The Experimental Channel was begun in October 2006 by San Francisco’s Ronaldo Barbachano in an effort to bring alternative and experimental visual art to online audiences. The site features video art by Barbachano , Experimental Channel curator Mike Daddona, and others (many of them represented on the EC-plugged Eyeplugs Vol. 1 DVD, a compilation of videos shown in the program series of the same name), as well as coverage of San Francisco art exhibition openings, events, and announcements of local shows.

The Experimental Channel is sporadically updated and focuses on work by a small circle of artists. Thus, the content is  not particularly varied or diverse. The majority of the site’s videos are created by Barbachano: “Blindspot” is a collage of San Francisco street scenes, “Redgreenwoods” similarly deals with nature and transportation, and “Distillate” deals with industry. Art openings are extensively covered in a series titled “Diego Tuesdays,” in which The EC drops in on the Diego gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute where students show their work in weekly exhibitions—each episode (for example, the third) captures the informal manner of the openings and provides helpful exposure to talented art students.

The Experimental Channel’s interview with SF Art Institute MFA candidate Renetta Sitoy offers an insightful look into her video installation “Dreams and Landscapes.” Hopefully The EC will contain more such interviews – surely San Francisco houses enough promising artists and enough promising art to give the channel material for a long, long time.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Michael Joshua Rowin
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November 2006 saw the introduction of Live Sets, or what’s officially called Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music.  These twice-monthly concerts are sponsored by Nissan, performed for studio audiences full of fans, and aired on the Yahoo! website.  Artists such as Christina Aguilera, Nas, Carlos Santana, and Tony Bennett both sing and participate in Q&As with eager audiences. 

With lots of top talent and free original content, it’s no surprise that within a year, Live Sets had some 10 million views.  The series seems to be Yahoo!’s answer to AOL Sessions.  It has similar features and even some of the same artists, yet contrasts AOL’s empty studio space with live concerts as well as greater interactive options.  The program also expanded its reach when MTV’s hi-def channel MHD TV debuted a series of half-hour highlights from previous concerts.

The concerts resemble MTV Unplugged, but with bigger sound.  They’re filmed in a studio with some 200 fans all having great seats and adding to the energy of the performances.  After  each show, the site provides footage of the songs and Q&A, all of which can be played as separate tracks.  Each show has an official fan blogger who describes things like watching the rehearsal, meeting the artist, and, of course, the concert.  Sometimes the blogger will delve more into the the technical side of the set or make slight criticisms, but usually it’s more ordinary fan fare (like writing that despite Common‘s success and “those pesky Gap ads, this dude is a real MC who is ready to knock heads off with two turntables and a microphone”).

The Live Sets home page links to lots of other things, from music videos by the featured artists to an archive of all the previous concerts.  You can click to Y! Música, the Spanish-language version of Live Sets.  Yahoo! also provides a section called “Fans’ Eye View,” which includes amateur photos and a multiple-choice quiz.  If you like Velvet Revolver, for example, do you know which Michael Jackson song had Slash playing guitar?  If you answer “Black or White,” you may be rated a “super fan.”  If not, maybe you’re a mere “poser.”  Either way, you can email the same quiz to your friends and see how they do. 

Tony Bennett singing an old Hank Williams classic?  Melissa Etheridge describing how struggling with cancer shaped her music?  Iggy Pop prancing shirtless and looking better than most guys half his age?  Rock on Yahoo!

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by James Latham
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At a time when Americans are paying exorbitant sums for their peaceful Eastern exercises, Yoga Today founder Kim Whitman realized that by putting the content online, she could “bring free yoga to the world” with only minimal advertising and produce daily one-hour lessons with no charge. With the help of Instant Media, Whitman has been posting regular episodes in HD with the beautiful mountains of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as her backdrop since June 14, 2006.  

Each episode is led by one of three instructors (Adi Amar, Neesha Zollinger, and Sarah Kline) and two students. They introduce the show’s focus (be it breathing, meditation, or rooting your feet to the ground), break to a few minutes of commercials, then start class, teaching 9-10 poses and ending with guided meditation. What’s great is that the students have different skill levels and the instructors interact with them to adjust to their training, making it a worthwhile lesson for all viewers. When weather permits, classes are held on the mountains of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, providing an outright gorgeous backdrop for the at-home viewing experience. Each new episode can found on the main page, but only the last three episodes are kept in the Archives. However, if you keep caught up with the daily sessions, you won’t need them.

