The pitch for White Collar Brawler — that it’s some sort of real-life Fight Club — is one of the rare pitches that does, almost, match with the subject matter. The nonfiction tale of two friends who quit their office jobs to devote themselves to boxing isn’t nearly as anti-establishment as David Fincher’s seminal film, however, as their new devotion to training isn’t a gateway to further mayhem. It’s their escape, pure and simple.
The series, which debuted on Tuesday, was created by, and features, Kai Hasson and Nate Houghteling, with Jason Cohn directing and production company Portal A putting everything together. The first episode sets up the premise without giving us a lot of time to get to know Hasson and Houghteling, as so much of the episode is devoted to set-up. But the pair are likable and fun on camera, and seem to genuinely take this commitment seriously. It’s something their trainer Angelo Merino recognizes immediately. Merino is unfortunately stiff and uncomfortable in interview segments, but during training sessions, he’s tough and wise.
To emphasize the reality of the show, which promises a quick turnaround of episodes (Episode One was filmed just last week), the accompanying site includes a public Google calendar listing Hasson and Houghteling’s training schedule, ostensibly meaning that if you live in the San Francisco area, you could join up with the guys for a 7:00 a.m. beach run or weights session.
The show is being distributed through Next New Networks’ Creators Program; according to Zach Blume, Portal A’s director of business development and marketing, NNN execs Kathleen Grace and Ben Relles were already Portal A fans before the company began working on Brawler, and followed the show’s development accordingly.
In a slight departure from NNN’s other Next New Creators shows, Brawler uses the Blip.tv player on its site as opposed to YouTube, which is what NNC series typically use. Blume said via email that “In our negotiations with both Blip and NNN, it was made clear to us by both Steve [Woolf, of Blip.tv] and Kathleen that the two could work together harmoniously and that there was no conflict in using Blip on our site while also putting the video on YouTube for Next New’s promotion.” The first episode of White Collar Brawler has so far received only 144 views on YouTube.
Brawler is best described as non-fiction because of how it blends genres within that realm. The filmmaking style is so pretty it’s almost unnecessary, with lush cinematography that captures the gray San Francisco climate, and uses that color palette to give context to the corporate life being escaped. The feel in general proves very documentary-like in nature. However, the twist at the end of Episode One, in which Merino reveals that Hasson and Houghteling will have to fight each other eventually, reveals how much the show’s structure owes to reality TV.
How do Hasson and Houghteling not know about that twist, despite the fact that they’re credited as the creators, writers and producers of the series? According to Blume, the initial idea that the two fight each other came from Merino, who suggested it to the director; Hasson and Houghteling were asked to approve the decision after the fact. Hasson and Houghteling had no idea during the filming of the first episode that they’d eventually be fighting each other; in Episode Two, which comes out Friday morning, they’ll deal with the revelation and how it changes the dynamic of their training. Now it’s a competition; soon, there will be a showdown.
Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required):
By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series
Monetizing the Social Web Isn’t One Size Fits All
Shattering the Fourth Wall To Find Web Audiences
As connecting worldwide and sharing information becomes easier through tools like smartphones and social networking sites, many governments that have traditionally been able to squash the flow of information are faced with new problems in controlling it. Rather than allowing innovation to take its course, many governments are choosing to ban the tools that make sharing easy. Whether it’s the Chinese government’s ban of Facebook and Google or the Blackberry ban in India and Saudi Arabia, we’re seeing more and more tech bans come into effect worldwide. But how does these bans effect tech nerds worldwide? Does putting a ban in place really stop the transfer of information?
Consider yourself a Facebook user in present day China. One of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, yet one of the most controlled. In the rural village of Urumqi in the Xianjiang province of western China, a riot breaks out over ethnic divides that leaves 150 people dead and over 1,000 injured. You want to hear about it. You want to know what happened. So you immediately turn to the Internet where you know you can find pictures and details of the happenings. The government has a different agenda. To quell news of the riot and to prevent its spread, the Chinese government shuts down Facebook and Twitter. By 11 a.m. major city dwellers in Shanghai and Beijing report that they can’t log into their Facebook pages and therefore are left in the dark about the riots. This happened in 2009 and it’s safe to say that the majority of the population has no idea why Facebook has been shut down or that there has been a riot, so the average person just accepts the ban and goes on with life. Some hackers attempt to access the site through backdoor channels, but most realize that it’s too risky to try to hack their way in to the social site. The spread of information that fuels our day is stopped, or at the very least, delayed.
Internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China is still strong and there are no specific laws or regulations that limit how much the government can do. There are around 60 Internet regulators that can enforce any type of censorship at will.
The people of India and Saudi Arabia faced a similar fate when the government banned the sending of Blackberry text messages, e-mail, and BBMs (an internal messaging service used among Blackberry users) because the government couldn’t monitor the encrypted services. These governments argued that it would make it harder to monitor terrorist activity if people were sending text messages and e-mails that they couldn’t read. What Americans and Europeans take for granted as the most basic forms of communication was suddenly revoked by these governments.
Sardar Mohkim Khan (@smohkim), a Pakistani tech blogger for the site StartUpMeme and an avid Facebook user, experienced a ban first hand when his personal and professional Facebook page access was shut down by the government in response to the “Everybody Draw Mohammad” Facebook fan page. The page went up in response to a threat made against the South Park creator Trey Parker for depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammad in a bear costume on the popular cartoon South Park. Khan, who’s main blog promotion was based via Facebook stated in an interview for us:
To me technology is an absolute essential, without any exaggeration, I live on it every day. Be it mobile phones, laptop or a simple Web application, I utilize each of these for fun, work and hobby and the social networks are my prime source of marketing online. Primarily Twitter and Facebook, which brings me to the recent ban on Facebook over the draw Mohammad day that had the government force a ban on access to the Facebook. My impression over the ban was mixed, given that the ban was placed primarily for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s inability to block the page at first place despite many users complaining of the Page being hurtful to Muslim belief.
Although the Facebook ban personally affected his business, Khan believes that the ban was done in the country’s best interest:
Let me clarify one thing at first, the government in Pakistan doesn’t have an iron fist attitude towards the Internet as many Internet users openly express there views against the government on blogs, websites and none of those are blocked every now and then. The block on Facebook was done to safeguard the people’s interest, the vast majority who demanded it’s closure…Plus the country has been in turmoil ever since the War on Terror started, if the government hadn’t banned Facebook, it could have been exploited as a weakness by certain elements within the region and used to destabilize the country.
If you speak realistically in the face of the current political situation of the country, the decision was justified. Of course not without its consequences for people like me who have been using Facebook for business and connecting with people across the world. Plus it was the same means for myself and many others like me who were trying to put up some resistance against Draw Mohammad day using the social network. My blog, suffered big time due to this ban as I had to revise my strategy and stop writing on Facebook fearing that the future ban would prove devastating for myself, the blog and my readers alike. I personally know a couple of people who had their entire businesses based around Facebook and the ban proved more damaging to them.
Khan makes an interesting point. If people are offended, they should be allowed access to the networks so they can share their opinions, rather than being blocked from accessing them.
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.
<b>News</b> Roundup: Gordon Ramsay Responds to Chef's Suicide, Brad <b>...</b>
Gordon Ramsay has opened up about the death of 'Kitchen Nightmares' contestant Joseph Cerniglia. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramsay expressed.
Murata Seisakusho Robot Learns New Skill « Akihabara <b>News</b>
To pursue its growth Akihabara News is seeking for several more editors via an intership program for 6 to 9 months. Please send us a mail @ jobs@akihabaranews.com. Message. We are moving away from Feedburner, please update your RSS ...
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bench craft company rip off
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.
<b>News</b> Roundup: Gordon Ramsay Responds to Chef's Suicide, Brad <b>...</b>
Gordon Ramsay has opened up about the death of 'Kitchen Nightmares' contestant Joseph Cerniglia. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramsay expressed.
Murata Seisakusho Robot Learns New Skill « Akihabara <b>News</b>
To pursue its growth Akihabara News is seeking for several more editors via an intership program for 6 to 9 months. Please send us a mail @ jobs@akihabaranews.com. Message. We are moving away from Feedburner, please update your RSS ...
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The pitch for White Collar Brawler — that it’s some sort of real-life Fight Club — is one of the rare pitches that does, almost, match with the subject matter. The nonfiction tale of two friends who quit their office jobs to devote themselves to boxing isn’t nearly as anti-establishment as David Fincher’s seminal film, however, as their new devotion to training isn’t a gateway to further mayhem. It’s their escape, pure and simple.
