Congratulations to writer/producer Tanya Wheeler - her children's sci-fi web series RESET took out Best Web Series at the Los Angeles Web Series Festival Global 2017.
Tanya says the win was unexpected, as shows from the Children's category rarely win Best Web Series, and RESET was up against 86 international shortlisted entrants.
"The whole team is very excited by the win and it is timely as we are just putting in another application for NZOA funding to make more episodes of the series. International recognition is nice, but we really get excited when local kids contact us about how much they love the show, because it was written for kiwi kids. Our web series is being used in primary school lessons by teachers, as we have free educational resources on our website too."
Reset also won the MipTV Digital Short Form Content for Children Competition 2017 in Cannes, France. During the competition Tanya pitched to the BBC, Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network in the finals, against competition from China, Russia, the USA, Chile and Spain. As a result of the pitch, US-based VOD platform TOON GOGGLES approached Tanya about putting RESET on their platform, where it is now available. This had followed hot on the heels of Irish children's platform for primary schools, CyberSmarties, running with the Kiwi web series in January 2017 and clocking up over 214,000 plays in just six months. CyberSmarties have recently commented that RESET is the most popular series on their curated platform. Those flying Air New Zealand internationally may also have caught Season 1 of RESET on the inflight entertainment.
Check out the webseries, which was funded with the help of TVNZ, Maori Television and NZ On Air.