Friday, November 30, 2012

Case Study No. 0673: Kate the Female Shirtless Librarian

The Female Shirtless Librarian
0:45
http://www.tmtgirls.com Kate wanders to the Library of Congress to do a little, um, archiving.
Tags: adventure cityscape cruise shirtless destination landmark museum nonnude travel log library congress washington d.c.
Added: 4 years ago
From: MerryMaryTravelogues
Views: 405,419

[cut to a young woman wearing a blazer (but no undershirt) standing in front of a green screen projection of inside the Library of Congress and speaking directly to the camera]
KATE: Shhh, you're being too noisy! I'm Kate, reporting at the copyright offices at the Library of Congress.
[cut to a closeup of Kate]
KATE: My producer sent me down here to copyright tomorrow's script. As I was passing through the library, guess who I saw?
[a still image of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez appears]
KATE: Robert Gonzalez!
["Um, Alberto ... " appears on screen]
KATE: Yeah, he works here now! Inventory. I also saw Dick Cheney.
[a still image of Dick Cheney flashes briefly on screen]
KATE: He's cryogenically frozen right next to the Gutenberg Bible. Weird, huh?
[cut to another shot of Kate]
KATE: I'm Kate, reporting for the Merry Travelogues from Independence Avenue! Say, did you know that there's only one fifteen-letter word the never repeats a single letter? Uncopyrightable.

The Merry Travelogues
www dot tmtgirls dot com

J. Sibley Law
Adam Warwas
Jeremy Funke
Kristin Santa Maria

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From highbeam.com:

Saxon Mills, LLC (prod.) is casting The Merry Travelogues, which is viewed 7,000-10,000 times daily as it moves into its second quarter online, with a growing fan base on online networks around the globe. J. Sibley Law, prod.-dir.; Duncan Saylor, DP; Kimberly West, line prod. Flexible production dates in CT.

Seeking--Female Travel Cortespondent: 18-29, silly, sensual, serf-confident, able to read a teleprompter, who can portray naivety with a hint of savvy, should be comfortable with body work in a fun studio.

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From myspace.com:

'News For Blondes' scores top Internet award
June 28, 2007

Blondes now have a virtual reality of their very own, thanks to a production team from Stratford. This spring it won a prestigious Webby Award, considered the Oscars for the Internet.

News For Blondes, an Internet video webcast offering "perky world news" in 90-second doses, features its blonde host Bonnie's take on the world at large.

She's not Walter Cronkite.

In a satirical spin-off, Bonnie runs for President (you know, of the United States?), and the result is a hilarious lampoon of political campaigns and candidates.

A panel of judges that included singer David Bowie, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, political gadfly Arianna Huffington and "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening recognized Bonnie for President (votebonnie.com) as a Webby Award Official Honoree.

An entry by CNN.com also received the same recognition, boosting Bonnie's Internet street credit, if not her gravitas.

Is that a big deal?

"It's a huge deal," says J. Sibley Law, co-creator and production team leader for News For Blondes.

Law is the chairman of Stratford's Arts Commission. The NFB production team also includes his wife, Patti, as well as Danielle Hawthorne, a member of Stratford's Economic and Community Development Commission, and of course, Bonnie.

Bonnie Borst, an actress from New York City who has appeared in numerous commercials, plays the host.

News For Blondes and Bonnie for President don't portray blondes as sexy airheads, as in thousands of blonde jokes.

Instead, Bonnie is more in the vein of Reece Witherspoon's character in the "Legally Blonde" movies, impossibly perky, self-absorbed and focused on superficialities, like fashion and celebrities, to the exclusion of just about everything else.

Law said newsforblondes.com grew out of a conversation he had in 2005 with an Internet advertisement sales manager who said video was about to get very big on the web.

His company, Saxon Mills LLC, produced "Dishes," a 90-second cooking show geared for the 18-24 age group, the ones watching most of the Internet videos, and syndicated it on other websites.

News For Blondes started as a title, which the production team worked out. Law also enlisted Mark Lambeck, another Stratford resident, as a writer. Cheri Daniels, a former broadcast journalist, came on as the director, and Alex diSouza, Osi Korn and Patti Law worked post-production.

Joining Bonnie on the webcast are a happy weatherman, played by Jeffrey Sherman, and a travel correspondent, Merry Mary, played by Mary McLellan.

Their reports sometimes are borderline risque, not rated R, but not recommended for children either.

In one, Bonnie appears in front of a video of an erupting geyser that she identifies with double entendres as the Fountain of Youth. Twice someone off camera corrects her: "That's Old Faithful, Bonnie." Finally she tosses her hair and moves on, without giving the impression that she understands her mistake. Whatever.

Law said one of the biggest difficulties is defining News For Blondes for the audience. Often when men visit the site they find it is not what they expected, he said.

"It started out as a spoof news show, and now it's become entertainment news," he said. "It's female friendly, comedy news."

The topics for the show come from pop culture, not serious news. "She's completely enamored with pop culture," Law said of his host.

Paris Hilton is a favorite topic, providing the perfect mix of blondeness and being well known for being well known, although Bonnie doesn't quite approve of Paris's past.

"In all honesty," Law said, "sometimes we make the news up." When that happens, it's so outlandish that it's obvious.

"Our tagline is 'perky world news,' and we stick to that 90 percent of the time," he said.

Last January, the NFB team launched Bonnie's presidential campaign. These spots consist of Borst in full blonde regalia intimately addressing the audience in an appeal for votes.

But Bonnie for President has its tongue pressed squarely in it cheek, and the result is a sly send-up of politics and some well-known politicians.

On the subject of campaign finance reform, she hopes she will get plenty of campaign cash and assures the audience that she will funnel it through the proper channels. "I'm sure you want to reward the good politicians," she says, obviously meaning herself.

Announcing the formation of her exploratory committee, Bonnie says she prefers to think of it as a club that people can join to feel good about themselves, "because we all want to feel like we're part of something."

The episode lampoons Hillary Clinton's "I'm in" announcement in perfect blonde style. "About that presidential thing, I'm so in," Bonnie says flashing a high-watt smile.

Another campaign speech nails Al Gore and agrees with him at the same time. Entitled "A blonde-convenient truth," Bonnie says if the polar ice caps melt it would mean she might visit those parts of the world someday, as a background video of Antarctic penguins dissolves into one of a tropical beach resort.

Law said the writers and production team are a mixture of liberals and conservatives. They balance each other out, giving the webcast a moderate point of view. "We try to make fun of everybody equally," he said.

It's the blonde thing to do.

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