Press
PROJECT BREAKOUT ANNOUNCES WINNER OF FIRST-EVER
INTERNET VIDEO COMEDY COMPETITION
FT. LAUDERDALE, FL – The judges have spoken in the first of its kind search for the “American Idol” of comedians. Project Breakout www.projectbreakout.com, the premier network for online video competitions, recently announced the winner from its headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale. The champion is a group of five emerging sketch performers who call themselves “Better than the Machine” and hail from Brooklyn, New York.
“We are absolutely thrilled that we are recognized as the best,” said Reid Levin of Better than the Machine. For their efforts, Levin and his partners in comedy will be featured in the upcoming SketchFestNYC www.sketchfestnyc.com, the largest sketch comedy festival on the East Coast running June 7 – 9, 2007. The winners also receive an internship at the festival, which includes valuable input from some of today’s brightest comedians and influential insiders.
“It’s so rewarding to create breakout opportunities for undiscovered talent who are ready to explode onto the scene,” said Gregory Sukornyk, Project Breakout’s creator. “Given the explosion of community building and social networking online, the Internet is the best platform to showcase emerging talent and offer them a springboard for their professional career.”
In its first-ever online video comedy competition, Project Breakout has had great success with comedy groups’ online interaction with their fans. After the contestants – 100s in all – uploaded their comedy sketch to projectbreakout.com, hundreds of thousands of votes were cast for those competing to be the next Breakout Comedy Star.
The finalists, from New York, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania traveled all-expenses paid to South Florida for the Big Finale. The finalists produced a Webisode along with the celebrity judges who included Elizabeth “Biz” Ellis, Jesse Thorn and Anne Beatts. Elizabeth Ellis is a veteran sketch performer and writer for MEAT, a critically acclaimed all-female sketch comedy group, and a Producer of SketchFestNYC. Jesse Thorn is the host and producer of The Sound of Young America, a nationally syndicated public radio show about things that are awesome (online at www.maximumfun.org). Anne Beatts is an acclaimed TV writer-producer who has won two Emmys for her work on the original “Saturday Night Live”, created and produced the critically-acclaimed CBS sitcom, “Square Pegs,” and was the first woman Contributing Editor of the National Lampoon. In addition to teaching sketch writing and performing privately, Anne is an Adjunct Professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
The gang at Project Breakout is rolling out new, exciting video competitions regularly and has just launched the first contest in its new Music Channel, “Breakout Band in Rock Contest” (online at rock.projectbreakout.com).
Project Breakout (www.projectbreakout.com) is the premier network for online video competitions, featuring channels in comedy, short film, music, dance, animation and more. Representing the convergence of online video (e.g. YouTube™) and top television talent contests (e.g. American Idol™), Project Breakout is considered the preferred destination for online video talent competitions. Project Breakout’s mission consists of creating breakout opportunities for undiscovered talent who are ready to “explode on the scene,” while providing high quality entertainment to its extensive online audience.