TITLE : Old Jews Telling Jokes

SUPPORT : Sam Hoffman and friends

WEB : oldjewstellingjokes.com

LENGTH : 20 seconds to 3 minutes

STYLE : video, stand-up comedy

CONCEPT

Elderly Jewish people are video taped against a white wall where they tell jokes. Usually the jokes are in a story style, and there is a small audience of people watching the performers off-camera, who supply an obligatory but genuine laugh track at the end of each episode.

CONTENT

What’s not to love about the humor of old people?  Even the stinkers are funny.

PRODUCTION

The performers are taped from two angles, and the audio from each camera is usually different. Sometimes the takes are spliced very closely together, which clips the dialog and can be a little distracting. Looks lovely though with the white background, and it’s well-designed in terms the title sequence, which is very simple and easy to interpret.

THEME MUSIC 

Cheery and dated.  Very appropriate for the concept.

John Rabe interviews Gary Owen.

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FilmCouch says “farewell” by giving their listeners the tools to create a totally killer podcast at home.

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My other favorite podcast, FilmCouch, is throwing in the towel.  Gee whiz.
(via http://blog.spout.com/category/filmcouch/)

- – - – - – -

After 114 conversations here on the cozy FilmCouch, we’ve decided to say goodbye. We’ve had a good run, and we’re eternally grateful to all our listeners. We’ll miss you guys.

For the final show, we talk about why we did this podcast in the first place. What is it about movies that makes them better when they are the subject of a good conversation? We talk with Karina and Adam, and revisit some of our favorite moments. Paul still thinks longingly about Australian auteur Rolf DeHeer. Kevin remembers some sage words from Brad Neely. Adam recalls a spirited argument about Dear Pillow. And finally, Karina brings us back to late summer 2008, when gymnast Nastia Liukin’s sultry Olympic performance got us dreaming of possible gymnastic exploitation flicks.

Also, we give a few tips to you, dear listener, about how you can carry on the podcasting torch. It’s really not that hard to do. E-mail us if you want any other tips.

TITLE : FilmCouch

SUPPORT : Spout blog

WEB : blog.spout.com/category/filmcouch/

LENGTH : 30-40 minutes

STYLE : produced, conversational

CONCEPT

Two guys who went to art school talk about film.  They’re smart, easy to laugh, and each have fine voices for radio.  They don’t think of themselves as film critics, so their conversation is mostly about old films, some new films, trends, ideas within film and inspired by film, and so on.  It’s mostly a smart reaction to film in general, so it’s not breaking any news, but it’s hilighting the often-ignored aspects of film viewing that really makes my roster of film podcasts complete.  It’s often like listening in on the kind of conversation you wish you were having with your intelligent, film-loving friends, and sometimes get to.  Also, they call Karina Longworth for the last segment of the show, who is an actual film critic, to get an insider’s perspective on different festival happenings and reviews or responses to current movies.

CONTENT 

Each episode tackles a single topic, which leads the guys’ conversation through a dialog that easily (or eventually) works towards an understandable response or thesis.

PRODUCTION

The guys don’t just sit and talk and let their ideas ramble into unimportance.  They rehearse a conversation, record, then edit it.  The show doesn’t feel over-produced, it feels very natural, professional, intelligent and pithy because they’re taking their time to cull the process.  This isn’t a podcast that just talks about film to talk about film.  These guys are creating a podcast with core values about the importance of film in general, not just what’s happening now.  Their partnership works so well because they obviously care as much about this conversation as they do about other, major areas of their life.

THEME MUSIC

It works!  Very functional.  Not irritating.