The Aussie Bloggers Forum launches

1 January 2008

A brand new discussion forum for Australian bloggers — which I was invited to help setup — goes into soft launch (I hope: this is the timestamp speaking again…) today: Aussie Bloggers Forum (update: no longer online).

Of course it’s not just for Australians, and everyone, where ever you are, is welcome.

So whether blogging is your major or minor, head along and say hello, network, and strut your stuff.

How’s that for an easy, not too demanding way, to spend New Year’s Day?

Originally published Tuesday 1 January 2008.

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Australia, blogs, legacy

Five Questions: Duncan Macleod, TV advert blogger

10 September 2007

Five Questions is where I talk to bloggers about their projects and some of the other things they are doing. I ask {Q}uestions, and hopefully get some {A}nswers.

TV ads: are they a necessary evil, an outright distraction, or do they make for useful intermission breaks? Not all TV ads are forgettable though, and some are almost an art form says Duncan Macleod who reviews TV ads for his blog TV Ad Land.

{Q} What prompted you to become a TV ad reviewer of all things?!

{A} I started Duncan’s TV Ad Land back in 2003 in response to requests at conferences for copies of TV ads I’d been using as illustrations. I was aware that passing around digital copies of the ads could be breaking copyright law and so undertook to show people where to find the ads on the internet for themselves.

I was already working on a blog focusing on my research on generational change and thought it might be an interesting side line. What started out as an occasional post on Blogger has turned into a domain name duncans.tv with five blogs, read by approximately 5000 people each day.

{Q} How much time a week would you spend doing research, and watching TV, for the blog?

{A} I do my research and writing for TV Ad Land in the evenings and the weekends. Ironically I don’t get to sit down and watch TV much — it’s going on in the background.

Most of my information comes from press releases, emails and other web sites. All up, counting the posts I write on TV ads, print ads, music videos, popular culture and faith, I spend between 10 and 20 hours a week blogging.

I maintain a few blogs in my work with the Uniting Church during work hours.

{Q} In your opinion what makes for an effective TV ad?

{A} I’m interested in the ads that tell a story, providing plot and characters, like the Ikea Tidy Up series. Even better are the campaigns that show some kind of character development, like the Geico Cavemen series that morphed into a television series.

And then there’s humour — the ones that don’t take themselves too seriously — like the Big Ad from Carlton Draught. Just like at the movies, music makes all the difference to the way we engage with the ad.

The recent Tooheys HarvesTed ad, in which a guy grows clones from his hair, puzzled a lot of people. But people were drawn back to the ad time and time again by the Yama Yama track.

{Q} What sort of things do you think ad makers should avoid doing when producing commercials?

{A} Effective creative teams have to work out how much information is required in the thirty seconds. Is the ad about developing interest, curiosity, loyalty, pride or love? Or is it about giving people facts and figures that they must remember?

There’s been a bit of debate over this question in relation to a recent ad for the Honda CRV in which a guy constantly changes clothes as he walks through a Sydney street. More and more we’re seeing TV ads that attract viewers to online sites that can provide the details required.

Another tension faced by advertising teams relates to irreverence. The Nandos Fix Patch and Gum ads struggled to win wide support when they showed a working mum using the fictitious nandos-fix patch and gum in a strip club before taking her family to Nandos.

The ads are funny, but have left a bad taste in the mouths of many parents I’ve spoken to. Very few people get the joke.

{Q} So are TV ads underrated creative genius, or merely a distraction TV viewers must tolerate?

{A} Some TV ads are appalling and deserve to be muted. They’re loud, hard sell and unimaginative. But we’re seeing the growth of the television commercial as an art form, a short form of the short film.

The only problem for the people behind the scenes is that they go uncredited. In most cases we’re not sure who the actors are.

As I research for Duncan’s TV Ad Land I try to tell the story of the people behind the scenes: creative directors, art directors, copywriters, film directors, producers, editors, directors of photography, visual and special effects teams, colourists, sound designers, composers and of course the actors.

Many of these people are involved in long form film work. The director of the movie Halo, (coming out in 2009) is Neill Blomkamp, known mostly for his TV ads for Nike (Evolution and Crab), Citroen Transformer, Gatorade Rain and Adidas Adicolor Yellow.

My challenge now is how to connect the popular culture angle back into my original work on generational values and spirituality.

When I talk to groups about Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y I find the TV ads, print advertisements and music video are great illustrations, texts for discussion. The Virgin Blue Get What You Want in Todd’s Life provides a way to talk about the dominant culture of choice, change and variety.

My brief with the Uniting Church in Australia has included helping people explore what faith might mean in an environment driven by consumerism. Do we ignore the lessons of the advertising world and settle for poor marketing? I suggest not.

But at the same time it’s important not to be sucked into the danger of continually presenting faith as a product that can be bought now and discarded later.

Thanks Duncan!

Originally published Monday 10 September 2007.

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entertainment, legacy, television

Spider-Man 3, a film by Sam Raimi, with Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst

28 May 2007

I’d heard a lot about the third Spider-Man movie before I saw it, and not all of it was good. Terms such as “spider cheese”, and the like.