One particularly amusing episode attempts to connect yoga to Star Wars. Sarah Kline does indeed sound a little like Yoda when she compares fire breathing to the sound Darth Vader makes, tells you to suck in your stomach like the force that brings the Star Wars spaceship into its landing pad, and treats her students like Jedis, developing their powers so that they can create harmony in the world.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
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Where Are the Joneses? was nothing if not unique: a British comedy series, produced by The Imagination Group and sponsored by American automobile manufacturer Ford, that relied on the direct participation of its viewers, who could edit and re-edit the script before shooting commences. The show allowed for infinite possibilities—which have been taken well advantage of—because its initial premise was so wide open: Dawn Jones (Emma Fryer) discovers upon the death of her mother that she is one of 27 children of a particular sperm donor.  She sets out to locate her fellow siblings and her father with Ian (Neil Edmond), the first brother she contacts.

Where Are the Joneses must unfortunately be spoken of in the past tense – it began in June 2007 but its run, and the participation that was inseparable from its existence, ended three months later in September. Viewers can now watch the entire series from the start.

Evaluating Where Are the Joneses? without engaging in its myriad collaborative features means losing half the excitement of such a project. That said, the success of the final product can still be gathered from the episodes alone—and the experiment, it seems, ultimately works. That’s because no matter how many web chefs contribute to the soup, the show maintains a consistent look and feel that is anchored by its two leads. Where Are the Joneses? is highly indebted to the improvised goofiness (and slight disdain) of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries and maybe David O. Russell’s real-parent-search Flirting With Disaster—indeed, the show is in the style of a documentary filming Dawn’s international quest.
  
The show primarily thrives not on its viewers, but on the performances by Fryer and Edmond, who display ceaseless energy in acting obliviously naïve and airheaded throughout the story’s increasingly wacky twists and turns. Because of them the melodrama of Where Are the Joneses wanes where the isolated fun of each episode’s impossible antics waxes. And that’s a good thing.

Where Are the Joneses really gets involved once Dawn and Ian get on the road (and first discover one of their other siblings is an acquaintance of Ian), so the best way to not only understand but get involved in the series is to check out the first episodes. Some classic moments: Ian responds to Dawn’s news by simply running away;Ian goes through an astounding list of phobias just as he and Dawn set off on their journey;Dawn and Ian’s heartfelt bottle messages to their father.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Michael Joshua Rowin
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Having cut its teeth in 2004 on Horse TV, an admittedly rare cable channel, Equitrekking branched out to the internet in 2004 with a major site upgrades and appearances on primetime PBS following in 2006. With an obvious love of all things equine, host and producer Darley Newman started the site to serve as video repository, news source, travel agent, trainer, and meeting place for those who like to spend their vacations in a saddle. The message boards are currently anemic, but the creators are knowledgeable and will put you in touch with someone who can answer your questions.

If you’ve been dying to find out where to go horseback riding in Ireland, Equitrekking is your site. You’ll find gorgeous videos of Andalusian horses walking on their hind legs and of a cowgirl camp in New Mexico. You can link to tour guides that will take you anywhere you want to go, give you an animal, and send you off into some fascinating landscapes. The travel tips will help you if you want to transport your own horse to far off lands (surprisingly not so uncommon) and will remind you to pack a sturdy pair of breeches – pants so skinny a jockey would blush. The site also has a healthy photography section. Holding the reins obviously didn’t stop these correspondents from snapping some interesting shots.  

Because I live in New York, I assumed that riding was reserved for those that dwelt in penthouses and took frequent jaunts to ride horses from the Iberian Peninsula. Darley’s Travel Blog, however, says otherwise. $25 per hour isn’t exactly cheap for a ride around Central Park, but might be worth the experience.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Nicholas Mosquera
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WestAcre concerns itself with the inept ongoings of characters at the WestAcre Centre Shopping Mall in suburban Colorado, whose name is a variation on the West Acres Shopping Center in Fargo, North Dakota. The fictional mall, as some introductory text in the first episode reveals, was once the “third most visited mall in all North America,” but has now fallen on hard times due to “luxury malls and online shopping.” But, as the opening text concludes optimistically, this situation “makes for a stimulating work environment.”

The show is the brain child of six-year mall retail veteran, Patrick Swinnea and a group of talented Colorado-based actors and filmmakers, who took a movie he and his crew were making and broke it up into serial form for web broadcast. Making its debut on April 20th, 2007, WestAcre proved right from the start to be a polished and professional sitdotcom, unsparing in its scrutiny of its various characters’ blemishes and insecurities.

