Off the Air

Are you a weird person???

Do you enjoy watching video compilations on Youtube of random shit???

Well have I got a treat for you.....

XXX\\\  OFF THE AIR ///XXX

This show is a cluster fuck of the most obscure and strange videos on the internet. It was put out by Adult Swim a few years ago, and only air at unholy hours of the night. Probably to mess with all those people tripping on LSD at 3:00 in the morning who are the only people watching adult swim at that hour. 

Now, all jokes aside, even though this is a ridiculous show and there is little to no possibility of understanding it there is some interesting things going on within each episode. All the clips that they compile into one show are related in some manner. The themes of each show are the title names of the episodes.

 

 Some title names are Food, Animals, Liquid, Falling, Color, and Hair. These may not seem like actual themes however if you were to watch one of the episodes to analysis it, you would find that the show actually does do a good job of choosing bits and pieces of different media on the internet to relate to the theme that they put forward.

Here are just a few stills out of some of the different episodes to give an idea of some of the things you can expect to see in the show. 

Feeding the Crew for Dummies

FOOD.

Great! Now that I have your attention, I'd like to discuss an important matter with you all. For years, film crews have been going hunger. Whether they're not being properly fed on set or if they simply forgot their granola bar at home as they were running out the door to make call time, film crew members are hungry. Heck, I'm hungry right now! Imagine how the people working feel! With the poor, malnourished souls in mind, I think it's time. It's time to learn how to feed these hard workers. It's time to learn how to keep your crew happy. It's time for "Feeding the Crew for Dummies!"

Now, everyone knows that a person with a full stomach is a happy person. It's a fact of life. If you don't agree with me, get out. Leave. Don't ever come back here again. If you do agree with me, or if you simply don't care enough to leave, then join me as we explore the inner workings of the film food business. Essentially, the business includes three branches: craft services, caterers, and food stylists. These wonderful people have a lot on their plate...get it? Let's see what their exact responsibilities are...

Craft Services.
Sounds simple enough, right? Craft services, which is a separate entity from catering, encompasses all of the wonderfully assorted snacks and beverages provided to the film crew. The godsend in charge of craft service sets and maintains a station near the production that makes these snacks and beverages available to all the hardworking folk on the crew. A budget is given to the craft service person prior to attaining all the refreshments. I guess Costco just isn't good enough for some people. Personally, I'd be fine with some Cheez-Its and juice boxes.

Caterers.

The caterer takes care of the main meals for a production. While craft services prepares the snacks, the caterer plans, organizes, and prepares all the substantial nourishment for everyone. Having a caterer on location is a serious convenience. On one hand, the crew can be more efficient. The food is right there for them to grab on a thirty-minute lunch break. On the other hand, you save extremely valuable production time and money without the need to transport the crew to and from meals. Caterers have been known to serve small crews from ten people to enormous crews of hundreds of people. "But what can I eat? I'm vegan?" "What about me? I can't eat gluten!" No worries! These are fairly common requests for production caterers. They'll cater to your personal needs! (I'm on fire today with these puns).

Food Stylists.

But what if you want your food to look nice? Let's be honest, we ALL want our food to look as good as it [hopefully] tastes. This is where the food stylist comes in. Their job is to prepare and arrange food in a particularly appealing way. They typically have an extensive background in cooking, recipe development, and the ability to make food look its best. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you that the food stylist doesn't actually help out the crew. Not really, anyway. Their job is aimed at food used in photographs, commercials, or movies. So they're making sure the food looks good on camera, not on your plate. Sorry I didn't mention that sooner.

It's often a crew member's first question when walking on set (or at least it's mine) to ask what's being served for lunch. It turns out that it's not actually the producers' job to take care of it, although that's how we've been doing it on our student films. Food service workers are, in my personal opinion, some of the most spectacular people on a production. And if you don't agree with that, well, you can just keep that to yourself.

FOOD!

I've heard a lot of buzz going on about this here documentary so I thought I'll give it a look and I must say, it was a great documentary. Before I get into my opinion about the film, I have to give my opinion on documentaries first. I love documentaries when they are done well, very informative, and unbiased  It's very difficult to shoot, in my opinion, a documentary that isn't, in someway, basis. There are so many complications when trying to shoot a documentary like trying to interview certain people or companies. For example, in Food Inc., none of the companies that they were exposing in the film wanted to do the interview, which is understandable, but on that same notion it makes the film look a little bias in one sided because there is no one speaking for the other side of this issue. I also question why some of the shots, especially in a documentary such as this one, seem like they were taking from a hidden camera? On one part of the fim the narrator actually states that the footage we were seeing is from a hidden camera. If this is the case, how do they not get in trouble for such shots? Questions, questions, questions. Definitely plan on looking more into that.

 Overall, I think t was a good documentary. It informed of information I've never known or even thought of before. It made me question how much does the government actually care about the well-being of it's citizen. It's disgusting how easily they can turn the other way when there is a profit to be gained. I can understand how someone can see this film and change the way they eat. Me personally, i love food and I love eating the things I eat. It just so happens one of my favorite things is a cheeseburger! More then anything, this film made me more aware and conscious of the food industry and how it operates. I prepare and cook my own food daily so I am constantly shopping for food, so this information is very useful to me. Documentary is definitely recommended. 

