The Spot creator gets new gig
Scott Zakarin, formerly of AOL and the defunct Web soap The Spot, resurfaces as a cofounder of a film company.
Zakarin, along with Troy Bolotnick and Rich Tackenberg, has built Creative Light Entertainment, a film and television production company. The three were involved in creating The Spot, a pioneer online soap opera that went off the air when money troubles hit American Cybercast, The Spot's creator. The show was halted in July 1997.
The team that worked together to create The Spot, the Internet's first "episodic Web show," later launched GrapeJam, an interactive "sit.com," that combined live streaming video and real-time audience chat.
A spokeswoman for the team said that the newly created company is heading in the opposite direction from most of Hollywood, which is aiming to put its television content online. Creative Light, for its part, is looking to take its Web innovations and turn them into television programming. The company also will develop theatrical performances and interactive Web sites that will promote its projects on the Internet.
Creative Light's projects in development include a romantic comedy film, Road Sharks; a romantic comedy screenplay called Rent A Family; a thriller called Bridal Party; and a television production of Grape Jam, based on the Internet "sit.com."
The company's works are now out to bid for being optioned by a distributor, the spokeswoman said, but none of the projects have been picked up just yet.
Zakarin will serve as Creative Light Entertainment's chairman. Bolotnick will assume the role of president of film, and Tackenberg will be president of television and writer/producer/editor for the production company.
Prior to cofounding Creative Light, Zakarin was the president of programming for AOL's Entertainment Asylum. In 1996, he was CEO of LightSpeed Media, a new media entertainment company, where he directed, produced, and wrote GrapeJam with Bolotnick and Tackenberg.