David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Tag: Australia

  • 31 Questions – Season 2, Episode 1, Take 2

    Losing the master tape for our second episode turned out to be the best thing that’s happened to us during the course of making 31 Questions Season 2. Tired and irritated, we went back into the studio with an audience one more time on 13 May 2013 to re-shoot the lost episode. It could not have gone better.

    Allow me to give you a quick tour of the set:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnyyD-_btI

    I used the best questions and material from our first two episodes to make a kind of “super episode”. And as it was the absolute last chance for the foreseeable future to see a taping live, we had a fantastic crowd. Much better than the one we’d had when we taped it the first time round. Damn Comedy Festival.

    As we were re-using questions, this did mean we’d need some fresh contestants. And Declan and Lisa were fantastic.

    I’d felt a little disconnected from the show the last couple of weeks and I was concerned about my performance. The original plan was to get rough edits of the episodes done before taping the next one. But once again, logistical issues prevented that from working as efficiently as we’d like.

    Though plenty of people were telling me “hey, you were great” (#humblebrag), the only way I know how to access my on-camera performance is by watching the footage back myself. Anthony managed to get a couple of short clips from the raw footage up on a private YouTube link the night before, so I could at least check out some of it.

    It’s amazing how bad habits can creep in if you don’t continually self-evaluate. And just like my golf swing, I think my posture had gradually degraded over the course of the season. But I fixed it for this episode. I think.

    And that’s the beauty of this redux. Undoubtedly our finest episode will be the first one that goes to air, and – if the YouTube views for Season 1 are anything to go by – quite possibly the only episode a lot of people will watch. Better it be the best one.

    There was a bit of TV magic in the studio that night. We were given an absolute gift from above during the “Complexity” round. We’d done this round during the Episode 2 taping, and it was quite well received the first time, so we kept it exactly the same for the re-shoot. A lot of the “gag rounds” are still legitimate game show rounds, where actual points are fairly and squarely earned. Not this round. It’s essentially a sketch.

    The gag is the round is so complicated, it doesn’t make any sense. So at the start, Anthony reveals a huge rule book and insists on reading all the rules. He also pulls out a brand new candle. We were planning on doing a jump cut to simulate the passage of time, and come back to Anthony reading from the END of the book and the big candle has burnt all the way down.

    But to set this up, Anthony actually had to light the candle first on camera. He’s really dragging it out, and I’m telling him to hurry up. But when it was time to actually light the candle, Anthony for the life of him just could not light the thing.

    The audience was starting to giggle, and after about a minute, Anthony finally got the candle burning. But it was the tiniest flame. And after about 10 seconds, a line of smoke streamed from the wick, indicating the flame had gone out. The audience just lost it. You could not have scripted it.

    And I’m there looking irritated, but all the while thinking, “Oh thank you. Thank you God.”

    I’ve now seen the rough cuts for all the episodes. They’re all pretty good. A couple of them are amazing. Of course, I am extremely biased.

    This week, we did something that most community TV shows don’t bother to do: We had a dedicated studio date just for pick-up shots. And I’ll tell you why most shows don’t do this: Because it’s a pain in the arse. But we really want 31 Questions to be the poster child of low budget television. So we knew we had to do it.

    After going through the rough cuts, Anthony and I compiled a list of 15-20 things that would benefit from being re-shot. They were mostly due to audio problems, but there were also a few bits of footage that we just didn’t have, even on the iso-recordings, eg. shots of the score board at critical times.

    So we went back in the studio on Monday May 27 with a skeleton crew (not actual skeletons) and set up half the set. We were also planning on shooting some prize footage for our “prizes” at the start of each episode (this is a Season 2 addition). But the pick-ups took longer than we thought, as is usually the case with making TV. So we’re still not done yet. But we’re close. So, so close.

    We’re currently exploring options to shoot this prize footage outside the heavily in-demand RMITV studio.

    Our first episode of Season 2 is due to air on Channel 31 Melbourne & Geelong at 8.30PM, Saturday July 20. TVS Sydney, 31 Digital Brisbane, 44 Adelaide and Face Television New Zealand have all said they’re keen to air Season 2.

    We’re still waiting to hear back from WestTV Perth. I’ll have air dates for all of these cities & NZ soon. But they’ll be on YouTube shortly after they air in Melbourne.

    Subscribe to the 31 Questions YouTube Channel, if you haven’t already.

