creativity, and
technology. We look forward to celebrating their contributions to the digital
industry at this year’s Digital V.I.P. Awards.”
Last year’s inaugural Digital V.I.P Awards were
held at the home of entrepreneur Elon Musk. The 2013 honorees
included, Visionaries: John Raatz (Founder, Board Chairman,
CEO of The Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment), Eckhart
Tolle (Honorary Founder of GATE) and Jim Carrey (Honorary
Founder of GATE) and Bruce Sterling multi award-winning science fiction author for
his influence upon technology as it relates to storytelling and in co-founding
the cyberpunk movement; Innovators: Kevin Systrom and Mike
Krieger (Co-Founders of Instagram), Bill Westenhofer (LIFE
OF PI), and Ed Ulbrich (CEO of
Digital Domain), Philip Atwell
(Geronimo Productions), Dylan Brown
(The Yard Entertainment), Snoop Dogg
and Dr. Dre for Virtual 2Pac; and
Producers: Disney Imagineering team
(Disney’s Cars Land), Louis C.K. (“Louie”), and Ben
Donovan (President & Co-Founder), Danny Zappin (CEO
& Co-Founder) and Lisa Donovan (GM & Co-Founder) of
Maker Studios, and Conan O’Brien (Team Coco).
The PGA’s Digital V.I.P. Committee determined
the honorees, in conjunction with PGA Presidents Mark Gordon and Hawk Koch, as
well as a distinguished group of industry Advisory Board members including:
Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis, Sharon Calahan, Illeana Douglas, Dick Glover,
Quincy Jones, Jr., John Rubey and Chris Williams.
Digital V.I.P. Committee members include:
Michael Bellavia, Shawn Gold, Marc Scarpa, Bruce Cohen, Drew Baldwin, Will Keenan,
Christina Lee Storm, Laura Allen, Dina Benadon, Valerie Johnson, Margaret
Schrader and Megan Mascena Gaspar.
Membership in the PGA was not a requirement for
eligibility.
For
more information, please visit www.digital-vip.com or email digitalVIP@producersguild.org.
To
become a sponsor, please contact Diane Salerno at 310.440.7804 or diane@sixdgreesglobal.com