Back on Topps is a continuing comedy web series that airs every Tuesday and Thursday. To briefly summarize the plot, twin brothers Leyland and Lief Topps, heirs to the Topps sports card company, find out that their uncle has sold the family owned business to Michael Eisner. Aside from not only having the company being sold out from under them, the sinister Gaylen Briggs was hired as their boss in order to raise company revenue. Each episode consists of Lief and Leyland scheming up different ways to make Topps profit, giving the viewer a behind the scenes look into world of baseball cards.
The series becomes quite funny as the episodes progress. Back On Topps contain all of the elements that are found in what is becoming a standard web series (whatever that may be). Each episode can stand on its own and has a different plot than those that precede it. At the same time characters and references to jokes in previous shows tie each episode together connecting the series. This type of connection works well for the Internet because the interlocking of jokes and references create an ongoing illusion of time and interaction, while the brevity of each episode allows the audience to get what they want and leave. While the humor is very similar to that of The Office, or 30 Rock, the show brings a new face to a very dry yet clever breed of humor.
While each episode averages between six and seven minutes, each show presents a dilemma, solution and final outcome. Twice a week Topps viewers receive two storylines whenever they decide to log on. While the average television show will air once a week for twenty-two minutes plus commercials, I can’t help but wonder what’s a greater bang for your buck. I bring this question to surface because before and after each episode there is an advertisement for Skype, the webisode’s sponsor. While this seems reasonable, in several of the episodes the characters plug Skype openly and blatantly within the plot. While I thought that shamelessly plugging the show’s sponsor in the middle of an episode was just comic effect, the repetition of advertisements in multiple episodes is very peculiar. While product placement is apparent in every form of media, this type of marketing takes the viewer away from the show. It also makes me wonder if this type of advertising will become a regular trend in this newly recognized realm of television.
Overall I would definitely recommend Back on Topps to other viewers. By the third episode, I was completely hooked and found the characters very relatable. While “office” humor is becoming a popular trend in television comedy, this show offers it’s own brand of sarcasm and lyrical slapstick that I have not seen in a very long time. While I am also not sure I agree with the sponsor’s advertising concepts, the show has a much higher production value in both aesthetics and dialogue then the majority of web television.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
I don't like this blogmajigger, but Viralcom must be heard about!
Zach Graber
RTVF 65i
Webisode Review
Viralcom
“Viralcom” follows several interconnected story lines based within or around Viralcom Studios, which is a professional studio likened to the ones involved with major motion pictures except this studio exclusively produces viral videos. Unlike some web-series like “We Need Girlfriends,” this series does not seem to have much of a future with any other medium besides the Internet. This over the top and ridiculous comedic series preys on memes created through the Internet for its own humor and there is no doubt it is funny, but only if you get the references. Cameo appearances are made by Internet celebrities such as the guy from “Chocolate Rain” and YouTube webcam star username DaxFlame. There are also special guest co-stars such as Michael Showalter, from Stella, and Sam Reich, from Collegehumor.com, both of which have experience with producing content on the Internet. This is the quintessential piece of web content that criticizes web content.
Joey Mandarino and David Young are both comedy sketch artists who got their starts in New York City. After working with Comedy Central and making Variety Magazine’s “10 Comics to Watch for 2007” they decided to move out to LA where they produced this web series. A part from being the creators, writers, directors, and executive producers for the series, they also act as writers struggling to write a viral video that actually has a story. This is just one of several plotlines that climax at the viral video awards show, the “Webbys.”
The Webbys is where the web series really drives home its thoughts on viral videos. Basically everything that Viralcom spent millions of dollars to produce lost and two 12 year olds who were given some money to just be violent and rambunctious and video tape it swept the awards. This web series actually brought up one of the most pertinent topics in this class in regards to what is successful on the web with current technology. Viral videos get millions of hits, get tons of media attention, and even become memes that translate into life outside the computer, but amateur camera people produce almost all viral videos. Meanwhile, people with an education in this background, such as myself, struggle to get recognized in the same fashion without conceding their creative and professional vision. There is no doubt in my mind that sometimes two 12 year olds with a camera can do something that is worth watching, especially using a medium as casual as the internet, but this web-series really brings to light how impactful that can be on people like us.
