David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Author: David M. Green

  • December in Adelaide Part 1 (with medicine!)

    On December 2nd, I jetted back to Adelaide for 10 days of R&R. And I tell ya, a week and a bit of driving a car with the ’80s new wave music blasting; long lunches at Subway, taking advantage of the plentiful booth seating and free soft drink refills (regardless of which size drink you order… I’m looking at YOU Melbourne subway restaurants…); walking around Seacliff, Glenelg, Blackwood and the CBD; and just hangin’ out with old friends is just what I needed!

    I swore I wouldn’t become one of these Adelaide ex-pats, who go on and on in a culturally cringe-worthy manor about all things SA; Stobey Poles, frog cakes, Farmer’s Union Iced Coffees and the like. But to be honest, seeing all these things again was quite comforting. Adelaide is my home town, and it seems only now that I’m no longer a resident, but rather a visitor, that I’m starting to appreciate it.

    Don’t get me wrong, I prefer to LIVE in Melbourne. But it is good to get away from the hustle and bustle once in a while and reconnect with my roots. Keep it real, if you will.

    I made sure to take advantage of my good friend Tim Wray’s generosity and access to hospital attire, and caught a refurbished 3000 Class train to the beautiful Adelaide Oval for Day 4 of The Ashes 2nd cricket test (England vs Australia).

    We were going for a “we’ve just left a patient on the operating table for a minute to attend the cricket” kinda look. It’s that sort of line between cricket tragic and malpractice minefield that makes a true sports fan.

    We may have looked a bit silly, but when the rain came, turned out the scrubs were waterproof, so that was a plus.

    Here’s a quick video I shot. You can hear the Barmy Army singing Joy Division:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gydXVld_KoE

    Also, at one point the camera guys took a break from filming the guy with the bow tie and the horse head (I think his name is Alcopop?) and put US on the big screen! I don’t believe we were broadcast on TV though.

    I particularly like this photo. With the light tower, it sort of looks like we’re performing surgery on someone, from the patient’s perspective… and maybe we were?

    Speaking of healthcare, I also took the opportunity while I was in town to donate some more of my blood. I went with my sister Hannah to the Pirie Street Red Cross, purveyors of fine bloods. It was her first time. It was my 2nd. Both extractions went off without a stich… hitch… And good news for me: No HIV!

    I also caught up with Radio’s Alex Williamson and Nick Godfrey to discuss filming some more Too Easy episodes. I’m going back to Adelaide for a week over Christmas. We’re planning on filming 3, possibly 4 new episodes. And there’s a couple of big names who might just be making a surprise guest appearance… Billy Joel as Toby’s long lost jazz piano-playing half-brother? Florence Henderson as Adrian’s Brady Bunch-esque Step-Mother? Josh Thomas for no reason? Or… BOMBSHELL! Toby has a daughter?!?

    Stay tuned…

    I’m back in Melbourne now for my RMIT graduation ceremony. Then it’s back to Adelaide for Christmas. Talk to you all again soon.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    And that’s where babies come from… The Internet.

  • Marslando Calrissian: 2 years on…

    Today marks two years since the untimely passing of Radio’s Richard Marsland.

    I had a bit of a bad week last week, and I found myself looking over some old emails from another difficult period in my life.

    In August 2008 I was dropped from my job as a casual panel-operator at SAFM, dropped from making regular guest appearances on 891 ABC Adelaide’s “The Evening Show with Peter Goers” and had a falling out with one of my best friends. Suddenly my life went from heading in the right direction to being thrown into complete uncertainty.

    After I lost the SAFM job I emailed Richard (a former SAFM employee), telling him what happened and asking for some advice. I figured this is a good time to make this email public. It’s good advice, after all… So here it is:

    Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:13:07
    Re: SAFM no more

    Oh no David, I’m so sorry – I just read this email … dang – sorry mate! I don’t check this all the time. What horrible news! But you know what? I had exactly the same thing happen to me in exactly the same building when I was pretty much your age. And then I came back like three months later. I’m of the opinion that you haven’t really had a career in the Australian media if you haven’t been sacked due to no fault of your own. Look at the long list of talents who have been told to hit the bricks – from Tony to Shaun to Judith to Mick: it’s insane and it makes no sense BUT it does happen and the best thing to do is take it on the chin and keep coming at them. What you must remember is that they might take away your job, but guess what? You can still write, You can still perform. You still can do it, you know? It’s like a trench digger being fired – he doesn’t have a job but he still has the skills to get another. So it will happen. It’s not a case of if, but when.

