I’m a huge fan of Boing Boing,
the gadgets and wonderful things blog, so I was as excited as anyone at
the thought of Boing Boing TV. So I must admit to being slightly
disappointed int eh first episode to say the least.
Despite the mild and in some places sycophantic praise being
bandied around, in my opinion the first episode royally sucked.
Why?
For me, Rocketboom
has long been the Boing Boing of Internet TV/Web Video/call it what you
will. And Rocketboom has perfected the format, fine tuning it to a
veritable art form.
In comparison, Boing Boing TV feels like a weak
latecomer to the game. It’s a shame the partnership between
the two
never came off.
Soulless First Episode
Everything about the first episode felt utterly wrong. From
the
utterly wooden, soulless, pseudo-spunky delivery of Mark Frauenfelder
and Xeni Jardin, down to the nauseating red swirling cloud background
straight out of After Effects 101.
What works so well on the “pages” of Boing
Boing felt for me like something being read off the pages
in the video version. Boing Boing the blog manages to walk that trashy,
irony-fueled perhaps somewhat nineties path with gusto, and pulls it
off.
On video it simply comes across as smug, heartless, cynically
knocked together, predictable, and… Ok, I just
didn’t enjoy it.
Great Blogger = Great Presenter?… No
We’ve seen this before.
Watch, for example, Loren Feldman’s hilarious response
to Om
Malik’s web TV venture. What makes for a great
blogger doesn’t always add up to a great presenter.
But as Boing Boing is totally personality driven, it never
should have been like this.
Still, if you’ve ever seen a film directed by
Stephen King, or
witnessed Iggy Pop trying to act it becomes apparent that what utterly
rocks in one medium doesn’t translate so well to another. At
least not
with the same person or people behind it.
It Could Improve
I haven’t written the show off yet – Cory Doctorow
could well save
the day, and once Xeni and Mark take the ventriloquist’s hand
out of
their asses, relax and get comfortable with being talking heads it
might just work.
I wanted to like this, I really did. But it’s a
competitive game
this web trivia business, and if Boing Boing TV wants to compete with
the hordes of video savvy websters they need to up their game.
With
that said, as they are Technorati’s number two blog they will
doubtless
get a huge following anyway, and I will be branded a heretic by the
three people that read my blog. So there you go.
Go on, treat yourself:
Oh, and if you’d like to see some creative use of
retro stock footage, rather than this sub-Mystery Science
Theater 3000 drivel, check out the excellent mashup
artistry that is Next
To Heaven.It
could have been so beautiful. *Sigh*
Originally written by Michael Pick, a professional screencaster, web video maker and blogger. Some Rights Reserved.
