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MTN 17’s Sunday Night Program



caTVision Crew, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

On the MTN 17 10:00-11:00PM time slot on Sundays a show called Call-In Karaoke used to play where with the magic of Karaoke Revolution and Chroma Key, television viewers in Minneapolis could call-in and sing on live television while in-studio dancers try to entertain and distract you. It was a hilarious experiment produced by Hamil Griffin-Cassidy. Check out this prime example on YouTube of someone trying to sing Britney Spears’ Toxic. The show became a cult hit: it gained some MySpace friends and Facebook groupies and only those who got their phone timing perfectly could even get in on the show. I got to help out in the studio a few times.

As I posted about six months ago, Comcast bought out Time Warner’s cable market in Minneapolis and some technology changes happened soon after, one of which caused a delay on live broadcasts from MTN. It’s not easy to sing over the phone when what you’re hearing is a few seconds late.

The show evolved into poeTVision, where poems were scrolled across the screen for callers and and people read them. Then they started reading their own poems or rapping.

It got to the point where the show became a semi-controlled free-for-all experiment where callers can choose to say or do anything they want for a period of time. Meanwhile, the sounds and visuals started to become more and more varied and abstract. Now, the “goal,” if there is one, is to create some of the weirdest and most strange television in Minneapolis and letting anyone who calls in help out by saying whatever they want to say. I think it’s working. While Hamil has continued to host and produce the program, he has had various people provide music and direct. I’ve gotten the pleasure of directing the last few episodes and last Sunday was a bonus: four baby kittens were brought in to help. You can watch the entire thing on Blip.tv. Skip around if you don’t want to watch it for an hour. There are portions that are very strange and abstract. Some parts may be hard to watch.

caTVision

What drives me to this program is that while everything may seem out of order, it’s a realtime experiment on what happens when people, safely in their own homes and without needing to identify themselves are able to broadcast themselves over live television. In a few years, when television and the internet become closer to being the same thing, I think a similar kind of environment that this show creates is going to be a lot more widespread. So while everything might seem of a very low production value, to me it’s really a taste of the future of the weird possibilities in giving individuals a platform to broadcast themselves in a way that’s very different than current conventions of internet blogging, forums, message boards and vlogs. Right now, this show is all about play. I’m glad I’ve been able to participate and help out. Where my mind is though, is that it’s going to be an interesting world soon when more and more people are going to have louder and louder voices. This is just a taste of how weird things could get.

If you’re in Minneapolis and have Comcast Cable, tune in MTN 17 at 10:00PM on Sundays.

As an aside, check out the crew playing with cats after the show. They were apparently rescued “from a crack house” and I believe a couple of them are still looking for homes. They are very playful, healthy and cute. If you know of a good home for a kitten, let me know.

Posted 12 December 2007 § Cats § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: ,

MTN, Comcast, USI Wireless and Minneapolis

UPDATE: I, like many people on this issue, have been erroneously spreading around some misinformation. I’ve cleaned up a few portions.

Most of my original argument isn’t really valid anymore.

Here’s my new argument, short and sweet form: Don’t cut MTN’s budget to fund the “Digital Portals” project. The Digital Portals project is over-engineering a simple issue with a complicated solution with old technology. Crippling MTN’s budget does the opposite of what the city is trying to achieve with the Digital Portals: giving Minneapolis’ communities access and training to communicate broadly in the city.

There’s a lot of discussion and misinformation about Minneapolis’ 2008 Recommended Budget that will cut an additional $100,000 out of MTN’s operating budget. This recommendation by the mayor is pretty nasty considering that $50,000 was already cut from MTN’s budget but more importantly, this $100,000 cut is intended to fund a “Wireless Portals Project” run by USI Wireless created by The Digital Access Project being run by someone.

How I see it, the One issue is that MTN is an independent non-profit that centers itself around encouraging creation of and access to programs and information. They’re not in the cable or internet service provider business. For over twenty years, they have been Minneapolis’ primary conduit for citizen media. On the contrary, USI Wireless and Comcast are for-profit service providers. Why take money away from the partially city-funded organization that’s suited for creating the content for and with the community and giving it to a program that’s operated by a provider of not content but connectivity completely new project that somewhat overlaps what MTN is already doing a different way?

