Based in California and sponsored by BodyBuilding.com, the Chapman Media Group has been creating annual 15-episode seasons of The Fit Show since 2003.

While the online show was its first project and still remains one of its few forays into original webcasting, the primary focus of Travis Chapman’s production company is corporate content, like advertising, promotional DVDs, internet marketing, and product placement.

The series has become one of the most watched and appreciated of its ilk, filling a niche spot in sports coverage with scarce competition and an untapped audience of devoted fans.

Spanning over four seasons, the well-produced episodes of The Fit Show run from 10 to 20 minutes and feature event coverage, fitness routines, and interviews with bodybuilding giants.

Big-name competitors like Mr. Universe James Lewis and trainers like Milos Sarcev get the star treatment, telling viewers about the ins and outs of fitness tournaments and what it takes to stay in award-winning shape.

From the response on The Fit Show’s forums, the specialized routines that appear on the show get a lot of attention from amateur and pro viewers alike (Sarcev’s workouts in particular are discussed in detail). The series has several hosts and interviewers, including Hannah, Kim, and Jerome, among others, who are obviously knowledgeable about bodybuilding.

The Sarcev workouts get so much attention from fans that he appears in the show’s first DVD release from the series “Secrets of the Pros,” and for good reason. Check out Episode 47, where Milos and his willing troupe of muscular overachievers perform their leader’s “Hardcore Leg Workout” that’s exhausting just to watch.

Personally, I’m a fan of the episode where Tournament of Champions winner Gina Aliotti shows us the glutes and hamstrings routine that somehow elongated her body for the 2006 competition, which seems scientifically impossible, but what do I know?

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
No Comments »

Some time before January 2006, Eric Humphreys made a resolution to get up off his lazy bum and set sail around the world in an attempt to set a world’s record with the smallest boat at 11.5’. Joined by psychiatrist Dr. Bob O’Connor, Bob’s brother David as producer, and Glenn Herman as editor, they pitched the idea to cable network executives to no avail. So they decided to make it happen themselves. What resulted is a 140+ episode vlog of the team “preparing” for the journey (they have yet to actually set sail…or even make the boat). While it seems that the project has been dormant since around late July 2006, the forum has remained active with speculation about the project’s future.

Episodes center around the ideology behind the project, as well as production decisions about how the project will go down. Each episode is hosted by one of several wenches, er… women (or Phil McGlaston) ranging from the young and vibrant Stephanie Warren to the newscaster-like Charlene taub. About halfway through the project, they catch wind of another sailor hoping to complete the same journey in an even smaller 8’ boat. He joins the cast as Captain Nemesis, and helps bring a dramatic element to the project. Episodes last about 5-7 minutes each and they contain a good amount of commentary from each of the four-team members. Each member also kept a blog from January through May, posting as they saw fit. In case the project ever picks up again, you can subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates, or you can show your support by purchasing Café Press merchandise with either “Sink or Swim” or “He Will Crap Over the Side” mottos.

Episode 25 takes quite a deviation from any discussion of boating or sailing, as it shows footage from an organized pillow fight in NYC’s Union Square with each team member “commenting” on their participation. Some more to-the-point episodes include one speculating on the size of the production boat that will precede Eric in his travels (and which he vehemently opposes), and an another putting tattoos into a historical context. Of course, the most appropriate episode asks the pressing question, “What if…”, wondering what will happen if Eric never sails. The team comes up with plenty of ideas for Eric, and he remains vigilant that he will one day set sail as promised.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
No Comments »

Eddie Codel and Irina Slutsky, hosts of the tech-savvy interview show LunchMeet, have been sitting down with startups, CEOs, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs since October 2006. Self-proclaimed “geeks” (the pair founded Geek Entertainment TV a month before they started episodes of LunchMeet) and lovers of independent media, it’s fitting that LunchMeet is produced by PodTech, an Internet-television and podcast network devoted to technology, business, and media. Though their subjects are not particularly well known outside of the tech world, Codel and Slutsky still manage to conduct well-paced, smart interviews that even the most tech illiterate might find compelling.

