Marseille Web Fest 2018:

I’m going to France in less than two weeks to be a judge for the 2018 edition of the Marseille Web Fest, where I will also be doing a fireside chat on VR (and probably other immersive and interactive mediums). This is my first time going to this festival – being asked to judge the web series in competition has been an honor, and watching the entries has been an interesting experience. The AV Club was part of the first wave of groups creating web series – we had some big individual hits, and a few popular web shows like Psycho Bob and Drunk America. The early web video community was small and incredibly supportive, but there was no money to be earned, budgets were so low they were non-existent and nobody could really make a career of it. Now, a decade later, the talent on display is impressive. Budgets and quality are way up, and I’m frankly blown away by how far things have come since the “early days” in the mid ‘oughts. I’m deeply enjoying watching the entries and I’m excited to meet these creators in a few weeks. If you’re not going to the festival but you feel like checking them out, here are the official selections for this year.

It was really hard to imagine that web video would one day be this professional and viable when it first started, most of us were just enjoying making things and sending them out into the world to see how they did. I feel like “baby’s all growns up” and I couldn’t be more proud to have been a small part of it in the early days.