Uwishunu.com

Darn that Marc Brodzik. Leave it to him to create a cool something-or-other you wish you’d thought of first. Whether the guerilla artist-turned-filmmaker just dreams up his ideas before anyone else or he’s merely the only one who’s crazy enough to execute them without money is a matter of jumbled verbal conjecture on his part, but either way, the result is the same. One day, he’s going to be rich and I’m not.

Like his hijacked mock billboards (remember the GODCO line of fake marketing messages like “Are you waiting for your kids to talk to you about GODCO?”) and more recent documentaries about the plight of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal miners and Sammytown “” about the convicted murderer who fronted the cult punk band Fang — Brodzik is once again taking advantage of evolving technology to inspire media consumers to alter their perceptions. This time around, his vehicle is the Internet.

Brodzik’s latest project just launched a few days ago. It’s a concept that is perhaps obvious yet unique: a web platform to host a phantasmagoria of regularly scheduled Philly-oriented “TV” shows and “channels” that cover all things Philly “” live music, nightlife highlights or lowlights (we’re talking hipster trendsetter Brodzik here so you’re more likely to get an intimate tour of Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar than 360°), holistic lifestyle, alternative sports, a kids program and a channel that probes the local news you won’t see on the network affiliates.

He calls it a “video magazine.”

“Some of the magazines we have around here “¦ don’t speak to real Philadelphians,” he says, speaking freely while driving home from dental surgery. “This is by Philadelphia, for Philadelphia. With the video you really get the flavor as opposed to someone else’s viewpoint.”

The first two departments, or channels “” choose your metaphor — are ready to go: scrapple.tv, which is the main site that will contain or link to everything else (get it “¦ scrapple?) and collateralnews.tv, the long-form journalism site that will air investigative pieces like the segment his Northern Liberties Woodshop Films studio produced on the Jena 6 case that broke the story to the mainstream press and logged more than a million hits on YouTube.

And that’s just the beginning. Partnering with a bevy of well-known local publications, radio stations and journalists whom he’s not yet prepared to publicly name, Brodzik intends to let his “network” grow as many heads as the number of people and entities willing to participate. With a loose, grass-roots form, some shows will be produced in-house at Woodshop, and some will air pre-packaged by the hosts and producers who develop the concepts on their own.

While it’s all volunteer for now, the idea is to make tons o’ money while giving viewers content they won’t find anywhere else. He confidently believes he’ll develop enough of a following to get corporate sponsors to air commercials and place logo “bugs” in the corner of the videos. He also intends to negotiate with Comcast to distribute segments via its On Demand capabilities. Plus, his anticipated plans to be the main guy in town to provide video content to hip local media outlets (like uwish!) or to cultivate sponsorships from said outlets won’t hurt the money inflow, either.

As always, Brodzik’s productions are guaranteed to be edgy, clever, slickly-produced, eminently watchable and strongly persuasive. This he accomplishes with no budget, a tiny crew and only a scattering of major-league credits to his name (promotional spots for Al Gore’s Current TV and production of the GPTMC’s South by Southwest festival multi-media presence among them). So what kind of media mind-mastery can he achieve over impressionable Philadelphians once the burly cult of personality rakes in the cash and leads an online cabal of some of the city’s most influential publications?

“It’s powerful,” he says of the ability to convey a message through the Internet. “I want to get good at it.”

Once that happens, the possibilities for this mad genius are endless.

Catch more Marc Brodzik here:
www.scrapple.tv
www.woodshopfilms.com
www.brodzik.com