''The Alejandro Hernández Show'' (sometimes shortened to ''TAHS'') is a

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

broadcast on YouTube, which tells the reality of the Facebook generation and reflects

Venezuelan Venezuelans (Spanish language, Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the Citizenship, citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connect ...

customs. It was created in 2009 by Alejandro Hernández who also writes, directs and edits the episodes himself. It is the first web series to become successful in Venezuela. His first episode, "Cita de salir + el @", which talks about Facebook's "favorite quotations" and the use of the

At sign The at sign () is an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 Widget (economics), widgets @ £2 per widget = £14), now seen more widely in email addresses and social media platform User (computing), handles. It is norm ...

, occurred to Hernández while he was browsing his Facebook profile and noticed they were used in wrong ways, which motivated him to create his show. Hernández said that the idea started because he wanted to "vent to the world" and the episodic content mainly included criticism about recurring grammatical mistakes, but it became a more elaborated program in the future. The appeal of the show is in the way it mixes local customs with pop culture and technology. Hernández believes that show's success relies on his ability to make people identify with the things he says. He stated that he enjoys giving his show "a touch of Hollywood". He added "in my country, people aren’t used to this type of production because most Venezuelan movies have a soap opera look, but thanks to the

digital revolution The Information Age is a History by period, historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on info ...

, this is starting to change. His 18th episode, "Voz orgasmicangelical, profesores necios y la chama que no se calla la jeta", has been the most viewed to date, surpassing the million mark. The show was spoofed by Venezuelan comedian Luis Chataing in his program "Sí Luis".

Plot

Storyline and themes

The show presents a series of sketches that usually narrate the everyday life of the Venezuelan citizen, especially from a juvenile point of view, targeting the

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, a ...

generation. The scripts reference, for the most part, popular phrases told by Venezuelan mothers, users behavior in

social networks A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of meth ...

movie trailer A trailer (also known as a preview, coming attraction, or attraction video) is a short advertisement, originally designed for a feature film, which highlights key scenes of upcoming features intended to be exhibited in the future at a movie thea ...

spoofs and generally a great amount of social satire.

Recurring elements

The excessive use of

jump cuts A jump cut is a cut in film editing that breaks a single continuous sequential shot of a subject into two parts, with a piece of footage removed to create the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positioning on the subject across the seque ...

and transitions is always present and it became the trademark of the show. It also includes sound effects of drum and trumpet hits in cut-to-black transitions, popularized by science fiction television series such as Lost and

Fringe Fringe may refer to: Arts and music * "The Fringe", or Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival * Adelaide Fringe, the world's second-largest annual arts festival * Fringe theatre, a name for alternative theatre * Purple fri ...

, both created by J. J. Abrams. In several interviews, Hernández has stated that Abrams is one of his main influences and he even paid tribute to the

title sequence A title screen (also called an opening screen or intro) is the method by which films or television show, television programmes present their title and key filmmaking, production and cast members, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound (often an op ...

of Lost in episode 11.

Production

The series is not financed by a company and it is produced entirely by Hernández. Contrary to popular belief, the background with the show's logo that appears on most of the episodes is not digitally generated with the use of a

green screen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fie ...

. Instead, a large LCD TV is used displaying the logo image in full screen. Hernández has stated several times that he uses

Adobe Premiere Pro Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editing application developed by Adobe Inc. and is distributed as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. It is primarily used for producing high-quality videos across various industries. History Original A ...

for

non-linear editing Non-linear editing (NLE) is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by speciali ...

, and

Adobe After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc.; it is used for animation and in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Amo ...

for the colorization process and

motion graphics Motion graphics (sometimes mograph) are pieces of animation or digital footage that create the illusion of motion or rotation, and are usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects. Motion graphics are usually displayed via electro ...

. He uses his own 3x3 room where he recreates a filming set. The equipment used to shoot the series is a

Canon EOS 550D The Canon EOS 550D is an 18.0-megapixel digital single-lens reflex camera, announced by Canon Inc., Canon on 8 February 2010. It was available since 24 February 2010, and to US dealers from early March. It is known as the EOS Kiss X4 in Japan, a ...

DSLR A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that combines the optics and mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor. The reflex des ...

camera.

PlanetaUrbe TV and El Mostacho transition

After the first episodes were uploaded to YouTube, Hernández signed a contract providing exclusive rights to PlanetaUrbe TV, where he was required to upload all of his content to PlanetaUrbe's video platform. However, several users could illegally extract the videos and they were eventually uploaded to YouTube, although with lower quality. From that point, episodes with shorter length categorized as ''Special Features'' started to air. They focused on a single subject and their numeric classification ended with ".5", depending on the episode that preceded. After the contract ended, the show came back to its traditional format and new episodes were uploaded to El Mostacho's YouTube channel, where it stayed for three months until episode 29 was released on June 17, 2012. Since then, there hasn't been any official announcements of new episodes, so the show's destiny remains unclear.

Episodes

The series consists of total of 29 episodes to date over one unique season, with episode 1 being released on September 12, 2009. The first six episodes were uploaded to Hernández's official Facebook page. It wasn't until episode 7 that they started airing on YouTube.

Critical reception

''The Alejandro Hernández Show'' received mostly favorable reviews by the online community and by both Venezuelan and international

press Press may refer to: Media * Publisher * News media * Printing press, commonly called "the press" * Press TV, an Iranian television network Newspapers United States * ''The Press'', a former name of ''The Press-Enterprise'', Riverside, California ...

. In an article by Venezuelan renowned newspaper

Diario Panorama ''Panorama'' (''Diario Panorama'') is a Venezuelan newspaper based in Maracaibo in the state of Zulia Zulia State (, ; Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, ...

, the show received a positive review, stating that Hernández became «''one of the most influential Venezuelan figures in the 2.0 world''». InfoSur Hoy, news source from Latin America and the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, considered Hernández as «''the voice of Venezuelan youth»'' and also added that the show became «''one of the most popular and talked-about programs in Venezuela»''. However, La Hojilla, a notable opinion program that airs on the government's official TV channel

Venezolana de Televisión Corporación Venezolana de Televisión (Spanish for: ''Venezuelan Television Corporation'') or VTV is a state-run television station based in Caracas, Venezuela, which can be seen throughout the capital and surrounding areas on channel 8. Programs ...

, loathed the content of the show, qualifying it as «''stupid»'' and «''a bad influence to Venezuelan youth»''. Mario Silva, the program's host, despite admitting that the series has «''good editing and production»'', labeled Hernández as «''dangerous»'', and someone to be careful about. Venezuelan host and comedian Luis Chataing mentioned Hernández in his

Televen Televen (a contraction of and legally known as Corporación Televen C.A.) is a private Venezuelan national television network headquartered on the Caracas neighborhood of Horizonte. For this reason it is also called 'Canal de Horizonte'. Televen ...

's talk show ''Chataing TV'' where he said that Hernández «''is a maracucho that does an excellent work»''. When the show transitioned to PlanetaUrbe TV and El Mostacho, fan reaction was mostly unfavorable. They considered that the show was sacrificing quality content over

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

. In response to the criticism and appearance of

product placement Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of t ...

, a parody to the show's own audience was made in episode 25 (the last one broadcast on PlanetaUrbe TV) where Hernández mocks some of the criticism he was getting by including quotes such as «''Alejandro, you're a sell-out!»'', affirmations to which Hernández responded with «''Don't I have the right to make money? God dammit!»''.

References

External links

*
Official YouTube Channel

Official Twitter

Official Facebook
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alejandro Hernandez Show 2000s YouTube series 2009 web series debuts 2010s YouTube series Comedy web series