David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Tag: journalism

  • Live Television Debut!

    Greetings!

    Very exciting week last week: it was my turn to be on Newsline! I was the sports correspondent on May 18 2010 under the weighted anchoring of TV’s Ben Hagemann and Alicia Muling. The programme broadcast live on Channel 31 Melbourne from 4pm to 4:30pm.

    Coming to Melbourne and studying television journalism at RMIT has really opened my eyes to the practicalities of television production. It’s an incredible organisational feat. So much preparation goes into it. There’s a crew of about 15 people behind the scenes and putting together a 30-minute news programme and broadcasting LIVE five days a week is amazing. It still surprises me that we actually get to do this (as students, not professionals remember… not yet anyway).

    Special thanks also to TV’s Jill Singer, executive producer for Newsline. I can’t imagine the effort she’s put into getting this show off the ground. She’s done a wonderful job.

    Without beating around the bush, or using excessive cliches, I absolutely loved this. Each show has two hosts and three correspondents (news, business and sport). In some ways it’s actually harder to be a correspondent, as you’re up in a small room on your own with a green screen behind you and a camera pointed at your head, and unlike the hosts, the correspondents don’t get no autocue. All that presenting experience for YouTube sure came in handy.

    Even though I had to glance at my notes occasionally to remember some names, I’m very happy with my performance. I took it seriously. And how many opportunities does anyone get to do LIVE TV these days? How many shows are even done live anymore? And the people on those shows are mostly weathered TV veterans. Newsline and the resources at RMIT University provide an invaluable experience for newcomers to the industry, such as myself, and I am very grateful for the opportunity.

    Here are some snapshots of that day’s creation of Newsline, a voyeristic peak into the magic of student television news:

    This shan’t be my only dabble in television, of that I can assure you.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Photos my Yinmin Maung with Ben Hagemann’s camera.

  • David M. Green presents: April in Melbourne. With pictures.

    Ahoy!

    Life is good. But it’s been so jam-packed with stuff I haven’t had much of a chance to spend a solitary evening blogging about it. So for those who care, my apologies. For those who don’t, well maybe consider putting a little more effort into dedicating your lives to following mine. Na, you’re okay. You’ve done well.

    I’ve really noticed a massive change in my social life since moving to Melbourne. I’m just talking more. A product of being around more people: at uni, at the share-house and hanging out with people pretty much whenever I get a chance. It’s good. I must have spent a lot of time on my own last year. Uni really changes things. Especially this post-graduate environment. It’s completely different from undergraduate. Much more comradery. It’s a good thing. Of course at times I do also get sick of these people… Na, they’re okay. They’ve done well.

    Things to report on:

    RMITV
    I auditioned for RMITV Student Television’s “Studio A” live late night comedy/variety show. I was quite happy with the audition. I presented a 60 second monologue to camera and then conducted an “interview” with local Melbourne comedy personality Tommy Little. Unfortunately I didn’t get an on-camera role, or a writing role. But I’m happy to report you’re reading the blog of RMITV’s newest “Script Editor” for Studio A. This will allow me to take my Nazi-like stance on grammar to bizarre new places. But hey, this was the whole reason I moved to Melbourne so just glad to be on the team. I believe the show should go to air around June on Channel 31. More details coming soon…

    I was also a member of the crew for the Channel 31 production of “Tough Times”. It’s an interview show hosted by Michael Kuzilny and filmed at RMITV studios. For the first two shows I was a vision mixer (or “switcher”), and I must say, I LOVED it. Great fun. It’s not the direct TV equivalent of radio panel-operating. Technically that would be monitoring the audio recording for the TV show. But vision mixing gives you the same great feeling when you do a good cross from one camera to the other, just like a good crossfade between songs. Ah, it was great! I also helped out with camera and audio, but vision mixing was by far my favourite role. Of course, as much as I enjoyed that, I’d much rather be hosting the show itself. Maybe not that particular show, but the role of “host” is more attractive to me.