The series, which debuted on Tuesday, was created by, and features, Kai Hasson and Nate Houghteling, with Jason Cohn directing and production company Portal A putting everything together. The first episode sets up the premise without giving us a lot of time to get to know Hasson and Houghteling, as so much of the episode is devoted to set-up. But the pair are likable and fun on camera, and seem to genuinely take this commitment seriously. It’s something their trainer Angelo Merino recognizes immediately. Merino is unfortunately stiff and uncomfortable in interview segments, but during training sessions, he’s tough and wise.
To emphasize the reality of the show, which promises a quick turnaround of episodes (Episode One was filmed just last week), the accompanying site includes a public Google calendar listing Hasson and Houghteling’s training schedule, ostensibly meaning that if you live in the San Francisco area, you could join up with the guys for a 7:00 a.m. beach run or weights session.
The show is being distributed through Next New Networks’ Creators Program; according to Zach Blume, Portal A’s director of business development and marketing, NNN execs Kathleen Grace and Ben Relles were already Portal A fans before the company began working on Brawler, and followed the show’s development accordingly.
In a slight departure from NNN’s other Next New Creators shows, Brawler uses the Blip.tv player on its site as opposed to YouTube, which is what NNC series typically use. Blume said via email that “In our negotiations with both Blip and NNN, it was made clear to us by both Steve [Woolf, of Blip.tv] and Kathleen that the two could work together harmoniously and that there was no conflict in using Blip on our site while also putting the video on YouTube for Next New’s promotion.” The first episode of White Collar Brawler has so far received only 144 views on YouTube.
Brawler is best described as non-fiction because of how it blends genres within that realm. The filmmaking style is so pretty it’s almost unnecessary, with lush cinematography that captures the gray San Francisco climate, and uses that color palette to give context to the corporate life being escaped. The feel in general proves very documentary-like in nature. However, the twist at the end of Episode One, in which Merino reveals that Hasson and Houghteling will have to fight each other eventually, reveals how much the show’s structure owes to reality TV.
How do Hasson and Houghteling not know about that twist, despite the fact that they’re credited as the creators, writers and producers of the series? According to Blume, the initial idea that the two fight each other came from Merino, who suggested it to the director; Hasson and Houghteling were asked to approve the decision after the fact. Hasson and Houghteling had no idea during the filming of the first episode that they’d eventually be fighting each other; in Episode Two, which comes out Friday morning, they’ll deal with the revelation and how it changes the dynamic of their training. Now it’s a competition; soon, there will be a showdown.
Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required):
By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series
Monetizing the Social Web Isn’t One Size Fits All
Shattering the Fourth Wall To Find Web Audiences
As connecting worldwide and sharing information becomes easier through tools like smartphones and social networking sites, many governments that have traditionally been able to squash the flow of information are faced with new problems in controlling it. Rather than allowing innovation to take its course, many governments are choosing to ban the tools that make sharing easy. Whether it’s the Chinese government’s ban of Facebook and Google or the Blackberry ban in India and Saudi Arabia, we’re seeing more and more tech bans come into effect worldwide. But how does these bans effect tech nerds worldwide? Does putting a ban in place really stop the transfer of information?
Consider yourself a Facebook user in present day China. One of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, yet one of the most controlled. In the rural village of Urumqi in the Xianjiang province of western China, a riot breaks out over ethnic divides that leaves 150 people dead and over 1,000 injured. You want to hear about it. You want to know what happened. So you immediately turn to the Internet where you know you can find pictures and details of the happenings. The government has a different agenda. To quell news of the riot and to prevent its spread, the Chinese government shuts down Facebook and Twitter. By 11 a.m. major city dwellers in Shanghai and Beijing report that they can’t log into their Facebook pages and therefore are left in the dark about the riots. This happened in 2009 and it’s safe to say that the majority of the population has no idea why Facebook has been shut down or that there has been a riot, so the average person just accepts the ban and goes on with life. Some hackers attempt to access the site through backdoor channels, but most realize that it’s too risky to try to hack their way in to the social site. The spread of information that fuels our day is stopped, or at the very least, delayed.
Internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China is still strong and there are no specific laws or regulations that limit how much the government can do. There are around 60 Internet regulators that can enforce any type of censorship at will.
