Kickstarter

WE'RE IN OUR LAST DAYS AND NEED BIG ANGEL SPONSORS TO MAKE IT! Do you want to fund media literacy workshops for kids, and support The Media Show at the same time? Do you know any generous people who might want to? PLEASE encourage them to pledge $550 or $1500, and send them to this link which explains what we want to do.

Since its birth in 2008, The Media Show has been exposing workings of the technology and media industries that impact our lives -- what is often called "media literacy," with a dash of Internet literacy thrown in. Our episodes have tackled everything from YouTube copyright takedowns to billboard ads to chain letters. We're puppeteers in the tradition of Avenue Q, Greg The Bunny, or Team America World Police: we write comedy for adult Internet audiences, knowing that the elusive high school audience "watches up," making educational shows for that demographic rare indeed.

Because we lost our previous studio and editing space (RIP, AfterEd.tv), we're looking to regain our independence by getting our own equipment. Help us explain some of the major players on the Internet today, with snark and huge mechanical spider puppets! To thank you, we're offering not just the DVDs, but YOUR OWN puppets, props, and other fun stuff.

Need a more serious description of why The Media Show does what it does? Click here for a more detailed description.

What we want to do

The centerpiece of this Kickstarter project will be three episodes:

• one on how search engines work;
  
• one on search engine optimization and the content farms which clog the Internet with cheap content;
  
• and one on the HBGary/Anonymous incident, which revealed that the US government had asked for proposals to build a network of fake Internet profiles to sway public opinion.

The scripts we're working on need more space, more cast, and better equipment to film than we currently have (in Gus's living room!). We need your help to make these productions really shine.

There's so much more we want to make episodes about, and if we go over our goal we'll be able to make even more episodes.

• We'd like to talk about how much money the RIAA has paid to artists from its campaign of suing college students for sharing music.
• We'd like to revisit the bias towards everything needing to be new! new! new! in an advertising-driven society.
• Of course, we also want to put Weena in a punk band; go to SXSW and convince drunk advertising executives to explain what "interactive" means; and pull off some Bollywood-style puppet dance numbers.
• Additional funding will buy us time to seek grant funding, meaning we'll be able to produce even more episodes!
  

Where the funds will go, and how we'll do it

Funding will cover some combination of editing labor, equipment, and studio space.

The Media Show takes one person about 20 hours a week for three weeks to research, write, shoot, edit, and promote — plus additional time from folks helping out. Figure 30 hours a week. Three episodes... 30 hours... three weeks... that's at least 270 hours of work we're looking to cover.

• $3300 would buy us the camera kit we used to work with — and make it so we don't have a serious nightmare time trying to sync audio up with video, as we currently do with our Flip camera.
• $3150 would buy us another laptop editing station, so editing could go faster, with two people working on it; even more would get us a dedicated tower so that rendering wouldn't take so @#$*%$ long.
• For $2807, we could rent equipment and studio space for a day at Downtown Community TV, which would mean less likelihood of shoots being interrupted by neighborhood noises.

We'll be figuring out how to allot the funding as we develop scripts and figure out studio availability. All additional funds will be used to develop and promote further episodes of the show -- so you may well be supporting (and even receiving on your DVD!) more than just the three episodes we described.

Special Collectors' Packages

Here are the descriptions of some of the packages listed to the right:

Stickers!

If you were wondering what we meant by "stickers," here's a preview of the artwork Rob Vincent is developing for these puppies :

1. Collectors Package 4: The Intern — DVD, stickers, blog access, plus one of the show's own hapless Interns -- the puppets we sacrifice regularly for the lulz. Autographed by puppeteers Abby, Gus, and Rob. (May or may not have actually appeared on the show, but will be made of elements which appeared on camera. Trust me, you don't want the one covered in monster blood.) Now you can shoot your own fan videos about red shirting interns in hilarious media-related circumstances -- and if they're funny enough, we might feature them in an episode! 
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