03/08/09 10:13 AM
TELEVISION’S POWER TO CAPTIVATE HAS BEEN RECLAIMED BY WESTERN NEW YORKERS IN HOME-GROWN SHOWS FOR INTERNET AND PUBLIC ACCESS CABLE AUDIENCES
Western New York is camera ready for Internet audiences
By Andrew Z. Galarneau
News Staff Reporter
Tim Tielman is used to being ignored. He’s spent 20 years preaching the virtues of saving empty old buildings in a city with more than its share. “It’s been difficult all these years to convey why a given building is beautiful, or why it should be saved,” said Tielman. “These are concepts that make people’s eyes glaze over.”
The answer, strangely enough, might be Internet television, said Tielman, of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo.
On Tielman’s show “Adventures in Buffaloland,” hosted on the Web site truebluebuffalo.com, the preservationist explains subjects like what the Guaranty Building and St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral can teach you about American architecture.
Showing the viewers archways and other details while Tielman talks, the shows deliver a five-minute dose of insight and banter that avoids information coma, he said. “Infotainment is a derogatory term, but if you don’t convey information in a stimulating or entertaining way, people will not retain it,” he said. “Video can do that.”
Lambasted as an anti-intellectual medium that turns children’s minds to porridge, television’s power to captivate has been reclaimed by Western New Yorkers in home-grown shows for Internet and public access cable audiences. Videos on local newspaper and other media Web sites, as well as talented amateurs and moonlighting professionals, are drawing national attention to Buffalo, helping citizens understand its architectural gems, and to fostering the region’s sense of neighborliness.
In January, television star Anthony Bourdain became the latest to be lured to Buffalo by the power of home-grown television.
With Kenmore musician Nelson Starr in front of the lens, Buffalo documentary filmmaker John Paget crafted a Queen City take on Bourdain’s “No Reservations” franchise. Sardonic asides from Starr, sizzling plates of scrumptious-looking food, and slick editing made an impact in a Travel Channel contest to lure Bourdain and his camera crew.
Starr and Paget’s entry drew more viewers than other contestants, before losing to a Saudi Arabian entry.
But Bourdain still came, as part of a three-city Rust Belt show, landing at Ulrich’s Tavern amid a sea of gawkers.
The momentum led Paget to create truebluebuffalo.com, an online channel featuring video podcasts and episodic documentaries for and about Buffalo. His site hosts the food videos made with Starr, Tielman’s preservation primers and other shows to come.
All of which hasn’t made Starr and Paget any money, exactly, unless you count free drinks. Still, when fans are calling for you to be awarded the keys to the city, that couldn’t hurt.
It’s certainly given Starr instant credibility for his online food show, “All-Access Pass,” which dedicated its second, pre-Valentine’s Day episode to the glories of chocolate.
On a frigid February morning, Paget, director of “Alcatraz Reunion” and commercial filmmaker, had arrived at Chow Chocolat early. The Main Street “chocolaterie” had two men playing chess and a handful of chocolate sippers.
“Our point is to try to entertain people,” Paget said. “Beyond that, we want to push people in Buffalo to explore some new, cutting-edge stuff, and sort of reward the people that are doing cool stuff with the publicity our show can give them.”
It’s not a “food critic show,” Paget said. “We’re never going to feature a place that we might end up criticizing. We wouldn’t bother with a restaurant if we didn’t think they were doing cool stuff.”
Starr swept in, in his leather jacket and bangs. “Did you get Zen like shots?” he asked the filmmaker. “Was it an oasis?”
Challenging owner Scott Wisz to produce some chocolate to treat his cold, Starr was handed a demitasse, and sipped as Paget homed in with his hand-held camera.
And again. And again. It’s hard to get it right when you’re trying to convey the sensation of the city’s most luxurious chocolate massaging your palate.
“It’s super, hyper rich,” Starr said of the third cup. “Tastes like you melted down a high quality chocolate bar and made a drink of it.”
He made appropriate noises of appreciation. “This liquid is pouring directly into my bloodstream.”
Later, Starr and Paget headed to the Chocolate Bar on Chippewa Street.
“The whole angle there is we’re going to get drunk on sweets and try to pick up chicks,” said Starr, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. “It’s a chick bar, and chicks love that place.”
Posted Feb. 13, the resulting Valentine’s Day episode, “A Buffalo Love Story,” is laced with slinky tango, decadent chocolate, and shots of Starr swigging a martini as big as his head.
“It looks like I’m going to be alone again on V-day,” Starr says mournfully, offering himself the motivation for chugging the “chocolate megatini.”
“It’s extending my chocolate bender,” Starr offers.
Earlier, Starr headed for Fowler’s Chocolate, to explore the hidden workings of a candy factory, and ogle at sofa-cushion-sized loafs of candy sponge.
Plus, that little swirl on top of chocolates? Ever wonder how they do that?
Well, you’ll just have to watch the show.
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