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“We’re experiencing a revolutionary boom in digital screen production, and the development in production quality has been remarkable since our inaugural year. Web series creators are fast establishing themselves as entrepreneurs and innovators who are challenging the norms, breaking the rules, and rewriting them.â€
Steinar Ellingsen, Festival Director Melbourne WebFest
Festival Wrap-up:
The dust has settled after a magnificent weekend of screenings, industry development, networking and fun.
More than 600 people attended the festival over three days — more than triple the attendance of the inaugural festival in 2013.
This consolidates the not-so-secret fact that web series is not only an emerging industry, but one that is fast growing.
Our opening night keynote address was given by producer, innovator and Melbourne WebFest alumni, Enzo Tedeschi.
Beatrix Coles moderated a panel on audiences and future-proofing content, which featured Justin Halliday (Screen Australia), Penny Wright (ABC iview), Dan Koerner (Sandpit) and Mark Bonanno (Aunty Donna).
Also on opening night we premiered "Melbourne WebFest Presents" our thirty minute showcase of the series screening at MWF which included commentary from creators around the world.
Saturday was all about industry at Kindred Studios. Sandpit’s Sam Haren and Dan Koerner gave a workshop on immersive storytelling, while Beatrix Coleslooked at audience engagement, outreach and social media. Over lunch, artist and entrepreneur Steve Palfreyman spoke about creating perfect pitches and growing networks.
We then headed to Loop where a packed house watched our Second Look screenings and listened to a brief but lively Q&A with creators.
Back at Fed Square "Melbourne WebFest Presents" screened again, this time in the main square on FedTV. Interns and creators alike were thrilled to see themselves on the big screen in the main square.
Sunday was all about recognising and acknowledging great web series. Over three sessions we screened 32 series from 13 countries and were lucky enough to have almost all of the Australian creators in attendance.
Please see below for a full wrap up of our Awards Ceremony.
To those that attended, thank you for being part of Melbourne WebFest 2014 we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and we look forward to seeing you again next year.
Melbourne WebFest 2014 award winners announced:
A total of 14 awards were presented at Deakin Edge, Federation Square, for the second annual Melbourne WebFest this weekend, in a high-powered ceremony hosted by local comedy trio, Aunty Donna.
The festival showcased 52 web series from 13 different countries. Of these, 32 were nominated for awards.
It was a big night for Australian talent, taking home eight of the 14 awards. Notably, the Grand Jury Award was presented to Luke Eve, who also won the award for Best Comedy, with his six-part series Low Life — a black comedy about depression. As the recipient of the Grand Jury Award, Mr Eve will receive allexpenses paid trips to LA WebFest (March 2015) and Marseille WebFest (October 2015), with automatic entry into both festivals, in addition to automatic entry into Rome WebFest (September 2014). This prize is made possible through a newly formed global partnership between the four festivals.
“Winning best comedy and the Grand Jury Award was amazing. Low Life is a very personal project so knowing that it has an audience and it has touched a nerve with people is incredibly satisfying,†said Luke Eve.
“Melbourne WebFest provides a fantastic platform to have your web series shown in a different environment and to a new audience. The festival also has excellent workshops and networking opportunities. I left feeling inspired and excited about the future of storytelling!â€
A notable addition to this year’s Melbourne WebFest was the establishment of an award to specifically acknowledge Australian content — the “ABC iview awardâ€. The winner is presented with a licensing agreement to the ABC’s digital on-demand platform, which registers more than 20 million views per month. ABC iview’s content manager, Penny Wright, presented the award to Bleak: The Web Series, a comedy about rebuilding your life in a home that’s falling apart.
“We are thrilled to present the inaugural ABC iview award at this year's Melbourne WebFest,†Ms Wright said.
“Bleak is extremely funny and a well-deserved winner, one of a strong field of Australian talent from this year's finalists. It's good to know so much great online content is being made here in Australia.â€
The series is created and written by Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney, who also won the award for Best Screenwriting. Ms McLennan further added the award for Best Actor to her list of accolades from the festival.
“Melbourne Web Fest was a total schmooze and we loved that our series,Bleak, was part of it,†Ms McLennan said.
“In particular we loved the informative workshops, the free wine on opening night and winning three awards. We practically needed a stretch limo just to carry them home. What a great festival.â€
We have been blown away with both the volume and quality of this year’s submissions.
These awards recognise outstanding creativity and talent, but we also want to acknowledge the incredible work of all series screened during Melbourne WebFest.
