Scott Zakarin (born September 2, 1963) is an American film producer. He is known as the creator of the

Web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...

medium due to his introduction of the first internet episodic website

The Spot The Spot, or thespot.com, was the first episodic online story (1995–1997), and covered bandwidth and production costs by offering paid advertising banners on the web pages and product placement within the journal entries. The site earned one o ...

Early life

Born in Long Island, New York, Zakarin began making full length video movies at the age of 15. He wrote and directed his first feature film: ''The Gifted'' in 1989, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He also made '' Creating Rem Lezar'', a straight-to-video children's musical fantasy. Shortly after, Zakarin packed up his van and moved to Los Angeles to begin his Hollywood career at the age of 26.

Career

In 1995, while directing commercials and early

interactive television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new informatio ...

tests for Fattal & Collins

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, Zakarin became fascinated by the Internet. He spent time in chat rooms and quickly recognized an untapped entertainment platform. In response, he joined with Troy Bolotnick, Rich Tackenberg, and Laurie Plaksin, (who also starred as the shows main character Tara Hartwick) to create

, the first interactive entertainment web series that combined online diary entries, photos, video, and groundbreaking interactive techniques to create a new storytelling format known as “The Web Series”. Zakarin convinced his employer Russ Collins to back his novel idea, and the site premiered early in June 1995, running through the early summer of 1997. “The Spot” was the first winner of

Infoseek Infoseek (also known as the "big yellow") was an American internet search engine founded in 1994 by Steve Kirsch. Infoseek was originally operated by the Infoseek Corporation, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Infoseek was bought by The Wa ...

's "Cool Site of the Year" (The

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

) for 1995. “The Spot” was an early influencer of the Internet dot-com boom that followed. Although it attracted revenue with integrated ad campaigns for blue chip sponsors such as

K-Swiss K-Swiss, Inc. is an American athletic shoe brand based in Downtown Los Angeles and currently owned by Xtep. History K-Swiss was founded in 1966 in Los Angeles by Swiss brothers, Art and Ernie Brunner. They became interested in tennis after emi ...

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

, and

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

. Many of the expectations of those involved in the early days of online entertainment proved to be premature. Zakarin and his team left the site about a year after its launch due to creative and business differences. Zakarin and company launched a new company, LightSpeed Media Inc., which created interactive websites for media companies such as

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...

and the first website for Activision. Next, the team created GrapeJam.com, that featured live improvisational activities and streamed

radio broadcasts Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

. GrapeJam.com was nominated for the Webby for best comedy website.

People Magazine ''People'' is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC. With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, ''People'' had the lar ...

called Zakarin "King of the sit.com”. Several high-profile media pioneers, such as Spider-Man creator Stan Lee and television programmer

Brandon Tartikoff Brandon Tartikoff (January 13, 1949 – August 27, 1997) was an American television executive who was the president of NBC from 1981 to 1991. He was credited with turning around NBC's low prime time reputation with such hit series as ''Hill Stre ...

, were attracted to the new storytelling format. Tartikoff lead Zakarin to

Ted Leonsis Theodore John Leonsis (born January 8, 1957) is an American businessman, investor, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and former politician. He is a former senior executive with America Online (AOL), and the founder, chairman, and CEO of Monument ...

of America Online (AOL) which purchased LightSpeed Media Inc. Zakarin and Tartikoff, built, with the original creative team of "The Spot,” "Entertainment Asylum" for Aol's Leonsis, Charlie Fink, and Danny Krifcher. After the stock market

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

exploded, Zakarin turned back to more traditional media and began producing, directing, and representing movies for a company he co-founded with Rich Tackenberg called Creative Light Media. Creative Light Media operated from 1998 until 2006, distributing and producing independent films, some of which Zakarin produced, wrote, and directed. It also produced several critically well received documentaries for theatrical, video, and cable release, including:

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, featuring

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and

Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy (; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the '' Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series in 1966, th ...

discussing their Star Trek characters and experiences. The Miramax release, Comic Book: The Movie starring Mark Hamill,

Roger Rose Roger Rose (born August 15, 1958) is an American actor and former VH1 VJ, known for such films as ''Ski Patrol'' and for voice work in animated films and television series such as ''Happy Feet'', ''Rugrats'', ''Scooby-Doo'', '' The Grim Adventure ...