    Oh yes, that reminds me. I’ll be hosting the first live “Newsline” for 2010 on Monday May 17 on Channel 31 Melbourne with my glamorous co-host Lucy Ormonde. Looking forward to that!

    Catalyst
    RMIT Student Magazine “Catalyst” printed my interview with Shaun Micallef in “Edition 2” a couple of weeks ago. Copies are available from the various RMIT University Melbourne campuses. I presume it will also be put online (although as at May 6 2010 it’s still not there). So I guess keep checking out HERE until it’s uploaded. Unfortunately the fabulous editors forgot to print a link to this website so readers could read the complete Micallef interview (they also changed the title, as editors do, to “Talkin’ Bout Shaun Micallef”…sigh…). They assure me the link will be in the next edition to direct people to the complete Tim Vine audio interview. No hard feelings towards the editors, of course. They’ve done well.

    They also printed a short autobiographical article of mine titled “Throwing it all away”, where I discuss the tribulations of dating and drinking. I’ll post that article directly on this website at some point, as I kinda like it.

    Radio
    Still working on that one. Got a few leads but nothing of much interest. I’ll have something to report soon. God I miss it though…

    Stand-up
    I recently realised that, like back in Adelaide, no one is going to take me seriously as a comedian until I do regular stand-up (which I’m not too thrilled about, but hey, what can you do?). So I booked myself in at “The Comic’s Lounge” in fabulous North Melbourne for an open mic spot on Tuesday May 18 from 8:30PM. I’ve just got to get noticed in Melbourne. It’ll be interesting to see how the crowds are different. I’ve heard several stories from Melbourne performers here about how their shows were often not as well received in Adelaide. Of course, they didn’t mention whether or not Adelaide was the butt of the majority of their jokes… That may be a contributing factor. It does get rather tedious after a while. And I can tell ya, sure, Melbourne’s great and I like it more than Adelaide, but Melbourne ain’t perfect. Although their audiences may be easier? I’ll soon find out…

    Well, I can cross another one of those “’80s bands to see before I die” off the list. Two actually. Even though Tears for Fears were the support act, I was more excited about seeing them than Spandau Ballet. But I stuck around after they’d finished to see Spandau Ballet too. Hey, I paid for it, right? $100. And like Howard Jones, I couldn’t find anyone who could justify spending that much money to accompany me to this concert, so I attended Melbourne’s famed Rod Laver Arena alone.

    I did get talking to the other pathetic single man next to me though. A 44-year-old baker from Broadmeadows who, upon discovering I was studying journalism, preceded to reveal his entire sci-fi novel idea, pausing only to think out aloud, “I probably shouldn’t be telling my idea to another writer… but I will anyway.” Mental note: steal his idea. Na, he’s okay. He’s done well.

    Unlike Howard Jones, who played at the intimate Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, this was at Rod Laver Arena, one of the largest enclosed performance venues in the country. Naturally, opting for the cheaper ticket, my seat was appropriately placed:

    As for the actual performances, Tears for Fears were good. Unfortunately, as they were the support act, the sound levels weren’t optimal. They seem to do that, don’t they? Spandau Ballet had great levels, but I only knew four of their songs, so I was mostly just sitting through it, sharing the occasional “raised eyebrow hello” with the sci-fi baker to my right. He actually left about 10 minutes into Spandau Ballet. Obviously had some early baking to do. But hey, overall an enjoyable experience.

    I also went to my first AFL game since 1997. I tagged along with a bunch of the RMIT journo people to Melbourne vs. Brisbane at the MCG. I’d never been to the MCG before. Very impressive stadium. It was good theatre, I suppose. I enjoyed the insults being hurled from members of the crowd at Brenden Fevola. But I found myself sitting cross-legged, looking around at these footy fans as they cheered and carried on, and I thought to myself, “I can see why people like this, but I just can’t get excited over it.” I’ve just got too much else in my life to follow a sports team.

    Later that night I got to drive a car for the first time in about two months. A manual too. Ahh… still got it!