WestAcre shares the aesthetic of Office Space with influences from The Office and Reno 911.  Each episode follows the exploits of several characters trapped in a corporate and public service world following their fruitless, frustrating paths. First, we meet mall security guard, Harrison Roberts (Jason Henning), who doesn’t demand much respect from his colleagues. The Assistant Mall Manager is Wayne Miller (Josh Botana), a Seth Rogan sound-alike with filmmaking ambitions. Lorenzo Johnson (Neal McMillen), a 27-year-old slacker who lives with his mom, works for Frank Stirling (Russell S. Phillips), the GlobolMobol store manager, while Sara Morgan (Taiesha Anderson), the new girl in the mall, becomes the object of Lorenzo’s affections.  Wayne eventually sets out to realize his dreams by making a music video for a band run by his indifferent new assistant Rohan Stevens (Ryan Arthur Kemp).

WestAcre‘s general affect can be a little flat and distant. But if the acting is occasionally uneven, the visual presentation is uniformly skillful. In addition, WestAcre overcomes a problem that usually plagues “reality”-inspired  comedy shows, which is that buffoons tend to be less accepted in the real world. Here, the occasional minor rational character will be, at the very least, less than patient with  the clownishness of the main characters. With each episode, WestAcre gains in complexity and, though it was once going to be simply a full-blown movie, it may prove to have a long life on the web as it continues to explore its characters.

Once the characters are rolled out, WestAcre digs into their quirks and mixes them up in a series of wry, dry, and funny situations. “Delusions” mercilessly contrasts Wayne’s fantasies of success in Hollywood with his real life, sitting and clicking a computer mouse in his barren apartment. “Good Cop Bad Cop” exposes the utter cluelessness of Harrison Roberts as a self-defined lothario.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Douglas Holm
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Canadians Alex, Fret, and Fraser of Far From Subtle Productions are the inventors of the kooky cartoon-for-adults known as The Little Buzzers. While clearly, intentional or not, there is some reference to those annoying little Teletubbies, this cartoon is geared toward the more sarcastically inclined set. Production began in August 2005, with new installments from the Toronto-based creators airing a little less than once a month thereafter. 

Sedrick, Duncan, and Greevil are the three main characters of this popular flash animation, with Dr. Kill-Kill making guest appearances as the evil con-artist, always trying to swindle money from the three of them. The threesome look like various renditions of Casper the Friendly Ghost meets the Ghostbusters’ Marshmallow Man meets Hershey Kisses. Considering this simplistic design for the blob-like buzzers, the animators do a pretty impressive job at making them expressive. They speak in synthesized electronic voices while bubbles pop up over their heads as translations of their sarcastic and funny banter. The episodes show the buzzers raving, beat-boxing, chewing batteries sprinkled with poison, and even visiting Lady Bass, the techno DJ.   True fans can comment on the hilarity on the website’s Forum.      

The Little Buzzers episodes have a running storyline that builds from episode to episode. That being said, it’s best to start with episode 1 where Sedrick and Duncan discover Greevil, and then watch the rest straight through.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
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In November 2005, when Stephen Voltz, a lawyer from Buckfield, Maine discovered a trick that thousands of school children already knew involving mentos and diet coke, little did he know it would land him on the red carpet at the Webbie Awards a little over a year later. Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe (a juggler from Buckfield) took the explosive experiment of combining Diet Coke and Mentos a little further than the average fourth grader. The duo used this volatile reaction to create visually impressive “geysers.” Then, they used the geysers to create a choreographed show worthy of comparison to the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. After entering a video of their soggy spectacle in various contests to no avail, Voltz and Grobe decided to make their own website in order to showcase their unusual performance. Three days after EepyBird.com (named after a character created by a friend) launched on June 3, 2006, the pair was contacted by producers from the “Late Show with David Letterman” and the rest is history.

Voltz and Grobe have since appeared on NPR, the “Today Show,” the “Late Show with David Letterman,” and featured in the New York Times. EepyBird videos have also appeared on the Blue Man Group’s “How to be a Megastar” tour, the Coca-Cola website, and the Mentos American website. Not too bad for two guys from Buckfield.

Eepybird.com offers a surprising range of videos considering that the entire premise of the site is exploring the reaction caused by mixing Diet Coke and Mentos. Nevertheless, co-creaters Voltz and Grobe have expanded this simple experiment into several variations of their original performance, as well as taking the sticky stunt on the road to non-Maine locales.