Billy West William Richard Werstine (born April 16, 1952), known professionally as Billy West, is an American voice actor. His voice roles include Bugs Bunny in the 1996 film ''Space Jam'' and several subsequent projects, the title characters of ''Doug'' ...

and

Jess Harnell Jess Harnell (born December 23, 1963) is an American voice actor and singer. His notable roles include Captain Hero in the animated TV series '' Drawn Together'', Wakko Warner in '' Animaniacs'', Ironhide in the first three ''Transformers'' fil ...

, and featuring cameo appearances by Hugh Hefner,

Kevin Smith Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American filmmaker, actor, comedian, comic book writer, author, YouTuber, and podcaster. He came to prominence with the low-budget comedy buddy film '' Clerks'' (1994), which he wrote, directed, ...

, Stan Lee and dozens of other pop culture icons and innovators. “Comic Book: The Movie” won

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's 2004 DVD Exclusive Award in the Best Live Action category. Creative Light Media also produced several re-stored collections of classic

Sid Caesar Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor, comedian and writer. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950� ...

comedy programs from material originally produced and broadcast for

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’s in the 50s

Your Show of Shows ''Your Show of Shows'' is a live 90-minute variety show that was broadcast weekly in the United States on NBC from February 25, 1950, through June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howa ...

, along with a Showtime Documentary “Hail Sid Caesar” that combined sketches and interviews with the original Show of Shows 1950s writing staff, including:

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began ...

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, and

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

. Scott also directed and produced Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters & Marvels for

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

pictures, featuring Kevin Smith. In 2006, Creative Light Media created "The Fishbowl,” a website community ” “Where the Reality Stars Hang Out” and which led to the sale of the E! TV series Kill Reality, a reality TV series featuring reality all-stars as they lived together while filming a horror movie; which was executive produced by Zakarin and Tackenberg. At the end of 2006, Zakarin returned to his new media roots with IronSink Media, creating movies and original shows for the Internet, with projects including Soup of the Day, "The VanNuys Guys" and “Shatnervision". “Shatnervision" which Zakarin produced with Paul Camuso and

, was awarded Best Original Reality Web Series at the first annual

Streamy Awards The YouTube Streamy Awards, also known as the Streamy Awards or Streamys, are presented annually by Dick Clark Productions and Tubefilter to recognize excellence in online video, including directing, acting, producing, and writing. The forma ...

in 2008. Additionally, Zakarin is a writer and producer of “Upstairs Girls/Downstairs Guys”, an episodic web video comedy series which, as of June 2016, has collected over 600 million views on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

alone. From 2013 to 2016 Zakarin was a part-time professor at Columbia College Hollywood - teaching classes in interactive media, and involved in developing the school's New media department. In 2014 Zakarin produced two seasons of the hit web series, "The Spinoffs” for the Rush It Network, a multi-character YouTube web series that used its popularity to live tweet and video broadcast for sponsors at events like Sundance film festival and

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* Coachell ...

. In 2016 Zakarin started Takeover Network, a LIVE broadcast network, where fans interact with their shows. Zakarin lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, son Caleb, daughter Maci, and dog Blue.

Awards and honors

* 2008:

– Best Original Reality Web Series – Shatnervision – winner * 2004: ''

'', DVD Exclusive Award, Best Live Action – Comic Book: The Movie – winner * 1999: Central character in the book Digital Babylon by John Geirland and Eva Sonesh-Kedar. Published by

Arcade Publishing Arcade Publishing is an independent trade publishing company that started in 1988 in New York, USA. It publishes American and world fiction and nonfiction. The company was started and run by Richard Seaver and his wife Jeannette.Weber, Bruce (J ...

* 1997:

Webby Awards The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

, Best Comedy Website – Grapejam.com – nominated * 1995: Cool Site of the Dayear (the Webby) –

– winner

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zakarin, Scott 1963 births Living people Binghamton University alumni