Escapist Film Festival Wants Gamers with Video Talent

Unskippable is Mystery Science Theater 3000 for the Xbox generation.

In each installment of this weekly web series, the comedy crew at Loading Ready Run riff on bad video game cinematics as animated action sequences unfold on screen. Just like MST300 doesn’t only appeal to B movie buffs, Unskippable‘s allure transcends the gamer crowd. You don’t have have to own a PS3 to be entertained by people making fun of visually engaging video game vignettes with poorly constructed storylines.

Since it’s debut in January 2009, Unskippable has been one of the most successful web series for the online gaming destination, The Escapist. Russ Pitts, Editor-in-Chief at The Escapist, told me over e-mail the success of the series led to the launch of another Loading Ready Run program with The Escpaist, Daily Drop. The series also helped the crew at Loading Ready Run transition from working “part-time jobs and making videos on the side to working full-time as a web TV production studio.”

So, how’d Unskippable get its start? By winning The Escapist Film Festival.

The Escapist does its best to produce “award-winning video content that game enthusiasts find entertaining, humorous, and insightful,” but the online magazine knows some of the best talent in the business has yet to be tapped. So, every year The Escapist puts on a film festival, which is essentially a “talent search where the world’s best web video producers compete for the Grand Prize, an exclusive paid contract with The Escapist.”

Previous winners include Chris Slack with de-rez in 2007, the aforementioned Loading Ready Run with Unskippable in 2008, Michael Shanks and Michael Lunds with Doomsday Arcade also in 2008, and Brett Register, Rick Rey, and Paula Rhodes with A Good Knight’s Quest in 2009.

If I was a web series creator, I’d definitely consider submitting to the festival, especially given the success of Loading Ready Run and other previous winners. As Pitts notes, “This opportunity that the Film Festival presents, for video makers to step into a production contract and become an overnight web TV star, is unprecedented.”

This year’s Fourth Annual Escapist Film Festival will accept submissions until 11:59PM EST on October 29. For a full list of rules and regulations, click here.