I’ve been writing about webseries for over three years. Our first webseries aired in August 2008. We’ve been around.

When the IAWTV first launched I was excited about the prospect, not because I particularly wanted to join, but because I could see the need for a unified voice for this growing industry. The first Streamy Awards were stunning on many levels and it felt like webseries were coming into their own as a legitimate, growing force in the world of entertainment.

Still, I didn’t feel like the IAWTV had anything to offer a small, independent creator like me. I was quite happy to carry on supporting the space, blogging about things that interested me and making my videos. When the second Streamy Awards happened I was knocked out of my complacency. I wrote about my reaction to the show and then a list of things I wanted to see from the IAWTV and the Streamy Awards. I reached out to Jenni Powell and Kim Evey and helped with the first Celebrate The Web event.

In January 2011 I joined the IAWTV because I felt progress was being made. Elizabeth Flack in particular was key in answering my questions and I really appreciate the work that she did for the IAWTV. It was an honour to be nominated to stand for the Board of Directors, and through my candidate statement and video I reiterated my desire to see the IAWTV truly international with support and outreach for all creators.

It has taken a tremendous amount of work from people in the IAWTV and beyond to make the first IAWTV Awards a reality. It was a brave decision to hold it at CES and I do understand that bringing it to such a huge international stage should provide a great platform to showcase all that is good and great in our space.

But I must admit, I was a little disappointed when the announcement was made. Again, there seemed to be no place for the small, independent creator – particularly one that is outside the U.S. How did it benefit me and my work, and what were the chances of even getting a nomination when there wasn’t even an award for innovation?

Soul-searching. I’ve been doing it.

Why should I submit ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ to the IAWTV Awards?

The reasons are actually simple:

• ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ is a serious work of art, conceived and executed as an experimental series using a new filming technique called ‘BodyLine’. We developed a whole new way of filming, and that makes me incredibly proud.
• At screenings at CSTS in Vancouver, VCON and Geek Girl Con we heard from people who really enjoyed our show and were intrigued with BodyLine.
• We worked professionally, finished the project and learned many valuable lessons. It was a team effort and the whole team deserves to be recognized for their contributions, as shown on the many posts and discussions we have had about the people who have helped us. Submitting is a way to honour their work.
• As a member of the IAWTV who claims to be active and wants to further the aims of the organization, I feel that NOT submitting my series would be a slight.
• During our recent forays at VCON and Geek Girl Con we have met many creators and fans, and interviewed a great many people for our upcoming documentary about webseries. Many people had never watched a webseries. Many didn’t know what one was. Of the people who did watch them, most found them through friend recommendations. We need to get a wider circle of people involved in webseries, and CES could well be the way to do that.

Do I think we will be nominated?
That is simple: no. I think there is zero chance of that happening, but that should not stop me from entering. On a financial level it is absolutely foolish to enter, but if a guarantee of success was the only reason to do anything we would never have moved to Canada and enjoyed all the wonderful things that have flowed from that.

If you have read this far then I hope you will take the time to do two things:

1. Leave a comment telling me if you agree/disagree/got bored about the whole thing
2. Watch an episode of ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’. To make it simple, here’s one:

Thanks for listening.

As the screening started at the ‘Women in Webseries’ panel. Photo by Em Higgins.

Yesterday in Seattle, the inaugural Geek Girl Con opened for business under the watchful eye of the Space Needle, and a new era in Girl Geekdom dawned.

After VCON last weekend, being on Indie Intertube LIVE in their studio in Victoria on Wednesday, and Geek Girl Con this weekend we have so much to post about, but for now here’s a little taste of the GGC ‘Women in Webseries’ panel.

From left to right the panel was:

Vanessa Driveness: Standard Action

Trin Miller: The Dirty Do-Gooders

Glynis Mitchell: Causality

Mary Higgins: Mind My Brains, Darling! and Border Guardians of Ackernon

Jane Espenson: Husbands

April ‘Destini’ Grant: Indie Intertube

Amanda ‘Shadavar’ Shockley: Indie Intertube

Josephine Hoy: Glitch

Joanna Gaskell: Standard Action

After I introduced the panel we showed promos from each of the shows, and you can see them here:

Paul Best (Director/writer of Border Guardians of Ackernon) filmed the panel for the Webseries Documentary we are making, ably assisted by Paul Higgins as floor manager. Thank you to the technical help from Laura Olsen and the EMP technician (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten). Paul B will be posting the whole panel to the Ackernon YouTube channel once he returns home later this week, and I’ll post more about GGC then.

It was a fantastic experience and a real pleasure to hear such creative women share their passion, humour and advice about working in this exciting new arena. And now I need some sleep…..