Codel and Slutsky cover the entire spectrum of technological events, whether Web-based, like progressive dating site Consumating, or grounded in mobile technology, like market research distributor Embrace Mobile. The hosts are based in San Francisco, a hub for technological development (not to mention delicious looking lunch sandwiches), so the majority of LunchMeets are conducted in the Bay Area. Shot informally with a single stationary camera, most interviews are fairly lengthy – a discussion with AdBrite president Philip Kaplan about their recently revealed InVideo player lasts over a half hour. Both hosts clearly know their stuff, but their laid-back interview styles and knowledge of emerging technologies makes LucnhMeet the perfect stop for tech novices.  Neither interviewer assumes much from the audience, so this is a show that any viewer can enjoy.

Despite the name of the show, one of the most interesting interviews takes place not over lunch in San Fran, but halfway around the world in Austria. Standing up, no less. Shot on location in Vienna, Codel spoke with Slovenian organization Cyberpipe about media literacy and open source technology in Eastern Europe.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Meghann Murphy
No Comments »

Can We Do That?’s creators and stars – Ski-ter, Cory Tyler, and Charles Carpenter – are all successful actors in their own right; all three are in the midst of quite fruitful careers in commercials and television. They use these experiences to create a short (5-minute max) fictional web sitcom that always leads up to the same titular tagline, “Can we do that?”.  A subset of Triune Entertainment, a production company headed by two of the three, the trio started filming in April 2006, and since then have been releasing roughly one or two episodes a month.

The three men play advertising executives – a producer, writer, and director – who are always trying to push the limits with overt sexuality mixed with a heavy dose of charm. Each episode begins with a bikini-clad curvaceous young woman writhing to the “Can We Do That?” theme song (links to these ladies’ modeling pages can also be found). In each professionally produced installment, the men face a dilemma – a missing stripper or producing instructional sex tapes for the uninitiated – and must decide how to move forward. As their brainstormed ideas get more and more raunchy, they are always left wondering at the end if they can get away with it, surfacing repressed memories of the fantastically slimy ‘90s Nickelodeon show, You Can’t Do That on Television. The acting style and absurd situations also conjure up images of a slicked up, Hollywood version of The Office. In an homage to Sesame Street, each episode is “powered by” something, as revealed in the end credits (though barely any of them could ever air on Sesame Street). But as  arguably dirty and chauvinistic as the sleek and charming ad-men’s ideas are, it is all done with their tongues firmly lodged in their cheeks, and the result is surprisingly tasteful.

The first video posted is sure to hook viewers immediately, with a fantastically choreographed and executed fight scene commercial for bottled water. The next, titled “The Skintern” asks important questions, like whether strippers are “whores” or “sluts” – similar to the Tone-Def / Nina Blackburn conversation in Fear of a Black Hat – and revolves around a plot concerning a missing stripper, and whether the guys can get away with asking the intern to take her place. Many of the dilemmas seem to get summed up in “FCC’d up!”, where the boys (and their new intern – the old one has taken a job at a strip joint) fight the FCC, which wants to prevent them from making other lewd videos.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
No Comments »

In late May 2006, the then twenty-two year old Avrom Honig started Chalutz Productions. The company aims to be involved with the production of new media, hoping to fund various projects that meet the board’s quality standards.

So far, Honig and Chalutz have commissioned Honig’s adorable grandmother – Bayla Scher, who prefers to go simply by Bubbe (the Yiddish word for Grandmother) – to host her own Jewish cooking show, Feed Me Bubbe.

As any good Jew knows, the best home cooking comes from your grandmother, and since most of them never write down their recipes, the only way to obtain these little treasures is to get your Bubbe to show you how to make the meals herself. Feed Me Bubbe does just that, with a “wholesome, family-oriented” show designed to entertain while teaching the joys of Jewish cooking.

Episodes each begin with Avrom’s introduction of the three most important words a Jewish boy should know – “feed me Bubbe” – and some rockin’ Klezmer music.

The videos contain one recipe each along with a Yiddish Word of the Day (or two, or three…or four). Although the videos lack the same budget, episodes are cut somewhat similarly to Food TV shows, where much of the preparation has been done off-camera and Bubbe speeds through the baking process while sharing tips, history, and stories, leaving viewers with just the important information, like how to properly form meatballs.  Most of the food is of the Jewish variety, from Luchen Kugel to Frikassee to Mandle bread.

In addition to the episodes, the website features Show Notes, which include episode recaps, and written recipes, in addition to a picture gallery with screenshots from the episodes.

Avrom and Bubbe’s relationship is the typical one. Avrom tries to rein her in, but she usually doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise, and of course everything she makes looks just delicious.  If you’ve experienced Jewish cooking, the show will make you yearn for your next Seder where your own grandmother’s Matzah Ball Soup will inevitably make its annual appearance. Until then, you can always watch Bubbe.

