CZ: This Is Channel Zero

Channel Zero’s second video-magazine, This Is Channel Zero (TICZ), was released in January, 1997. Built upon another global shoot that covered 10 countries, TICZ focused squarely on the issue of media monopolization and the market forces that framed the new corporatist globalization movement.

Unlike its more DIY-styled predecessor, TICZ benefitted from (the brand new) digital video (DV) cameras as well as AVID edit suites and CGI software, all funded by a large private investment. Using the powerful technology, Channel Zero‘s designers attempted to create an entirely new look-and-feel application to the traditionally barren and aesthetically deficient progressive media genre. TICZ features interviews with some of the most dynamic and courageous voices in the global media movement. To list a few:

Donald Freed (Socrates Must Die), Janine Jackson, Jim Naureckas, Laura Flanders (FAIR), Stephen Dunifer (Free Radio Berkeley), Danny Schechter (MediaChannel), Oliviero Toscani (COLORS Magazine), Dr. Kayode Fayemi (NALICON), Michael Parenti (Against Empire), Ben Bagdikian (The Media Monopoly), Arthur and Marilouise Kroker (ctheory), Abe Barreto Soares (ETAN), Francis Cairncross (The Economist), and former NBC President Larry Grossman.

The following is text that introduced the video-magazine:

Creating this episode of Channel Zero brought us into contact with some of this planet’s most courageous journalists, philosophers and media activists. Their words have both inspired and challenged us to define what our project aims to achieve. For, if we are to seriously accept the present and daunting challenge to our planet’s survival, then none of us can afford to be mere installations in the global mediascape. In fact, we must play a strong part in transforming the very paradigm of information and news dissemination.

And so, the revolution begins with ourselves. We must develop a new understanding of the impact that our consumerism has on the rest of the planet. We must challenge our parents, our children and our peers to analyze the stocks they hold… the running shoes they buy… the media they digest. In short, we must decide what role we are to play in the coming revolution. It is imminent and our tribe is rising… What remains to be determined is whether or not it will be televised.

Channel Zero was initially founded by Stephen Marshall and producer Sarah Aston.

Credits

Stephen Marshall – director/producer

Bryce Duffy – director of photography

Paul McNulty – producer/editor/video design

Joulie Wheler – producer/editor/video design

Malcolm Sweeney – editor/ video and audio design

Peter Jarvis – 3-d animation/sound design

Boris Leko – 3-D animation

Posted by silverback
Co-founder of GNN. Music video and feature film director. Co-author of "True Lies." Director/shooter of "BattleGround." Arrested at the RNC shooting first narrative feature "This Revolution." New projects: A book, "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: The New Liberal Menace in America," out now. A feature doc, "HolyWars," will be completed in Spring '08.

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