PAWKY IN THE NEWS
Since its inception in 2005, Pawky has been featured in many publications and has generated a significant buzz surrounding its groundbreaking approach to the online entertainment industry. Pawky and its forward-thinking team have appeared in The Chicago Sun-Times, Screen Magazine, Yahoo Finance, Frobes.com, The Hollywood Reporter, Market Watch, Chicago dBusinessNews, MorningStar.com, Greater Richmond Technology Council, NewsOK.com, Entertainment Zone, ITtown.com, Business MVP, OhioBiz, QCTimes.com. Bloggers have also taken notice and Pawky has been a popular discussion topic for numerous blogs.
Additionally, Pawky has attracted international interest and proved short film to have a worldly appeal. The company was recently featured in Britain’s Screen International and the Russian-American crossover, Bomond.
Pawky was selected for a cover story for Bomond.
May, 2007.
Circulation in following cities: Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Moscow
Web 2.0: Return of the dot-com
April 30, 2007
Paul Birman, 25, chief executive officer, Pawky.com, the short film Web site at www.pawky.com
Didn't the Internet craze die back in 2001? Why launch an Internet business?
Many start-ups failed during the 2001 boom because the average household's Internet capability was limited to a dial-up connection. Web site expectations exceeded the general dial-up connection capabilities to transmit data. It was like building a metropolis for a few thousand people with no transit system. Today, a vast majority of Americans are connected through broadband. We are now spending more time on the Net and have the ability to move around within and between sites within seconds.
Where did your idea come from?
We noticed a convergence of trends, which was leading the public into a transformation of media consumption, especially video. We saw an opportunity to provide an outlet for short film, an art form that has not been in the mainstream since the '30s. We truly believe that quality, short-form video content is the future of entertainment, where everything is on-the-Net, on-the-go, and on-demand.
What is your elevator pitch?
Pawky provides quality award-winning short film and animation to the masses through off-line venues as well as its Website, www.pawky.com
How is your proposition different from earlier generations of online business?
Today's Internet entrepreneurs have witnessed the mistakes of the 2001 boom. At the time, there were only "Do's", now we know the "Don'ts"... and you can't run a successful business without being aware of the "Don'ts."
Why will you succeed? What are your biggest successes so far?
Every community-oriented Web site lives for the daily user. The user that watches everything, comments on everything, invites friends, and generally participates in the project exclusively from the front end. Once we got a few of those, we knew that we had a good thing going. That and celebrity shorts in our library.
How will you make money?
We have the standard ad-supported revenue stream, membership fees for enhanced features, and DVD compilations for sale through our site. What makes Pawky's business model unique is the ability to take the content beyond the Net into offline venues, such as wireless providers, movie theatres, on-demand service providers, even airlines.
What is your age and previous business experience?
Our entire team consists of twentysomethings. Some of us have run our own online and off-line businesses, so whatever previous experience we can tap into, we do. We understand that business experience is a limited resource for us.
Have you received funding? If so, how much and from whom?
Yes, we have received seed funding from angel investors. We are currently seeking venture capital to help us expand our operations.
Pawky Releases Compilation DVD in Conjunction with its New Web Site
December 18th, 2006
Pawky.com, an interactive community of short-film makers and fans, has hand-picked a collection of award-winning short films for its 2006 DVD release
CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pawky, a web-based community for short film and online distribution, today launched “One of Many Pawky Shorts 2006,” a DVD compilation of hand-picked, award-winning short films. The compilation, in conjunction with pawky.com, is made up of 16 movies in a variety of genres including documentaries, animation and comedies. “One of Many Pawky Shorts 2006” is available for purchase on pawky.com as well as in select video stores.
Pawky’s mission to bridge the gap between film festivals and their audiences is expressed through the 2006 compilation by including comedies such as “Adcorp, Inc.,” starring Andy Dick, and animated shorts such as “Frankenchicken” and making them readily available to the general public.
“We’re very excited to take the next step and release our first compilation of Pawky's award-winning shorts,” said Paul Birman, Pawky chief executive officer and co-founder. “This is just one more way that our audience will be able to experience short film through Pawky.”
Pawky was designed to give people the chance to watch professional short film and showcase their own work while sharing insight and networking with each other, just like an ongoing film festival online. As a result, Pawky has become the ideal setting for social and professional interaction.
About Pawky
Pawky serves as an online community where filmmakers and Pawkers can interact, upload video to their profiles, create image galleries, post blogs and much more. Additionally, Pawky is also an online distribution portal for short film and video.
