The Show With Ze Frank
I’m not a fan of video podcasts or vodcasts as some people call them. I enjoy listening to podcasts but watching someone sit in front of his computer and yak, just doesn’t work for me. That is until I discovered The Show with Ze Frank. I’m a little late to the party on this one.
Ze Frank is a humourist, satirist, musician, and web designer that set out in March 2006 to produce a video podcast each weekday for a year. I found myself at his site after reading a reference on a tech site. What got me watching his show was his use of his camera. Though Ze sits in front of his computer and yaks, the images are not static. Careful and quick camera changes make his work visually interesting. His sense of humour is what keeps me going back each day.
It has an “explicit” tag at Apple’s podcast directory so teachers will have to be careful which episode they use with students but it’s worth a look for those that have older students and kids using video. For those teaching media studies the following the show has garnered is fascinating. Fans of the show are known as “sports racers” and each show is introduced by a sports racer. Racers record their intros and send them into Ze’s wiki. Another phenomena is the sports racer Running Fool. Running Fool is making his way across the US by being passed from one sports racer to the next. He’s totally reliant on sports racers for his transportation and accommodation. It seems to be working.
Lively camera work, quirky humour and a new twist to audience participation make The Ze Frank Show worth a look. The whole thing may turn out to be no more real than The Lonely Girl but hey, it’s no less real than reality TV.
