Blame Society Newsletter + Web Updates
Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda are best known for their video series Chad Vader, a viral internet sensation. Their videos collectively have received well over 73 million views on Babelgum, YouTube, Blip.tv, Hulu and other web sites. Chad Vader has won over a dozen film festival awards, including the "George Lucas Selects" award from the 2007 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge. The series has been written about in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TV Week Magazine, Chicago Sun Times, Washington Post and The Metro (UK), among others. It was featured on VH-1, ABC's Good Morning America, BBC News online, G4 Tech TV and Spike TV. Yonda and Sloan are managed by Kara Welker at Generate in Los Angeles and represented by Dan Shear of the William Morris Agency.
Their work has been screened over a dozen times at the highly competitive Los Angeles-based Channel 101, with three of their shorts (Chad Vader, McCourt's in Session and Fun Rangers) achieving prime time status. They have had two half hour comedy pilots screened at the New York Television Festival (The Splu Urtaf Show and TV Snack Pouch), with many of their pieces appearing at film festivals and conventions across the United States and internationally. Yonda and Sloan write, direct, edit and act in all their material, and have been co-creating films as Blame Society Productions since 2001.
Matt Sloan
Matt Sloan was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For most of the 1990s his main focus was creative writing, theatre, improv and live sketch comedy. In 2000, he moved to Madison and developed an interest in filmmaking. His short film, To My Love has screened at film festivals in the U.S., Montreal and Brazil. Matt is the voice of Darth Vader in Lucas Arts' video games, "The Force Unleashed," "Soul Caliber IV" and "Empire at War: Forces of Corruption."
Sloan and Yonda helped to found Wis-Kino, the Madison chapter of the international Kino movement, which has been active since 2002. A veteran on the stage, Sloan has acted in dozens of theatrical productions, in roles ranging from the lead in Shakespeare's Macbeth, to Georgie Diamond in Madison's Cherry Pop Burlesque, to live improv with The Monkey Business Institute (with Yonda and other Blame Society regulars) and Comedy Sportz.
Aaron Yonda
Aaron Yonda's interest in filmmaking began when he started making his own public access television show, The Splu Urtaf Show, with Benson Gardner in the early 1990s. The Splu Urtaf Show was voted Madison's favorite local TV Show in 2001 by the Isthmus Readers' Poll.
His short film, The Life and Death of a Pumpkin swept the Chicago Horror Film Festival awards, receiving "Best Short Film" and "Best Concept." Yonda's shorts have screened at festivals worldwide including the Just for Laughs Comedia Festival, and the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. View our festival page for the full list of appearances.
Aaron would like his gravestone to say, "I'd rather be golfing."
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