A while ago my friend showed me a few episodes from the Planet Earth DVD series, and I fell in love with them. It’s a five-disc series put out by BBC, that explores extraordinary wildlife all over the globe. The filming style follows the animals which illustrates in animals’ behavior as well. I think it’s safe to say that the series is probably the most complete and high-resolution collection of wildlife footage that exists to date.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend giving it a try. And if you have seen it, you should check out Blue Planet, which is a similar documentary series that catalogs the wildlife in our oceans.
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I just watched about 5 minutes of the TV show “MXC,” which, if you’re not familiar, is pretty funny. The premise is that they take footage of a Japanese game-show where they compete in ridiculous stunts. Then, we add American commentary spoofing whatever is really going on, reminiscent of Mystery Science Theater 2000.
What brings me to post, though, is the underlying irony of it all. If you look at the Japanese economy, industry, and entertainment, you’ll notice that they are in fact emulating the American market. Because of their growing free market, the Japanese are in an era where the middle-class have more money, and so their lifestyles are influenced by that of America. You can see it in their clothing, their technology, and even the vacations they take. Most specifically, you can see it in their television programming.
So what strikes me as funny here, is that the Japanese make television programming that mirrors Hollywood, but we dub it over and it becomes a comedy in the States. I think if we put the same cheesy dubbing on some of our own shows, they might be equally popular. Moral of the story: the reality TV content put out today is garbage.
Related Rant: How there exists an Americanized version of the “Planet Earth” series, because the United States as a whole just wouldn’t understand a British narrator.
For the most part, I’ve been unaffected by the writer’s strike. I don’t have a lot of time for TV during the semester, save The Office on Thursdays. Losing The Office was a major blow, but I didn’t realize how bad things really were until I got home for the holidays.
My parents have Tivo at home, and it’s generally chock-full of mindless programming to keep you entertained (read: comatose) for hours. But the only programs still recorded are movies, reality TV, and the news. It’s pretty sad.
So what does this mean for the entertainment industry as a whole? Well foremost, it’s unfortunate for all of the people striking, and also those that lost their jobs because there’s no more work. But people just haven’t been watching as much live TV as a result. It’s an opportunity for people to catch up on all those old movies, previous seasons of sitcoms, and even blogs and video blogs.
With the downplay of traditional TV, I think this is a great time for amateur-based video blogs, and content of all sorts. This is a big opportunity for applications like Miro that aggregate alternative content. Although a few shows are coming back, there’s still no end in sight for this strike. This could be the beginning of a major shift in how we get our media entertainment.
A while ago my friend showed me a few episodes from the Planet Earth DVD series, and I fell in love with them. It’s a five-disc series put out by BBC, that explores extraordinary wildlife all over the globe. The filming style follows the animals which illustrates in animals’ behavior as well. I think it’s safe to say that the series is probably the most complete and high-resolution collection of wildlife footage that exists to date.
