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The Alphas on 4/17/2008 9:24:00 AM by Rob Barnett

Thanks to the NAB and especially to Ashley Howell, Chris Marlowe, and Rochelle Winters for inviting us to present in Vegas yesterday. Thanks to Jon Healey from the LA Times for moderating - and to Harry Shearer & Andy Milonakis for making the trip.
We filled a room of about 350-400 humans and started by showing a few of our original videos. Fun seeing hundreds LOL at YSAP - up on a huge megascreen - and cool to see a crowd feel the bass of music produced by Don Was.
Harry Shearer made news - announcing "THE ALPHAS" - a project he's been developing for 10 years - and the most ambitious new work making its way to My Damn Channel.
"THE ALPHAS" is motion-capture animation of the highest quality (Beowulf) - done in the fastest turnaround ever achieved (less than 5 day production cycles). Here's more:
Imagine seeing the best-known people in politics and the media, every week, in hilariously private situations. Not actors in makeup, but what looks and sounds like the real President, candidates, anchors, and the rest. That’s the idea behind “The Alphas”, a revolutionary new concept in topical sketch comedy. Written and performed by Harry Shearer, who’s notched more than two decades as a creator of topical satire on his weekly public radio broadcast, “Le Show”, along with two memorable seasons on “Saturday Night Live”, “The Alphas” includes no makeup, no celebrity cameos. Instead, utlizing a trio of cutting-edge motion-capture technologies--harnessed for the first time to a “week-of-air” production schedule, “The Alphas” features startlingly realistic computer-animated versions of the movers, shakers and yakkers. They’re not lifelike--thanks to the technology and Shearer’s performances, they’re alive. And every week, they’re deftly and drolly revealed for all their pretensions, resentments, jealousies and anxieties--all the good stuff, online just days after production.
Here's the first news coverage from the LA Times and the Digital Content Producer Magazine with thanks for the 'ink' & correction to Michael Goldman.
If you're in Vegas this week, or always looking for an excuse to go, My Damn Channel's flesh & bones will be onstage at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention Wednesday, 4/16 at 2pm.
The NAB invited us to spend an hour talking about TRUSTING TALENT in a place called the "Content Theatre."
Harry Shearer will be with us & we're 'trusting' Andy Milonakis will show up. The session is going to be moderated by Jon Healey from the LA Times. We promised Jon we're going to make some 'news' with an announcement that Harry and I will deliver Wednesday.
If 'trusting talent' is a radical idea that deserves to be dissected, then we'll whip out the scalpel and slice away a bit more - here - this weekend.

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Vegas on 3/20/2008 9:00:00 AM by Rob Barnett

We've just been invited to crash an odd party. The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) wants us up onstage next month (Wed. 4/16) at their confab in Vegas. Our artists, the music, the funny, the post-corporate network mojo, the free buffet. More on this in the coming weeks. Harry Shearer will be there with me.