    We’ve just about reached the end of the “production” stage of 31 Questions Season 2. We got off to a shaky start, but there’s some real magic this year.  I’m proud of my team. I’m proud of how we got it done. And I’ll be proud of the finished product.

    I don’t know about you, but 31 Questions is the kind of TV show I actually want to watch.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Content maker.

  • How do you solve a problem like The Logies?

    No comedy. No writers. Catering aplenty.

    The Logies are unique among the world’s entertainment industry awards. This is not a compliment.

    The organisers would like to believe Australian Television’s “night of nights” is the equivalent to The Oscars. The biggest. The fanciest. The most regarded awards ceremony on the event calendar.

    But the Academy Awards are for the silver screen. Not the small screen. The fashion reporting on the red carpet is where the comparison between the two stops. So in that sense, The Logies are more like The Emmys; The American awards for television production.

    But if The Logies are supposed to be Australia’s version of The Emmys, why aren’t they run like The Emmys?

    Emmy Award winners are decided by industry professionals. Some Logie winners are chosen this way; the categories that begin with “Most Outstanding”. However, the majority of Logie categories begin with “Most Popular” and those winners are decided by votes from the public. It’s basically a popularity contest.

    So in that case, The Logies are run more like The MTV Movie Awards. No offense to MTV, but I think that’s pretty embarrassing for Australian Television.

    But even The MTV Movie Awards have an award for “Best Comedic Performance”. How many awards do The Logies currently give for comedy? Zero. Pardon the pun, but that’s a joke.

    There hasn’t been an award for comedy at The Logies since 2009, when “The Hollowmen” won “Most Outstanding Comedy Program”.

    What does that say about Australian comedy if it’s not even acknowledged at the highest level? This serious lack of respect would make Rodney Dangerfield roll over in his grave.

    Think about all the hilarious Australian TV shows that have made us laugh through the years: The Late Show, Frontline, Kath & Kim, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, The Chaser, The Micallef Program, Summer Heights High. All of those shows won the Logie for “Most Outstanding Comedy Program”. In fact, some won it twice.

    Interesting to note, of the 16 awards for Most Outstanding Comedy Program given between 1994 and 2009, 13 of them were won by the ABC. Goes to show you don’t need money to make outstanding television comedy.

    But the best a comedy show can hope for these days is the Logie for “Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program”.  What is “light entertainment” anyway? Aren’t all television shows supposed to be entertaining?

    In 1997, there were three separate Logies for comedy. Roy and HG’s “Club Buggery” won “Most Outstanding Achievement in Comedy”, the hilarious “Full Frontal” won “Most Popular Comedy Program” and Eric Bana won “Most Popular Comedy Personality”.

    It was a simpler time. Comedy was comedy. Drama was drama. And reality TV only existed in movies about a fictional dystopian future.

    But though comedy is no longer officially recognised by Australian TV, it seems to have crept into just about every other program.

    The new buzz word at the moment is “dramedy”. I hate that word. For me, it represents a comedy not quite funny enough that the producers want to commit and call it a comedy. Or a drama not quite dramatic enough to be called a drama. Shows such as Seven’s “Winners and Losers” and Ten’s “Mr and Mrs Murder” have both been promoted as “dramedy” shows.

    Network Ten’s “The Project” is another example. Hard news, light tragedy, music, stock footage, infotainment, and a few gags.

    But for a really bizarre example of comedy white-anting into a traditionally no-comedy TV zone, take a look at this new comedy segment that’s just appeared on Ten Late News. One recent segment involved my good friend Sam Mac videoing his facial expressions while receiving a series of simulated prostate exams:

    I’m a fan of Sam Mac. But this is not a comedy program. This is a late night news program broadcast nationally on Channel Ten. I’d much rather see him do this schtick on his own show – A show that could be nominated for a Logie for comedy.

    The Logies also has a serious lack of respect for Australian writers. Unlike The Oscars and The Emmys, The Logies has no awards at all for writing. None for comedy. None for drama. None for a telemovie or miniseries.

    I find it absolutely beyond comprehension the industry award body for Australian television doesn’t recognise its writers. Industry people and viewers alike are constantly complaining about the substandard level of screenwriting in Australia. We have great actors. We have world class cinematographers. Australian films and TV shows always look amazing.

    But the script? The story? The writing? It’s such an afterthought; we don’t even have an award for it. Who cares, right? Hey, why do we even need writers for TV?