    Craig [Bruce] is a straight shooter and I’m sure he’d love to have you if they could afford it, they’re cutting costs everywhere at the moment. It seems terrible right now I’m sure, but it’s merely a new start for you. Like Craig said, I’d look at it as an opportunity to go somewheres different and ply your trade – there are now a lot more places in Adelaide to look, Nova for example. Easier said than done, I know. But I’d go for the ABC thing (if it’s not too late), and I would keep throwing everything into the Peter Goers show. Call around, ask to speak to PDs and tell them your situation and work history – SAFM always looks great on a CV … You never know what’s around the corner. And keep up your website!

    And I promise I’ll keep an ear out for anything that might pop up. It’s a funny industry full of revolving doors, so eventually one will open for you, I guarantee it. You just have to keep positive, and stay persistent. Luck is hard work meeting opportunity.

    So – don’t let it get you down too much, okay? I won’t lie – I know it sucks, but everything will be DMG before you know it. You just have to get ready.

    Speak soon, give me a call anytime!
    Richard

    That was the last contact I had from Richard. He died three and a half months later. Although he did say “give me a call anytime”, I didn’t, because I didn’t want to bug him.

    The above is another example of the genuine character of The Late Richard Marsland. Such a nice guy, and such personal, relevant advice.

    It’s interesting looking back on that time. “Everything will be DMG before you know it”. It certainly didn’t seem like that then. But things did get better. And of course, moving to Melbourne definitely made a difference.

    I miss “Get This” on Triple M very much. Although, some fantastic news I just learned yesterday: Tony Martin and Ed Kavalee will be teaming up again next year, this time on TV for “The Joy of Sets”, a new light entertainment show on Channel Nine (If you can believe that?). I’m sure Richard will be there in spirit.

    I’m actually in Adelaide as I write this, and I kid you not, I’m sipping a Farmers Union Iced Coffee. I never used to like them until this year.

    Rich, this one’s for you.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green

  • 31 Questions: Making a TV Pilot.

    I fulfilled another life-long dream on Thursday. I hosted a TV show.

    Although it’s not what I envisioned when I moved to Melbourne – hosting a TV game show – filming the pilot for “31 Questions” on Thursday was certainly one of the highlights of my entertainment career.

    This was my first opportunity to combine the host/writer roles for television. I’ve previously combined these roles for radio and YouTube, but this was essentially the first time I’ve been able to present my own material in my own style in a TV setting, which was absolutely fantastic. A very rare opportunity indeed.

    The first thing you’ve no doubt noticed is my zany jacket:

    I came up with the idea for the jacket before any of the segments. Let’s face it, the jacket is essentially the show. 31 Questions co-creator (& producer/director) Simon Eastwood and I found a beautiful silver jacket for $40 at Arthur Daley’s Clearance House on Swanston Street. And it fit perfectly. We couldn’t believe it. Then we ruined it by covering it with question marks.

    When I arrived on Thursday and saw the jacket in its “questionable” form for the first time, I thought the idea looked better in my imagination. It looked pretty crappy. But when it’s on TV it actually looks pretty good. Thank Christ. The miracle of television! And thanks to Simon and his sister for staying up til 6am the day of the pilot, sewing on the ?’s.

    Simon did a fantastic job. There’s so much to organise to film a TV show. And as it was the pilot, there were a few bugs we had to iron out. It turned out the questions were a little bit hard, and there weren’t enough of them, so we were under-time by about  8 minutes!

    I had to go and write some more questions, which we then filmed. And somehow Simon’s going to edit those extra questions into the show. Hehehe… Jeeze thank God I’m not doing that. It messed up the scores as well, so the guys in the control room had to watch back the tape to work out who won.

