Bernie Su is an American web series creator, writer, director and producer. He is best known for his work on the Emmy Award-winning web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries with Hank Green, a modern vlog-style adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice which won YouTube’s first primetime Emmy. His five-platform interactive re-imagination of Austen’s Emma, called Emma Approved, won the same Emmy two years later. Su also worked on Vanity, was Multi-channel network StyleHaul’s first original online series, with Maybelline New York attached as the exclusive sponsor for its centennial celebration. Su's most recent project, Artificial, follows a young AI named Sophie as she learns what it means to be a human. It is the first web series to debut on the streaming serviceTwitch and was awarded a Primetime Emmy and Peabody Award in 2019.
Career
''The Lizzie Bennet Diaries'' and ''Pemberley Digital''
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is an American web series adapted from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The story is conveyed in the form of vlogs. It was created by Hank Green and Bernie Su, produced by Jenni Powell and stars Ashley Clements, Mary Kate Wiles, Laura Spencer, Julia Cho and Daniel Vincent Gordh. It premiered on YouTube on April 9, 2012 and concluded when the 100th episode was posted on March 28, 2013. The story is told in vlog-style by the eponymous character, each episode being between two and eight minutes long. In 2013, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries won YouTube’s first primetime Emmy. The Guardian called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries "the best Austen adaptation around" at the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice. In 2014, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries YouTube Channel was listed on New Media RockstarsTop 100 Channels, ranked at #40. A DVD set containing every episode of the series and its spinoffs was launched on Kickstarter on March 22, 2013; the initial pledge goal of $60,000 was met within six hours.
Sequels
''Welcome to Sanditon''
Taking place after the events of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Welcome to Sanditon follows Gigi Darcy as she spends her summer in Sanditon, CA to run a beta demo of the Pemberley Digital Domino application. The residents of Sanditon have all been invited to join in the test, and discover how this “life-revealing” app performs. The mini-series is a modernized adaptation of Jane Austen's unfinished novel, Sanditon. One notable difference from the source material is Gigi replaces the unfinished novel's original heroine, Charlotte Heywood.
''Emma Approved''
Taking place after the events of Welcome to Sanditon, Emma Approved focuses on Emma Woodhouse, a confident and proud female entrepreneur who believes she is an excellent matchmaker. The series is a modernized adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, Emma. One notable difference from the source material is Caroline Lee replaces Augusta Hawkins as Philip Elton's wife. The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet is a book by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick which takes readers deep inside Lizzie’s world and well beyond the confines of her camera.
''The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet''
The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet is a book by Kate Rorick and Rachel Kiley, and audiobook with Mary Kate Wiles performing all the voices, telling Lydia's story from a few months after TLBD for about a year.
Artificial
Artificial, also referred to as ArtificialNext, is the first ever scripted and interactive show distributed on Twitch. Created by Bernie Su and Evan Mandery, Artificial follows Dr. Matt Lin and his artificial intelligence creation/daughter Sophie. Dr. Lin socializes Sophie with the live and interactive Twitch audience in order to help her become human. Episodes are broken into recorded and live scenes. In the live scenes, the audience directly influences the story, and, through in-stream polls and comments, helps the characters make decisions. The first season ran weekly from August 12, 2018 through October 25, 2018 for a total of sixteen episodes and accrued more than two million views. The second season began on March 6, 2019, and will conclude on August 28. In 2019, he series was awarded the Peabody Futures of Media Award for Webisode. The series additionally has a spinoff podcast, Artificial Uncovered, an in-universe transmediavideo podcast that airs as two livestreams with one of the show's two hosts providing commentary and taking questions on a pre-recorded podcast with both hosts. The audio of the pre-recorded segments is also posted for download.
