Are you WILD about Chicago? Apparently so...
I'm Ben Hollis. And here's how I know...
For months now you've been telling me, "I love The Golden Age of Wild Chicago DVD and all, but when can I see some NEW stuff?"
The time is now. And you can play a major part in making it happen.
You see, I'm planning to launch a new series of 10 half-hour shows for TV (The City of Chicago's "Cable25" channel) and the Web.
It's called WILD Life City Safari..... Pretty nifty, eh?!
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For those of you who aren’t familiar, I hosted and co-created a crazy show called
Wild Chicago years ago, a half-hour
journey into the “urban jungle, “ away from Michigan Avenue, away from Lincoln
Park, away from the Gold Coast…and into the natural habitat of this city’s
vibrant, sometimes dicey neighborhoods, where I showed you surprising people,
places and things you might want to check out for yourself.
Places like Maxworks hippie commune,
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Moo and Oink Meats, the Old Greyhound Bus Station at Clark and Randolph, Al-Mansoor's Video Store on Devon Avenue,
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visits with Tiger Moves man John McSweeney,
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and Samantha Martin the World Class Rat Trainer, and many more.
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Just like Wild Chicago, my new show will celebrate a city that's authentic, funny and utterly
real. It's a show that wouldn't likely find a home on any of the major networks today because most everything on air these days needs major corporate sponsorship to make it possible. And that means influence on the creative content which waters down the show.
There's hope...
Thanks to the internet and cool outlets like "Cable25" (which is open to airing shows from any independent producer living in Chicago), I can produce TV with the same kind of freedom I had back at WTTW before the television business changed so radically.
If you never caught Wild Chicago, listen up. We won dozens of Emmys. Critics raved. Ratings grew
week by week. It touched a nerve (funny bone?) and fans told us the show
captured for them something raw, something true about the city unlike anything
else they’d seen on TV. And it made them laugh their asses off.
That WILD-ness is still out there
Every time I drive around the city, I feel it calling to me. I'm totally not kidding. I feel it. The call of the WILD. And I want to get out there to explore it once more, to discover the wonderful characters and eccentric goings on that have been brewing for years under the radar, waiting to be seen and appreciated again by folks like yourself.
That's what I plan on bringing to you in WILD Life City Safari.
What We Need & What You Get
I need funds to put the actual product
together. There's research, shooting, editing, producing. I'll throw in an occasional golden oldie too, which is mostly to market the
Golden Age of Wild Chicago DVD. But most of this material will be stuff you've never seen before. I also have some great video from around town and ready to go, stuff I shot for local business associations in places like Berwyn (!) and Lakeview.
So check out the perks for your support. Many of them are quite interactive and will give us a chance to get to know each other better. Like coming along on a shoot. Or making a cameo. I'll even make a cool video about you or your family or business!
Your hand will go a long way toward bringing back that amazing spirit of freedom and celebration of eccentricity that Chicago television audiences have not seen in years.
Won't you be a part of bringing the gift of WILDNESS back to our City?
What Else is New
You may not realize it, but for the past few years I've been producing new WILD style video stories for various mom and pop shops, restaurants, artists & musicians, and organizations of all kinds. And I've discovered a new meaning for the word "wild." It's an acronym. W.I.L.D. And it stands for "What I Love Doing."
See, the more you love what you're doing, the more you're living The W.I.L.D. Life. That's what these videos have been about -- people doing what they love doing, no matter how unconventional it may be. Because it's the passion they have for their work that makes us want to know more, makes us want to visit their places. That celebration of living from your passion and enthusiasm will animate this new series as well.
The closer we get to the goal, the more all new material I can produce.
A Peek Ahead: A National Show?
WILD Life City Safari is going to be a kind of incubator for a pitch to make to a national cable network, hopefully later this year. So we want to create some buzz, some excitement. I have a cool co-producer named Michael Foster and we're dreaming up some really exciting stuff. Michael was a teenage Wild Chicago fan when I was on the air in the 90s and was so inspired he created his own show -- Wild Mokena! Since then he's gone on to become a major talent in his own right, a kind of Renaissance Man, well versed in graphic design, TV production, fine arts, photography and philosophy. You can catch his musings on the future of technology and how we do what we do on The Huffington Post.
Most of all, Michael is a powerful voice for the art of Reinvention. I just noticed a couple of lines from one of his
blog posts. I swear, they just jumped right out at me this very moment:
39. Reinvent the non-obvious, the unobserved, the overlooked, the hidden from view.
40. Bring your reinvented self, career, ideas, abilities, persona,
voice, body, music, and whole being to the world and stand up for
everything you did and what you are about to do.
Wow. That about sums up what's going on here, wouldn't you say? With your help, I'll do #39. And together we'll help each other do #40.
Now that's W.I.L.D.-ness.