Starveillance podcast on the iPod
http://www.eonline.com/static/feeds/podcasts/video/starveillance/index.xml
1) Identify a specific internet property that is of interest to you.
Starveillance Podcast on the iPod. iTunes Tagline: Hollywood spoofs take shape with this claymation comedy.
These three-minute claymation podcasts are actually free teasers for the E! series Starveillance which debuts in January. The actual episodes will be 30-minutes long.
2) Is this entertaining or interesting? Why? Is this original?
I really like these as shorts but have a hard time imagining them as half-hour shows. Created by Eric Fogel this series does seem like it could have a similar feel to Fogel’s Celebrity Deathmatch series. “Celebrity Deathmatch is a claymation parody television show spoofing professional wrestling that pits celebrities against each other in the ring, almost always ending in a gruesome death of the celebrity who lost the match. It is known for its excessive amount of blood used in every match and exaggerated physical injuries (e.g., one person pulls off a participant's foot, living through decapitations, etc.)”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Deathmatch). In this series the celebrity parody encounters lack the inherent structure of a “fight to the death” and, instead, put celebrities that we’re painfully familiar with (because of their appearances in the tabloids) in imagined situations. So far the podcasts include Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s first date, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline at a wedding planner and Heather Locklear confronting Denise Richards at a grocery store about dating her ex-husband. The fun part of this show is that it actually puts into practice the “Wouldn’t be funny if…” game that people play with their friends. Upcoming full-length episodes include “Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes meeting Brooke Shields at the hospital” (http://www.movieweb.com/tv/news/85/13485.php). Though the premise feels like a riff off of Celebrity Deathmatch, these short clips still seem to “work” and stand on their own.
3) What are the production values? Is it appropriate to the genre/content?\\
This obviously isn’t just a kid experimenting with clay and a video camera and putting the results up on YouTube. The production value of this show is very high. It does seem like it is in the service of the material and, I think, adds to the comedy.
4) Who is this targeting (audience-wise)?
Similar to 30-Second Bunnies Theater (http://itp.nyu.edu/itv/index.php/Main/30SecondBunnies), this parody show (like all parodies) requires in-depth knowledge of the original. But unlike Shiman’s Bunny reenactments which require you to have seen the original film (one self-contained unit), Starveillance requires you to have a body of random and, some could argue, fairly useless celebrity gossip knowledge. This show would work best for people who have more than a passing interest in the bizarre construction of celebrity. The fact that this show is on E! is great built-in marketing to attract people who will already be tuning into their channel to get a dose of celebrity “news.” Reading magazines like People, US Weekly, Star, or watching shows like Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood could also help one to gain a deeper understanding of the show.
5) How does it use the medium? Is this just something that could be on TV but is being sent over the internet, or does it take advantage of the medium?
As I mentioned before, this podcast is a teaser for a show that will appear on cable in January. I chose this piece because of that fact. I wanted to see what it was like to view a program that was created for television and that, I thought, would actually play better on a small screen. Some of these were really entertaining (see Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. It was fantastic) and others felt very slow at times (See Heather Locklear)…and for a three minute piece to feel slow is not a good thing. Perhaps this problem is a result of the cross platform release of these teasers -- because they were each made as scenes which, when put together with like-scenes, could sustain the pace of a 30-minute show. I think that this whole concept could actually be very successful as a 3-minute show for the internet or portable video devices.
I will be very curious to see the show on E! in January, but I think I’d prefer to watch this type of content on my morning commute or while waiting for a friend.