Outside the Panel room in the EMP. Picture by Paul Higgins

Behind the Scenes of Mind My Brains, Darling! - Robot Arms lovingly modelled by Josephine Hoy

Thank you for all the RTing, sharing and wonderful comments about Episode 5! It’s great to be back on schedule and it’s nice to know that people are still sticking with us. Apart from the person (who will remain anonymous) who complained on YouTube about seeing Sgt Fido’s head

What is more experimental than BodyLine?
When we first thought about doing a whole series using BodyLine, we were keen to see just how far we could go. No heads? Check!* Characters that say no intelligible words? Double check! Sight gags involving headgear? Check, check, check! But what if we could go further? What if we could do more – or less…?

Episode 6 out next week
We have been saving this one until last because it is, in the words of Dr Feyrer, “…very potent, very experimental, and very dangerous.” And yes, Dr Feyrer makes another guest appearance (more Josephine Hoy – always a good thing!). The original concept was simple, but the execution was not. And while the robot in episode 3 took the longest to make, and the choreography of episode 5 took the most rehearsing and planning, the post-production on ep 6 took probably the longest to do. We think you’ll agree it was worth it.

Hard to wait until next Tuesday?
We are here to help. We’re your friends and have been thinking about how to get you through the next few days and have come up with a foolproof plan. The best way to pass the time is to do the following:

1) Rewatch Season 1 so far on Blip.tv and on then YouTube, leaving comments, likes and favourites for each episode.
2) Send each episode to a different friend, or perhaps multiple friends. They will thank you for it (and so will we!).
3) Tell us which is your favourite episode, and why, on our Facebook page or sent to @HigletFilms on Twitter.
4) Send us your own BodyLined response video – on YouTube or anywhere else – and we’ll share it with everyone.
5) Then sit down and have a nice cup of tea.

Repeat every day and the time will fly by!

* This doesn’t include animals, OBVIOUSLY! In case a certain person is reading. Although we didn’t have any complaints about the gerbil or goldfish, so maybe the person in question has something against dogs…?

Guest Star Josephine Hoy

Episode 4 of ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ is out a Midnight July 12th EST (which is 9:00 PM PST Monday 11th) on Blip.tv and features Guest Star Josephine Hoy  as Dr Feyrer. To celebrate this we are going to something a bit different. I recently joined Google + and I’ve been itching to try one of the features – Hang Outs.

Google + logo

Your Invitation Awaits…

UPDATE: Megan Lynch will be hanging out with us, too! ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ is using her wonderful album ‘Songs The Brothers Warner Taught Me‘ as the soundtrack to Season 1.

This will be a fun trial where we will be Hanging Out on the set and hopefully talking to people via webcams and chat. Josephine can’t make it up to Canada, but she will be online on her webcam too, so you can ask her questions about her acting work, being on the set and her new upcoming series.

If you aren’t on Google + yet then just let me know and I’ll send you an invite. And if you want to Hang Out on Wednesday then tell me in the comments and I’ll make sure you get an invite to the Hang Out.

More ways to play….

We’re already working on an End of Season online party which could be on Google + or Ustream or Stickam or somewhere else. If you have any suggestions please let me know because we want to make sure as many people as possible can join in.

Season 1 so far….

In case you missed any episodes so far, here they are:

Guest star this week: Alan Douglas as Father Aloysius Rambo!

This week’s episode is chockful of innuendo and was quite a challenge to film. However, it was an opportunity to work with one of our friends, Alan Douglas. Alan is no stranger to webseries and is creator of The Masked Roger. This week he swaps dreams of world domination for the simple and holy life of a humble priest.

Father Aloysius tends his parish from St Tapioca’s Parish Church, keen to spread the good word. His passion for cucumber sandwiches is his undoing, unfortunately…

‘Someone’s Rocking My Dreamboat’ by Megan Lynch from ‘Songs The Brothers Warner Taught Me’ on http://meganlynch.bandcamp.com/

We were thrilled to be included in the program of events for the 2011 Vancouver Can’t Stop The Serenity on Saturday. This annual event raises money for Equality Now and local charity, BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre Foundation.

We arrived in Vancouver early to beat the traffic (if not the rain) and we were soon ensconced in the very special space under the H R Macmillan Space Centre. I do love that building!

The Vancouver Can’t Stop The Serenity fundraiser is a whole day of fun with a Dr Horrible Sing-Along, Evil Laugh Contest, Costume competition, Firefly Bingo, Silent Auction, special message from Joss Whedon himself….. and a screening of Serenity! Nestled in there was also screenings from two locally based webseries. ‘Standard Action‘, a ‘fantasy webseries for geeks of all ages’ that is full of fun, action and incredible creatures.

Late for my own screening…
While I was off helping to judge the Costume Contest time marched on, and I was suddenly alerted to the fact that the ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ screening was on, so I rushed off in time to see Paul introducing the show. I elegantly ran up to the podium (!) and said a few random words about our filming technique, BodyLine, and then the screening started.

