I Am The TV

Vloggies

Congratualtions to all those who have walked away with a prize at the Vloggies. Personally I am particularly pleased for Alive In Baghdad - this work, as I have previously blogged, is outstanding.

KBR Convoy Ambushed in Iraq

Here is a frightening video shot in Iraq. A convoy is ambushed and one driver is left behind. He is alone and unarmed.

This video is a great example of news made by unprofessonals. Somehow this guy keeps filming even though he is terrified. What is extraordinary is that this is one long take. Sometimes the camera is showing you the back of the truck but the radio conversation continues. The filmamakers comments will make your hair stand on end. News in the hands of the people.

Martialarts TV

I dropped in on the UK channel martialartstv.com, an innovative channel set up for fans of the martial arts. Here you will find a whole lot of streamed content, downloads for your phone etc. The channel is simple in design but is a great example of a niche making its mark in the online world. OK OK I know the the martial arts are pretty huge so perhaps to describe it as a niche is an understatement, but this is a young channel providing a host of programmes, interviews, documentaries, a great library and of course fights galore, everything from Sanjuro to hard core Thai. The movie section is a little disappointing with just a Bruce Lee biopic and the truly dreadful UK movie Draining Lizards. With the wealth of classic cinematic material out there it is a shame that this all that is offered - or is it that it just a nightmare obtaining the necessary liscences? It would also be great if the channel shared its programming, I would have loved to paste a little window here.

Enough of my negativity! MartialartsTV does what it does with aplomb and if the martial arts are your thing then this is the place to be.

And they want your material so if you are that way inclined get writing, get fighting, get filming!

Sam Has 7 Friends

Samantha Breslow has seven friends.

On December 15, 2006, one of them will kill her.

Sam dies in 57 days...

As soon as you arrive at samhas7friends.com you are hooked. This is a terrific new drama that has been made for the web. It is probably the best I have seen to date. Sometimes it has the feel of Chasing Windmills, but is generally less of a navel gazer.

The writing, performing and production values are of a high standard. The music in particular is fab. 4 different writer/director teams lead the viewer through their own piece of Sam's life.

It really is 'made-for-the-web' right down to each character having their own MySpace page. I am Roman's friend!

Welcome Mick!

I am really pleased to announce that our good friend and internet TV junkie Michael Liubinskas will be joining the IAMTHETV bloggers from today. Mick was the Director of Marketing for Kazaa and is now in the same role at Zapr. Welcome Mick!

You'll see that he has already been at it.

Those Pesky Kids

[my first post]

I had some friends over for dinner last night and one of the things we talked about was TV. We meandered across;

- "Six Feet Under is my favourite TV show of all time"
- "Do you have season six of West Wing yet?"
- "I saw this video on YouTube where..."
- "I just don't get reality TV.... but I love Biggest Loser"
- "I really don't know what kids see in this 'whacky antics' TV?"
- "MTV doesn't even play music anymore???"

I tried to find some 'Happy Slapper' video that is worth showing, but couldn't. So here is one that is not worth showing. All the kids are doing it these days..........

What I took from all of that was;
1. We all think we don't watch much TV. We all in fact do watch at least 5 hours of TV a week, more like 10.
2. We don't like the idea of reality TV. We all in fact do like 'some' reality TV
3. We all think that kids are crazy and have no clue. We all in fact also looked the same way to our parents when watching the programs that defined our youth.
4. We all slip seamlessly between different mediums and don't consider them different. I can be as easily entertained by a 30 second video someone sends me as a 24 part series where Jack Bower saves the world again.

It's funny trying to be the change and going through the change at the same time.

Battle The Fox

In the documentary OutFOXed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (Interviews) [fox news, FNC, media], Jeff Cohen a former MSNBC/Fox News Contributor describes media as "the nervous system of democracy" what then emerges throughout the film is a media envionment which is not just sick but dying, the press is not free it is a victim of the right - it is a Murdoch construct. Perhaps we all know this, however what emerges from OutFOXed is the need for independent networks to provide a more rounded view of the world and this need is not coming from the providers but the consumers. Link tv is an excellent site providing alternative and intelligent news drawn from all over the world as well topical debate. Particularly good is Mosaic 'world news from the MIddle East'.