    I believe the first step to improve Australia’s reputation for quality screenwriting is to recognise quality screenwriting at the highest level. And the easiest way to do that is to include Logie Awards for writing.

    The Logie Awards Ceremony itself also differs from the big American ones. The Oscars. The Emmys. The Tonys. They’re all held in theatres, with a seated audience watching the stage.

    But The Logies are conducted more like a pub trivia night, with the audience and nominees seated around tables in the Palladium Ballroom of Melbourne’s Crown Casino. Many of the attendees aren’t even facing the stage.

    Is it any wonder nobody wants to host The Logies? It’s widely believed among the TV industry that hosting The Logies is death. It’s a tough room. Most people are there purely to be seen and to enjoy a steak dinner.

    At last year’s 54th Annual Logie Awards, Adam Hills walked out on stage to present the first award, and after establishing that there was no host, he said, “Hosting the Logies is like being one of Gina Rinehart’s children. It sounds good, but you get nothing out of it.”

    That’s true for most of the hosts in recent memory. In fact, of the last 10 ceremonies, six of them had no single host. The risk of dying a death on stage was shared by several presenters.

    For a truly exceptional ceremony, you have to go back to Shaun Micallef in 2001.

    Channel Nine thought so too and they gave him his own tonight show two years later. But Wendy Harmer (2002) and Gretel Killeen (2009) weren’t so lucky.

    So how do you cure The Logies? It’s so simple even a TV executive could do it. Bring back awards for comedy. Introduce awards for writing. And hold the ceremony in a theatre where the audience’s attention is on the host. Only then will The Logies be the Australian equivalent of The Emmys.

    And so they should be.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Student of Logie.

  • Burger Heaven – The spam is better at Hungry Jack’s

    On Friday 22 February, popular fast food restaurant Hungry Jack’s (The Australian incarnation of Burger King, for my international friends) posted a Facebook status:

    “Today the legendary Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin would have turned 51. Rest peacefully in burger heaven mate.”

    What exactly has the late animal lover got to with cheeseburgers? What is this “burger heaven”? Why doesn’t it have capital letters? Would Steve Irwin even go to burger heaven? Who’s to say he wouldn’t end up in burger hell? And are the burgers in burger hell still flame-grilled?

    Perhaps he wouldn’t be admitted into burger heaven OR hell – Condemned to an eternity in “Burgertory”. Ahh, Burgertory: where the burgers are plain and the service is “okay”.

    This is social media marketing: Using current events (or anniversaries of current events) to tie back into your brand, no matter how tenuous the link.

    Everyone hates ads. Especially on the Internet. When I’m watching a YouTube video with an ad at the start, my mouse-clicking finger hangs over the “skip” button, waiting impatiently as it counts down from 5 to 0 – which actually takes 7 seconds, if you’ve ever bothered to count it.

    Advertising has really invaded social media in the last couple of years. Facebook and Twitter are now awash with spam. And most of it is just lazy. Status updates from major brands can be as vanilla as: “Happy Friday!”

    And I know. Because I wrote them.

    For a short time, I was one of the faceless men who came up with these updates for companies. Last year I spent seven weeks at a digital advertising agency, writing Facebook and Twitter posts for their big name clients who wanted to sell hairspray and sunscreen and avocado dip.

    The problem with social media advertising is most advertisers have absolutely no idea what they’re supposed to do. All of these companies demanded their Tweets and Facebook statuses a month in advance. How are you supposed to make a Tweet topical and interesting if you have to get it approved by middle management 30 days in advance? The best you can do is look at an upcoming anniversary and schedule something about burger heaven.

    Hence, most companies just end up posting generic spam about their products – a sentence that will offend no one and bore everyone – effectively junk mail delivered directly to your news feed.

    Remember junk mail? It’s really amazing that businesses still persist with print advertising. This is how I deal with it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93H10n_JdA&feature=youtu.be

    But how do you make advertising work on social media? I don’t know. But I can tell you what people don’t like. People don’t like someone trying to sell them something they don’t want. People don’t like being bothered. People don’t like being asked by a brand of head lice shampoo what they got up to on the weekend.

    Businesses are desperate to engage you on social media. There’s an abundance of discounts on offer. Lots of restaurants are now offering free drinks or 20 per cent off your bill, just for using Facebook to “check in” to the restaurant. And even better, most of these restaurants don’t even check to see you’ve done it. So you can get the discounts anyway!

