Congrats to the Winners at 7th Annual HollyShorts Film Festival!

The HollyShorts Best Overall Short Film prize, which wins a $10,000 in postproduction and finishing services package from Company 3, went to “Mrs. Peppercorn’s Magical Reading Room” by Mike Le Han.

The HollyShorts Best Director Award, which wins a $10,000 postproduction and finishing services package from Company 3, went to Christian Swegal, Director of “Stasis.”

Click here for Our Red Carpet Interviews at the 7th Annual HollyShorts Film Festival 

Here’s the list of winners from this year’s festival:

• Best Short Film Shot in Los Angeles-“John Doe”-Melissa Ciampa

• Best Student Short Film-“Goldenbox” by Matt MacDonald
• Showbiz Store and Café Future Filmmaker Award-Jacob Chase, “Patient Zero”
• Best Webisode- “CLUBSCENE: The Bartender” by Adriano Valentini
Best International- “ColourBleed” by Peter Szewczyk
• Best Family-“Me and The Chef”
• Best Horror- “Nowhere Road” by Benjamin Dynice
• Best Narrative- “Augenblicke” by Martin Bargiel
• Best Documentary-“The Vacuum Kid” by Katherine Mahalic
Best Cinematography-“Dissection of a Storm” by Julio Soto
• Best Drama-“Sold” by John Irwin
• Best Comedy-“Bear Force One” by Andy Mogren
• Best Editing and VFX-“Stasis” by Christian Swegal
• Best Actor-David Dastmalchian-“Double Black”
• Best Actress- Grace Huang “Blood Traffic”

• Best Animation-“Photographs” by Brendan Clogher

• Best Music/Sound-“Sugartown” by JT Mollner

• Honorable Mention-“5 Second Short Films”
• Honorable Mention-“Pillow Talk”
• Best Commercial-“Levi’s Post-Mortem” By Ezra Stanley
• Best Music Video-WhoMadeWho “Every Minute Alone” by William Stahl
• Best Director-Christian Swegal, Director of “Stasis”
• Best Short Film- “Mrs. Peppercorn’s Magical Reading Room” by Mike Le Han

Here are photos from the Red Carpet Opening Event

Red Carpet at 7th HollyShorts 2011 Film Festival, a set on Flickr.

Discover INDIE produced series finalists in the #AudienceChoice Category of the New Media Film Festival Sponsored by Mingle Media TV

We are excited that this year’s online competition is winding down and at midnight tonight the voting ends… which means that there is about 5.5 hours left to watch and vote for your favorite series. You only get to vote ONE time per series… and you can even discover some treasures here in this competition that you’ll want to share with your friends and family too. I know we have – it’s been a great pleasure to support the web series community with this competition as part of the New Media Film Festival! Winners will be announced LIVE on 5/20 from the Red Carpet at the Festival!

With that said – here are the finalists that need your votes NOW:

Webseries Entry	Votes	Voting Started
Travel Companions	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
The Unemployment of Danny London	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Crossing Blood Lines	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Lien on Me	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Masculathon	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Oblivion	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Illegal	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Looking at You	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Secret Millionaires	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
CYPHERS	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
The R.I.P. Files	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Shes Just Not That Into You	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Inappropriate Fairy Tales	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
World of Holly Woodlands	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Miss Behave	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Asylum Web Series	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Sweet Tarts Take Away	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Naomi: The Show	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
McCracken LIVE!	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
The Puzzle Makers Son	? TBD ?	5/1/2011
Cupid and Eros	? TBD ?	5/1/2011

Here’s where to go to vote: Mingle Media TV Network

There are many things that helped the finalists get their fans to vote for them… the following list are a few things that everyone who creates content for the web should be doing – not just for competitions but for views / audience and community building:

Twitter:

• Follow people back (you don’t have to follow MLM, #TeamFollowBack or other “self-proclaimed Social Media Experts but definitely industry people)
• Thank people for following you, introduce yourself, start a convo
• ReTWEET people who promote you (there’s nothing worse than having someone tweet your promo to vote for you and you don’t thank them or RETWEET the message in honor of them)
• Support your fellow creator – RETWEET their series announcements
• Links matter – tweet YOUR series link in your tweets – use a shortener to get it all in 140 characters

Facebook:

• Post your episodes, community activities (other creators) and info related to the industry on your page – it’s not all about you, sharing is caring
• Link to your content on other sites
• Embed videos so people can watch while on Facebook
• LIKE other creator’s pages – help them get the word out and they will respond in kind

Blog Posts:

• Start a blog and write a post a week telling your fan base what you’re doing
• Embed an episode and tell the back story about the episode or interesting fact
• Ask your fans what they liked or didn’t like about it

YouTube

• Use META TAGS, keywords to keep your content together on the page
• YouTube will bring up other similar content from other people if you don’t
• Keep your titles uniform and add a description with links back to your site, twitter, facebook so people can find you
• Use annotations and create hotspots with links as a call to action

If you are creating for the Interwebs and are NOT building fans or community, ask yourself why not…. are you doing the above? If you are and still not getting anywhere… it’s time to ask a professional how to change things up for you.

Finalists in the #AudienceChoice Category: New Media Film Festival Announcement

Okay everyone… as promised, here are the finalists in the 2011 New Media Film Festival‘s Audience Choice Awards category, sponsored by Mingle Media TV Network.

One thing we want to share as you review the finalists is the date they entered the competition for votes – it didn’t matter if it was 2 days before voting ended or six months, they got their fan-base to support them. We did end up with 21 finalists as there was a tie for 20th place.

Congrats to all finalists and to everyone who entered the competition – please be sure to grab your laurels for your site to promote your involvement in this festival.