Currently, Comcast significantly funds MTN through the city. From Section 4 of Minneapolis’ 2008 Recommended Budget (PDF):

Comcast collects this “franchise fee�? from subscribers to help fund public services such as police, fire and public works as they relate to maintenance and regulation of the City’s rights-of-way. Comcast also collects an “access fee�? from subscribers to support public, educational and government (PEG) access programming. It is estimated Comcast will collect $350,000 from subscribers for the access fee in 2008. There are ten PEG channels in the City of Minneapolis: four public, three educational and three government channels.

Although funds from Comcast’s Access Fee are earmarked and go to MTN, Comcast’s Franchise Fee generates around $2.9 million. While this goes to the city’s general fund, some of that money goes to MTN. One could argue that some of this money from Comcast is being redirected from MTN to a program operated by Comcast’s direct competitor in Minneapolis for internet service, USI Wireless. (ed: Edited for clarity) On one hand, I’m surprised that Comcast hasn’t jumped in and made a case to argue against this $100,000 cut, but on the other hand Comcast’s obligation on these access and franchise fees may be going away soon and they may simply not want to be involved. I wasn’t able to find a strong, linkable source on this. If you know more about Comcast’s obligations or lack thereof in the future, please post in the comments.

More from the 2008 Recommended Budget:

The Mayor recommends reducing the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network contract by $100,000 on a one-time basis; this funding is directed to the Minneapolis Wireless Portals Project. The department will reduce its capital expenditures by $25,000, a reduction not anticipated in the financial direction for 2008.

What’s the Minneapolis Wireless Portals Project? Good question. Many people still don’t understand what the Wireless Portals are. When I was watching the Ways and Means hearing discussing this on October 31st, Councilmember Scott Benson joked that he should be dressed up like Gary Schiff from the 70’s because he was unaware of what these portals are and what they mean. On November 16, there’s a Wireless Expo at City Hall that will help explain this.

From what I understand, The Wireless Portals Project is essentially what I’ll call a “Minneapolis Intranet.” It’s what everyone will have access to when they can connect to Wireless Minneapolis anywhere in the city. It’ll have messages from the community, city departments and city hall, and some form of community websites and programming. While this Intranet is free, if you want to access the Internet using Wireless Minneapolis, you need to order service. I would assume that The content located on the Wireless Portals Project will be accessible through the Internet even if you don’t use Wireless Minneapolis. A big mistake if that’s not the case, in my opinion.

UPDATE: More on the Wireless Portal Project is in this hard-on-the-eyes PowerPoint presentation. You can also watch a video of Catherine Settanni giving this presentation. (Thanks, Chuck)

It makes sense to me that MTN should be partnered with both Comcast and USI Wireless to continue MTN’s mission of providing city and citizen media on both platforms.

MTN as an organization already has an infrastructure for training citizens on creating and producing programs and other content. They already have a strong reach with underrepresented communities and have staff and content that’s very diverse. Being they are in part funded by the City of Minneapolis already, I think it would be a waste to not have them working with USI Wireless for developing, from what I understand, comparatively similar or parallel content that they currently put on cable television. Cutting MTN’s budget doesn’t seem to be the right answer for how I understand it.

In addition to all the citizen-created Minneapolis content, there are cable channels run by MTN devoted to broadcasting city council, school board and other meetings and events. Why not utilize the same crews that Minneapolis is already helping pay for push the same content to the Wireless Portals Project?

UPDATE: The more that I learn about it, the Wireless Portals Project certainly does a lot of different things that MTN does, but I don’t think is very necessary or effective at this time considering there is no available funding for it. Cutting it out of MTN shouldn’t have even been on the table, in my strong opinion.

Also, I’m finding a bunch of reasons that make me not really want to be involved. What a huge mess.

To learn more, the City Pages has a year old article that covers some important history on MTN and their relationship with Minneapolis. Peter Fleck on his PF HYPER Blog does a great job covering Wireless Minneapolis and has some of the contracts and documents regarding Wireless Minneapolis at pfhyper.com. Over at the E-Democracy Forums, everyone else chimes in (some of the information here is not accurate). Have a strong opinion? Contact your city council member.

