HigletFilms was created in 2010 by Mary Higgins (WorldofHiglet) and hubby, Paul, as a showcase for their experimental web video/new media/webseries/web tv work.
Their new webseries, 'Mind My Brains, Darling!' is now showing on Blip.tv.
After posting about the IAWTV promotional videos last week we were thrilled when we received videos and pictures from people to include – thank you all! Here’s our video:
And a big THANK YOU to everyone who appears in it (in no particular order):
Chris Feyrer
Josephine Hoy
Megan Lynch
Aaron Trahan
Louis Srygley
Stephanie Thorpe
Paul Best
Laura Olsen
Felicia Day
Sean Becker
Greg Benson
Michael Dougherty
Cricket Lee
Efehan Elbi
Amanda Shockley
April Grant
Kim Evey
Jenni Powell
Taryn O’Neill
Don’t forget to watch the IAWTV Awards on January 12, 2012 LIVE at 9pm ET/6pm PT at http://youtube.com/iawtvorg
Chris Greenaway and Jenni Powell talk to Travis Gordon on This Week in Webseries.
Travis Gordon talks to Chris Greenaway and guest Jenni Powell about the upcoming IAWTV Awards, the state of the webseries community and what the future holds. There’s lot of information about the partnership with YouTube, where the IAWTV Awards might be held in the future and Jenni answers questions from Chris about the nomination process, how ‘International’ the IAWTV is, geoblocking and other important topics. Definitely worth watching if you are interested in the background to the IAWTV, the Awards and the future of web TV/webseries.
And, we’d like to thank Chris for a his shout out to us and ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ (21:30 on the video). Chris has been working as a creator for years and his ‘Venus Spa’ channel on YouTube has nearly 1.75 million views, so when he says that he thinks our show is truly original, it really means something.
One of the promos we screened as part of the ‘Women in Webseries‘ panel at Geek Girl Con was for a geeky new comedy webseries called ‘Glitch’. The premise is simple “..A game tester in a funk makes a wish that causes old school video game glitches to infect his real life….” and the execution is hilarious. It was very well received at GGC and everyone I’ve shown it to has wanted to see more.
The producer, Josephine Hoy, is a great friend of ours and also guest starred in ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ as Dr Feyrer. They start shooting soon and are running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund Season 1. They have already picked up some great reviews and the buzz is really starting to pick up:
This is one webseries to look out for in 2012 so if you have a couple of pence/cents left over after the holidays why not help back this production? If you don’t, Dr Feyrer will know and she’ll get angry. And you don’t want to see her when she’s angry #morescarythanFelicia
Dr Feyrer headless - don't make her angry #morescarythanFelicia
Yesterday the nominees for the first IAWTV Awards were announced live on What’s Trending. After a few technical hiccups the show powered through the nominees and withinin 15 minutes Shira Laza and Ethan Newberry had announced five nominees for each of the 32 categories.
The full list of nominees is on the IAWTV Awards website. After the nominations were announced there was a bonus extra video mashup of the nominees:
It was good to see that there was quite a wide range of shows and individuals nominated, and we were really excited to see that Amanda and April from Indie Intertube received TWO nominations. We have huge respect for them both and one of the highlights of our Fall Escapades was appearing live on their show and then being on the ‘Women in Webseries’ panel with them at Geek Girl Con. The IAWTV Awards are being held in Las Vegas in January during CES, and during the Indie Intertube show last night April announced that they will be moderating a panel and also presenting one of the Awards.
Congratulations to ALL the nominees. Being nominated in the first IAWTV Awards is a huge achievement, and honour. This is the first of what will hopefully be a long history of IAWTV Awards shows, and you will always be part of the very first show. There are many shows and people I recognise and some I don’t, and I look forward to watching all of the nominees when we vote on the next round.
And I would also like to congratulate all those who submitted their shows to the awards. The odds of being nominated were quite small in some cases, and not getting a nomination shouldn’t be seen as a failure. I know for a fact some fantastic shows were not nominated, so you are in very good company (and I’m not just talking about ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!‘). I think Kim Evey put it best (and let’s face it, Kim knows what she is talking about!):
We thought about it for a long time before submitting, but ultimately I’m glad we did. The voting procedure meant that every single submission (and there were hundreds) had the possibility to be nominated. In the first round every submission in every category was assessed by IAWTV members as to whether it was eligible for an award. In some categories there were 150+ submissions to go through. We watched so many new shows and found so many great shows we had never even heard of before. But we didn’t vote on every one because we simply didn’t have the time. That’s ok, though, because the system was set up so that every submission had the opportunity to be voted on as many times as everything else.
We didn’t notice much of an increase in views during the nomination process, but we were competing in some of the biggest categories. Next time, we’ll be submitting a drama, and hopefully that will remain a slightly smaller category!
And a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to say they were disappointed we didn’t get a nomination. You all rock our world in many, many ways
There will be a list of all the webseries that submitted to the IAWTV Awards out soon, and we will link to it when it’s out. There are some hugely talented creators out there producing amazing work, and they deserve a wider audience.
Tomorrow, live on What’s Trending, the Nominations for the Inaugural IAWTV Awards will be announced. The show will be hosted by Shira Lazar and Ethan Newberry and we will finally find out which webseries have made it through to the final round of voting.
Join In – Twitter with #IAWTVAwards!