Soup du Jour

     Hello.  I am a lover of food and I always like trying new things.  Going out to different restaurants in new places is a hobby of mine and I always like to experience new tastes.  You can imagine the excitement I felt the first time I saw downtown Ithaca.  One consistent with my love of food is soup.  Soup has been one of my favorite foods for all my life.  Not chicken noodle, not beef stew, not chili, but all kinds of soup.  I love them all, well almost them all.
     I have recently started cooking soups at home.  Last fall I made a delicious pumpkin apple soup for thanksgiving which got rave remarks from friends and family (I'm sure some were just being nice).  Luckily, I am able to keep my passion for soup with me at school because our dining halls make great soups.
    To end this blog I will let you all know what some of my favorite soups are even though you probably aren't that interested.  My favorites include french onion, chili, my mom's mushroom barely, and pasta fagioli.  These soups are my favorites because I have had them at specific restaurants and they are amazing there, and because I get them consistently and it's always good.
     I hope to continue my passion for soup throughout my life.  I want to cook new soups and try to blends of flavors.  To me, there is nothing better than sitting at a restaurant with people you love and starting the meal off with a good cup of soup.

Sound Foley With Foods

We already watched a video about professional sound foley. But, I came across a video that had a short 3 minute segment about sound foley for a quick fight scene by hooking the microphone up to your laptop and running it right through Final Cut Pro. Above the roomtone, they recreated the sounds of the door opening, footsteps, punches and shaking hands. The punches were done by hitting celery on top of a pillow and the rest just mimicked the actual actions.

The segment is from 4:25-7:45 (ignore the rest of the video, it's a little strange)

On the opposite end, here is a quick video about the sound foley for a dinosaur hatching during Jurassic Park. While these two productions are on opposite ends of the spectrum, they both use simple, every day foods to create sounds that have nothing to do with each other. But, the sounds end up fitting the scene perfectly.

This last video shows, again, how many different kinds of produce and other foods you can utilize to make sounds to fit a scene (starting around 40 seconds).

For other ideas for sound effects, there is a whole list of resources here.

'Epic Meal Time:' Paving the way for internet-to-television success, one bacon strip at a time

"We make your dreams come true, and then we eat them."

Epic Meal Time is doing what a lot of us wish we could do: get paid to eat food, guzzle booze, and make television.

For those of you unaware of the Youtube sensation, Epic Meal Time is an extreme cooking show that features extraordinary meat-laden meals, covered in bacon, and soaked in alcohol. If Jackass and Man V. Food had a baby, this would be it. The show was co-created by host and narrator Harley Morenstein and cameraman Sterling Toth. From its tender beginnings, a video in which they create a fast-food pizza, the team of rowdy, drunken college kids make monstrous concoctions that push the boundaries on caloric intake and blood-alcohol levels. Take a look at this fan-favorite, "Chili Four Loko:"



The show was an instant success, the first video grabbing 100,000 views. Soon after, the show was featured on multiple big-name viral trending sites (like buzzfeed), signed up with Youtube for their own channel, and snagged the 2011 Shorty Award in the Food Category. After they established themselves as a web show that was going to stick around with the statistics to prove it, the guys signed on with two talent agencies, The Gersh Agency and Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, and an internet television network, Revision3. As of February of this year, the rumor is that Epic Meal Time is currently being pitched as a long-form television show to major TV bigwigs, including Comedy Central, Spike TV, and the Discovery Channel.

While we as soon-to-be television/radio graduates may be screwed when it comes to landing jobs due to the current economic crisis, websites like Youtube are rays of sunshine peaking through the dark, debt-ridden clouds of the future. Networks are turning more and more to amateur works on social media websites for new television ideas. Current TV is a viewer-generated television channel that often features works from Youtube and Vimeo. Although these next two productions are, in my opinion, deplorable and obnoxious, they did both start as poorly-made Youtube videos. Fred, a show about the life of an annoying teenager, was picked up by Nickelodeon and made into a feature film. The Annoying Orange, an animated series featuring a whiny orange with a mouth and eyes, is getting the chance to film six episodes, directed by Conrad Vernon (Shrek) and written by Tom Sheppard (Pinky and the Brain), to be given to Nickelodeon.

Beyond TV, student and amateur filmmakers around the world are being discovered via the internet. The future is looking good for our generation of film and TV makers. If Fred can land a gig with Nickelodeon, anything is possible.

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Epic Meal Time deleted scenes:

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To read more, try these links:
Men gone wild -with food - canada.com
A Chat With Epic Meal Time: YouTube Gets Wrapped In Bacon - forbes.com
YouTube hit Epic Meal Time cooking a TV show - insidetv.ew.com
Epic Meal Time - cracked.com
Interview: Epic Meal Time: A Bunch of Dude, Just Making it Happen - eater.com
Canadian YouTube hit Epic Meal Time headed to TV - nationalpost.com