It’s not every day when the best of computer animation, video game technology, and graphic novel intricacy can come together in a graceful feat of storytelling, but the creators of Afterworld, a “multi-platform sci-fi series” launched in February 2007, have done just that.

Produced by Stan Rogow (Lizzie MacGuire) and written by Brent Friedman (Mortal Kombat 2) of Santa Monica-based Electric Farm Entertainment with an estimated $3 million budget, the series follows Russell Shoemaker, a man who wakes up one day after a mysterious global fall-out in the not-too distant future…and appears to be the last man on earth.

The show is as modernist in plot as it is in its distribution ambitions. In a landmark agreement, Sony Pictures has acquired all of Afterworld’s slated 130 episodes for international television, digital, gaming, and mobile rights, meaning viewers can eventually watch the show anytime, anywhere – from television to the Web to cell phones.  The deal also seems to have paid off.  After an initial successful run on the otherwise unsuccessful Bud.tv, the series attracted interest from MySpaceTV and the Sci-Fi Channel.

In the words of some classic sci-fi villains, when it comes to watching this show, “Resistance is futile”.  From the moment we step into Afterworld, we are led into a universe that’s simultaneously familiar and yet chillingly inexplicable.

Each addictive two-minute episode ends in a cliffhanger, and we are compelled to keep watching for answers to all the exasperating questions: Is Russell really all alone? Who are the Four Horsemen that nearly kill him? Most importantly: What was the fall-out that made the world’s population disappear into thin air – and WHY? Along the way, we’re fed certain theories – like the pseudo-scientific EMP theory, or the apocalyptic Bible explanations, but the fun is all about getting sucked into the drama and sharing your own speculations.

Russell Shoemaker narrates the entire series in a way that instantly engages the viewer. His personal story becomes our collective journey, as we travel with him across the country from New York to Seattle in search of answers and a family that may or may not be still alive.

Like that classically sci-fi graphic novel Watchmen, it’s a tale with epic themes – man v. nature, morality and truth, and the meaning of life. The one thing that could be better is having more action sequences amongst the characters’ physical movements, but even with the 2.5D frames fading in and out, the show still moves along with impressive pacing and an even more intriguing premise.

Ever wonder what it’s like to walk through a completely empty Manhattan? Here it is in all its eerie glory: Russell’s solo trek through New York City.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Pearl Chen
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While much about The Shirtless Apprentice remains a mystery – his last name, real profession and his reason for toplessness  – his knowledge of internet video production seems assured.  A twenty-something, known only as Matt and sporting a lavalier microphone duct-taped over his exposed left nipple, The Shirtless Apprentice provides basic advice on how to navigate the expanding world of do-it-yourself internet video production. His only companion is a mute blond friend who helps illustrate topics like how to choose your video camera and tricks of Final Cut Pro editing software.

Started in May 2007 by web video production house, For Your Imagination, the show provides a how-to repository for anyone thinking of starting their own internet-distributed program.

The Shirtless Apprentice starts with the basics, indeed describing “everything you needed to know about video…”  Episode One is about choosing the right video camera. Matt displays the pros and cons of the best consumer and prosumer models and even reveals his personal favorite. Episode Two has tips about lighting a green screen for those special effects shots.  Later episodes delve into choosing the right post-production equipment and tips for capturing and keying video in Final Cut Pro.

Eventually the sight of Matt half-naked is accepted. Finally someone isn’t afraid to dispense video advice whilst liable to catch cold. As a host, he is straightforward with a bare minimum of jokes or attempted flights of profundity.  The shirtlessness may certainly be a gimmick and/or a cheap method of distinguishing the show from the competition, but it’s a good one. 

Underneath it all, The Shirtless Apprentice isn’t pure entertainment, but a stripped down how-to with a twist.  It offers short and simple tutorials that help one create their own podcast or webshow.  Whether you wear a top or not is your business.

Episode Six takes us on a romp through the “magical pastures” of video frame rates, a subject, though enlightening, can even bore tech people half to death. Matt explains the differences with a side by side comparison, featuring the blonde mute, displaying the same scene shot with different frame rates. For those truly interested in creating their own webcast, Matt’s made the lesson bearable.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Greg Rock
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Slip into happiness courtesy of 30-something year-old, first generation Filipina-American, Christine Gambito – the creator of Happy Slip who self-produces weekly feel-good shows that parody her personal insights and ethnic experiences. The show originally launched on YouTube in August 2006, and now has a significant following with several thousand subscribers. It won “2nd Best Comedy” at the 2006 YouTube Video Awards, and is among the top ten most subscribed channels of all time. Drawing from her success on YouTube, Gambito recruited a friend at Wired Programming to develop a home site for the show in October 2006. Initially just an outlet for the former nurse to express her creative passions, vlogging has now become Gambito’s livelihood and has ascended her to internet celebrity status. “Happy slip,” is a play on the words “half slip,” which Gambito’s mother, in her Filipino-English accent, dutifully reminded her to wear as a young girl. “Christine, be sure to wear your happy slip!” is the trademark ending of all the shows.