Anyone who has any interest in webseries should be tuning in for the announcement tomorrow if they possibly can. The announcements start at 10:00 AM PST on Wednesday December 15th and will be streamed live on What’s Trending. If you don’t want to log in there to chat (you have to use Facebook to do so) then why not follow and live tweet the action on Twitter? Susyn Duris suggested we use the #tag #IAWTVAwards and see if we can get it trending during the announcement.
You can also watch it here (it will be live tomorrow at 10:00 AM PST):
Watchwhatstrendingatlivestream.com
Obviously we would love it if our show, ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ was nominated in one of the five categories we entered, but these Awards are about much more than individual shows. It’s about celebrating the huge amount of talent and work that abounds in webseries and bringing that message to a wider audience. I’ve seen some amazing new shows during the voting rounds so far, and I hope that once the nominations are out everyone will find some new favourites.
Good luck to everyone who entered and I can’t wait to see the result tomorrow! And I’ll be tuning in to the Indie Intertube show at 4:00 PM PST to listen to Amanda and Shad talk about the reaction to all the nominations. Should be another great show!
Last week we posted about our decision to submit ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ to the IAWTV Awards. That post generated a lot of discussion both on this blog and way beyond. After deciding to actually go for it, we then had to choose which categories to submit in and which episodes to use. We would have LOVED to include Megan Lynch’s album ‘Songs The Brothers Warner Taught Me‘ in the ‘Best Original Music’ category, but because the album was not written for the show we couldn’t do that.
Here’s what we ended up with:
Best Comedy Series:
Episodic British romantic zombie comedy period piece set in the 1970’s. Filmed in a brand new experimental style called BodyLine where no faces are shown. Funded by crowd sourcing. With it’s own soundtrack. Packed full of nods to geek culture and more.
Best Writing (Comedy): Paul Higgins, Mary Higgins
Ep 2: How’s Your Father. The whole series is a tribute to the heritage and style of traditional British farce. In this episode we have vicars, housewives, retired colonels, tea, cucumber sandwiches and slapstick comedy. All innocently delivered in 6 minutes.
Best Directing (Comedy): Paul Higgins, Mary Higgins
Season finale: Gone With The Wind. The final two thirds of the episode is essentially a silent movie. The action and characters’ interaction takes place with no dialogue at all. Nods to Star Wars, Dr Who, Buffy, Le Petomane.
Best Design (Art Direction/Production): Paul Higgins, Mary Higgins
Episode 4: Ai! Ai! Ai! Robot! Completely recreates the 1970’s era of British comedy and sci fi. Specially built set mimicking a 1970’s British bedroom, entire living and dining room and police station. Plus – a working robot!
Accompanying website expands the universe in which ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ is set. Contains biographies of characters plus interviews with cast, crew and creators. Competition winners are actually featured in every episode. Behind the scenes posts about all aspects of production and beyond including the successful fundraising on IndieGoGo for Season 1.
So -what do you think? Did we include your favourite episodes?
Don’t forget the submissions end at 11:59 PST tonight – and good luck to every one who enters!
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:
UPDATE: Hang Out rearranged for 6:00 PM PST Saturday 15th October with WorldofHiglet on Google
And now. The End is near. And so we face. The final….
…countdown! [cue The Scorpions...] After almost a year exactly, the set of ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ Season 1 is scheduled for demolition this Saturday, October 15th – and you can watch it live. We did a Google Hangout a while ago and had a great time chatting to people. This time we intend to make it a little more interactive as we take you – literally – behind the scenes of Season 1.
Wanna Hangout?
If so, leave us a comment and a time that’s best for you. We are pencilling in 7 PM PST on Saturday (because basically we have no lives and are never out at the weekend. Apart from the last two weekends when we were out. All the time.)
Why now? Can’t we all be friends??
Obviously, if you are asking that you have not seen the Season 1 Finale – so do that RIGHT NOW:
This is a good death. There is no shame in this.
We have LOVED having a set in our garage. Seriously, not much compares to escorting unsuspecting tradespeople into the depths of your house only to reveal – another house! Within a house! Awesome! The laughs we’ve had. But all good things must come to an end and the time is right to get ready for the Next Big Thing. And nothing will be lost. The set will be stored against the wall, ready for it’s new incarnation as…Well. That would be telling
Oh – Happy Times!
Post Script
I wasn’t going to say this, but I think I should. We were FLOORED to find out at VCON and elsewhere that people didn’t realise we had filmed on a set. So you think our house looks like that? REALLY?!? It made us happy that we did our job right (even while wondering what people think about our taste in colour schemes/furnishings…..).
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.
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
Firstly, some thanks
It has been a difficult few weeks since Paul’s dad died, and we would like to thank everyone who has been so supportive. It means a lot to us that so many people have taken the time to send messages and check in with us.
Episode 5 out next week!
We are now back into production of ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ and episode 5 will be out next Tuesday, 20th September. In the meantime you have a few days to catch up on Season 1 so far – and to make it easy you can watch them all here:
We have some special guests appearing at the panels and we’ll be revealing more about them very shortly – stay tuned!
More news – a new webseries documentary
We announced today that we will be filming a new documentary in conjunction with Wolf’s Head Productions (creators of ‘Border Guardians of Ackernon’ webseries). This is incredibly exciting and we will be talking to webseries creators, viewers and fans. If you would like to take part, please let me know (mary at higletfilms dot com). We will be filming at VCON and Geek Girl Con, so if you are going to be there make sure you come and find us
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Jan 9, 2012 
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CES, IAWTV, IAWTV Awards, Las Vegas, Mind My Brains Darling!
It made us happy that we did our job right (even while wondering what people think about our taste in colour schemes/furnishings…..).