As Murdoch begins buying up the web Linktv is one of the saving lights of democracy and all that without a bomb or a threat.

CBS - Web Only Show: Hook Me Up

CBS have released a new TV show on the web only. Its called Hook Me Up. It is great to see traditional broadcast producers exploring the web only medium. It is in the 'reality dating' genre where viewers on the net vote for who each contestant should be paired with.

It is interesting to see the emerging business model. More and more we are seeing sponsorship becoming a great opportunity for advertisers. In this case Dentyne.

Current.TV Comes to Yahoo! Video - TV 2.0

Current.TV comes to Yahoo! Video. Why is this important? Current.TV is the first 'cable channel' I have seen which has learned from what people are doing on the Internet. We have Web 2.0 and they are kinda TV 2.0 - as they say "Created By, With and For Our Audience." Even the ads are made by users! They have been buried deep inside Google Video for a while now (I didn't notice) but now they are a destination site on Yahoo! bringing a new audience and new creators to the network.

I think it is exciting because they also bring a sense of quality to Internet TV... so as well as bringing the Internet to TV, they are bringing what TV producers know about aesthetics and entertainment to the Internet. I love it...

Coming Soon... The Scobleizer

I have been waiting with anticipation for this show. Sure, it will be entertainment for geeks like me but Scoble gets what can be done with broadcasting interactively with the community that watches the show - he really gets it.

Watch the Video

ZeFrank Will Be A Superstar

ZeFrank creates one of the longest running internet TV shows. His show is terrific because he consistently wraps complex ideas into a package that is super entertaining. You can watch his show just for a laugh, but take away something to think about. Here's his show on Ugly MySpace.

the show with zefrank

One look at his main page shows that he has been playing with internet content for quite some time.

His TV show is stylistically clever because he has defined a simple visual language (very close up, don't blink, fast pade). The downside of this is that we only see one side of him. When I saw his performance at the TED conference I realised that he will be a superstar of the video internet.

Alive In Baghdad

Alive In Baghdad was formed in order to inform the world, and in particular America, of the Iraqi experience of day to day living. Its mission is to highlight the similarities of life in Iraq with life in the West and personilise the people who are branded as terrorists on our news everyday, and "to wonder about the strength of resolve it takes to continue supporting your family against all odds under occupation".

This is the future of reportage. This is immediate, low budget, on the ground news coverage which is not censored by a network. This work shows the reality, not the soundbite.

The film I have pasted below is a very moving story of a child not yet two years old suffering from the effects of the depleted uranium which was dropped in both Gulf Wars. This does not make easy viewing but I would urge you to watch it.

Depleted Uranium is still a favourite ordinance in the West's armoury. Our governments deny the link between this weapon and the kind of illness covered in the bulletin below, even though rates of cancer and deformities in Iraq's children have sky-rocketed since 1991.

Let video empower the victims and bring about some change!

To find out more about depleted uranium please visit http://www.cadu.org.uk/

Splendid Entertainment

GUnit present The Ebay Song.

Journeyman.tv

Journeyman.tv is London's leading independent distributor of topical news features, documentaries and footage. They describe themselves as an encyclopaedia of the world. Here live a massive documentary archive. This is a great site with some extraordinary material even if not all of it is free.

Google vs Youtube and the Political Documentary

Where Google can out do Youtube is ultimately in the length of its programmes. Youtube puts a ten minute time limit on the vids. This will ultimately prevent them from being anything more serious than sugar entertainment, which is fine. However, what I have been watching are a series of polictical documentries on Google, films which probably have only one showing on TV before being forgotten - but on Google they are available. This is the web at its best, a forum for communication and debate. What is exciting is that I can copy the code for the film into this blog and in my own way pass the word on.

The film I have posted is Peace, Propaganda and The Promise Land by Bathsheba Ratzkoff and Sut Jhally. It is an American film about the US media's reporting of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. It discusses what is often left out of the American reportage and hence how the US people remain, on the whole, ignorant of what is taking in the occupied Palestine. It goes into particular depth concerning the PR campaign that Israel has undertaken with the American press, how language is controlled and how death is media managed. This is the web at its cutting edge best.