    And believe it or not, businesses may still be vying for your online engagement long after you yourself have gone to burger heaven.

    A company called LivesOn is due to launch in March. Using complex algorithms and artificial intelligence, they plan to mimic individuals’ Twitter activity to allow you to continue to socialise online after you’ve logged off the server of life.

    If your online robot is still posting statuses for you after you’re dead, you can guarantee there’ll be banks and supermarkets and airlines all too eager to keep you up to date on their latest deals.

    We may need to develop Blade Runner-esque testing to determine which Twitter accounts are real people and which ones are robots. Who knows, maybe it will be the companies themselves who use LivesOn to continue advertising their products long after the business has died?

    Robots selling robots to other robots – this is the future. Do androids Tweet about their dreams of electric sheep? More importantly, do they go to burger heaven?

    Burger heaven… wait…

    Wouldn’t burger heaven just be full of burgers?

    When we say the dog has gone to “Doggy Heaven”, presumably this is a heaven for dogs, right? Not a heaven for the people who eat dogs?

    So according to the good people at Hungry Jack’s, the late animal activist Steve Irwin now resides alone, surrounded by either whole or partially eaten, possibly sentient cheeseburgers.

    That is absolutely horrifying.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Happy Wednesday!

  • 31 Questions: Crowdfunding Endgame

    And now we enter endgame…

    With 4 days left of the 31 Questions crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, we’ve raised the unbelievable amount of $1,692!

    We’ve already long since surpassed our original goal of $1,000. But can we now get to $2,000? It’s up to YOU.

    Here are some tasty morsels that might convince you to contribute…

    Want to impress your friends and family with your knowledge of answers? Do it via this convenient “Moderator Mug”, while also questioning whether they too are aware of the answer that you yourself claim to know. Featuring a drinkable TV’s Anthony McCormack in his signature pointing pose, this mug will make a welcome addition to your cupboard or dishwasher. Available now for $31. All proceeds go towards production of Season 2 of 31 Questions!

    And the next 8 lucky fans who donate $10 to the show on Indiegogo won’t just receive a personally autographed headshot of benevolent host David M. Green, you’ll also receive an ORIGINAL SEASON ONE QUESTION CARD (featuring actual printed questions, hand-written notes AND last minute gags)! As used during the taping of Episodes 12 & 13, 17 May 2012. Think of how much these are going to be worth once David M. Green has moved on to better things and/or died! Strictly limited to the next 8 crowdfunders.
    We’ve now received contributions ranging from $2 to $100 from 65 individuals in 4 countries. Check out this map of their approximate locations:


    View 31 Questions Crowdfunders in a larger map

    How cool is that!?!?

    We’re already using this money to pay for tapes, printing, hard drives, set materials, electronic components for the new buzzers, postage, “fabulous” prizes, parking, costumes and all matter of miscellaneous things needed to make some sort of television show.

    It’s very touching knowing there’s so much love out there for this scruffy underdog of a game show. I had an exchange of Facebook messages over the weekend from a gentleman in Chicago, who informs me his whole family has been enjoying Season 1 on YouTube.

    And what put the biggest smile on my face was finding out his 7-year-old son has been repeatedly quoting the punchline “Just my colon”, as delivered by Sophie Loughran in Episode 4, and “dying laughing”. Evidently, American children are better educated on punctuation than their Aussie counterparts. I don’t think I learned what a colon was (either definition) until I was twice that age.

    This might be good karma for all the times I myself have quoted The Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, National Lampoon’s Vacation and any other motion picture set in The Windy City.

    Keep those donations coming in. They’re making a big difference. I’ll leave you with some more Season 1 outtakes, highlighting a few community TV problems. Hopefully we’ll avoid them in Season 2. But somehow, I doubt it…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhwY1SehbRE

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    No sir, Mayor Daley doesn’t dine here any more. He’s dead sir.

  • It’s high time James Bond came to Australia

    Australian James Bond

    Skyfall is out now (not in Australia)!

    I’m a big Bond fan.

    Favourite Bond film = GoldenEye.

    Favourite Bond actor = Roger Moore.

    I’ll watch a Bond film no matter where it’s set. But I reckon it’s about time 007 visited Australia. I should write something on this exact topic… oh wait, I already did!

    Ha-ha-have a look at this thing I wrote for The Punch: Bond should go down under, and I ain’t talking about ladies.

    All my good gags are over there.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Actually, I was talking about the ladies.