Bubbe is at her cutest when she is showing off, such as when she shows the muscle it takes to chop grind beef with a hackmesser, as they did when she was young. For such a tiny little woman, she’s got some serious arm strength!

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
No Comments »

Nick Douglas, the creator of Look Shiny, is primarily known for being the first editor and writer of Valleywag, a San Francisco-based tech gossip blog about big-name Silicon Valley professionals put out by Gawker Media (which also produces such gossip blogs as, Gawker in New York, Wonkette in Washington DC, Defamer in Hollywood, and tech sites like Gizmodo and Lifehacker). Douglas was recruited for Valleywag by Gawker Media founder, Nick Denton, for Douglas’ outsider status from the web-scene (he left his undergraduate English program early at Grove City College in Pennsylvania to write the blog). He was fired from his Valleywag position in November of 2006 for “misunderstanding of the purpose of the site”, but within two months one again contriubeted regular postings. Douglas also wrote media and technology commentaries for Eat the Press, The Huffington Post’s media news section, before launching Look Shiny in February of 2007.

Douglas seems to have moved away from the tech-related gossip he was churning out at Valleywag, toward more generalized personal critique on his own life: that of a young blogger in an urban landscape with liberal politics and a wry and pithy sense of humor. He posts new videos regularly, addressing issues like how not to show up, how to respond to people asking for money on the street, and how to not get things done: basically, all things a vaguely neurotic educated young person thinks about all the time but fails to confront directly. Episodes can be accessed through the archives and generally don’t last longer than about four minutes. Most are filmed in what is presumably Douglas’ home office, but he takes it to the streets of San Francisco from time to time to interact with the community.

Check out The Following Things Are Not Funny, and get acquainted with Douglas’ sense of humor. Hint: the phrases, “the internets,” ‘the interweb,” and “a series of tubes” are decidedly unfunny…but cancer is.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Kate Dundon
No Comments »

Move over, bartenders, therapists, and priests. The rest of the world now has a chance to hear people’s deepest, most personal confessions too. Café Confidential, launched in March 2007 on video-sharing site Metacafe, features unscripted video clips of real individuals sharing personal experiences and secrets – things that even family or friends might not hear.

Hollywood television producer Steven Bochco (whose credits include producing NYPD Blue, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues, and Doogie Howser, M.D.) conceived the site with the premise that, “Online video provides an extraordinary forum for intimate, personal storytelling.” The 18- to 30-year-olds at Café Confidential ostensibly agree. Whether they were pulled from the street, approached at a mall, or motivated enough to submit their own videos, these individuals apparently couldn’t resist the opportunity to get their story out to a worldwide audience.

What kind of “confessions” exactly? A lot of PG-13 fare (with some pushing the envelope). The categories speak for themselves: My Most Embarrassing Moment, My Wildest Drinking Story, My First Time, My Weird Family, My Worst Date, My Craziest Day at Work. Not every 45-150 sec. clip is super compelling, but a good number are truly laugh-out-loud funny or memorably cringe-worthy. Take for instance “My Daughter at WalMart,” in which a father recounts his most embarrassing moment due to an unexpected declaration his young daughter makes at the store. Kids say the darndest things. Or “Girlfriend in the Basement,”a classic tale of getting caught by your mom when you’re in a, um, compromising position.

What truly makes Café Confidential work, though, isn’t necessarily the tantalizing secrets but simply watching various personalities unfold as they tell their story. Witness Cowabungagal, a woman who describes each of her experiences – about a one-night stand in college, a “call of nature” moment in Spain, and a hellish hostess job – with the unintentional humor of a natural comedienne.

In an age of blogs and vlogs, it’s not a wonder that confessional videos are one more avenue for personalizing the Internet. Blatant exhibitionism? Probably. Too much information? Definitely. Entertaining in a satisfyingly nosy way? Absolutely.

Want to do some confessing of your own?  Feel free to tell the world about your most intimate moments.

By far the funniest video is “Toilet Date,” from the Will Video for Food and YouTube-famous personality better known as “Nalts.”  I probably laughed for a few minutes straight after watching this 91-second clip about a guy’s run-in with his date’s father. Very Meet the Parents!

