For three can't-miss days, gather to exchange ideas, evaluate trends,
explore the controversies, debate hot-button topics and see what's next
in interactive media, entertainment and advertising, all in famous
Webby style.

Rethink the idea of what a conference is and should be while sharing
the vision and insights of Webby Award Winners and the Academy, and
connecting with the people that matter most.

Why Webby Connect?

Having
reinvented the awards show, The Webby Awards brings its trademark flair
and style to the staid world of industry conferences. WebbyConnect will
bring together Webby Award winners, Academy members, and leaders in
fields such as entertainment, advertising, and politics for an
exclusive, three-day gathering exploring and charting the future of the
Internet and emerging media. And where better to host the inauguaral
WebbyConnect Summit than at California's only 5-star resort, the
incredible St. Regis, Monarch Beach.

Keynote Speeches & Discussion Topics

Webby Honorees
-- such as musician David Bowie, Internet Inventor Dr. Robert Kahn, and
former Vice President Al Gore -- have always reflected the tremendous
diversity of the Internet. Expect the same from Keynote speakers of
WebbyConnect including Michael Eisner, Internet Co-Inventor Vinton Cerf and Arianna Huffington,
Founder of The Huffington Post. The keynote addresses will be the
highlights of WebbyConnect, and will focus on a variety of current
issues important to the Internet, its users and its future.
WebbyConnect Summit Topics were created to address the most
contemporary issues currently involving the Web across business,
advertising, technology, mobile, entertainment and politics.Read About All of the WebbyConnect Topics »

The St. Regis Resort, Monarch Beach

Situated high on a
hillside overlooking the majestic Pacific Ocean stands the landmark
Tuscan-style St. Regis Resort, Monarch Beach -- the only 5-star resort
in California. The St. Regis offers an exclusive private beach club,
three swimming pools, and award-winning spa and on-site championship
golf links.

From whale watching and deep sea fishing, to
surfing lessons, golf or simply relaxing at the world-class spa or
award-winning beach, WebbyConnect attendees can keep the conversation
and dialogue going while tapping into the full array of unique sporting
and leisure activities offered by the St. Regis Resort.

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring
excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's
infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of
Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts,
business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper.
The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60
countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media
impressions worldwide.

Reflecting the tremendous growth
of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, the 11th
Annual Webby Awards expanded the mission of the Webby by honoring
excellence in over 100+ Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film
& Video, and Mobile categories.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category -- The Webby Award and The People's Voice Award
-- in each of its four entry types: Websites, Interactive Advertising,
Online Film & Video and Mobile. Members of The International
Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both
awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards.
However, you, the online community, determine the winners of The
People's Voice by voting for the nominated work that you believe to be
the best in each category. Each year, the People's Voice Awards garners
hundreds of thousands of votes from the Web community all over the
world.

Wanna get yourself an "easy" 300k views on Youtube?

Here's all you have to do: get yourself booked at the Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Festival, record a song that puts a profanity-laced spin on a classic REM tune, shoot a video for that song featuring a whole bunch of other funny people you meet in Edinburgh, and release. Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt to be musical comedy gurus Stuckey and Murray as well.

Need a little Friday afternoon pick-me-up? Then look no further than this video from Los Angeles comedian/rapper Dragon Boy Suede (aka Howard Kremer) with a little assist from none other than Morgan Murphy. They team up for a very romantic duet on Dragon Boy's song "Nut Valet."

Brock here from Studio 8. We've gotten several requests to talk about how and (perhaps why) we produced the "Problem With Horsey/Here to Help" promo for The Daily Reel. So let's jump into that, shall we?

THE WHY:
A few weeks ago, TDR asked Studio 8 if we'd like to shoot a commercial for their ReeledIn web community. Within two days, we had a fresh idea and got a script green-lighted. It's a pretty weird little concept, and at first, it was more of a literal commercial. For instance, instead of me saying, "You better use an internet to fix it," I was originally supposed to say something like, "Log onto TheDailyReel.com and ask someone in the ReeledIn community about it." They didn't want it to be so straight-forward.

