The Producers Guild of America will honor top executives from Netflix and Snapchat as well as the creative minds behind “Gravity” and “Veronica Mars” at the Digital VIP Awards, the guild said Thursday. Other honorees including AwesomenessTV CEO Brian Robbins and co-founder of “Grand Theft Auto” gamemaker Rockstar Games.
The PGA has been hosting “Digital VIP” salons throughout the year, and it will honor some of these groundbreaking executives and creators June 6 at the Soho House in Los Angeles. Elon Musk hosted the inaugural ceremony at his home last year.
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The ceremony will also serve as the opening of the 2014 Produced By Conference.
“In the past year we have seen exceptional invention and ingenuity in the world of digital media,” Mark Gordon and Hawk Koch, Presidents of the Producers Guild of America, said in a statement. “In an intensely competitive environment, these individuals and companies have managed to stand ahead of the pack by creating supreme standards for innovation, creativity, and technology. We look forward to celebrating their contributions to the digital industry at this year’s Digital V.I.P. Awards.”
The nominees were determined by Koch, Gordon, the Digital VIP Committee and a board of advisers including Mark Cuban, Maker Studios executive Chris Williams and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis.
VISIONARIES:
Patricia Wilson, Executive Director of Make-A-Wish Foundation, Edwin Lee, Mayor of San Francisco, and the Citizens of San Francisco for “Batkid”
Breaking the bounds of alternative reality entertainment while creating social good, Make-A-Wish Foundation helped “Batkid” turn all of San Francisco into an elaborate flash mob, livestreamed special venue. After conquering a series of staged crime battles, “Batkid” earned the key to the city and won the hearts of thousands of volunteers and millions of social media followers.
Netflix Originals: Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of Netflix
When historians pinpoint exactly when serialized online content went mainstream, they will identify the Feb 1st 2013 debut of “House of Cards,” Netflix $100 million political drama from David Fincher as the moment.
INNOVATORS:
Wattpad; Alan Lau, CEO and Ivan Yuen, CTO
A mobile social storytelling platform with over 26 million 13-30 year olds sharing and collaborating on stories. Users spent over 40 billion minutes on the site in 2013. It continues to grow at over 70,000 new registrants a day. Millions of YouTube trailers have been created for stories on Wattpad.
Snapchat: Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy, Co-Founders
The disappearing photo messaging app gained a slew of new tools this year while users found a number of secret features. Snapchat incorporated “Stories” into the app, which essentially created timelines of collected snaps from a 24 hour period.
Vine; Co-Founders Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll
Twitter’s video app, Vine, was one of the big breakout hits of the year. The app lets you share six-second videos that continuously loop.
PRODUCERS:
Brian Robbins, CEO of AwesomenessTV Network
The AwesomenessTV Network is a network for young adults who are building their channels on YouTube and want to learn to make better video. They have enabled over 150,000 channels.
Alfonso Cuaron and Framestore for GRAVITY
With a modest budget these honorees pushed visual effects to a new dimension. All told eighty percent of the film is substantially a visual-effects creation and the other 20 percent contains a significant amount of effects work.
Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell, Creators of Veronica Mars
Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell orchestrated having the fans bring back the TV show by paying for it in advance of production.
Sam Houser, Co-Founder and President of Rockstar Games for Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto grossed more than one billion in three days, signaling the expanded influence of both video games and proven franchises in the new entertainment ecosystem.