Gambito could be accused of having multiple personality disorder if she wasn’t so darn talented and cute. Not only does she direct and produce the show, she uses her acting talents to portray three to four different characters in any one program. She can be wholesome and timid in one scene, and switch to a sultry vixen in the next, leaving viewers to conclude that she must in reality have an evil twin.

The roughly 4-minute shows generally parody pop culture favorites like Dancing with the Stars, or involve a spoof on Gambito’s Filipino-American family, to which anyone with quirky relatives can relate. In one of the shows Gambito combines the classic Cinderella story with the modern day Bachelor, bursting into tears following the rose ceremony when the shoe doesn’t fit. In the episode that won at the YouTube awards, “Mixed Nuts,” she performs a sketch about nosey judgmental relatives, who regress into a conversation about horses doing their business, while she’s trying to tell them a story of her near-death experience.

In most cases, Gambito takes a no frills approach to sets and videography, but the quality of the show is reflected in the program’s script and the endearingly crazy characters that she convincingly portrays. The equally energetic blog devoted to Happy Slip provides some insight into the thought-process behind the show’s wacky, family-inspired story lines.

The episode entitled “Peelings” in which Gambito highlights common mispronunciations and proverbial slips (e.g. – “beat the bush” versus “beat around the bush”) that regularly perplex her during family gatherings is a must see for anyone with foreign family.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Anusha Alikhan
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The Adventures of Thomas Brin began as a 3-minute experiment between friends that won an award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a 2005 DVinfo.net contest. When the next contest was announced, children’s author, naturalist, and entrepreneur Jeff Sayre of Sayre Media and the rest of the Thomas Brin team decided to make a second installment of their sci-fi serial and continue the series over time. This was because of the show’s large fanbase, which was sizeable and vocal even in its early days. While previous ventures like Sayre’s show Ahem!TV fell to the wayside, Thomas Brin maintained Sayre’s interest because it allowed him and his team to improve their craft by learning about green screens, soundstages, cinematography, fictional screenwriting, and software completely different from Sayre Media’s previous projects.

ince the series began as a one-off, 3-minute competition piece, the first episode contains such a surplus of amateur special effects that you might mistake it for being intentionally campy. Shot mostly on green screen, the show follows Thomas Brin as he initiates a mission to destroy “The Biotics” (humans) and ends with a mysterious injection. But the second episode answers the pilot’s cliffhangers and takes the plot on a new course: Brin is actually one of the Biotics he was trying to kill, having been brainwashed into thinking he was a machine.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Rebecca Halpin
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Launched on February 2, 2000, the Oxygen network is both owned and operated by women (Oprah Winfrey is actually a co-founder.) Oxygen’s cable station, available in 70 million homes, is targeted towards the younger generation of American women. Their online expansion, the broadband channel SheDidWhat.tv includes clips and full episodes from Oxygen’s television programming, as well as online exclusives and original web series. According to network chairman and CEO Geraldine Laybourne, Oxygen Media was created for smart women, in order that they might have their intelligence respected. SheDidWhat.tv is the next logical step towards this goal.

Allow me to put it bluntly – this site is not for men. Or boys. But those of us with an X chromosome can enjoy a site chock full of female programming, starting with clips from good-time talk shows like Ellen and The Issac Mizrahi Show. Under the Movies tab, find bits from Lisa Ling’s documentary series Who Cares About Girls?. Oxygen’s Web Exclusives include webisodes from the original series Campus Ladies, some very un-PC outtakes from The Janice Dickenson Modeling Agency and clips from reality show The Bad Girls Club. But the true star of the site is web show Our Bodies, Myself, hosted by comedian Lauren Weedman (you may recognize her from the plethora of commentary-laden shows on VH1.) Each episode, Lauren takes on a different issue important to women – body image, dating, harassment and yes, even “womenstruation”. If you watch a clip that strikes your fancy and want to share it with a friend, Oxygen includes a handy Send tab, making it easy to email any video on the site. These videos are easily addictive, as most clips don’t last beyond four or five minutes until you automatically jump to the next.