Posted 13 November 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis § Politics, Government and Policy ‡ Comments (14) ° Also tagged: ,

Philo



Amber "Glych" Greenlee and Hamil Griffin-Cassidy, originally uploaded by s4xton.

“Philo” is Hamil Griffin-Cassidy’s latest project on MTN. Put simply, it’s a live comic strip. A random viewer calls in to the show and suggests how the comic should start, and then each subsequent caller gets to decide what happens in the next panel.

The common thread to each episode is the reoccurring character Philo, who is named after Philo Farnsworth, who created the first fully working television system. Hamil is joined by Amber “Glych” Greenlee, an artist who tuned in one night, called in, and then was invited to co-host for the next episode. She’s co-hosted since.

Callers range from young children, a guy complimenting the host’s appearance (then hanging up), a clearly baked woman that watched because it happened to be after the show “The Hemp Channel” to a forty-seven year old “ex-drug addict” telling his life story (which includes him apparently getting hit by a MTC bus while the bus driver was on his mobile phone and other implausible adventures). In between, these people and others decide “what Philo does next” while Amber and Hamil illustrate it. A couple strange patterns have developed such as Philo’s tendency to constantly get into fights and the reoccurrence of Philo’s cat to get into the action.

Some callers have claimed that “this is the best show on television.” I’m not sure if I’d go that far but it is certainly something unique for the people of Minneapolis to participate in from their couches. And many times, it’s pretty hilarious.

See my behind the scenes photos and check it out on MTN 16, Mondays from 9:30-10:30pm. I hope to get video of the latest episode online soon.

By the way, does anyone know anything about Kitten TV? I need to catch that show!

Posted 14 August 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis ‡ Comments (4) ° Also tagged:

Hamil’s Next Move



Hamil Griffin-Cassidy in the Control Room, originally uploaded by s4xton.

I’ve been a fan of public access for a long time. I had a couple go-nowhere experiments when I was in high school, such as a show where I’d call public telephones around the town where random people would answer them and I’d create a scenario all on tape. For example, this old guy answered the phone at Square Lake beach near where I grew up and he went on to tell me about how good of a time him and his family were having. All while I was making obnoxious faces at the camera as if I was bored out of my mind, yet sounding very curious over the phone to keep him going. A bit mean, maybe. I thought it was funny when I was 17 years old.

I forgot about public access for about a decade and then caught Totally Scrabble Tuesday for the first time in November 2005 on MTN. I’ve been hooked ever since. I’m a big fan of media where regular citizens can step up to the plate and essentially for free create their own show. What caught me here is that even viewers can also be live participants and drive the direction of the program. No script, no direction, low-rent and completely free-form.

Host Hamil Griffin-Cassidy, along with the show’s co-producer Martin Hallanger had a pretty funny gig. A show about Scrabble that was so little about Scrabble and so much about people trying to call in and participate in something bigger in such a non-consequential way. The comedic value was in the absolute uncertainty of what might come out of the caller’s mouth next or how Hamil will respond, especially when the callers were blatantly inebriated. Surprisingly, it was usually pretty funny.

Like many viewers of TST, I formed a “team,” which was essentially a bunch of friends coming over to drink and watch the show together with. After a year, though, people’s priorities and schedules changed and the team dissolved. I was the nerd that stuck through.

I was thankful to have the opportunity to be involved helping Hamil a bit with spreading word about the show, hosting the show while Hamil was on vacation, being the in-studio organist and helping negotiate a deal between the show and City Council Member Gary Schiff for Gary to co-host the show in exchange with the password to his MySpace page.

About six months ago, Defeat Hamil launched, extending an opportunity for Totally Scrabble Tuesday callers to team up online. Eventually, it mostly worked. As it was not long after my team dissolved, I joined up with the people behind that site.

Hamil also has a lot of other projects going on, most notably Call-In Karaoke. A show where not only would people call in and sing the words scrolling by, but a show where dancers and a slew of visual effects would distract (yet augment) the caller trying to sing. I got to dance on an episode or two (video really kicks in after about 8 minutes - it’s quite a weird trip). Another example of harnessing live television to allow any casual viewer to call in and participate.

