Very sad this week to hear veteran ABC director Joe Murray passed away Wednesday morning.
Joe directed some of Australia’s most memorable TV comedies, including The Late Show and DAAS Kapital. He was vision mixer on Countdown and The Gillies Report. Backberner, Recovery, The D Generation – the list goes on.
I had the pleasure of working with Joe last year when he came out of retirement to direct the third season of 31 Questions. He was very generous with his time and taught us all so much about how to make television. He was always cool, calm and collected. When there was chaos in the studio, I’d hear Joe speak with that softly-spoken voice of his and I knew it was all under control. And I loved hearing his stories about the old days at the ABC.
He shared his wealth of knowledge and experience with a new generation of television-makers. It was a rare opportunity and an honour to work with a legend. We will always cherish the brief time we had with Joe, and he will be sorely missed among the cast and crew.
My thoughts are with Joe’s family and close friends at this difficult time. RIP.
And so another curtain turns by the milestone where a chapter passes around a corner that’s closed to cap off the page’s end of yet another ticked over year.
Hi, I’m David M. Green and here’s the gist of what I did in 2014.
It’s coming up on 5 years since I left Adelaide for dead and moved to Melbourne to pursue a life of comedy, radio, television and shopping after 9PM. And man, I did a big steaming pile of all those things this year…
January through April was full on. I started at my childhood dream job of writing for a Shaun Micallef-based ABC TV comedy show: Series 3 of Mad As Hell (as seen above with Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall and Simon Taylor in our official ABC-supplied writing uniforms). There’s no other way to put it. It was bloody fantastic. An amazingly talented team of people and so, so much fun. I returned in September to write for Series 4 and I’m thrilled to say I’ll be back in the writers’ room again on Series 5, which starts in February.
If you want tickets to come join the studio audience – which I can highly recommend – hit me upside the head. I know a guy 😉
Here’s my favourite Mad As Hell sketch from this year: “Watching the Watcher”
Returning to the start of the year, the ole RMITV gang got back together one last time to record the third and final season of 31 Questions: The TV game show where YOU get to be the viewer. We put everything into this one and it almost killed me.
I reckon the best episodes this year were 1, 6 and 8.
I’m amazed we got so far with that show. But 4 years and (fittingly) 31 episodes seems like enough for now. It cost a lot of money, time, sleep, dignity, and even a couple of friendships. But we did it because we loved it and everyone involved learned an incredible amount. And that’s community TV.
And that’s why I’m so concerned about the future of community TV, which is currently under threat after Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull decided to kick all 5 metro stations off the air at the end of 2015.
Make sure you sign the petition over at Commit to Community TV if you think community television in this country is worth having.
After that burst of TV-making in the first half of the year, I took my first trip to Tasmania with my friend and mentor Van Badham. It was pretty good, aside from the food poisoning on the second day. I think it was a combination of some bad fish and a slightly disturbing experience seeing MONA‘s infamous “shitting machine”.
I thought surely I took a picture of that machine? But looking back through the photos, evidently I did not. Probably for the best.
3 days in Hobart was great, though I spent one of those days in bed watching QI, which arguably I could do at home. So I’d love to go back and explore the rest of the state properly. There’s some pretty breath-taking scenery.
Here I am taking a breath:
Back in Melbourne, I met a girl from Sweden. Her name’s Annika. She wants to stay in Australia, so to get a second year on her visa, she went and worked at a dairy farm in Lockington near the Victorian/New South Wales border. For 3 months. For no money. In a profession in which she has zero interest.
Understandably, she didn’t like it much. I’m kinda ashamed we make foreign visitors do that in Australia. We are a selfish, small-minded country – as comprehensively encapsulated by our current federal government and their systematic policies of unfairness… But on the other hand, at least I got something out of this situation (not selfish).
I got to visit a part of the country I’ve never had a reason to go to. So I twice drove up to see Annika, temporarily save her from the life of a milk maid, and spend a few days in Echuca. I introduced her to Red Dwarf and we stayed in a B&B that had a fireplace. (A FIREPLACE, people.)