The short films featured on the Web site, pawky.com, are also circulated to outlets including airlines, hand-held devices and on-demand television units. Featured short film and animation is available for viewing on the home page and in a separate section of the Web site, with new content added weekly.
Short films are condensed motion pictures with various genres, such as drama, comedy, action or animation. Pawky’s venue makes short film available to the world, allowing everyone to appreciate the art form. For more information, visit www.pawky.com.
The Long And Short Of It: Pawky Provides Community Portal For Short Films
December 1, 2006
In 2004, dedicated film-goers Elina Miller and Paul Birman recognized an opportunity to make a difference in the world of film. Going from festival to festival, Miller and Birman saw not only a host of good films but also something that was missing within the film industry. "Often the film audience is not informed on the film process," says Miller. "We wanted to fill the gap between [the] film festival, the filmmaker and the public."
To fill this perceived void, Miller and Birman launched the community web portal Pawky (www.pawky.com). The goal of the site is to provide filmmakers a forum to distribute their short films, while receiving feedback from other filmmakers and casual fans alike. Launched in 2005 and headquartered in Evanston, IL, Pawky, like YouTube, takes advantage of high-speed Internet connections for fast uploading of video content.
Though Pawky does accept and encourage public submissions, most of the movies on the site come from films that Miller and Birman have seen at festivals and have tagged as quality short films. All genres and contents are allowed, though tasteful depictions are required for sex, nudity, violence and language. Most of the films on Pawky's site have been produced this decade, but films from any production date are considered, with several films from the 1990's having been featured on the site.
In addition, Pawky allows site members to post a resume and a reel and allows visitors to post film critiques. "The site is designed for film enthusiasts, professional filmmakers, aspiring filmmakers, students – anyone who is into short film," says Miller, Pawky's Content Manager. "This site provides an outlet."
Given their early success, Miller and Birman are looking into expanding Pawky. The team members seed money and membership fees have gotten Pawky to where it is now, but they are also looking to other avenues for creating revenue. This includes off-line distribution (short films accessible for cell phones, on-demand cable and airlines), seeking out advertising opportunities for the site, and a DVD volume that is currently being put together. "A lot of progress has been made," says Birman, Pawky’s CEO.
Despite all of the extraneous issues that come with starting up and running a website from scratch, the essence of Pawky lies in its enthusiasm for short films. In today’s high-speed information age, the Pawky team believes that short film is just beginning to find itself. "Short film is going to be popular,” says Birman. “We just want to be there as it goes forward. We want people to associate short film with Pawky.”
Get your shorts in a bunch at Pawky.com
October 24, 2006
Short films, celluloid treatments in three acts lasting from a few seconds to 40 minutes, are popular in Europe, but not so much in the United States.
But a trio of young entrepreneurs from Evanston is aiming to change that with a new Web site, Pawky.com, featuring short films of up to 20 minutes and building a community of short filmmakers and fans.
Paul Birman, 25, chief executive of the startup, said, "Entertainment in the United States is patterned around television. There are half hour, one hour, two hour slots. But there is no place for short film."
Brian Cagle, a film professor at Northwestern University, said, "There would seem to be much more appreciation for the art of the short film in Europe, where short films and filmmakers have an audience and can even find theatrical and TV distribution, which is virtually unheard of here in the U.S., with the exception of IFC and Sundance channels, which occasionally show short films."
Birman, who received his hand's-on business training in a software company he ran with his father, said, "It used to be the only way for people who made short films to network was to go to film festivals. The Internet bridges the gap. At Pawky, we have a film festival every day."
Birman and co-founder Alexander Oleynikov, 26, Pawky's chief operating officer, who took film classes at Columbia College in Chicago, came up with the idea to create a short film venue online after attending a screening of projects from film classes at Northwestern two years ago. Their friend Elina Miller, 22, a Northwestern University student and now Pawky's marketing director, was among those showing films.
Birman said he was impressed with the work, which often takes on issues too controversial for Hollywood, and thought they deserved a broader audience, something that could be accomplished online.
Miller said, "We realized that these films would mostly be lost and buried. But the Internet offered the possibility of making them widely available. We thought people would take to the films if they saw them."
There are other online venues for shorts, such as Atomfilms. But Miller said they don't build the sort of community Pawky envisions. Birman said the Pawky community enables film enthusiasts to speak directly to directors and for directors to put up samples of the work to be evaluated by other film professionals as well as filmgoers.
