not a proposal but a loose collection of ideas.

it’s 2.30 am and I didn’t like where the old proposal was going so I ditched it and started from scratch.

Eagles is on. take it easy...

(aka Virtual Feedback)

Concepts: new style of live show for 14-25 ABC1 crowd.

unmoderated uncensored undefined fuckoff and die.

I had a recent conversation with a friend of mine in advertising who dissed the above line of adjectives (ok there’s a conjunction as well) on account of how every ad campaign with attitude targeted at the 14-25 market starts out with roughly those ideas. really ? well I’m 22. so how come I can’t see them...

Nike ads are cool and allude to extreme lifestyles and there are certainly shows that are risque on tv but most of the stuff is still relatively bland bullshit.

What I am talking about is taking existing stereotypes and not so much knocking them on the head as making them fucking explode.

example: walk up to a group of young black guys in a red mercedes and ask them if they stole the car - then see what happens.

It’s not funny. It’s not meant to be funny. It’s meant to push people’s buttons and encourage them to consider for once what they think about and why.

[more examples include - discussion and ratings of where in london the best girls are and why - live seductions, porn, new media, blagging clubs, car bouncing etc etc]

There should be a public access looseness to the show - where no one including the presenters knows exactly what will happen next. [when I do write up a proper proposal I suspect I will pitch a series of one pilot and five following hour long shows - each one vaguely themed around a theme - hmmm clever wording]

perhaps even a non-sequitur feeling.

Bruce Lee martial arts style of choice borrowed from about six different styles - some say that was the reason he was impossible to beat. Forget all this web site about a tv programme bullshit.

Take the best elements of any medium and warp them for the purposes of entertainment. That is why the technology exists in this case.

1. ‘flick between channels’

we know the average viewer channel surfs so why not do it for him.

I can see this as being hilarious...

"Ok let’s see what’s on ITV now [change into itv’s signal] - fucking hell it’s cell block h again - can’t believe they’re still rerunning that..." - etc etc.

technologically this is easy - it’s just not ever done.(could easily include cable - adult channel etc)

2. ‘reviews’

if we had something to say about magazines, movies, tv etc. then we’d say so. you could hardly call them reviews - (in fact I strongly feel there should be no named sections to this show - perhaps the presenters should not even introduce themselves......another idea - another time)

think about conversations you have with your friends - somebody reads something about somebody else and so on - the kicker here is that I’m assuming the people who present the show have interesting enough thoughts....if not then the whole concept is flawed.

hopefully that’s a safe enough bet though.

somewhere in this idea is advertising - the adverts we ran in the commercial breaks would be ads we think are cool - not ads by people who buy time on the show. (so a fake commercial break if you wish)

3. ‘mixed media’ part 1.

what do we have at our disposal - phones computers faxes televisions radios - they are all communications media of some sort or another - two way or one way depending on your definition...so let’s throw them all together and see what comes out. (for what I’m terming pure interactivity see next section)

think about the viewers of this live show as a distributed studio audience.

imagine watching killroy or oprah (forgive me god for grouping the two together) - what’s the problem - if you let everyone in the audience speak at the same time - then nothing would happen - you’d end up with a screaming match - VERY interactive but also spectacularly useless.

(sort of like a sailors random walk theorem)

anybody can ask a question with a few keypresses or a dialled phone....

I envisage a continuous phone in as guiding conversation - in the some senses similar to radio talk shows (well at least more so than to letterman type programs - which allow no viewer/audience participation whatsoever) - every person who dialled would be caller id’d and looked up automatically on one of those German CD’s [the kind that allow reverse number lookups so you can find a person’s address from their number] - then if they were real assholes at least it would be public.

Lines would be dropped all the time. If the caller is boring and does not advance the conversation then he/she can fuck off. likewise if interesting things are said then so be it - that stays.

(this is where the ‘whatever’ catchphrase comes in...)

let’s mix some more media - all those late night sex chat lines - phone one up and put it on air - let’s see how good it really is. [no warnings to the line - no planning] - then let’s rate those...

[put the show on the radio simultaneously - if you can’t get that cable channel you can listen to the radio - when the commercial break runs on the tv one we do something different on the radio]

Title bars going over presenter (the sort of thing where cookery programmes show their address) - but it’s actually typed live by some guy perhaps dissing the presenter - the presenter can’t see it but you can - sort of like an inverse teleprompter - because the phone in people could tell him about it.

[as an aside - if we ever do have sections - they could be sound/video bites of movies/songs - 3 second clips - just cause we like them and once again - mix media]

4. ‘mixed media’ part 2

The name virtual feedback comes from the fact that I perceive interactivity to be like a giant feedback loop.

input, output, input, output ad infinitum.

So we have a giant feedback loop except somewhere along the line somebody’s watching.

I get really pissed off with techy programmes (especially internet ones) that define themselves by the fact that they’re techy programmes. enough already. the net’s here. it’s staying here.

let’s just fucking use it like it should be used.

so we just embrace it in the same way that an interviewer uses eye contact.

a little obvious (but necessary)

- chat - (a la mtv yack)

this may be visible on screen or maybe just to presenter(s)

- ongoing influence on show (aside from the obvious talking to presenters)

background music

[this is all done via website - which only exists for the duration of the show - it also changes during the course of the show - it’s alive...tee hee hee]

- I’d also like to make use of the colored buttons on teletext handsets.

this should be easy - the cable station must have a way of processing how many people click a particular button color - so you have a remote control boxing glove which punches the bimbo presenter if more people hit red than hit green...or some such shit.

Promotion: If the pilot goes out then it’s so promotable it’s insane. (web/magazines etc etc etc)

it’s 4.20 am. I am now tired.

Meatloaf. Like a bat out of hell....I gotta get some new music. think I’ve carted this tape round the world since age 14. sleep.