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Pearl Chen
No Comments »

In January 2006, after moving to New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and spending under a month making the small cooking blog Food Muse, Grace Piper decided that it was time to turn her blog into a vlog. The first and only episode of Food Muse, a cooking show which talks about the history and inspiration for various dishes, was posted January 20, 2006. But Grace wasn’t finished and decided to move her videos in a more dangerous direction. While she continued posting to the blog, in May 2006 Grace released the first episode of Fearless Cooking, a vlog that takes reader-submitted trepidations about home cooking and explores the variety of projects viewers can do in the kitchen if they forget theirfears and figure out how to spatchcock a chicken.

Filmed by a cameraman with a shaky hand, most videos are 2 to 5 minutes long, straight to the point, shot almost entirely in Grace’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment (except when she goes on trips) and edited with a knack for speed and funky cooking music. Although the updates are infrequent, the show is worth watching for Grace’s obvious enthusiasm for conquering culinary fears and the simple recipes that use unusual ingredients. However, this is not a straightforward cooking show. This is about cooking adventurously and occasionally failing, as in this recipe for grilled squid that “smells bad and tastes like wet leather” (Although the recipe for mojitos, which was shown before cooking the squid in order to make the cooking of the squid a little bit easier, appeared to go over well).

I have to confess that I was a little nauseous and not at all hungry after watching the squid dissection, but I was also riveted in a Discovery Channel sort of way.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
No Comments »

Based in Chicago, Business POV’s principals Mark Scheffler (editor and producer) and Peter Scheffler (development and financial management) set out in fall 2006 to create a free resource to discuss successful and unsuccessful industry models, with a focus on local business strategies.

With a team of producers, editors, videographers, and business developers behind them, their combined work for Chicago’s financial magazines and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange gave them the leverage they needed to make their website work.

This is one of the broadest business journalism vlogs that I’ve seen yet. Spanning advertising, product development, packaging, marketing, and even consumer reports, this website covers everything in terminology that anyone can understand, but with an emphasis on industry’s finer details, for the same crowd who reads the Wall Street Journal’s editorials.

The edited, professionally shot videos are short (2 to 7 minutes), fresh daily, and are compiled into two categories with various subsections. The Top Stories category includes Perspective (industry analyses), Product (demonstrations and reviews), Profile (bios of industry developers), and Process (creative and technical development). The Local Knowledge category is divided into Ask the Expert and a random assortment of other interesting advice.

Even someone with no business sense at all can find something interesting here, whether it’s the video on the marketing strategy behind the CIA’s college recruitment campaign or the business plan behind the McCormick Employee Motivation Show.

The advantage here is the focus on insider commentary, found in full force with the video where a designer from Webb Scarlett deVlam explains the detailed process behind creating packaging for Lifestyles Brand Condoms’ new sexual lubricant Excite. It’s almost incredible how much pre-planning goes into the visual design for such a thing. This discussion of target consumer stereotypes, illustrations of situations where the product would be ideally used, “visualizations of the brand essence,” consumer trees, circuitous “item aspirations,” and demographic color palettes is a fascinating look behind the curtain of marketing and product design.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
No Comments »

When all show has is a webcam and no budget, you know you’re doing something right when the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times both not only feature your site just three months into production, but they award it with front page coverage. After trying to make his way in the traditional film industry, Mesh Flinders teamed up with “medical school drop-out” Miles Beckett to start Lonenlygirl15 in June 2006. Since then, the fictional webcam zeitgeist has been stringing along a remarkable amount of regular viewers, many of whom believed the series to actually be a true-life account of an estranged girl’s entrance into the occult. After the show took off, co-director and co-producer Miles Beckett quit his job as a surgeon, took a loan from his parents to create Lonelygirl15 LLC, and he and Flinders acquired married agents Greg and Amanda Goodfried to deal with the incredible amount of publicity that the small, serialized, fictive vlog managed to receive.

Bree, played by Jessica Lee Rose, is a just a normal 16-year-old girl going through problems with her boyfriend, her parents, and her mysterious religion that requires a restricted diet, daily “injections,” and a dangerous ceremony that Bree found both scary and exciting. Some people have been calling Lonelygirl15 an alternate reality game, but that seems like a stretch. It’s hard to get any more low-budget than a webcam, props from Target, and a minimal salary for its workers, but that’s part of the show’s appeal. It’s a fictional show with two-minute videos updated once every few days, sometimes more and sometimes less. The length of the show makes the amount of episodes prolific, although the show’s central mysteries will probably remain unsolved until the series ends. (But if you want to get caught up, the official Wiki and forum is your best bet.) When fellow vlogger Jonas appeared, a longtime fan of Bree’s vlog, offering sympathy and support, the lines between reality and fiction blurred even more. When Bree and her boyfriend Daniel decided to run away, Jonas, played by Jackson Davis, offered them shelter and became the third member of the show’s growing cast and creative, ever-expanding storylines.