In regards the technical mechanics involved, the absence of pixilation and good audio lead me to believe it was compressed in H264. I did notice some artifacts in episodes 2 and 10; episode 2 had strange horizontal lines whenever something on screen moved left or right and episode 10 had black that wasn’t as dark as the other episodes. This lead me to believe that either they employed a different person to perform the compression or if they experimented with other compression types. They didn’t particularly utilize any camera techniques as a result of shoot for a smaller screen, but the script was more of the focus than the actual visual content. They did use a really creative technique where they would shoot a viral video and purposely make it look like it was using the worst compression tool on the web (just like YouTube looked back in the day), then zoom out and fade the effect to normal H264 compression when the shot started to include all the behind the scenes action that was producing the viral video. In regards to distribution, a Google search will reveal that they have their own site that hosts all the webisodes at www.joeyanddavid.com and they also have a username specific only to this webseries at http://www.youtube.com/user/ViralcomSeries. However, their videos have also been found on other sites such as Collegehumor.com, funnyordie.com, and dailymotion.com.
RTVF 65i
Webisode Review
Viralcom
“Viralcom” follows several interconnected story lines based within or around Viralcom Studios, which is a professional studio likened to the ones involved with major motion pictures except this studio exclusively produces viral videos. Unlike some web-series like “We Need Girlfriends,” this series does not seem to have much of a future with any other medium besides the Internet. This over the top and ridiculous comedic series preys on memes created through the Internet for its own humor and there is no doubt it is funny, but only if you get the references. Cameo appearances are made by Internet celebrities such as the guy from “Chocolate Rain” and YouTube webcam star username DaxFlame. There are also special guest co-stars such as Michael Showalter, from Stella, and Sam Reich, from Collegehumor.com, both of which have experience with producing content on the Internet. This is the quintessential piece of web content that criticizes web content.
Joey Mandarino and David Young are both comedy sketch artists who got their starts in New York City. After working with Comedy Central and making Variety Magazine’s “10 Comics to Watch for 2007” they decided to move out to LA where they produced this web series. A part from being the creators, writers, directors, and executive producers for the series, they also act as writers struggling to write a viral video that actually has a story. This is just one of several plotlines that climax at the viral video awards show, the “Webbys.”
The Webbys is where the web series really drives home its thoughts on viral videos. Basically everything that Viralcom spent millions of dollars to produce lost and two 12 year olds who were given some money to just be violent and rambunctious and video tape it swept the awards. This web series actually brought up one of the most pertinent topics in this class in regards to what is successful on the web with current technology. Viral videos get millions of hits, get tons of media attention, and even become memes that translate into life outside the computer, but amateur camera people produce almost all viral videos. Meanwhile, people with an education in this background, such as myself, struggle to get recognized in the same fashion without conceding their creative and professional vision. There is no doubt in my mind that sometimes two 12 year olds with a camera can do something that is worth watching, especially using a medium as casual as the internet, but this web-series really brings to light how impactful that can be on people like us.
In regards the technical mechanics involved, the absence of pixilation and good audio lead me to believe it was compressed in H264. I did notice some artifacts in episodes 2 and 10; episode 2 had strange horizontal lines whenever something on screen moved left or right and episode 10 had black that wasn’t as dark as the other episodes. This lead me to believe that either they employed a different person to perform the compression or if they experimented with other compression types. They didn’t particularly utilize any camera techniques as a result of shoot for a smaller screen, but the script was more of the focus than the actual visual content. They did use a really creative technique where they would shoot a viral video and purposely make it look like it was using the worst compression tool on the web (just like YouTube looked back in the day), then zoom out and fade the effect to normal H264 compression when the shot started to include all the behind the scenes action that was producing the viral video. In regards to distribution, a Google search will reveal that they have their own site that hosts all the webisodes at www.joeyanddavid.com and they also have a username specific only to this webseries at http://www.youtube.com/user/ViralcomSeries. However, their videos have also been found on other sites such as Collegehumor.com, funnyordie.com, and dailymotion.com.
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