I’m officially a Lauren Weedman fan, if only for her Our Bodies, Myself episode entitled Childbirth. I’m not sure if it was her intent to frighten me into abstinence, but mission accomplished. Watch it and you’ll have your tubes tied the next day. I also really enjoyed the hair tips from Cody, under Web Exclusives from Tease. Now you too can learn how to maintain volume from one day to the next. Thanks guys! 

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Meghann Murphy
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Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) is the brainchild of graffiti artists Q-Branch and Fi5e. Founded in February of 2006, GRL’s mission is to develop and share cutting-edge, experimental graffiti technology with fellow artists the world over. Funded by the Eyebeam OpenLab, which bills itself as a home for those working on the development of open source technology, GRL agents are passionate about reclaiming public spaces from “commercial and corporate culture.” The Lab’s website features videos of the group’s army of artists doing just that, along with instructions on how you can do some creative tagging of your own.

Graffiti Research Lab is a powerhouse of creativity. This crew has dreamed up new ways of tagging that will make any artist’s head spin. And if the videos documenting their escapades don’t floor you, the technology behind them will. GRL posts the recipes for each of their genius inventions; learn how to make your own LED Throwies or Electro-Graf by following the links provided to GRL’s step-by-step instructions on Instructables. Obviously, these projects have a clear political slant, but GRL seems less interested in editorializing their art than in sharing it and letting the projects speak for themselves. Most of the graffiti is done on the street, with the notable exception of the clever Mission Accomplished. The videos are generally shot with a single handheld camera, — understandable given the nature of these projects. But the soundtracks rock, the pictures are clear (even when shooting in the dark), and the edits are clean, quick, and cut straight to the point. G.R.L. Goes West is a great example of all these elements coming together as a small crew conducts some “field test” in LA and San Francisco. Also check out the GRL Flickr Group for some wicked nighttime graffiti shots.

Jesus 2.0 is probably my favorite (not least because I loves me some Kanye.) The video covers a controversial piece of movable art that’s also a true example of guerrilla graffiti.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Meghann Murphy
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After ten years of online content design from e-commerce websites to internet consulting for university homepages, Drew Olanoff (creator of The Best Damn Tech Show Period, among many other projects) began Scriggity in July 2006 and has been churning out episodes ever since.

The show’s first season had a popular presenter new to the vlogging arena named Shauna, who was titled “Queen of the Interweb” during her reign. Shauna left after the season was up, prompting an opening casting call on craigslist that found another vlog newcomer, Alex, to host the show.  When she didn’t quite pan out, Olanoff took on the hosting responsibilities himself, welcoming back Shauna for the sporadic appearance and bringing on Emmy Award-winning editor, Bill Cammack to cut the show.

Where video channels like Diggnation deliver news that covers major current events as submitted by readers from the site Digg and Rocketboom culls the internet and news headlines to find interesting fare, Scriggity delivers news on a more local and personal level. Users submit stories to Scrigg and then those stories make their way onto the show. Alex is like the town crier of the news vlogs, reading headlines like, “Erica moved into a dorm and has a psycho roommate”, “Harry got a new job as a bouncer”, and other such stories to which viewers, in one way or another, can probably relate. 

In short, cleverly edited episodes, she reads three of the week’s most interesting user-submitted stories and revamps them with her friendly blend of anecdotes and humor.  Scriggity can definitely be more entertaining than your regular web news (or other forms of infotainment), and I imagine hearing the events of your week told to hundreds of viewers is a pretty fun experience.

There’s also a blog that lists new episodes, appearances on other vlogs, and random thoughts from the hosts and Drew when they choose to transcribe them.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
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One of the PodTech Network’s most popular shows, ScobleShow has been on the air since the online network’s redesign in September 2006. Produced by PodTech’s Vice President of Media Development Robert Scoble, the show gives viewers intimate access to the major players of the new media landscape. A blogging wizard, Scoble has been interacting with electronics and information technology since childhood, when his father worked at Ampex and Lockheed Martin. He is the author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, which established him as an early industry leader, producing content for the NEC Mobile Solutions site and Microsoft’s MSDN Video.

