Validation. Short Film.

"Validation" is a fable about the magic of free parking.

Starring TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis. Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne. Winner - Best Narrative Short, Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Jury Award, Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, Winner - Audience Award, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Comedy, Breckenridge Festival of Film, Winner - Crystal Heart Award, Best Short Film & Audience Award, Heartland Film Festival, Winner - Christopher & Dana Reeve Audience Award, Williamstown Film Festival, Winner - Best Comedy, Dam Short Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Film, Sedona Int'l Film Festival.

Politics: Michael Kirschbaum - Justice Accomplished

This is Michael Korschbaum's first post on YouTube under the account name Whitehousedotgov and it has alread hit 21,247 views in 2 months. I can't find much else about him but the video speaks for itself. This is YouTube and free speech in action. It's shocking and some might even say offensive but I think it makes a point that needs to be slapped upside some people's heads. What is being done by our leadership in this country today is just as perverse and offensive as what it is being represented by in this video.

Comedy: Haroun Ibn-Mock - Daze Off

Haroun Ibn-Mock is a good friend of mine who has been a film gaffer and electrician in New York City for many years working on commercials, MTV spots, broadcast television and lots and lots of music videos. Shortly before I left New York I lent my graphics and crewing skills to his first major independent production which he describes like this:

"The dude negotiates his version of his perfect day off and tries to accommodate the wishes of his live-in girlfriend amidst a cloud of fun and smoke."

This ain't DV either. This is old school 100% film production with a real film crew cut on a real Avid. And it's funny too!

Music: Ship of Fools Productions - The Channel 101 Musical.

What I love about this video is that it really goes for a full blown desktop musical with original music and everyone singing on the recording and then acting it out with simple DV production values. In this case it is a little cheezy and "insider" but it is really a concept that could strike a bigger chord if it is done correctly.

Ship of Fools Productions is a project that began in 1999 and it is a collaboration of 3 men: Actor Mike McCafferty who has had some success as a Hollywood actor, Jason Makiaris, who is a collaborator and composer, and Ben Plummier who is a writer and director of photography. Together they have made over 25 short films and counting. There motto is to always be shooting which I think is good advice [YouTube posts HERE]. The above playlist is all 5 parts of an episodic series that was submitted to a web competition known as Channel 101.

Channel 101 is an interesting story in itself. It is a website presenting itself like a TV channel that always has 5 shows running. The shows come from a competition where producers submit a pilot to be reviewed. Not all of them get past that stage. If the pilot is accepted, it is then screened before a large audience that meets regularly to review the submissions. Each show is rated and they are either canceled or greenlighted based on the ratings that this audience gives. If it is greenlighted, it goes on the front page of the Channel 101 website which is what they call their "Prime Time" spots. They then have a deadline to create a new episode which is then rated by the same audience in the same manner except it is competing with all the past winners and new submissions all over again. Eventually the show gets canceled but the trick is to see how long you can keep it running in the competitive bloodbath.

Now, back to Ship Of Fools Productions. Ship of Fools created a full blown musical about people trying to come up with a great idea for a Channel 101 TV show. It was so unique and clever that it became incredibly popular. They did several more episodes and claim that they were the only show ever in the history of Channel 101 to make as many episodes as they want and then walk away on their own terms. Quite an accomplishment.

Comedy: Jeff Lew - Killer Bean 2: The Party

This is a great web success story. It is another one of the classic web videos that put iFilm on the map. It also put Jeffry Lew, it's creator on the map. He did this video as his first 3D modeling project as an homage to John Woo's The Killer. He used a bean as his character because it was the easiest kind of 3D character he could think of to model and animate: A sphere with arms and legs. Since it's release on iFilm it has become number 2 in iFilms top 100 of all time and 28 in the top 50 3D projects of all time by 3D world magazine. Jeffrey Lew has also gone on from there to do professional 3D work including the lead animator of 20 different shots in The Matrix Reloaded.

Short Film: iFilm - 405

405

Posted Jun 06, 2001

iFilm is the web video site that validated my interest in internet video waaay back in about 1999 or so. This is the place where my mind was first blown about the potential of this media on the internet. At the time it resembled a 24 hour online film festival where anybody could send in their work and get comments and ratings by thousands of people in the iFilm web audience. They would then rise or fall on the rating scale and the best performers would be on the front page. Sound familiar? It is today but back then it was like: "holy shit!" There was no uploading , you sent your DV master in directly. The idea was all in place though. These guys had the right ideas before Google was God and before YouTube was born.

The site is a lot more commercial than it was back then. It was bought by Viacom in 2005 which means they hawk all kinds of commercial stuff and the online film festival aspect has become much less significant in their business plan. They are much lower on my list of places to visit today but they are survivors from the era when everyone was failing at web video efforts because it was a little too early. YouTube came along about 5 years later I think. I am sad to see that they basically sold out to the dark side but they have historical significance and they are doing the YouTube approach now so I might still poke around from time to time.

This short home made action film, 405, is one of the first shorts I saw on iFilm, it is now a classic web video (circa 2000). The two guys that made it had experience in the special effect industry but they wanted to do an independent effort with minimal tools. It it ended up being one of two huge viral hits that put iFilm on the map in my opinion. It landed them a Creative Artists Agency contract and, for me, it was part of that "aha!" moment when I saw the potential of clever experienced people with the right tools and the right concept using the web to reach people. This is who many of us want to be today. This video has had a little more than 5 million views in the 7 years it's been available.