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Thursday, July 03, 2008

yourweek getting some love from all over the internet

This most recent write-up in Citizen Tube best summarizes just what we're aiming to do with YourWeek. We'll see if we get there, but the second taping I just watched (yes, version 2.0) is another step in the right direction.

The recently-waterboarded Christopher "Believe me, it's torture" Hitchens provided some great footage in his interview with Rich and Michelle. It made the rounds on a variety of right-wing blogs: LittleGreenFootballs and Hot Air got lots of discussion from a video with such choice soundbites as "If the GOP were a dog, it should be shot."

A few other sites blogged segments, including Primetime Politics and Wired Science (re: Frankenmeat).

And we had the help of the talented designer, Callie Peck, who created a couple house ads for us to run:

Stay tuned for an update about whether or not the show gets picked up...

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

clips from yourweek (reddit-powered tv news) are online

re-posted from dev blog

I'm pleased to report that the long-awaited Internet release for the pilot of YourWeek is now upon us.

Watch it now (more segments will be uploaded throughout the day).

Now, we were a bit handicapped in putting this together, because we couldn't properly notify the community of a television news show that didn't exist yet, but producers were able to find popular stories from the reddit corpus to report on. If YourWeek gets picked up, we're expecting every week's show to be shaped by your feedback on what you think matters.

The five of us know remarkably little about television production; we're incredibly grateful to all the folks at PBS for bringing this concept to fruition. Hopefully there'll he more reddit-powered television in our future.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

you're curious about yourweek, are ya?

Unless you're in a focus group or a public television exec, you haven't seen it yet. Don't fret, we haven't either. but we're hoping the pilot goes online by the end of this week.

Current not to be confused with the Al Gore project, wrote a nice piece on Your Week. And it even has this nifty synopsis:

But the producers aim to court both core and new viewers by spiking intelligent and even-handed, if occasionally counterintuitive, public-affairs features with humor and pointed commentary, perhaps bridging the gap between the NewsHour and, say, The Daily Show.

The pilot, for example, includes a straightforward report on efforts to increase voter turnout among Latinos in California and a lighter news story on why Toyota Priuses might be harder on the environment than Hummers — featuring Cottle, a Prius owner. A feature on the latest version of the hyperviolent video game Grand Theft Auto includes an interview with a Newsweek tech writer and plenty of green-screened carnage.

The show closes with an extended riff by the acerbic Christopher Hitchens, who gives a colorfully contemptuous take on the presidential candidates and their spouses.

The strong opinions and humor are meant to mirror those traits that thrive online; indeed, the format of the entire show, from its modular two- to four-minute reports to its web-influenced video windows and graphics, such as interspersed “loading” clock animations, is designed to signal its hybrid nature.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

yourweek.reddit got a new look and is fielding questions, it is -your week- after all

Erik [hueypriest] is fielding questions about YourWeek on the newly redesigned YourWeek.reddit. With the pilot hitting the Internet tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to assemble an FAQ and explain the show we hope will get picked up and become a part of your weekly viewing routine.

Here's a sample, but read the rest and submit your own:

toxicvarn90 asks:
How do you balance the type of submissions posted each weak?

Will you use stuff from the main front page?

Oh and what software will you guys use to edit?

hueypriest responds:
For the pilot we achieved a perfect balance of stories using a proprietary mix of Ant Colony Optimization and Josephson's voltage gauge modeling. It might be a bit different if we were doing a show every week.

On any given week, we might have stuff from the front page, some deep cuts, and even some stuff that may not have directly been submitted to reddit (if such things exist). No hard rules, except that we want to do smart stories that haven't been done elsewhere and redditors make that possible.

I believe the editors at WETA are using both Avid Xpress and Final Cut Pro.

Monday, June 02, 2008

just five days until yourweek is released...

They're busy in the editing room wrapping up the pilot of YourWeek. I joined the production team over the Memorial Day weekend in the D.C. studio as they taped and watched a television show being born.

Whereas I just sat behind my laptop, the crew was in a seemingly constant state of motion -- cameras getting moved, adjusted, teleprompters scrolling with text, different takes from different angles, make-up -- I had no idea how much work goes into a thirty minute show. The set is spartan: table, chairs, two coffee mugs for our two hosts, Rich Lowry and Michelle Cottle. Behind them is a set of three massive green screens. And what better use for those three mammoths than to play GTA 4 on them?

Thankfully, no one flipped out during the taping.