Iron Sink Censor Live Video Comments

[Jennifer]

So it's official. On Live Video, the production team remove any comments on the vids pertaining to reality. Ie Any comments referring to Iron Sink, production matters, cast member names (eg Mary Newman), or other such issues.

As far as I know, this policy is not pursued on You Tube where a greater freedom of speech is allowed. So the question is, how right is this censorship, and how far is it justified?

One could argue that If the vids were "real," then their posters would let the reality speak for itself and not have the need to censor any comments. By thus censoring they are defeating their own pretense at reality.

On the other hand, some people appear hooked by the story line and their comments may be lost if they are "brought up to date." It has to be said that most people are in the know though, and these people (including myself) will still shout out at the characters and offer them advice in the true spirit of the production. Much the same way as we would shout out at a pantomime or fairy story play. We know it is a play, but we can still enjoy it and indeed be involved.

Can you see both sides, and how would you play it if you were in the position of Iron Sink, producing the series?

[lesbrent]

I'm like you - in the know but play along for the fun of it!

I was banned once from the youtube accounts for revealing real names - until Paul came on here and unbanned jayhenry and me too. He said something about (the real Cliff I think) just mass banning anyone who was letting the cat out of the bag so I imagine the same thing is happening at live video right now.

I don't know how I feel about it. "This is fake" gets pretty annoying after a while.

[milowent]

i can see both sides. i pretty much knew they were vigorously deleting posts like this, because the comment threads are devoid of "hey tara" and "hey mary" and "fakers" posts. its almost like twjaniak's rule in the "in character interaction" section of the phorum -- you cannot call Bree "Jessica" there or your post is deleted.

do people search google to find out if the nohos are real? certainly. the current most common 10 search terms used to reach my blog were:

nohogirls (Google)
cara brimley (Google)
lonelygirl15 fan interaction (Google)
Cara Brimley (Google)
Mary Newman nohogirls (Google)
manga chat (Google)
mary newman cara brimley (Google)
all roads don't lead to rome jessica lonelygirl15 (Google)
Cara Brimley Mary Newman (Google)
"cara brimley" (Google)

[Jennifer]

Aha, so Mr "Mimosa" was actually doing some production work as well as acting.

I tend to do both kinds of comments. Comments on the production and shouts at the actors in character, but I have noticed that the the first kind of comment is not appreciated on Live Video.

It is censorship in a way, and I don't think it would affect the comments of the people who are actually into the plot as they tend to make them anyway. (As proved at You Tube)

The comments by the "actors," Cara, Leah etc are, to me, obviously made by the production team. They tend to contain the same spelling errors and the same posting style. The times of posting are very much linked to when the videos were uploaded and Cara will post soon after Leah etc. Given that the videos are filmed well in advance it's unlikely the actual cast will be around at the exact time of posting to make the comments.

Also I found that the actor "comments" were deliberately inciting controversy or continually leading the plot, which in itself would be unusual if the comments were genuine. It's non the less all good fun though, and doesn't stop me from watching though I wonder how transparent the comments are to others.

[paul]

I think Jennifer you are making this into more of an issue than it is.

This is the post I removed:

Mary Newman as Cara is such a great performer. I'm really hoping she will get a chance to star in a full length movie sometime soon.

They could make a full length movie out of Noho girls. It would require careful editing because the scenes would be rather short and disjointed, However, if they shot some linking pieces, some scenes could be joined together. It would be a nice DVD.

And this one:

To be fair to the production team (Iron Sink Media) they are posting, 3 (sometimes more) 2 minute vids every day. It's a huge rate of output. Anyone who has filmed will know it. Some is average but most very nice quality.

I appreciate what you are saying, but there are going to be some parts which may not gel with everyone. Kyle is a renagade but he does present a contrast to a lot of plotlines simmering beneath.

The first one was removed because within the context of the Live Video posts the NoHoGirls exist and Mary does not.

The second post talks about a company that I chose to talk about with you guys. Nowhere on our videos is the name Iron Sink Media and up until the name was revealed it was ScottZ productions or something like that based upon the discovery of Scott's connection to Eddie.

I want the NoHo girls to be as believable as possible and for you to have taken information that you learned here or with private interactions with Scott or myself and for you to post about that information is not really fair in my book.

There is no "creators" board as yet to talk about things - that's what I use this board for but within the illusion and to uphold the 5th wall there needs to be certain trusts and I just felt you stepped over the line a bit in what you posted and knowing you I sent you a note to explain that.

You want to bring it up here to debate it; that is certainly your right. My defense back is that if you think that anything I tell you guys outside of the illusion is fair game to use in commentary to the videos I will be very disappointed.