The site displays the EepyBird buddies preparing for a stunt in Washington Square Park in New York (that was later cancelled by the cops), breaking the world record for the most Mentos geysers in Cincinnati, and performing at the Blue Man Group Theater in Boston.

All EepyBird videos are artfully edited to a soundtrack provided by AudioBody. The guys also try to throw some education in with their entertainment by explaining the science behind the explosions in the How Does it Work section. And, realizing that one can only watch soda spout artistically for so long, Voltz and Grobe have also included interesting hunchback how-to’s created by some pals.

Watch Experiment 137 first to see how it all started and then click over to Experiment 214 a.k.a. “The Domino Effect” to see the difference corporate sponsorship makes (ahem…Coca-Cola and Mentos we’re talking about you). To find out how fast a web sensation’s star can rise these days, check out EepyBird’s cameo in a Barenaked Ladies music video.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Meredith Parker
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It seems clear that the four college friends behind What is Joppa have had a wicked sense of humor since birth. The FM Crew (Michael “Moonman” Mooney, Thom W. Neff, Ben Therrien, and Ben Watts) write and headline this serial comedy with tremendous deadpan, enigmatic references, and bizarre storylines. With a viewership that continues to inch forward another ten thousand or so with each new season, it looks like Joppa isn’t going away anytime soon. (Although their fourth season was “revoked” by “Tbe Unicorn” after the mystery of who shot Ben Therrien was resolved. But that was more of a fun, if totally inscrutable, pre-season advertising gimmick than a departure.) And as viewership increases, so has the budget. FM Crew filmed the first three seasons back-to-back between during a few months in Massachusetts in backyards, donning cheap ties, and appropriating the “Reading Rainbow” theme as their own. Since then, their editing has reached professional quality, they wear better ties, and most of their music is now made from original Jingleboy tunes.

Each season of the show has its own distinct characteristics. In the first season, for example, episodes transition with a strange Q&A between characters and each episode in the second season is brought to you by a word spoken in the episode, Sesame Street-style. Several characters make recurring appearances throughout the seasons, including a French-speaking tree and the ubiquitous orange bouncy ball. While it might seem like a tree and an orange ball wouldn’t make for interesting characters, it’s because they’re not. They’re more like interesting plotlines. (The intense cliffhanger in season three is when Mike takes the orange ball for a “long ride.”) Bridging genres like parody, cultural satire, wordplay, pratfall physical humor, mystery, and poignant melodrama, it’s kind of like a short-form, collegiate version of Comedy Central’s “Stella,” but with a smaller budget and a little more emphasis on overarching plotlines. It’s a hard show to describe and most sites use the phrase, “Don’t ask, just watch,” when describing it. And that’s worth repeating here: Don’t ask, just watch. Once you’ve caught up on the first few seasons, make sure to check out the photo album, discussion forum, and MySpace page, purchase some merchandise, and read Ben Jervey’s reviews,

A clever disclaimer warns viewers to start their viewing with the first episode of the first season to get the full effect of Joppa. Actually, it says that starting with season three is “hazardous” and that “watching Joppa from the middle may cause some temporary brain damage,” and introduces viewers to concepts like the orange ball and the ubiquitous catchphrase “Don’t follow.” It’s a pretty awesome introduction to the humor and style of the show.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
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Introduce a bit of edge to your regular music line-up with some help from XLR8R TV, which hosts weekly interviews, live performances, and behind the scenes footage of bands from the fringe. The site, which launched in March 2007, was created as a supplement to XLR8R magazine, a music lifestyle editorial started by publisher Andrew Smith in Seattle in 1993. Smith is now the executive producer of the show.

Readers of XLR8R can visit the television spin-off to accelerate their knowledge of music and culture, and soak up all the information they want on the artists and events featured within the pages of the magazine. The channel is hosted by video production company Revision3 which supports several other web-based television programs including music centered notMTV, technology obsessed, Diggnation, and comic crazed, iFanboy.

Like notMTV (Tilzy.TV page), XLR8R features many independent artists, but focuses specifically on  the electronic, hip-hop, indie rock, and reggae genres.  The site draws on integrated art forms to reveal the influence and evolution of music as a lifestyle. 

To this end, in episode 18, Andrew Smith, interviews visual artist Mario Martinez, who uses music, graffiti, and science fiction to shape his outer-worldly psychedelic paintings. On another show, apocalyptic Brit-pop band, Klaxons discuss their fear of dogs, and conjecture about the end of the world. Major Detroit-based hip-hop producer, Black Milk, gives viewers an inside scoop on an upcoming Sean Price, Guilty Simpson collaboration, in Episode 14.