    This shot pretty much sums up how we felt at that moment:

    Joining me on camera was my good friend Lachlan Cowlishaw, acting as the show’s moderator. The idea was we were going to do some back and forth gag banter in between questions, but because we didn’t have enough cameras, whenever we wanted to do that we had to do it as a “pick-up”.

    That means we shot the whole segment, then at the end, repositioned the cameras so Lachlan and I could talk. But by that stage we’d lost the flow and weren’t quite sure what we were supposed to be doing.

    Not to worry. Simon’s worked out how to film this in a better way if the pilot gets picked up for a series. Likewise, Lachlan and myself will try to be funnier.

    It’s a good format for comedy though. We had a lot of fun with the questions and there’s plenty of room for gags and sketches, despite labelling it as a “game show”. Technically it’s “light entertainment”.

    All those years of reading scripted gags for my radio shows and trying to make it sound like I’m not reading from a script paid off. Turns out that skill is immediately transferable to reading scripted gags off an autocue.

    And an excellent job of operating the autocue by Emma Halfpenny. Thank you so much. Without your perfectly timed finger, I would have completely stuffed up my jokes!

    You’re worth your name in coins, which isn’t actually that much. Seriously, nice work.

    Thank you also to my glamorous assistant, Minky Cooper, keeping track of the scores. A particularly difficult job considering adding in the extra questions completely screwed up the scoring sequence.

    And we couldn’t have done it without the crew. I’ve said it many times before: crew people are the best people. Being the pilot, it was a bit of a shambles, and our studio booking ran overtime by about half an hour. A lot of people were there from 2pm until 10:30pm, all for no money.

    Everyone conducted themselves very professionally. I’m sorry I didn’t get to hang out with you all more and have a few laughs on the side. I didn’t even get to say thank you too each of you in person. I was pretty focused on the show. I think if we’re approved for a series, we’ll get our act together and have much more time for goofing around.

    Thank you all so much.

    And special thanks to the show’s inaugural contestants, Andrew and Carley. Thanks for being such good sports…

    I have very high standards for myself. I’m happy with how the pilot went. I think with editing it’ll look good. But I also think that we can make it a whole lot better.

    Practice makes perfect. Looking back at my old radio shows, whenever I started a new show they didn’t start getting good until about show 3 or 4. TV is a lot more complicated and labour-intensive than radio. And we were very fortunate to get such a great looking set for essentially no money. That’s half the battle right there.

    Simon and I have already worked out half a dozen ways to make the show better if we get approved for a series. Hopefully RMITV and Channel 31 will give us a chance.

    It was a goal of mine this year to move to Melbourne and make a TV show. I did it. And I’m happy. Now to do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again…

    Kind regards,
    TV’s David M. Green
    Thanks also to Olav Dias for taking some amazing photos. His ones are the 500×333 ones above (ie. the good ones).

  • 31 Questions: The TV game show pilot!

    About 4 months ago a conversation took place in RMIT University’s Studio A on the set of Channel 31 Melbourne’s “Tough Times”.

    I was sitting on the couch, providing my pale skin for the guys in the control room to configure the flesh tones. Fellow crew member Simon Eastwood was hanging around, talking to Eliza Beck (who later became RMITV General Manager). The conversation went something like this:

    Simon – “I want to make a TV show.”
    Eliza – “What sort of show?”
    Simon – “I don’t know, maybe a game show? Hey Dave, you wanna help me make a game show?”
    Me – “Can I host it?”
    Simon – “Sure.”
    Me – “Yeah!”

    So Simon would be producer/director, and I would be host/writer/executive producer. Essentially I would handle the content, and Simon would handle the technical and organisational side. And thank god, because no one ever wants to do that crap.

    And after more paperwork that I would have liked to worry about, Simon and I had a meeting with RMITV programming manager Naomi Davis. Basically our pitch was: “Channel 31 doesn’t have any game shows”. And we were quite quickly given the green light to make a pilot!

    “31 Questions” will be a standard quiz show with a youth/pop culture focus, a bit like Sale of the Century mixed with Spicks and Specks, Talkin’ Bout Your Generation and Vidiot (I loved that show in the mid ’90s!).

    In preparation for my new role as host, I’ve been researching famous game show hosts of the past. I’m sure there’s a few pointers I can pick up from this guy…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TRBwKFfJv4

    Jeeze… what a creep!

