CZ: Planet Street

Channel Zero’s first video-magazine, Planet Street, was released in May, 1995. The simple black box, ominously inscribed with the Mayan symbol for zero, contained two VHS cassettes with over 2 1/2 hours of beat-driven, design-enriched footage gathered from director Stephen Marshall’s 10 country world tour to some of the Earth’s darkest and yet most illuminating places: its streets.

Shot on a 3-chip Hi-8 video camera (and some 8mm film), Planet Street brought its viewers face-to-face with the evil, armed and dangerous while casting a humanizing lens on the people who survive on the margins of the global community. From Parisian male prostitutes and a crack smoking shoeshine boy to Slovenian Nazis and Triad gangs, each segment of the journey featured innovative text and audio-design created by *Channel Zero*’s design team. The global road movie was edited entirely on cutting edge desktop video editing technology and was scored with beats provided by some of the UK’s top downtempo labels.

As soon as the first copies were released to the mainstream media, Planet Street was deemed an unparalled success. John Haslett Cuff, considered to be Canada’s grumpiest national television critic, cited Planet Street as having “more genuinely exciting promise than anything I’ve seen in a decade of covering television.” WIRED magazine ran a full page picture, explaining that “stylistically, it’s an unlikely mix of 60 Minutes, Negativland and MTV.” Meanwhile, the Village Voice asserted that the group had “revolutionized television. With the combination of its critical success and strong commercial identity, Planet Street secured global distribution through Tower Records, HMV and Virgin Megastores, along with a small network of local record and fashion stores.

Channel Zero was initially founded by Stephen Marshall and producer Sarah Aston, who raised the crucial seed funding to finance the shooting and production of Planet Street.

You can check out DJ and record producer Peter Jarvis (Peace Harvest) at Play Records and sound designer Malcolm Sweeney at Cypher Audio. Stephen Marshall is the co-founder and creative director of Guerrilla News Network.

Credits

The creative team that produced the initial release were: Paul McNulty – producer/editor/video design; Malcolm Sweeney – editor/ video and audio design; Joulie Wheler – editor/video design; Peter Jarvis – 3-d animation/sound design; Bill Stone – editor; Stephen Marshall – director/producer.

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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