History: The Team Part One
Written on Wednesday, February 05, 2014 by Unknown
A show would be nothing without the people behind the scenes. Maybe you'll never see their faces or know their names, but they are just as important as the the people on camera.
A prime example of this is the recurring joke, "Who the eff is Hank?" A first reaction might be, "What the eff does that mean?" Hank Green, co-creator of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LBD), is, as previously stated, one half of the duo known as the vlogbrothers. John Green is the other, more famous half. At the beginning of each video both brothers greet each other. And in the comments section of John's videos, people frequently post "Who the eff is Hank?" This has occurred so often that John (and even occasionally Hank himself) has taken to answering this question in a myriad of ways, as can be seen here...
The point of all this is that Hank is responsible for just as much of the Vlogbrothers as John, but the fan's of John's books have no idea who Hank is and are only interested in John's videos.
The same goes for almost all creators. It doesn't matter if they are responsible for most or even all of what you are seeing, no one cares.
But today, I care and I will be providing a brief background on the team behind LBD.
First and foremost, let's list them off. Lists are always good. This comes directly from the official website.
Le team:
Hank Green – Co-Creator, Executive Producer, Editor, Post Supervisor
Bernie Su – Co-Creator, Executive Producer, Director, Head Writer, Show-runner
Jenni Powell – Producer
Stuart Davis – Assistant Director
Margaret Dunlap – Consulting Producer, Writer
Jason Raswant – Cinematographer
Jay Bushman – Transmedia Producer
Alexandra Edwards – Transmedia Editor
Rachel Kiley – Writer
Kate Rorick – Writer
Anne Toole – Writer
Katie Moest – Production Designer
Adam Levermore – Graphic Designer
Heather Begley – Makeup Artist
Michael Aranda – Composer, Editor
Sam Mollo – EditorHank has already been mentioned and discussed ad nauseam and will likely be continuously brought up in the future. So I won't be discussing him any further in this particular post.
For the sake of length I have a second post about the remainder of the team, as I can only fit one more in here.
So lets turn to Bernie Su.
Co-creator, show-runner, head writer, I mean just look at all of those titles. Seriously, this man is involved in almost everything that goes on during the production of the show. It is relatively safe to assume that all decisions must go through Bernie. This man probably deserves a very long post dedicated to him, but for now I will just go over the basics.
Why Bernie is the god of scripted web shows, take one...
Maybe I should make another list? Might as well. Just like Lydia's but much less mean.
1. He co-created LBD. This should also be all of the other reasons, but I won't go there.
2. Pre-Lizzie, Bernie also created and wrote a few other web shows, one of which is called Compulsions. This particular series is the exact opposite of Lizzie. Craig Frank plays the lead (and yes, he is also on LBD so there is a small connection there) as a man who is a professional sadist. Creepy right? But kind of addicting. The show was nominated for four Streamys and won two. It also won four Indie Soap Awards our of 11 nominations and five Stay Tuned TV awards. So basically, this guy knows what he's doing. LBD won an Emmy. Seriously.
3. Bernie tumbles. About EVERYTHING. You have a question? He probably wrote a post about it. Want to know why they changed Charles Bingley's name to Bing Lee? He wrote about it. Want to know why Darcy won't ever vlog? He wrote about it. And he doesn't just write about the show (or any other show he's doing at he time). Bernie gives advice about promoting a web show and writing episodic themes. Like I said, he tumbles (and blogs) about everything you may ever want to know from him.
4. If he doesn't have an immediate answer via blog, Bernie is well connected through social media and you can probably get a hold of him somehow.
5. Speaking of which, he does epically long live video chats with fans. Some of them even top four hours. That is true dedication.
6. He isn't leaving any time soon (hopefully I didn't just jinx that). Bernie was also the head of Welcome to Sanditon and is currently running Emma Approved, two other Pemberley Digital Jane Austen spin-off web shows. And yes, Pemberley Digital is actually a company based on the fake one created for LBD.
Okay, this is getting long so I shall continue with Bernie another day. But this is a great start to a potentially long list. Oh, and here's his face courtesy of his current tumblr and twitter profile pictures:
-Danny