Both trips were great, though the guy at the B&B was a bit of a dick the second time. Got a stern lecture when we went to check out at 10.07AM. Hey, I was there at 9.55 and the counter was unattended!
Anyway, we’re totally going out now. Here she is riding a cannon (hoho):
Throughout the year I’ve also been back behind the radio panel at Crocmedia, where I continued my self-imposed tradition of panelling the Grand Final for “AFL Live” in a suit:
Even panelled a few shows with cricket legend Merv Hughes. Turns out we have similar tastes in shirts:
There were fewer sound effects this year, but that wasn’t enough to prevent another batch of bizarre audio highlights. Get a load of these:
[display_podcast]
As always, a thrill and a pleasure to work with the whole team, on-air and behind the scenes (and not just because they get my name right, but that does go a long way).
So that’s the gist of it. I’m seeing the year out in Adelaide. Gonna see the old gang. Gonna play some golf. Gonna have my bowl. Gonna eat cereal. Gonna eat at my favourite spots: The Blue Bird Bakery and Charminar Indian restaurant in Brighton, that Yiros House place on Rundle Street, and maybe even Gilbert Place’s The Pancake Kitchen – just like Melbourne’s The Pancake Parlour, but everything’s 30 per cent cheaper. Just the way I like it.
I still love Adelaide. And I love coming back to visit. It’s slowly turning into a proper city. I reckon every time I’m here, I see more solar panels and speed cameras. And little bits of Melbourne slowly being absorbed into the local scene. That’s progress, my friend.
So that’s the gist of it. Thank you for reading, enjoy your holidays and I’ll see you in 2015. We should do lunch.
It’s that time of year again! Work’s winding down, southern hemisphere summer’s just around the corner, and I’ve just edited me a brand new showreel.
2 minutes 5 seconds of the best of the gist of what I’ve done on camera this year. In fact, all the footage is from season 3 of my TV game show 31 Questions, which aired around Australia and New Zealand throughout 2014.
Enjoy.
Kind regards,
David M. Green
Beautiful creature, the shower eel.
To my knowledge, that is the first time I’ve been mentioned in the Parliament of Australia.
Thanks very much to Australian Labor MP for Fremantle Melissa Parke for standing up for community TV, and also to Greens Senator Scott Ludlum for sharing my opinion piece in The Age. As I predicted, it doesn’t look like the public will let the Abbott Government kill community television quite so easily.
Combined with the identical Sydney Morning Herald version, my article has now been shared more than 2000 times on Facebook. And the number of supporters on the Commit to Community TV website is now more than 15,000. Absolutely sensational.
In other news, Wednesday night was community television’s evening of evenings, with The Antenna Awards being held at Melbourne’s Federation Square and broadcast live on C31 Melbourne & Geelong.
The Antenna Awards are just like The Logies, except there’s an award for comedy, a host, and Richard Wilkins isn’t allowed within 500 yards of the red carpet. Also, as I discovered: no red carpet.
31 Questions Season 2 was nominated for Outstanding Comedy, but the honour went to Famous with Luis. Well deserved. As were all the winners on what was a very professionally-run event.
It’s disappointing the Antennas received virtually zero coverage in the mainstream press. However, Malcolm Turnbull did receive quite a few shout-outs.
I kinda forgot to take any photos on the night, so instead, here’s one of an amusing tin of sliced pineapple I saw the other day:
Maybe the coolest thing was having three strangers come up to me at the after party, and being introduced to the program coordinators at West TV Perth, Adelaide’s Channel 44 and TVS Sydney, all of whom I’ve been communicating with via email for 2 years, but until now had never met.
That, and the open bar.
Although the awards started in 2004, this was the first time they had been held since 2010. I hope they come back next year – partially so 31 Questions Season 3 gets a look in – but also because awards like this are important for the health of the TV industry.
Kind regards,
David M. Green
Antenna Award Nominee
