Last year at the Sundance Film Festival, YouTube hosted a three-day Creators Intensive — a storytelling workshop attended by 10 influencers including Anna Akana, The Gregory Brothers, and sWooZie to develop new programming for a possible first-look deal. Writers Mara Brock Akil, Aline Brosh McKenna, and Stephen Falk served as mentors at the Intensive, which took place at both Sundance and the YouTube Space L.A.
Now, YouTube has announced development deals for four of the series that emerged from the Creators Intensive, according to The Hollywood Reporter, including shows from Akana, Devin ‘Supertramp’ Graham, Jasmeet Singh, and comedy duo Allison Raskin and Gaby Dunn of the popular channel Just Between Us. The series, if picked up, would debut exclusively on $10 monthly subscription service YouTube Red.
Akana’s series, Youth And Consequences, focuses on a power struggle at a New York high school; Graham will star in Never, about a man who rescues a group of kidnapped children; Raskin and Dunn will develop Everyone’s A Liar, in which they start a private agency to investigate the morality of their friends; and Singh will star in Mountain Of Light, about a young man who leads a jewelry heist.
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The projects that YouTube chose to develop “are closely tied to what the creators embody,” Nicole Emanuele, a scripted development manager for YouTube Originals, told the Reporter. “That’s what makes them special and what makes me think their audiences will also like them.”
And YouTube will be hosting another Creators Intensive at this year’s Sundance, according to the Reporter, which is set to be attended by bold-faced creators like Jenn McAllister (who headlines the YouTube Red hit Foursome), Meredith Foster, Mikey Murphy, and Brittany Furlan.