The people of India and Saudi Arabia faced a similar fate when the government banned the sending of Blackberry text messages, e-mail, and BBMs (an internal messaging service used among Blackberry users) because the government couldn’t monitor the encrypted services. These governments argued that it would make it harder to monitor terrorist activity if people were sending text messages and e-mails that they couldn’t read. What Americans and Europeans take for granted as the most basic forms of communication was suddenly revoked by these governments.
Sardar Mohkim Khan (@smohkim), a Pakistani tech blogger for the site StartUpMeme and an avid Facebook user, experienced a ban first hand when his personal and professional Facebook page access was shut down by the government in response to the “Everybody Draw Mohammad” Facebook fan page. The page went up in response to a threat made against the South Park creator Trey Parker for depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammad in a bear costume on the popular cartoon South Park. Khan, who’s main blog promotion was based via Facebook stated in an interview for us:
To me technology is an absolute essential, without any exaggeration, I live on it every day. Be it mobile phones, laptop or a simple Web application, I utilize each of these for fun, work and hobby and the social networks are my prime source of marketing online. Primarily Twitter and Facebook, which brings me to the recent ban on Facebook over the draw Mohammad day that had the government force a ban on access to the Facebook. My impression over the ban was mixed, given that the ban was placed primarily for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s inability to block the page at first place despite many users complaining of the Page being hurtful to Muslim belief.
Although the Facebook ban personally affected his business, Khan believes that the ban was done in the country’s best interest:
Let me clarify one thing at first, the government in Pakistan doesn’t have an iron fist attitude towards the Internet as many Internet users openly express there views against the government on blogs, websites and none of those are blocked every now and then. The block on Facebook was done to safeguard the people’s interest, the vast majority who demanded it’s closure…Plus the country has been in turmoil ever since the War on Terror started, if the government hadn’t banned Facebook, it could have been exploited as a weakness by certain elements within the region and used to destabilize the country.
If you speak realistically in the face of the current political situation of the country, the decision was justified. Of course not without its consequences for people like me who have been using Facebook for business and connecting with people across the world. Plus it was the same means for myself and many others like me who were trying to put up some resistance against Draw Mohammad day using the social network. My blog, suffered big time due to this ban as I had to revise my strategy and stop writing on Facebook fearing that the future ban would prove devastating for myself, the blog and my readers alike. I personally know a couple of people who had their entire businesses based around Facebook and the ban proved more damaging to them.
Khan makes an interesting point. If people are offended, they should be allowed access to the networks so they can share their opinions, rather than being blocked from accessing them.
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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.
<b>News</b> Roundup: Gordon Ramsay Responds to Chef's Suicide, Brad <b>...</b>
Gordon Ramsay has opened up about the death of 'Kitchen Nightmares' contestant Joseph Cerniglia. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramsay expressed.
Murata Seisakusho Robot Learns New Skill « Akihabara <b>News</b>
To pursue its growth Akihabara News is seeking for several more editors via an intership program for 6 to 9 months. Please send us a mail @ jobs@akihabaranews.com. Message. We are moving away from Feedburner, please update your RSS ...
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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.
<b>News</b> Roundup: Gordon Ramsay Responds to Chef's Suicide, Brad <b>...</b>
Gordon Ramsay has opened up about the death of 'Kitchen Nightmares' contestant Joseph Cerniglia. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramsay expressed.
Murata Seisakusho Robot Learns New Skill « Akihabara <b>News</b>
To pursue its growth Akihabara News is seeking for several more editors via an intership program for 6 to 9 months. Please send us a mail @ jobs@akihabaranews.com. Message. We are moving away from Feedburner, please update your RSS ...
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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.
<b>News</b> Roundup: Gordon Ramsay Responds to Chef's Suicide, Brad <b>...</b>
Gordon Ramsay has opened up about the death of 'Kitchen Nightmares' contestant Joseph Cerniglia. According to Entertainment Weekly, Ramsay expressed.
Murata Seisakusho Robot Learns New Skill « Akihabara <b>News</b>
To pursue its growth Akihabara News is seeking for several more editors via an intership program for 6 to 9 months. Please send us a mail @ jobs@akihabaranews.com. Message. We are moving away from Feedburner, please update your RSS ...
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