We screened Episode 1, which came out last week, and also premiered Episode 2, ‘How’s Your Father’, guest starring Alan Douglas (Alan hadn’t even seen the finished episode!). When Episode 1 started it was very quiet in the auditorium, but the first laughs came quickly, which was awesome (and a relief!). The animated titles by Efehan went down very well and as people started to warm to BodyLine,

Episode 2 went down very well, with some real belly laughs at the right moments, and it was thrilling to hear the applause at the end! From the comments and congratulations afterwards it was great to hear the parts people liked the most.

Thank you to Gayle and all the people who worked so hard to ensure the even ran smoothly. It took a tremendous amount of effort to get everything ready and it was a great day out. I loved the message from Joss about the coming year, and it was really great to hear the special email from Jewel Staite, too. Talking to Joanna Gaskell and Vanessa Driveness from Standard Action was particularly interesting, too, and I can’t wait for us to meet up again. We will be on the ‘Women in Webseries’ panel at Geek Girl Con, and hopefully will be catching up with each other before then. I don’t often get to talk to other webseries creators in the flesh, but I’m resolving to do it more often. Joanna has also blogged about her day in the Whedonverse.

If you were there, thank you for your kind words and hope you like the red ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ business cards we handed out. I had a good day

Don’t forget that you can see Episode 2 very soon! It will be released at midnight EST today – which is 9:00 PM PST.

Does your Midsummer’s Night Dream involve zombies? In 1979? In England?

If so, you are in for a treat! After months of work we are very proud to present Episode 1 of ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’, our new Rom-Zom-Britcom:

With just over two weeks to go until Season 1, Episode 1 will be released on June 21st, things are hotting up! We have just released a new trailer for you:

We also unveiled our new HigletFilms YouTube channel:

We don’t have many subscribers over on YouTube at the moment, so why don’t you come on over to our channel, tell us if you like the trailer, and add us!

And there’s more….

Over the next few days we will be announcing some new prizes and lots more, so stay tuned

Introducing Josephine Hoy and Alan Douglas as Dr Feyrer and Fr Aloysius Rambo

Season 1, Episode 1 of ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ will be released on JUNE 21st 2011!

Holy waiting forever, Batman! Yes, it’s been a long hard haul but we are on the final stretch now. After months of preparation, set building, prop making, rewriting and filming we are getting SO CLOSE to releasing (or unleashing!) our brand new webseries.

As revealed on Indie Intertube this week…

We are huge fans of Indie Intertube, the live weekly podcast devoted to all that’s hot and streaming in world of webseries.  I’m usually in the chat room soaking up the vibe as the hosts Destini and Shadhavar give the lowdown on all the news and shows but this week, in a flush of excitement, I rang in to talk with those lovely ladies. They we funny, charming and so disarming that I announced live on air that ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ would premiere on June 21st. You can listen to the whole show on their BlogTalk Radio channel or here:

We’d also like to extend our congratulations to Indie Intertube and Mingle Media TV on the announcement that they will be hosting a new LIVE VIDEO show! The first show is June 19th and you will definitely want to tune into that – we certainly will!

Guest stars are also go!

We have been very fortunate to work with some amazingly talented people, including our special guest stars. You can see interviews with Josephine Hoy and Alan Douglas over on MindMyBrains.com, and we will be adding character information very soon. I don’t want to say any more about how or why they appear in the series, but you are going to love it!

Friday 13th – lucky for some!

The last few weeks have been a blur of  prepping, filming, prop-making and fun. After all that work we have come to the final weekend of shooting! We have a packed schedule but are on track to finish it all by the end of Sunday, which will be a huge achievement. We will try to tweet from the set during the weekend so you know how we are getting on – and if you want to send us some encouragement make sure to tag your tweets #mindmybrains.

Guests stars and more…

We have been working with some amazing people who have generously donated their time and skills. We are profiling them in a series of interviews over on mindmybrains.com, and our guest star interviews with Josephine Hoy and Alan Douglas are already up. They are both coming up for filming this weekend and we can’t wait for that! In the coming weeks we will be adding interviews with:

Efehan Elbi – Amazing animator who has created a stunning sequence for us

Megan Lynch – Hugely talented singer/songwriter/performer who is allowing us to use her album, ‘Songs the Brothers Warner Taught Me‘

Miles Moss – Word maestro and comic genius who has been script advisor and

Jeremy Hodges – Graphic designer extraordinaire who stepped in a created amazing graphics for out Blip.tv profile (soon to be revealed)

Louis Srygley – Executive producer and invaluable sounding post for the whole enterprise.

New ventures

Today we are also celebrating the launch of a new initiative. Mary has opened a consultancy and one of her first clients is the new fantasy webseries, ‘Border Guardians of Ackernon‘. ‘..Ackernon’ is in production now and over the next few weeks Mary will guiding the online publicity and social media campaign. You can follow @MaryHConsult and @Ackernon on Twitter, and there is a Q&A with the cast live on Ustream this Sunday 15h May, so tune in and find out more then.