    Joining me on the show will be the show’s moderator Lachlan Cowlishaw, and our glamorous assistant Minky Cooper, currently the Monday host of 1700 on Channel 31.

    So we are filming the pilot for “31 Questions” the evening of Thursday 25 November 2010. If you live in Melbourne and would like to be in the studio audience, details are available on this Facebook event page.

    See you then!

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Man am I looking forward to this!

  • Hey kids, get a job like me!

    At the risk of exposing myself to green screen-related graphical editing tomfoolery… allow me to fill you in on my recent fantastic experience as a professional writer and presenter for Video Educational Australasia.

    A few months ago, I auditioned at VEA as a presenter. I happen to casually mention I was also a writer. I didn’t think much of it, until several weeks later when I was offered a gig as a writer for an educational video they were making, ironically called “How will this help me get a job?” And of course I jumped on the idea.

    The video is aimed at high school students and discusses several skills employers look for when they’re hiring people. I had to write several scenes demonstrating those skills, eg. communication, team work, etc. And best of all, I could be funny! So I had a great time coming up with scenes (sketches, if you will) emphasising the importance of each skill.

    VEA cast three young actors to play three young people on the verge of entering the workforce. The talented Lisa Marie Shaw, Aldi Godjali and Rhys Thomas. I also wrote in a role for a presenter, which I was lucky enough to land myself.

    Here we all are:

    The video was shot in a day and a half. One full day for the three actors to film the scenes, and one half day for myself to film the intros and summaries for each chapter of the 20 minute video.

    I stopped by VEA’s Fitzroy studio on Tuesday to experience the novelty of complete strangers reading lines I wrote and acting out scenes I created…

    In case you’re colour blind, the whole thing was shot in front of a green screen. Backgrounds will be added later digitally (as it’s cheaper that filming on a real tropical island!).

    Coincidentally, I happened to know the boom operator, Elliott Klein. We both worked on the pilot for Channel 31’s “Late Night Tonight” with TV’s Michael Lanzer.

    Industry contacts: one of the best things, if not THE best thing, about becoming a member of RMITV student television.

    This was another special moment for me, as it was the first time I’d held a boom…

    Hehehe… booms are great!

    Hey, remember my advice earlier this year borne from one of my uglier experiences in student television? Well let me remind you… if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, get in with the crew! It makes for a much better working atmosphere:

    Someone feel free to add a beach background for that photo. Or a volcano or something. That’d be pretty cool…

    So that about wrapped it up for Day 1. Unfortunately due to another VEA production, the camera was due somewhere else by 10am Wednesday. So we all got to the studio at 6AM in order to get my presenting parts recorded. 6AM!?! Jeeze…

    I can’t seem to get to bed early, even if I know I have to be up before dawn. So I finally managed to get to sleep around my usual time of 1:30am. I was on three and a half hours sleep for this.

    Also, they didn’t have a teleprompter for me, so I had to memorise these quite wordy spiels. And some of what I originally wrote had been altered by VEA’s advisers to ensure the educational elements were on message. This was a challenge, but by God it was fun!

    Most of my presentation pieces were filmed at and around “my” desk. I’m sort of an arrogant boss-type character, laying down the employment wisdom on the young folk.

    Unlike when I was a sports correspondent on Channel 31’s “Newsline”, on this occasion my wandering eye brows were permitted, even encouraged, by director Bryce McNamara!

    We wrapped by about 10:45am. I went home and crashed on my bed. I fell asleep in my suit (I even still had my shoes on).

    At about 5pm I woke up and got ready for my weekly quiz night down at The Peacock Hotel in Northcote. After that nap, I was surprisingly refreshed. Turned out to be a good night too.

    All up, a fantastic day of working in show biz!

    So look out on the VEA website for “How will this help me get a job?” Funnily enough, with the project done, I’m back to looking for work…

    I’d recommend you purchase a copy. You might find a few subtle David M. Green-related references buried in the script…

    Special thanks to Anoar Ahmed for giving me this incredible opportunity. And thanks to Bryce and the rest of the cast and crew. It was truly a pleasure to work with you all.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    I still can’t believe I was paid to do that!