Not long ago, Comcast bought out Time Warner’s Minneapolis market and soon after, Comcast updated some of the technology behind how MTN’s content gets pushed on Comcast’s network. As a result, there is now about a four second delay on what is “live.” Put simply, it became a real distraction on Totally Scrabble Tuesday and it essentially ruined Call-In Karaoke. Hard to sing when what you are seeing and hearing on TV what was four seconds ago.

After three and a half years of TST, Hamil had his last game of Scrabble last Tuesday. As well, last night Hamil decided to try a different idea in the Call-In Karaoke slot: “poeTVision.” If callers could read poetry (everything from Shakespeare to e.e. cummings to a powerful work by Hamil’s father) like they did with Karaoke, syncing to music no longer mattered. At first, people were wanting to sing, but by the end, callers were playing it up and some were busting out their own rhymes. Some were screaming, some were shy, some people were cliché (”There once was this man from Nantucket…”) and some people had some very surprisingly cool original work. It’s a strange experience seeing from start to finish a show where you have no idea what is going to happen and afterwards you wonder “wow, what the heck was that? That was hilarious!”

And honestly, and perhaps ironically, I hate poetry open-mic night.

The latest thing up Hamil’s sleeve is a show called “Philo.” Philo is an illustrated character you’ll see being drawn live. Callers will able to tell the artist what happens to Philo next. The illustrator then interprets what the caller suggests on paper. The next caller decides where the story goes from there. The person with the pen will be Hamil at first, but the show could be a venue for a bunch of guest hosts including professional comic artists. At first I didn’t think this would be that big of a deal, but after thinking about it a few minutes I realized the kind of depth a collaborative comic by the city of Minneapolis could be like. Or it could suck. I can’t wait to find out.

In a few weeksOn July 2nd, Philo will start airing on MTN 16 on Mondays, 9:30-10:30pm.

Posted 18 June 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis ‡ Comments (5) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Twitter, Chasing Windmills, Call-In Karaoke

After SXSW suddenly everyone’s talking about Twitter. It’s your new 140 character-per-post instablog from your phone, AIM or webbernet. Still not on it? Join up and add me. You, like everyone else who’s not on it might be asking yourself, “Why would I care what people are doing? Why would anyone care what I post?” Well here’s a take on it: Just post what you think someone else might find interesting and don’t post the stuff nobody cares about. It took me a while to figure that simple idea out. It’s a great way to keep in contact and it’s a fabulous service for those who make last-minute plans. You can always “leave” people you don’t want to get updates on your phone from without un-friending them. The way Twitter is going, it very well be more widely used than MySpace in less than two years. Check out twittervision for a geographical look at live data coming into Twitter.

I’m in an upcoming today’s Chasing Windmills episode again… likely popping up this week. I think I’ll be in the next episode as well. It was a long shoot on Sunday but a lot of fun. Stopped by The Bulldog NE afterwards with Amber, Jen and Rich and for the most part talked about bloggers. There’s a Chasing Windmills season wrap-up party at the Kitty Cat Klub at 8pm Thursday. As Jeremy paraphrases, “if the building blows up, it’ll be the end of Minneapolis blogging.” Come on down. Some of the real actors will be signing autographs amongst other things.

After the Chasing Windmills shoot and Bulldog on Sunday, I got a dancing part on the craziest thing on television, Call-In Karaoke. The premise of the show is that people in Minneapolis call in and are able to sing a song on live television over the phone. Karaoke Revolution serves up the songs, keeps a meaningless score and displays an animated version of the person singing and an audience on the screen. Meanwhile, Hamil Griffin-Cassidy hosts the show with chroma key to make sure people get their song set up and whatnot. During the singing, Hamil takes his microphone off the set and people dance on top of the game to distract the caller. It’s quite bizarre. This week’s episode took it a notch weirder: the people dancing were dancing live on top of a previously recorded episode that was already danced upon. Taylor and I were wrestlers for the most part. Amazingly crazy television. You can watch the whole thing on Google Video.

Posted 21 March 2007 § Media, Blogging and Technology § Minneapolis ‡ Comments (4) ° Also tagged: ,