In addition to all of the Webby winners chosen by the Academy, there are always multiple “Special Achievement” winners celebrated at the show. And some require exposition for why they’re honored. For those winners we create custom videos that explain the recipient’s accomplishments. These winners defy categorization and can range from household names to inventors, influencers, and organizations that reside behind-the-scenes. Each video comes with it’s own set of challenges but one of the most rewarding experiences is to create a short tribute for someone who, in virtually any other context, would never be honored with a video retrospective, viewed live in front of 1000 of the industry’s most influential people.

Written by Jeff Zemetis

Motion Design: Houses in Motion

Short deadline (5 days!) No time to deal with any sort of standard approval process and the directive was clear: Make a video that covered Kanye's win for Webby Artist of the Year that wouldn't piss him off. Anything deemed “standard award show" vibe wouldn't fly. So we figured the best person to write and score this video was Kanye himself. Using only Kanye's tweets to drive the narrative, a custom-made soundtrack composed from the source files of The Life of Pablo, and a bunch of heavily-manipulated photos, we created this driving, abstract tribute to his domination of the 2016 music scene. With over 200k organic views, it received overwhelmingly positive comments on both Reddit and YouTube. And while I never heard what Kanye thought of it, I figure if those judgemental bastards posting on the internet were into it, we were on the right track.

Written by Jeff Zemetis

Motion Design: Konrad&Paul

Archive.org won the Lifetime Achievement Award for its unflagging commitment to making the world’s knowledge available online, and preserving the history of the Internet itself. In order to bring this story to life, and playing with the theme of how we would traditional build an archive based on print outs, we created this stop-motion animation. Video narrated by fellow Webby Lifetime Award winner Lawrence Lessig.

Written by: Nicole Ferraro, Jeff Zemetis

Motion Design: Aldo Gonzalez, Chris Jung

We were humbled to present the Webby for Person of the Year to Greta Thunberg for igniting a global movement for climate justice led by youth activists, and for using the internet to draw the world’s attention to the urgent issue of climate change. Knowing that we couldn’t match the impact of Greta herself, we used her own words and voice to drive the narrative and compliment the script. Narration by Golden Globe-nominated actress Rebecca Hall.

Written by Nicole Ferraro, Jeff Zemetis

Design: Lizzy Lee

Motion: Yulia Ruditsky

For her fearless use of the Internet to expose a deep culture of misogyny and sexual assault and harassment with her blog “Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year at Uber.” Fowler’s blog was a necessary spark that helped ignite the #MeToo movement. By coming forward in a public way on the Internet, not only did Fowler set off massive change throughout Uber, but her words had a ripple effect throughout the industry, forcing those who work in tech to begin to face their damaging misogynistic and sexist work cultures that prevent far too many women from reaching their full potential. As a result of Fowler’s brave and personal post and all that followed, women entering the tech world in the future stand a greater chance at being treated with fairness—and women everywhere feel a little more emboldened to come forward with their own stories.

Written by Jeff Zemetis

Illustrations: Ana Typestype

Motion: Yulia Ruditsky

In celebration and recognition of his groundbreaking work in creating the computer network known as CYCLADES, which greatly influenced the future development of TCP/IP protocol. With the simplicity that CYCLADES brought so early on to packet transfer and receipt, Pouzin thus defined one of the key cornerstones of the Internet’s design, and it is one that still holds today. CYCLADES is one of the greatest technical influences on the Internet, borne from Puzin’s core belief that the Internet should not become fossilised, but should continue to evolve and grow. He demonstrates a lifelong vision of openness and technical elegance that still powers the Internet as we know it today.

Written by Jeff Zemetis

Motion Design: Chris Camerbeek

For her groundbreaking and legendary contributions to the world of computing. As the designer of the Acorn Micro-Computer and inventor of the ARM processor instruction set, Wilson not only revolutionised computer technology in the 1970s and 80s, but she paved the way for every computing revolution to come: from digital cameras to smartphones to tablets, and the thousands of consumer electronic products that rely on ARM. There is no doubt that the universe of mobile upon which we now depend simply could not exist today without the brilliant and essential work of Sophie Wilson.