I feel I have a good relationship with all of you and am willing to share what I can but not at the expense of someone trying to destroy the illusion to newcomers to the show. I've never said the show was real but I've never said it was fake, either. All I request is that any "real" information you want to discuss you wait for the creator's board (and it's not going to be called the creator's board I'm using LG vernacular) or you discuss it away from video comments such as here.

Is that too much for me to ask?

[milowent]

paul - i'll let jennifer speak for herself, but i'm very sure no ill will has been meant by any mention of ironsink. the ground rules of the livevideo comments are not stated anywhere explicitly, and after seeing people spit out "nancy mccrumb" like they have tourette's on youtube for weeks (maybe because i often saw the vids before any editing of comments occurred), well, you can see the confusion caused.

fyi, the iron sink connection is also disclosed on mary's website (on her resume).

lastly, i hope you know how much we love having you here. whereas lg15 promises interaction (whatever that really means), the connection here is real.

[Jennifer]

In truth, Milowent has got it 100% right.

Honestly there was no malice intended. In fact, as I remember, I was defending the series against a post which was ignorant in that it said that material should be selected better, when in fact due to the commendable rate of presentation, the punters should be grateful for the action they get in so short a time.

I have a background in productions, but I actually work in HR and PR now. We have a small company but if stuff needs finding, I'm the one who does internet research. Hence my knowledge of that field. The "Iron Sink" info is public knowledge. It's all over the internet if you know where to look: Eg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Zakarin plus Scott and Paul's myspace, links therefrom, and numerous other sources give clues, inc Mary Newman's webpage too as alluded to by Milo.

I have had a few private exchanges with Scott, but he doesn't give anything away to be honest, I wouldn't expect him to and if he did, I wouldn't use it.

I spent a lot of time in Nov and Dec doing my own research and I learned loads. So I think you have to give me a bit more credit than saying I learned it here or from Scott. In the spirit of this board I put in my own time, finding my own things out. It may sound amazing but it's true

So, no hard feelings I hope. I do appreciate your input Paul, and understand your viewpoint, but I think your position on LV or YT needs same tacit clarification somewhere, to avoid misunderstandings. Internet text is a strange medium to operate in without guidance. Some of us openly lie about Father Christmas and some of us don't. I'm not in the former school of thought, but then again I can play along and enjoy it too, as I hope I've demonstrated.

[paul]

Our YouTube strategy is changing. YT is good for a lot of things but it's community is really one at times to be desired. We remove the death threats and harassments that really don't exist in LiveVideo when we find them on YT but really are not paying a lot of attention to growing a community on YouTube or what commentary is getting posted there.

We chose not to put Shatner on YT even though I'm sure he'd generate a lot of exposure because of the vast numbers there. We want to send our community to someplace they are not going to encounter hatred and ignorance that we have seen on YT.

Our 4th Ho group is going to launch soon and they will probably not even be on YouTube. It's a sad commentary to be making but YT is too much of an untamed crowd gone askew to deal with for a small production company.

[Jennifer]

Yes, I have noticed the strategy on YT is quite different to LV. In fact it's not worth watching YT any more although most of the fans there haven't really cottoned onto to the change to LV, which is not a bad thing in some respects, as I can't say I miss all the racism and the ignorant comments.

One of the theories I've had from the start is that this production could indeed contain some reality. People started off thinking it was real, then most realise it was staged, but things may yet go full circle, and you will have the last laugh.

For example, they were at a party somewhere which was probably real. Who is to say they didn't go for a good time and did a quick bit of filming on the side. Many of the cast seem to be in a group of friends and who can say Tara doesn't actually live with Jamie, although it's unlikely.

All the cast live in LA and there would be nothing to stop you having a fly on the wall among a group of aspiring young actors who did actually live together. They would simply film the odd vid in their spare time between gigs, auditions, and part time jobs. Their interaction would be partly real and partly staged to bring in other groups or plot threads. It would certainly be a way for them to achieve some recognition and also some cash if the popularity and ad revenues kick in correctly.

Who knows, we may even be seeing some of this type of interaction at the moment. My guess is you are on a limited budget to get the thing rolling and therefore it would make sense to use people's own apartments for shoots. So those cries of "fake, fake" on You Tube may actually be at least partially wrong. I don't think most people there have thought round the possible production scenarios in enough detail.

So, part of the fascination for me is putting together the clues in the series as to what is real or not. Now I know the deal on LV, I'll will save such observations for here or YT, bur rest assured my research and thinking is my own

[paul]

Your suggestion is very close to another project that you may hear about in the future. It's a totally different project.

You guys are great, if not obsessive, about clues but I don't think you'll find any C U Soon clues in the near future coming out of NoHo or Weho. I do look forward to you discovering Blue's identity as well as the rest of the cast.