Engineers, company leaders, and media developers are all interviewed in the show’s four segments. The first is CEO Talk, which is fairly self-explanatory and features everyone from the Vice President of Dow Jones to the Editorial Director of the Holy See’s website. The second is Photowalking, where Scoble takes a walk with well-known photographers and the leading entrepreneurs of photographic technology, discussing techniques, innovations, and recent trends with artists like Thomas Hawk and artisans like ZoomAlbum’s Doug Rowan and Scott Beale. There’s also For Developers Only, which is like CEO Talk, but with developers like Krugle’s Ken Krugler and Vodpod’s Mark Hall. And then there’s the most interesting of the four, The Pitch, where budding entrepreneurs are allowed to give a pitch or a demo of a product new to the market like ODesk, Gigavox, and UrbanSeeder. Instead of appearing in sequence, the different segments are posted separately and whenever available, meaning that one to two video segments are released daily. Videos look professional with minimal editing and a high-quality polish that makes the show look like a major broadcast competitor. ScobleShow’s segments can last anywhere from five minutes to a half hour, but most average around twenty minutes long.

The briefest tour around the site will ensure that you knock into phenomenal and informative content at every turn. Some of the videos that stand out discuss the history of electronics and make forecasts on the future of internet technology, like this walk around CERN, which housed the world’s first web server, with Ben Segal and Jean-Francois Groff. There’s also these interviews with Paul Kunz and his team, developers of the first American website at the historical Stanford Linear Accelerator.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
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SCAD in SCADshorts stands for Savannah College of Art and Design, but also a lot more than that as each month the site offers a new short film by the school’s students that, being untitled, must be appropriately named using the SCAD acronym. The site started in February 2007 by the Dandy Dwarves, a collective of SCAD students and alumni (they also have their own production company), as a forum for presenting the work of SCAD’s promising young filmmakers. Videos arrive once a month in need of a S-C-A-D title; participants with the first, best and/or most accurate title can win a video iPod.

“Quick,” a short film about an irritated, hormonal robot under orders from her lame parents would be titled what? Scantily Clad Android Daughter (by Britt Spencer), naturally. And that’s how it goes with SCADshorts, whose videos are not only usually funny and unique, but involve a brainteaser for added fun.

Most of the films play as clever, single concept commercials with quality production values and seamless visual effects for such low-budget projects that show off the quality and talent of the small Savannah college’s student body: a bingo game turns into a disco mosh pit (Senior Citizens Aggressively Dancing, by Todd Beyer); love blooms in a taxi cab due to comical subtitles accompanying the passengers’ conversation (Stylized Captions Arouse Desire, by Kevin Phillips); a freakish mouth on a marooned sailor’s foot that drinks up the ocean (Sailor’s Curse Avoids Drowning, by Christian Simmons).

Most of the videos come unadorned, but users’ title guesses as well as behind the scenes pages are often available for perusal.

The most entertaining short, and the most difficult to fit into the SCAD title mold (at least for this would-be puzzle solver), is a single take (but not really) thriller by Kevin Phillips about a gumshoe whose car gets taken away by hoodlums while he’s goofily ordering at a local bakery. You won’t believe what this 2006 graduate is able to achieve with just a camera and a few actors. Okay, guess the title yet? Stolen Car Angers Detective. I slapped my hand against my head, too.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Michael Joshua Rowin
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Created and produced by the founders Channel 101 (Tilzy.TV page) – Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab – VH1’s Acceptable TV blurs the previously distinct line between television and the internet by introducing the interactive nature of online entertainment to the more traditional medium of broadcast television. It is also one of the first significant attempts by a major media company (Viacom) to tap into the wealth of user-generated content on the web.

Harmon and Schrab created Channel 101 in 2003 after repeated failures to get big television companies to buy their pitches. They saw it as a way to allow independent filmmakers to broadcast their work directly to the people without dealing with the bureaucracy. Now they’ve teamed up with host Jack Black and finally made the bureaucracy work for them (well…almost).

Acceptable TV boasts an all-star cast and crew, with executive producer/writer/actor Eric Falconer: co-writer for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “The Sarah Silverman Program” (the other writer being Romanski, also a writer and actor for Acceptable TV), director/writer/actor Drew Hancock: director of shorts for Tenacious D and MTV Video Music Awards, writer/actor JD Ryznar: co-creator of the viral hit “Yacht Rock” shown on Channel 101 and writer for the 2008 Jason Lee movie, Krater, among many talented others. The first episode of Acceptable TV was aired in March of 2007.

30-minute episodes of Acceptable TV air on VH1 and include five 2.5 minute shows produced by Acceptable TV, like Drunk Home Makeover: Dan Harmon destroying people’s homes with someone in a dog suit, Operation Kitten Calendar: the new reality TV challenge with Trump-like host, or Homeless James Bond: super-suave homeless man fights high crime in the underworld.

