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in: Channel 101, Super Midnight Movie Show

Channel 101

Revision as of 20:42, 14 November 2009 by Occono (Message Wall | contribs) (→‎Notable Shows)
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Channel 101 is a short film festival (usually monthly) in Los Angeles, which also has a sister festival in NYC, Channel 101 NY. Channel 101 is the creation of Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab in which participants submit a short film in the format of a pilot under five minutes in length. The event is structured such that the audience controls what is shown and which film-makers return for the next screening in much the same way TV programs are rated and managed. According to the Channel 101 website, “Channel 101 is a chance to sit in the worn-out chair of the fat network exec, drunk on the blood of lowly artists whose right to exist is given in exchange for their ability to nourish...You run the network. You pick the programming.”

Chan101

Roughly every month, a screening for Channel 101 occurs at the Cinespace theater in Los Angeles, with (usually) ten shorts being screened. At the screening, the audience votes on which shows they would like to see return. The top five shows are entered into the “prime time” slots on the Channel 101 website, and get to make a follow-up episode for the next screening. This process continues with new “episodes” being shown at each screening until one fails to make the top five, at which point the series is “cancelled.”

Some successful shows also can choose to be voluntarily be cancelled, (The first to do so being Time Belt), making one last unvoted episode. Shows that fail to make the prime time spot are known as “failed pilots.” An added benefit of having a prime time series is that prime time directors are part of the panel that decides which five new pilots will be shown alongside the five established shows from the previous screening.

Channel101GroupShotMeatWeek

Meat Week Day One. (Not all people in this pic are 101 people.)

File:Channel101 Group Shot.jpg

Meat Week Day Two.

Shows that fail to make the screenings are known as “rejected pilots.” Each calendar year of the festival is referred to as a “season,” comprising of 10 screenings, due to there being no December screening, plus month break “to allow the creators to rest” between spring/summer and the November screening, which is the yearly awards show (The Incredibly Prestigious Achievement Award or “Channy,” so named as a parody of Emmy).

It is considered a gratifying learning experience.[1]



What Channel 101 is not

thumb|300px|right Channel 101 is not a website.

It's a live film festival. It happens to have a website, in the same way that Burger King has a website. If somebody asked you what Burger King was you certainly wouldn't say, "it's a website about burgers." No, it's a restaurant. It just happens to have a site.

Same here. Channel 101 is about the live screenings. So if you see the people who run it treating the forums as if they were little more than an annoyance and a necessary evil, that's why. Neither the forums or this website lies at the center of the Channel 101 universe.

This is, incidentally, also why people are sensitive over forum criticism of the shows in the front page. See, once they're on the front page, they've already been judged. They're not asking for our opinion. That's not what they're there for. This isn't ifilm.com, this isn't newgrounds.com. They don't have online voting.

I know lots and lots of people stroll in - including me - thinking this is just an online presentation where the readers rule the roost, where the filmmakers are sitting with their hands clasped in their lap, anxiously waiting to hear what we say. Lots of sites do work that way, sites with advertisements and popups that depend on the voter traffic to make money.

This one doesn't.[2]