The episode I Completed the Ceremony brought somewhat of a conclusion to months of speculation as to what would happen to Bree. It didn’t end, however, and neither did the mystery of Bree’s religion (though we did find out for sure that it is a cult). Usually, unmentioned bandages and vaguely ominous phrases are all that fans have to go on amidst whiny conversations about her boyfriend and her schoolwork, but this is one of the rare episodes where the creepier elements of the show are discussed openly.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
No Comments »

First published in 1818, the original Farmers’ Almanac carried on the tradition of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack by providing early American farmers and enthusiasts useful weather and crop information blended with wit, wisdom, lifestyle tips, and a dash of wry cynicism.

Today, Farmer’s Almanac TV brings this marvel of Americana into the 21^st century. After purchasing the exclusive rights to the Farmer’s Almanac trademark in 2003, Buy the Farm LLC, a group of Savanna, GA-based entrepreneurs, broadcast its first episode on public television in April 2006 and launched its site a month later, providing farmers and gardeners with a practical, informative, and contemporary resource. 

Weather forecasts, household tips, natural cures, classic colonial recipes, how-to lawn and garden advice, and compelling insights into new and traditional ruralism are just a few of the video categories featured on Farmer’s Almanac TV. Whether it’s a short on the history of weather vanes, information about a natural cure for sore throats, or a five-minute documentary on the national cattle dog competition, the video quality and information packed into each production is impressive and more than enough cause to stick around and celebrate the good old days.

Jim Wann, a former Broadway writer/actor, hosts most of the video content, doing so with a friendly smile. In addition to the videos, be on the lookout around the site for helpful articles and little bits of wit and wisdom – “Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.” Also check out the blogs and forums for farming-oriented discussion and tips. 

Interested in the sport of giant pumpkin growing, but only seen the weigh-ins and records? Check out this video of Al Berard as he takes you on an enlightening and jaunty tour around his Maine Giant Pumpkin patch. 

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
No Comments »

Wreck and Salvage is the brainchild of Erik Nelson of Bottom Union, Adam Quirk of Bullemhead, and Aaron Valdez of Valdezatron. Together they wish to share their “love of rust and rotting wood, postcard landscapes and decaying industry, accordians [sic] and banjos, knucklehead engines and 4 bangers, lager beer and chilaquiles.” Eclectic stuff, expressed in quirky videos decimated each Monday and Thursday, with a backcountry cabin homepage replete with nudie and auto silhouettes.

Wreck and Salvage’s videos are divided into four series: Valdez’s America, Your America! mocks the commercialism of tourist advertisements by satirically filming the American experience at the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore; Quirk’s Ornamental Concrete follows the adventures of two stop-animated nude action figures that attend class reunions and misuse weightlifting equipment; Quirk and Nelson’s Suppendapo provides video to accompany bizarre recording of people calling to purchase supplies for the pending apocalypse (squid ink as the future currency, rescinded requests for trigger locks, which will obviously be rendered irrelevant); and all three Wreck and Salvage founders’ Video Moroso, a grab bag montage of clips compiled from sources crappy and canonical, as with a highlight reel of car safety tests and music video of Russian beauties joined to a death metal version of “House of the Rising Sun.”

A front office allows viewers to post their own videos, photos and words, making it possible for them to add to Nelson, Quirk, and Valdez’s fierce experiment in culture jamming and innovative mischief. Want to spawn even more Wreck and Salvage creativity? Bid on their weekly eBay auctions to win some exclusive on-site and on-video real estate.

The aforementioned Shining-inspired re-editing of Starman and The Big Lebowski to form a trailer for Stardude is the best example of Wreck and Salvage’s creativity, while the first episode and origin story of Ornamental Concrete takes the cake for sheer comic absurdity. Hosts Billy and Pollard barely contain their homoerotic tendencies while lounging in Jacuzzis and…working as railroad inspectors?

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Michael Joshua Rowin
No Comments »