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(LEAD) Web series provides opportunity to be heard: LA Webfest chief

All News 18:02 July 30, 2015

(ATTN: FIXES typo in 8th para)
By Shim Sun-ah

SEOUL, July 30 (Yonhap) -- The founder and executive director of the Los Angeles Web Series Festival, one of the largest of its kind, said Thursday the strength of Web-based series is that they provide equal opportunities to people to tell their own stories.

"Web series is an opportunity to be heard," Michael Ajakwe said during a news conference following the opening of the KWeb Fest in Seoul.

He said about 90 percent of existing Web series are not being made by studios but by people, both professional and unprofessional.

Korea is now part of the global storytelling movement thanks to the KWeb Fest, the first of its kind in Asia, he said. "So, you get to tell your own story in your way. I think that's the strength of web series overall."

A total of 96 select titles, including 70 acclaimed at overseas festivals, will receive screenings during the two-day festival at The-K Hotel Seoul, according to organizers.

A television producer in Hollywood, Ajakwe opened the world's first-ever festival for Web series in Los Angeles in 2010. It has since developed into the world's largest festival of its kind with about 600 entries per year.

As a growing number of people prefer to watch shows on smartphones rather than TVs, the number of annual festivals specializing in Web series increased to 26 worldwide.

"What we keep finding out is that it looks like web series is happening in every part of the world whether there's a festival or not... So again with more festivals, it's like someone just hiding under a table comes out. It's really a global movement underground," Ajakwe said.

He forecast that Web series will drastically change people's way of consuming entertainment in the future, although it is still a minor genre.

"A lot of the big studios are making Web series but their bread and butter they say is television and film," he said. "So web series is kind of still a baby. But I think that will change. I think in time what you're saying is going to happen."

sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)

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