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BWTVF 2007: What JibJab could teach TV

by | Jun 24, 2007 | Banff, Pseudo-Techie, TV Interviews

I got to talk to Gregg Spiridellis, co-founder of JibJab, at the Banff World Television Festival. That’s the company behind some of the best political and social satires on the web – I’ve even posted a few here. We talked about JibJab’s vision, the future of television in the Internet age, and he gave me a peek into a business that doesn’t just pay lip service to building a relationship with its audience:

For all my articles from the Festival, check out the feature section at Blogcritics.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

by | Jun 15, 2007 | Banff

The Banff World Television Festival is over, though I’ll have more articles over the next couple of weeks. Some of the thoughts milling around in my brain are on the role of the Internet, the role of the critic, and hey, while we’re at it, why not throw in the role of television?

I’ve got an interview to write up with one of the JibJab brothers. I want to write feature-y articles that touch on topics brought up in the Master Classes of Greg Daniels (The Office), Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars), and Chuck Lorre (Two and a Half Men).

There’s lots to mull over in the session with the charming, witty, driven, idealistic yet practical Ben Silverman, who appeared via satellite because since he agreed to be at the festival, the former producer was named co-chairman of NBC and is a little busy, or some such excuse. I know it’s naive, but I suddenly think if anyone can turn around that network’s fortunes, he can. And after an hour of hearing him speak via satellite, my trust is obviously well-founded.

I feel another rant coming out of the Town Hall meeting on the future of television in Canada.

All that’s similar to what came out of last year’s Festival. But this year was a very different experience for me.

Last year’s Town Hall session partly inspired me to create the TV, Eh? site, and because of that site, I “knew” people who also “knew” me. I got to meet some lovely people in person I’d only met virtually before, and talk to network people about getting information, and chat with my TV critic hero. I had the surreal and cool experience of having people do a double take at my nametag and say “hey, I read your blog.”

The downside to all this upside is that this brand new Festival experience involved not just brain-filling information, but a lot — for me — of sustained mingling and networking and being “on” all the time. That’s rough on an introvert. If you won’t take my word for it, I’ve got the Myers-Briggs scores to prove I’m almost as far along the introversion scale as you can get without imploding, so I find that kind of thing very draining. Draining and interesting and fun.

I’m hoping after about 12 hours of sleep in the luxury of the Sicamous Best Western, the memories will all be of the interesting and fun.

BWTVF 2007: Not all about me

by | Jun 13, 2007 | Banff

Phew, I just submitted the transcript of the Rob Thomas interview to Blogcritics, so I hope it’ll be posted by tomorrow morning. I’m saving the more feature-y articles for post-festival, when I have time to let the ideas coalesce and stuff. It’s exhausting, all this sitting and listening and mingling. Doesn’t leave much brain power for other things.

Anyway, if you’re interested in other people’s takes on some of the speakers, like Greg Daniels of The Office and Ben Silverman, the new NBC co-chairperson, or what it’s like to network and pitch a series in front of a crowd of people, check out these fellow bloggers who are also at the festival:

And there’s a ton of other interesting coverage out there. Let’s see if this link works: Google News.

You can see all my coverage from this year and last here: Blogcritics’ Banff World Television Festival feature. Except last year’s David Shore Master Class writeup got put in the House feature section instead.