The threesome, all Russian immigrants, came up with the name Pawky, an old English word meaning "shrewd" or "witty," lined up seed funding, and began scouring film festivals to find and buy rights for films. They've been to the Chicago Underground Film Festival, the Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival and Brooklyn International Film Festival. Next year, the group plans to go to the Sundance Film Festival.
Birman said the entrepreneurs aim to make money through subscriptions and also by selling ads and forming partnerships to distribute short films in new ways, such as on cell phones or on airplanes.
Cagle said Pawky helps student films break out of the classroom and provides a channel for "amateur auteurs with talent and creativity to burn. In this sense, Pawky exhibits a refreshingly democratic view of contemporary filmmaking."
NOW SHOWING
Pawky.com's daily film festival offers a wide variety of choices:
• "The Life and Death of a Pumpkin," showing a pumpkin moving from the patch to the jack-o'-lantern with some camera work revealing just how scary pumpkins can be.
• "Milos Learns to Skateboard," a Northwestern student film by Erica Gorochow in which an elderly rebel without a cause takes on the world.
• "Frankenchicken," an Aussie animated short about a chicken whose dream to work for a fast food chain takes a monstrous turn.
prweb
Evanston, IL – July 13, 2006
Pawky, a short film distribution and consumer media company, today, launched its new service, pawky.com, which allows people to watch short film, upload video, and take part in an online community of filmmakers and web users alike.
“We showcase hand-picked, award-winning short film that is not readily available to the general public through any other online venue,” said Paul Birman, Pawky co-founder and Vice President of Operations. “We also provide people with a chance to organize and display their own work, which may be in the form of video, images and a variety of other mediums.”
Users watch and rate featured short films and upload their own videos from camcorders, digital cameras, cell phones and other devices. These users can, then, spread these films and their own videos to their family and friends as well as their extended online social network.
After the free and simple registration process, Pawkers, as members of the site are known, can create a customized profile, start and participate in forums, maintain a blog, add favorite films and videos to their profiles and spread these clips to others in their extended network.
The Viewer and the Critic
The number of film festivals showing short film has risen in recent years as short film’s popularity continues to grow. Other than festivals, though, the venues where filmmakers can take their innovative and original work is limited. Pawky features and distributes entertaining short films, which people might otherwise never see.
“It is like an ongoing film festival where the audience can interact with the filmmakers on their own terms,” said Alexander Oleynikov, Pawky co-founder and President. “It’s a perpetual question and answer session.”
Pawkers and web users alike can search for short films within several categories and also by tags. After they watch the film, they can rate it, write a review and contact the director or crew, who maintain profiles on the site.
The Director and the Producer
The world of online video has exploded during the past few months. The web is inundated with video of everything from daily occurrences, to freak accidents to news events.
Pawky allows its members the convenience to collect and organize these videos on their profiles. Pawkers can spread these videos or keep them private, exclusively available to their friends. These videos co-exist with the professional short films featured on the site, but are distinct and separate.
“We have something that sites such as YouTube cannot offer,” added Birman. “We have professional short films that are meant to be watched and discussed.”
The Pawker
Pawky effectively fuses all the short film sites, viral video hubs and community sites into an aesthetically pleasing and intimate setting.
“Pawky houses content that you cannot see anywhere else on the web,” Oleynikov said. “It does more than simply entertain you for a minute. These films are carefully crafted and intended to make people question the world and think about issues differently, as well as entertain.”
Birman and Oleynkov said that the ideal Pawker is an individual who is not afraid to take a glimpse at the world through an artist’s eyes.
Oleynikov added, “Short film, in general, possesses the ability to take the viewer out of their own time and place, if only for a few minutes, and delve into issues and ideas that they would normally not have the opportunity to ponder.”
About Pawky
Founded in Oct. 2005, Pawky, which dictionary.com defines as “shrewd and cunning, often in a humorous manner” in Olde English, is a web-based distribution portal for short film and video.
It also serves as an on-line community where filmmakers and Pawkers can interact, upload video to their profiles, create image galleries, post blogs, and much more. Featured Short Film and Animation is available for viewing on the home page and in a separate section of the website, with new content added weekly.
These films will be ad-supported and free for everyone, including non-members. Featured content is also distributed to such outlets as airlines, hand-held devices, on-demand TV units and other sources.
It’s unique style and originality will catapult pawky.com to the top of the consumer media market.