Melbourne WebFest 2014 award winners:
Grand Jury Award – Low Life (AUS/US) created by Luke Eve
iview Award – Bleak (AUS) created by Kate McLennan & Kate McCartney
Best Comedy – Low Life (AUS/US) created by Luke Eve
Best Drama – LIBRES (Spain) created by Alex Rodrigo
Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy – Polaris (CAN) created by Emma Peterson
Best Suspense/Thriller – Manigances (CAN) created by Ghislain O'Prêtre
Best Non-Fiction – Stories of Bike (AUS) created by Cam Elkins
The Streamy Awardshonor the best in online video and the creators behind it. The annual event brings together the biggest names in YouTube and online video for a night of celebration, discovery, and meaningful recognition.
Streamy Award submissions will close Sunday, July 27, 2014 at 11:59 pm PT.
Melbourne WebFest couldn't operate without the support and skills of our amazing interns. As such we asked our Marketing and PR inteterns to share their thoughts about MWF2014.
"Friday the 18th was Opening Night, which I felt really set the scene for MWF 2014. The night began with networking drinks and a welcome from Festival Director Steinar Ellingson.
A key note speech from successful entrepreneur and producer, Enzo Tedeschi followed, we even got a preview of the trailer for his new series AIRLOCK. Penny Wright, Mark Bonanno, Justin Halliday,Daniel Koerner made up what was an inspiring panel on what the audience might look like in 2064, moderated by the witty Beatrix Coles.
The night finished with ‘Melbourne WebFest Presents’, a webisode about the webseries phenomenon put together entirely by festival interns and of course more drinks." Georgia Kavanagh-Dando
"The ScreenHerd workshop that was run by Beatrix Coles was intriguing and very engaging. She was able to connect the idea of marketing with social media and help those who attended the workshop understand just how powerful social media.
Beatrix explained that by using not just one network such as Facebook, but using others such as Instagram, Twitter and even myspace can create a much wider and variety of interest.
She talked about how to promote on social media and when it is done correctly just how effective it can be.
Through the entire workshop she had the attendees talk about their own films or projects and what they have used in the past to promote them.
She had them discussing different ways to use social media and the benefits of it. The most interesting thing was just through this workshop, how the attendees started to network with each other.
Participants were so captivated and inspired by Beatrix Coles’ ideas that they could not help but start exchanging ideas with one another not only throughout the workshop but also afterwards.
The workshop opened up a brand new way of thought in regards to marketing and the best way to accomplish it via social media." Adrianna Rastocic
"There was a palpable sense of buzz and excitement as spectators milled in and out of Deakin Edge on Sunday for the Official Selection screenings.
While some people were WebFest enthusiasts who we’d met before at previous events in the program, others were completely new to the industry scene.
It was really awesome to see their interest grow as they viewed all of the amazing content on show and learnt more about the origins and future aspirations of the festival.
Many told me they’d be back next year.
That’s really what the festival was about in the end: generating awareness and a respect for the web series genre and recognizing the talent of creators and producers from all over the world.
The panel discussions and social aspect of the festival really worked to facilitate this ongoing conversation. Many special friendships were formed and a lot of the positive feedback we received was related to the festival’s emphasis on industry networking, not to mention a lot of us falling in love with the content in the Official Selection; there’s a good few series I’ve followed since!" Lauren Dinse
"The awards night of Melbourne Webfest was an amazing experience! The host of the night Aunty Donna livened up the audience and brought about a particular aspect of arising australian comedy which has been translating from the web (youtube) onto the stage for shows such as the Melbourne Comedy festival.
Steiner and Simone were a pleasure to work with and guided us all in last minute preparations to glide on through the night at ease.
I was privileged to be asked to hand the awards to the presenters, it was a last minute thing and i was secretly over the moon to be able to help out as much as i possibly could. It was great to see the girls behind the web series 'Bleak' come out on top scoring 4 awards.
Overall it was fantastic that Australian girls are getting recognised for their hard effort in an industry where female comedians are still not on par with the much so sought after male comedians.
It was great to see also the hit song from Aunty Donna performed live 'Bang' from their pilot episodes for ABC Freshblood which can be found on ivies. The team behind Melbourne Webfest all worked beautifully together like a perfected risotto, i only wish that maybe we could all work together and create a web series for next year and keep on working together. Here's to a 3rd year of Melbourne webfest next year and the many more to come". Bryanna Reynolds
"The Awards Night was an exciting night not only for many of the web series creators but the MWF team as everything we had done thus far led up to that night.
As part of the digital communication team that night, our job was making sure we were keeping our absentee audiences, local and abroad, updated with the winners on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
It was a particularly exhilarating feeling, knowing that those involved with nominated web series would be following our live updates to the second. Comedy trio Aunty Donna brought the laughs as the hosts and entertained the audience from beginning to end. Their high energy performance kept us on our toes and struggling to keep up with them!" Wendy Trieu
You can check out the amazing social media coverage by our festival interns via #MelbWebFest
From all of us,
thanks for being part of Melbourne WebFest 2014.
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for Best Actor to her list of accolades from 
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