The Davids - 2010 - I won!

Read the official post and look at the photos on the Penguin Blog!

I am a winner!!! My video and audio work was nominated for the "Davids" (think the Emmys but awarded by the Penguin CEO David Shanks) in three of the four categories: Best Short Video, Best "From the Publisher's Office" Radio Episode, and Best On-Screen or On-Air Personality. And not to be cliche, but it was really an honor to have been nominated in so many categories!

I actually won for Best Short Video. Elda Rotor of Penguin Classics and I were both honored with a David Award for The 10 Essential Classics! The whole Penguin Online team pitched in as extras, production assistants—and practically the whole company showed to film the party scene. I sincerely thank everyone for the hard work they put in to this project. Here is some surprising insider news (or maybe not so surprising, if you've ever read an interview with an Emmy winner): the little golden statue is really pretty heavy!

And yeah, it's a little like The Dundees, laugh it up, but whatever! This award is for something slightly more relevant than the "whitest sneakers" or whatever award Pam won. Plus, I have another feather in my cap: the other videos that were up for this award were totally created by professional videographers (at least that's what I've been told). The 10 Essentials video was written, filmed, and edited by... me! With plenty of help from the company, my department and Penguin Classics, of course.

I'm very proud and very humbled to be in the midst of so much talent. It's actually not at all shocking to learn that publishers make good video producers. Making a video is like weaving a story, and the people of publishing are master storytellers. Publishing attracts those lovers of literature who know how to establish place and time and mood through small details, and how to compose funny dialogue, and how to build up to a powerful climax and then resolve the action to the satisfaction of the viewers or readers. The people who work in publishing are old hats at telling a good story and now that they've gotten a handle on the newfangled moving picture machines, they're going to be unstoppable! Hollywood, here we come.

The video below was taken on my mobile phone by my nice boss and I've uploaded it here. My speech is the first one after the announcer talks about the nominees and then the president announces the winner, 10 Essential Classics. My co-winner, Elda Rotor, has a much more composed speech after mine. I just pretty much shout, "YEAH Penguin!" I hope to have a better video to post eventually, but for now, this gives you the gist of the whole thing.