But this is the third and final instalment of the franchise as directed by Raimi Smith, and given he needed to tie up a few loose threads that have run through the series, I suppose some cheesiness can be forgiven.

Some things seemed a little rushed though (such as Harry’s turnaround). I still liked it. I don’t really like to say a movie was crap, but Spider-Man 3 wasn’t quite as fun as the previous two.

Originally published Monday 28 May 2007.

The History Boys, a film by Nicholas Hytner, with Richard Griffiths

21 May 2007

While I enjoyed The History Boys, it wasn’t quite the hilt at the British class system, or epic struggle against the odds, sort of tale I had expected. It was more or less a fly-on-the-wall look at the lives of a group of gifted students who had the opportunity to gain places at two of England’s oldest, and most prestigious universities, Oxford and Cambridge.

I actually thought the epilogue like ending was the best part, a scene which kind of melded onto the end of a teacher’s funeral. Given the story was set in 1983— just fourteen years ago — this is one of the best “where are they now” sequences I have seen in a movie so far.

Originally published Monday 21 May 2007.

Scoop, a film by Woody Allen, with Scarlett Johansen, Hugh Jackman

16 May 2007

Scoop is the latest Woody Allen production, and combines elements of his earlier work including Manhatten Murder Mystery, and the more recent Match Point, plus of course Scarlett Johansen. The result is a quirky, yet fun, murder whodunit set in London and the neighbouring Home Counties.

Allen plays a touring magician — who’s often surprised when a trick seems to work — who meets Sondra (Johansen), when she takes part in one of his shows. Together they find themselves trying to solve a murder, working only with scant clues supplied by a recently deceased journalist (Ian McShane), who has managed to return from the afterlife.

Fans of Allen’s trademark neurotic banter will not be disappointed.

Originally published Wednesday 16 May 2007.

Bobby, a film by Emilio Estevez, with Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore

14 May 2007

Bobby is a “what if” movie. What if Robert (Bobby) Kennedy had been elected president of the United States in 1968, as he seemed destined to be? What if he managed to stay in office for eight years, thus by-passing the Nixon era? What might the United States, and the world, be like today as a result of his influence? While the big picture is enthralling, the smaller one is no less so.

Bobby is a dramatization exploring the stories of some of staff and guests working, and staying, at the Ambassador Hotel, in Los Angeles, on 5 June 1968, the day Kennedy was killed. We also are left pondering “what ifs” of their lives. Kennedy is only seen in the movie by way of archival footage, but nonetheless makes the strongest screen impression.

Originally published Monday 14 May 2007.

Progress? Coming soon, the disassociated WordPress blog

13 May 2007

The wordpressing (my new favourite word) of disassociated is well under way. It’ll be a while before anything happens though, as I’m trying to convert four years of static HTML file blog entries into a format I can upload to a WordPress database.

It’s not all cut and paste work. There’s quite a bit of formatting still to do. Redundant CSS styles and HTML tags need to be removed (to say nothing of dead links, but later for those), and there’s still the risk it won’t work. It should though.

As part of the redesign I have created (and uploaded) photos to a new-ish Flickr page, so go check it out. More photos will be added as I go. Bye for now…

Originally published Sunday 13 May 2007.

The Last King of Scotland, a film by Kevin Macdonald, with Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy

23 March 2007

I’m not sure how exactly to classify The Last King of Scotland since it’s not actually a true story in itself, though the portrayal of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker), and his reign of terror, is certainly accurate.

The Last King of Scotland tells the story of Amin’s rise to power through the eyes of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a graduate doctor from Scotland, who through various turns of events becomes Amin’s personal physician.

Garrigan’s euphoria at being newly arrived in Uganda matches that of the Ugandan people, and their belief that the then new leader Amin would turn the fortunes of the country around. Garrigan’s subsequent lapse into depression and despair also parallels that of Uganda, as the previously charismatic and apparently affable Amin becomes increasingly tyrannical and oppressive.

Whitaker’s fits-like-a-glove portrayal of Amin surely matches that of Helen Mirren in The Queen.

Originally published Friday 23 March 2007.

The Queen, a film by Stephen Frears, with Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen

9 February 2007

Constitutional politics has always fascinated me. And The Queen offers — for me at least — an intriguing insight into the British governing hierarchy.

Set in 1997, newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) nervously sets off to meet the Queen (Helen Mirren), to be invited to form a Government. While the Prime Minister holds the real, executive power, the Queen has an authority of her own. But this standing is threatened, following the death of Princess Diana, in the weeks following Blair’s election.

Originally published Friday 9 February 2007.

The Pursuit of Happyness, a film by Gabriele Muccino, with Will Smith

20 January 2007

The Pursuit of Happyness: based on a true story. I loved the central character’s lateral thinking abilities. Often with little warning, he manages to devise excuse upon excuse, while lurching from one crisis to the next. And if losing your home and going bankrupt isn’t bad enough, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is also trying to land an internship at a prestigious stockbroking firm.

Originally published Saturday 20 January 2007.

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