Click here to VOTE for the 21 Finalists in the #AudienceChoice Awards

Webseries Entry	Votes	Voting Started
Travel Companions	4289	08-Feb-2011
The Unemployment of Danny London	629	24-Sep-2010
Crossing Blood Lines	396	29-Jan-2011
Lien on Me	343	24-Sep-2010
Masculathon	298	27-Mar-2011
Oblivion	239	24-Sep-2010
Illegal	228	24-Sep-2010
Looking at You	224	20-Feb-2011
Secret Millionaires	189	24-Sep-2010
CYPHERS	177	24-Sep-2010
The R.I.P. Files	172	12-Feb-2011
Shes Just Not That Into You	168	12-Mar-2011
Inappropriate Fairy Tales	141	24-Sep-2010
World of Holly Woodlands	136	28-Apr-2011
Miss Behave	133	08-Feb-2011
Asylum Web Series	132	28-Jan-2011
Sweet Tarts Take Away	129	09-Apr-2011
Naomi: The Show	115	28-Jan-2011
McCracken LIVE!	115	04-Jan-2011
The Puzzle Makers Son	113	24-Sep-2010
Cupid and Eros	113	28-Apr-2011

Tips for Final Voting Success:

There are many things that helped the finalists get their fans to vote for them… the following list are a few things that everyone who creates content for the web should be doing – not just for competitions but for views / audience and community building:

Twitter:

• Follow people back (you don’t have to follow MLM, #TeamFollowBack or other “self-proclaimed Social Media Experts but definitely industry people)
• Thank people for following you, introduce yourself, start a convo
• ReTWEET people who promote you (there’s nothing worse than having someone tweet your promo to vote for you and you don’t thank them or RETWEET the message in honor of them)
• Support your fellow creator – RETWEET their series announcements
• Links matter – tweet YOUR series link in your tweets – use a shortener to get it all in 140 characters

Facebook:

• Post your episodes, community activities (other creators) and info related to the industry on your page – it’s not all about you, sharing is caring
• Link to your content on other sites
• Embed videos so people can watch while on Facebook
• LIKE other creator’s pages – help them get the word out and they will respond in kind

Blog Posts:

• Start a blog and write a post a week telling your fan base what you’re doing
• Embed an episode and tell the back story about the episode or interesting fact
• Ask your fans what they liked or didn’t like about it

YouTube

• Use META TAGS, keywords to keep your content together on the page
• YouTube will bring up other similar content from other people if you don’t
• Keep your titles uniform and add a description with links back to your site, twitter, facebook so people can find you
• Use annotations and create hotspots with links as a call to action

If you are creating for the Interwebs and are NOT building fans or community, ask yourself why not…. are you doing the above? If you are and still not getting anywhere… it’s time to ask a professional how to change things up for you.

Meet Carol Ann McCracken, Star of McCracken Live! the Next Queen of DIY TV

There’s nothing more entertaining than watching an immaculately coiffed Do-it-yourself TV show host who has to tap dance her way through a series of mishaps on-set while keeping cool. Carol Ann McCracken’s sharp tongue can be heard in clips not meant for broadcast in this original web series created by Brian Beacock and JohnYvelington.

Viewers will watch as Carol Ann aka Tyler Hanson tries to keep her composure amid crazy fans, failing marriages, frantic co-workers, a meddling mother, a struggling cable network, and an epic scale identity crisis while wearing six-inch high heels! McCracken Live is the newest edition of comedic webseries on Mingle Media TV, where we know that anything can happen on LIVE TV. As the series creators say… Stir ‘til boiling and put it on live TV and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

In the spirit of Halloween – we invite you to join Carol Ann in the Kitchen for her Halloween Special!

Find out more about the creators of McCracken Live!

BRIAN BEACOCK is an actor, writer, and musician from the San Francisco Bay Area. After completing the National Tour of Les Miserables, he moved to Los Angeles where he has created a diverse career, including over 10 cartoon series (so your kids know him), television appearances on: Kath & Kim, CSI, Passions, and NBC’s The Rerun Show.  Films include: Mulholland Drive, Buying The Cow, Globehunters, and Circuit. Theater credits include: the West Coast Premiere of Elegies, When Pigs Fly, Pageant, Naked Boys Singing, the insane 35-character one-man show Fully Committed and as a Broadway Axl Rose in Andy Prieboys’ cult favorite, White Trash Wins Lotto. He has been a featured musical guest on Conan O’Brien, sung with the Harlem Gospel Choir, slammed drums and stomped trash in Prague, lay naked in bed with Ryan Reynolds, and played Paul Lynde on prime-time television. Who says he’s not versatile?

JOHN YELVINGTON BIO (MY CO-CREATOR/PRODUCING AND WRITING PARTNER ON THE SHOW)
JOHN YELVINGTON is a writer, producer, and actor, hailing from South Florida by way of a very supportive family who turned him from a shy kid who couldn’t give oral reports to neurotically comic adult who never shuts up. Starting out as a theatrical design student, John has a vast experience in all aspects of production, from contributing costumes to The Lion King and The Radio City Rockettes, to serving as a scenic painter and carpenter at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre. As an actor, He has traveled the U.S. with several National tours, and performed in numerous works with regional theater companies and Shakespeare Festivals.  Ever ambitious and business savvy, he started his first company at 19 years of age to promote visual and performing arts venues for young artists in the South East. His love of theatre and teaching has been parlayed into a side career developing curriculum and instructing improv, voice, movement and classical texts to students of all ages around the country.

Be sure to tell your friends about Carol Ann and McCracken Live! The newest series on Mingle Media TV. Click here to watch it now.