CELEBRITIES

Wikipedia's outdated "Notable Shows" list

  • Classroom—Longest-running prime time show (13 episodes total); parody of after-school specials
  • Chad Vader—A popular video series that was created for Channel 101, but was cancelled after only two episodes. The creators, Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda, went on to continue the series, and it became an extremely popular series on youtube where it was "featured" multiple times.
  • The 'Bu—Second-longest-running prime time show (11 episodes); also known for being filmed with new casts and crew for the last three episodes. The show was created by The Lonely Island.
  • Computerman—Starring Jack Black as a cross-breed of a man’s DNA and his home computer.
  • Brently and Mrs. Gould-Starring Brently Heilbron and his 85 year old sidekick, Mrs. Gould (played by Jean Farber).
  • Call Me Cobra—Starring Drew Carey, a show about a man who is mistaken for a professional killer, but takes the job for the money.
  • House of Cosbys—About a man who clones Bill Cosby several times over.
  • Laser Fart—Long-running series starring Dan Harmon, noted for guest-starring Jack Black.
  • Time Belt—Previously held the record for longest-running prime-time show; The show was created by Chris Tallman.
  • Kicked in the Nuts!—Starring Family Guy writer/co-star Mike Henry. A Candid Camera parody that consists of an orange-haired man kicking men in the testicles, later to their delight when he tells them that they are on TV. Made reference to on the Family Guy episode “The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire.”
  • Yacht Rock—Credited for launching a revival of “smooth music” in popular culture.
  • Channel 101: The Musical—Fully orchestrated Broadway style musical featuring Sarah Silverman and Happy Days' Donny Most.
  • The Most Extraordinary Space Investigations—Starring Dan Harmon, Sevan Najarian, Justin Roiland and Sarah Silverman. Noted for intentional mistakes, and purposely performing notable errors.
  • Twigger's Holiday—Colorful Musical about a kid growing up. Starring Rob Schrab.
  • Shitbuster—Holds the record for most downloaded failed pilot. A revived short series starring Chris Romano as the original Shitbuster ran for 3 episodes.
  • The Jogger—Cancelled pilot about a jogger solving problems, it garned praise for the choreography and was later featured in Entertainment Weekly. The show later had its rights picked up by a production company. [3]
  • The Wright Stuff—Starring Ethan Phillips as President Teddy Roosevelt. Created by Ford Austin & Scott Ingalls. Became the highest budgeted Channel 101 series at $5000 per episode.
  • I Love Vaginas—The creators, at age 14, were the youngest ever to make it to the Channel 101 screening.
  • The Serious Businessman—This show’s challenge to its rejection by the voting panel created the "Chauncey" system.
  • Sockbaby—Zero-budget martial arts from Doug TenNapel, the creator of Earthworm Jim.
  • Cautionary Tales of Swords—Trip Fisk (Michael Ashe) tries warning the world of the dangers of sword ownership, and later, decides to fight the problem himself. Created by Drew Hancock.
  • Return to Supermans—A send-up of Turkish versions of American cinema (such as Turkish Star Wars). Created by Aaron Moles. Featured on G4's Attack of the Show
  • Ultraforce—3 episode sci-fi action spectacular created by Jeremy Carter and Matt Gourley of the Superego Podcast. It featured Derek Mears, Jeff Davis and Chris Tallman.
  • Planet Unicorn - Fictional stories revolve around three talking unicorns - Feathers, Cadillac and Tom Cruise - who were created by an 8 year-old gay boy named Shannon.

Tweets


Trivia

How101Works
  • Stats up to January 2006 (I'm going to put this info to better use later.):
    • 135 Different shows had been screened.
    • 33 made it in to prime time and were voted back for 66 more episodes.
      • That makes the average length of a show 3 epps including pilot. That makes this next stat even more amazing.
    • The longest running show was The 'Bu (no shit).
      • It ran for 11 shows and had a episode screen in 03 04 and 05.
    • The shortest show was the Mustache Contest which made prime time but never got a second show.
    • During the Bu's 11 show run they had 8 months off.
    • Laser Fart had 7 months off during it's 10 epp run.
    • Molly & Ringwald, Computerman, Time Belt and Yacht Rock on the other hand have all done five straight epps.
  • Longest running shows average prime time rank:

History

thumb|300px|right thumb|300px|right|Old G4 Interview. The idea for Channel 101 began in 2001, when Schrab invited several friends over for a screening of Jaws 4, but challenged them to bring a short film predicting what would happen in the movie. In 2002, three more short film challenges were issued, but the group of viewers outgrew Schrab’s living room. Instead, the screening was moved to the backroom of an LA nightclub. Additionally, friends of friends of the filmmakers were beginning to ask what this “festival” was called and how they could enter. In 2003, Schrab and Harmon named their creation the Super Midnight Movie Show and decided on a monthly screening and a five minute format. However, they quickly realized that once the show started growing, it would only be a matter of time before a large number of low-quality submissions were entered, and filmmakers would need to be turned away for time constraints. They decided to adopt a TV network-like ratings model where the audience votes on which films they like, and popular filmmakers were allowed to screen more films accordingly. In 2004, a pilot for a reality show about Channel 101 and its filmmakers was shopped to FX Networks, but was eventually passed on.[4] A sketch comedy show called Acceptable.TV based on the format of Channel 101 and executive-produced by Harmon and Schrab began airing 23 March 2007, for a short period on VH1.[5] See also About Channel 101.

The success of Channel 101 led to a sister festival in New York, Channel 101:NY.

External Links

  1. ↑ http://www.channel101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=30419#30419
  2. ↑ http://channel101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=55927&sid=a94b3e422c601b3feb679de2c08cd2d0#55927
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ http://channel101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1710
  5. ↑ http://www.channel101.com/articles/article.php?article_id=80
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