Most artists interviews also include footage from live performances. The videos which are typically 3-10 minutes in length are top-notch, in terms of graphics, content, and production-quality, not to mention jam-packed with ‘outside the box’ information. Content is easily accessible, listed by episode and accompanied by a brief synopsis that peaks the interest even of those unfamiliar with the subject or particular music genre.

Needlepoint and dance punks – an unlikely combination? Not according to Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus, band members of Adult, an electro-punk duo, who can weave in ways that would make any grandmother proud. Watch their interview on XLR8R and get some tips on how to be a well-rounded individual.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Anusha Alikhan
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After America Online’s merger with Time Warner began to fall apart, Steve Case announced an interest in building a new media empire based in the healthy lifestyle industry. And in July 2005, Case’s private holding company, Revolution, purchased the small-town, family-run Wisdom Media Group, which included the cable channel Wisdom TV in the acquisition. Revolution then relaunched the network with CEO C.J. Kettler later that year as LIME, “Healthy Living with a Twist.” It’s a green network that expresses caution about the way we live now and propounds the opportunities available for change on an individual and a global scale.

The website is meant to support your entire well-being with videos focused on food, health (beauty, pregnancy), balance (yoga, self-improvement, meditation), fitness, environmental concerns, people (transitioning to a healthy lifestyle, living the green life), and even business (money, technology).  Viewers are invited to participate by asking questions and challenging the ideas presented on the site. Video content, which is never longer than four or five minutes, can be accessed blog-style or through LIME TV.  Some episodes feature experts like Deepak Chopra giving guidance on how to stay centered. Others use the documentary style to showcase an activist like Julia Butterfly Hill. (Don’t forget to check out the extreme activist catfight on Webisode 12 of the documentary.) The site also boasts a variety of podcasts articles, news feeds, recipes, member blogs, links to articles about new eco-friendly products, and a membership database of equally concerned individuals.

This interview with Dr. Gary Small, a neural scientist who studies memory and advancing brain activity, is an interesting clip of infotainment. The segment discusses an exercise in mental aerobics that will help you remember any piece of information through visual, contextual, and repetitive recognition. As an example, he asks you to use his techniques to remember the following list of words: teddy bear, cigar, poodle, banker, and tennis racket. Try it and see if it works for you. (As for me, I just wrote that list of objects after watching the clip 20 minutes ago. I’ve forgotten almost everything else Dr. Small said.)

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
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Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have co-hosted their syndicated movie review show Ebert & Roeper since Ebert’s previous partner Gene Siskel passed away in 1999. In one name or another, the show has aired on television since 1976, but now you can forget your TV and get all the ticket buying advice you need online. Archived clips date back to September 2006 and new shows are added each week. Any film buff will tell you that these guys know their stuff – Roger Ebert has been watching movies for a living since 1967 – and it’s about time we were fed their valuable opinions in shorter, more accessible and easy–to-digest Internet-video form.     

Ebert and Roeper have never been movie snobs, thank goodness, and you will find reviews here on everything from Pan’s Labyrinth to the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While Ebert has sadly been out of commission for some time due to his battle with cancer, Roeper has been rotating a slew of intriguing co-hosts, including The New York Times resident film critic A.O. Scott and actor/director Kevin Smith. The latest reviews can be found on the site’s homepage, but the archived collection is easy to navigate to find all the box office hits and misses since Fall of 2006. There’s also a section covering what’s new on DVD. The Online Exclusives portion of the site includes a special Oscars video entitled “If We Picked the Winners” (INSERT HYPERLINK) – you can pretty much guess the theme here. The videos run about 5 minutes, just enough time to show a few clips from the actual movie and for each co-host to give the requisite explanation behind his thumbs up/thumbs down vote. And, after all this, if you’re still dying for a shot of film critic goodness in traditional form, use the handy Station Finder to enter your zip and find out when and where you can catch the show full screen, on television.

Where do I begin? Thank you, Ebert & Roeper, for encouraging me to see The Lookout – I always knew that cute kid from 3^rd Rock would make it big one day. And thank you again for confirming my suspicion that Premonition would indeed receive two big thumbs down. But perhaps one of the best bits is an online exclusive, featuring a solo Roeper discussing both the Borat lawsuits and the awesomeness of Daniel Craig as James Bond.  The only thing that would make this website better is a giant vat of buttered popcorn. 

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Meghann Murphy
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