Actor Kevin Pollak (A Few Good Men, Usual Suspects, etc.) met Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis at a poker game and learned all about Twitter – a few weeks later and he has over 160,000 followers (although he jokes “I just don’t know what that means”). Calacanis also talked him into hosting a video show as well, which is two weeks old and already has 1,000 or so people watching live every Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow he’ll have Tesla founder Elon Musk on the show at 5 pm.
Mahalo basically duplicated the Charlie Rose set (all black, single round table) for a total cost, he says, of $20,000. He says he can create a HD show for $300/episode for an editor, makeup, etc.
The show is good, and it’s fun to watch a professional actor begin to understand the power of social media, where you can gain a lot of devoted fans very quickly – with the only downside being that you have to listen to what they say back to you. Pollack is handling it well, talking about the chat feature on the video show and how bewildered he is by Twitter. And he also seems to like the fact that he can do literally anything on the show that he wants – swear, be silent, talk for as long as he likes, whatever. Between his talking about what it’s like for a professional actor to do whatever he likes without interference, he throws in a few good comedic bits as well. My favorite – a damned good impersonation of Jack Nicholson at about the 2:15 mark of this video:
An email from Kevin:
Although we are only two weeks old, and are still the lil’ show that could, we’re hoping to improve the creative content on the internet, if not the future of “Intervision.”
As you have been told by Jason, and can clearly see, we are utterly grassroots, but you should know we are determined to stay that way. While the quality of the production will improve as we work out the kinks, I never want it to feel too professional and NEVER tv-slick. Basically, we’ve got a barn (Calacanis’ Mahalo studio) and some costumes (whatever my guests want to wear) and we’re puttin’ on a show!
FYI, the show is every Sunday at 5pm, PDT, streaming live on Kevinpollakschatshow.com, and we take questions LIVE from the chat room on the site, as well as from Twitter.com at @kevinpollak. Also, a day later each episode is available on iTunes as a free podcast, as well as on blip.tv, and then shortly thereafter available at Kevinpollakschatshow.com.
A list of upcoming confirmed guests:
April 5th: Actor Jason Antoon and Tesla Motors and SpaceX Founder/CEO Elon Musk
April 12th: Star of the documentary “Super High Me,” comedian Doug Benson, who will be discussing California’s effort to legalize marijuana, and the “Pit Bull of Comedy,” “Yid Vicious,” and a new star of the Las Vegas strip, Bobby Slayton.
April 19th: Academy Award winning writer of “The Usual Suspects,” Chris McQuarrieOthers Confirmed:
Felicia Day: Creator/Star of the internet comedy MEGA-hit, “The Guild”
Jon Hamm: Golden Globe winner/star of “Mad Men”
Jon Favreau: Director of Iron Man (and just started on the sequel)
Alex Albrecht: Co-Creator/Host of Diggnation and The Totally Rad Show,
John Krasinski: Actor, “The Office”
Luke Wilson: Actor (Old School, etc)
A ton of other VERY recognizable names and faces that I am still reaching out to from the tech world and showbiz, not to mention YOU, if you’d care to come on and chat…
Thanks VERY much for your time and interest in helping our lil’ show.
-Kevin