Each episode also airs the user generated show that won the most votes on the Acceptable TV website that week, like April winner L33t Haxxors: braving the wilds of the internet to find an antidote to a deadly virus, or Marge’s Midwest Outing: ultra-conservative Midwestern woman obliviously caters to gay couples in her bed and breakfast.

After each episode, viewers can go online to vote for their two favorite Acceptable TV shows. The winners then create another episode of their show that will compete with three new Acceptable TV shows the following week. User shows, which are voted on before they air on television do not compete with those produced by Acceptable.

The vast majority of the shows produced by the Acceptable TV team are absolutely hilarious, and while the user videos (“your videos”) vary dramatically in quality, a good way to find the best ones is to look at the most viewed, most recently discussed, and most popular profiles sections. To vote or submit your own 2.5 minute videos, you must register on the site to become a member. Acceptable TV also provides a number of tutorials for those who wish to make their own videos and a blog for Acceptable TV news and updates.

When you were a kid did you ever wish Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat would come to your house when it rained? Did you ever consider how traumatized you would be if he actually did? It would probably be significantly scarier than Mike Myers. Check out Mr. Sprinkles, which won the most votes for several consecutive weeks in March and April 2007 and prepare to have all your childhood fantasies violently destroyed.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Kate Dundon
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Founded by husband and wife team, Christopher and Jennifer McBride as an online restaurant guide, Savory New York launched in April 2006. Since then, under the Savory Cities network, the guide has grown to include culinary epicenters Chicago and San Francisco.

Christopher and Jennifer transitioned to gastronomical coverage after more than a decade in the entertainment industry, where she worked as a television producer and he in the internet music field.

What sets Savory Cities apart is their use of streaming video to give the viewer a three-dimensional sense of a restaurant. Video profiles are each under two minutes and feature an interview with either a restaurant chef or owner. In the case of The Spotted Pig, an upscale gastropub in Greenwich Village, New York, co-owner Ken Friedman is interviewed on what makes his resturant unique. We are shown hunger-inducing close-ups of gourmet cheeseburgers intercut with the dining atmosphere, kitchen and signature dishes.

Not every restaurant profiled has a video but there are more than enough to keep one occupied. The site focuses on more expensive epicuneries, where meals can be the singular event of the evening, such as The French Laundry in San Francisco and Vie in Chicago.

The site also offers the basics of any restaurant guide, including hours, location, cusine, reservation info, prices and food and drink specialties. The site is not so much for reviews as it is a guide for the uninitiated chowhound. Although for each restaurant there are links to magazine and blog reviews.

For the three cities, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, restaurants are broken down into neighborhoods and cusine types for easy reference. There are also special sections for Late Night Dining, Cheaper Eats and Weekend Brunch.

The video profiles distinquish Savory Cities and give it a great leg up on the competition. For a glimpse into the high-priced and exclusive New York Restaurants check out The Russian Tea Room, Le Cirque and Eleven Madison Café and get a sense of where you best want to drop in for dinner.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Greg Rock
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Dave Huth is a graphic designer, filmmaker, and somewhat of a professional vlogger – meaning he’s the kind of vlogger who goes to Vloggercon and has a blog where he talks about vlogging, called Vlognik. After discovering that it really wasn’t that difficult to make a movie, his fascination with the medium led him to study digital video and graphic design in graduate school.

Since its conception in late 2005, 90 Seconds of Dave has been Dave’s pet project where his thoughts, ideas, and adventures are recorded in brief 90-second shorts, usually by means of a metaphor and some amateur animation.

With a new video appearing somewhere between once a week and once a month, each minute and a half is an artistic interpretation of Dave’s thoughts.

Low budget, often wordless, and with music from either the Podsafe Music Network or an original soundtrack of recorded sounds, the vids range from shots of himself sitting in front of his computer with an animated forest growing around him to stop animation of bizarre figurines to footage of his adorable child eating ice cream. Sometimes he breaks his own rules and has videos that last a little longer than usual. Occasionally he even shows original feature films like Lorem Ipsum (available in 15 parts) or People I Know, his genuinely fascinating interview series with family and friends about mortality. Although updated rather infrequently, Vlognik – his blog about vlogging – is a straightforward media criticism that provides an interesting read.

People I Know is the highest quality, most interesting, and most creative video this blog has to offer by far.

In discussing life and death, Dave asks questions of his closest acquaintances that are not often ventured like, “How often do you think about death?” and, “What would you say if someone told you they were afraid to die?” His interview subjects vary greatly in age, and their responses are stimulating and sometimes surprising.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Zach Jones
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