So the end product (we hope) feels less like a commercial and more like a quirky, short video that happens to have a logo for The Daily Reel tacked on the end of it. But because it's about making a video and people helping each other, it's still fairly related to ReeledIn's community and what-not. Right?

THE HOW:
Shooting
All the horse stuff was, of course, shot in front of a blue screen. I know that green screens are what's hot right now, but a couple of years ago, we worked on a movie and some birds poopoo-ed on this huge blue screen and one of the grips gave it to us and now that we've got a decent camera, we're able to finally make good use of it. So Rory and I got gussied up in our best cowboy duds and pretended to stiffly ride horses for about 10 minutes. We were careful not to move our legs too much, since we knew we'd have to wedge the horses in between them and the less movement, the easier the editing would be.

The computer room stuff was pretty easy. We had to fake the bedroom door as the house's front door, which was easily done by using our much smaller green screen to cover up the outer room and make it look like Vlad was standing on our front porch.

Editing
In the scenes where you look over Java's shoulder at the computer screen, our second monitor was doing the flashy scrolling thing, so we had to get real creative there. We used that angle twice, so in the first one, if you go back and watch it, you'll notice that Java's upper torso and head don't move AT ALL. That's because to get rid of the screen flicker, I just used a freeze frame of the upper left half of the shot and superimposed that over the video. So Java's hands move, but his top half doesn't. Bet you didn't notice that the first time, huh? In the second shot, Java's upper half moves too much, so I had to create a 8-Point Garbage Matte and cut out the flickering screen with keyframes and all of that mess. Yucky!

Oh yeah, we use Final Cut Pro to edit most of our stuff.

When we wanted to show the footage on the monitor, we edited those chunks and had to output them as videos with all the effects finalized so then we could just shrink it all down to fit on the monitor. Does that make sense?

For the horse scenes, we used an 8-Point Garbage Matte to cut out our back legs and feet and then stuck pictures of the horses under our front legs, so it looks like we're actually riding them. When my horse fizzles out, I just used a few Video Filters like Bad TV with keyframes and added sound effects to make it seem like it was "malfunctioning".

There are lots of editing tricks in this video, lots of implied stuff like the gunshots, horses clomping, and ducks quacking.

Overall, it was a very fun shoot that only took a couple of hours and an educational edit job that took a day and a half or so.

We'd like to thank The Daily Reel for trusting in our nutty ideas and letting us produce the video. It's honestly one of my favorite things we've done thus far and I hope it gets this site some good exposure. Thanks for reading and feel free to contact me with any further questions/comments.

Peace,

Brock LaBorde

Hey Everyone!

If you haven't heard, iThentic has teamed up with SHORTSNONSTOP to introduce a film festival that takes place year round! Six times a year, 10 finalists will be selected by our programmers for promotion and distribution by TELUS on its mobile networks in Canada. Our esteemed Jury of industry professionals will select one filmmaker in each prize period to be awarded a cash prize of $1000 (that’s six $1000 prizes in 2007/08.) All categories and genres of short film are accepted, including drama,
comedy, animation, horror, sci-fi, documentary, experimental and music
videos. The next prize deadline is October 5th, so go to www.shortsnonstop.com and upload your short today!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a bit of blatant self-promotion. Whip It Out Comedy and comedian J Chris Newberg have teamed up for the first in a season-long series of Fantasy Football Songs of the Week and the first video hit the world (wide web) today. It's titled "I Suck At Fantasy Football" and will surely be relatable to many of you out there who had a rough first week of the season. Check it out...

New Daily Reel member Drennon Davis is responsible for a great new animated video that takes a look at what Owen Wilson is going through as he tries to recover from his recent suicide attempt. The simple but clever animation works well and looks to be the first of what hopefully will be a series of videos. Check it out....

Hello Everyone
The 2007 Action/Cut Short Film Competition winners have just been announced by our industry juries and we wish to invite you to come view the terrific films including the Grand Prize Winner and the 5 Best in Category (Fiction - Animation - Documentary - Student Film - Music Video) winners at http://www.actioncut.com/sfc/2007winners.htm
Enjoy

Jacqui (Action/Cut Short Film Competition)