    There is of course so much more, but this blog entry is dragging on a bit, so I’ll leave you with two things. 1) The reassurance that I’m enjoying myself and I’m continuing on the dream-chasing venture that is my move to Melbourne. And 2) This photo, which in no way reflects my personal political views:

     

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    I was not responsible for that graffiti. Give me some freaking credit! I would have used two B’s.

  • Study journalism at RMIT. See the sights of TV Town!

    To paraphrase Styx: it’s high time I (we) gave you an update on my RMIT journalistic educationary ventures (start a revolution). Ahh… great album.

    Yes, so as I was saying… I’m now in week 4 of uni, studying my post-graduate diploma in journalism at RMIT and it’s going pretty well. Pretty, pretty, pre-tty… pretty well. I believe I’ve now established myself as “the funny guy” (or at least, one of the 3). It’s great. Going to uni is a ball! I’d forgotten how fun it was. Everyone else in the course is awesome. We all get along like a school on fire and coffee, baked goods and doing the various daily newspaper quizzes as a group has quickly become a regular mid-morning ritual. Such is my future-focused mind, I already know I’m going to miss this in 9 months… All the more reason to make the most of it.

    You may be wondering what these photos are. You may not be. You may not even be reading this. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother. These photos were actually taken on our first day. We were given the task of going out and finding a few notable Melbourne locations, swapping contact information and taking  pictures to prove we didn’t just go and drink. I like this one in particular. It looks like the anchor team from a TV newsroom:

    Might help the illusion if we were standing in front of a bank of cameras or a news desk instead of a tenant index…

    Speaking of TV, we did vox-pops last week! For the uninformed, vox-popping is when a guy takes a camera onto the street and sticks a microphone into a stranger’s face to get the opinion of the man (or woman) on the street, often to hilarious results. Despite my years of community radio and various straight-to-the-Internet video experience, I’d never actually performed a legitimate vox-pop. Indeed, I’m quite a novice when it comes to the field of vox-poppery. So I teamed up with fellow “the funny guy” Lachlan Cowlishaw and headed down to Burke Street Mall (not far from where I had lunch with Richard Marsland 2 years ago, actually). We had no interest in examining a serious issue, and so asked various street-walkers (as in “people walking by,” not “prostitutes”) “if you could have a dinner date with anyone in the world, who would it be?” It was A LOT of fun. Damn it was great to get back in front of a camera again. I really love it. And we got some pretty good responses too. A few dud ones of course, but that’s to be expected. This week we’re editing them and then in late May (apparently) they’ll actually appear on C31’s “Newsline” (which I also get to host!). THIS is why I came to Melbourne!

    Oh and just by the by, yesterday whilst waiting on Swanston Street for the tram home, I noticed 3 separate RMIT vox-pop teams setting up in the vicinity of the Victorian State Library. Undergraduates. They have to do vox-popping too, evidently. So, knowing that THEY don’t know who I am, I went up to each of them in turn and provided joke answers to their seriousy-type questions. Hehehe! Someone sometime is going to watch back all that footage and see the same idiot (wearing the same white cardigan) being obnoxious on a variety of issues! And then later down the track still they’re going to see me actually hosting the show that’s broadcasting them! Hehehe… ahhh… Meg doesn’t find this nearly as funny as I do…

    Oh yes and one more thing… I was ACTUALLY on Seven News Victoria Tuesday last week! My good friend and fellow RMIT “journo” Ben Hagemann and I hopped off a tram (again, at Burke Street Mall) and were accosted by several Yarra Tram ticket officers. There was also a TV news crew on the scene. Now, whether or not we were actually fare evaders on that occasion is irrelevant, but rest assured, the situation resolved itself appropriately. That night I switched on the box, delighted to see myself (from the chin down) in the background of some story about the disabled and passengers with prams having difficulty boarding some of Melbourne’s older trams. I have a recording. It’s available upon request. Here’s a still though: (that’s me in the red shirt and black pants!)

    Kind regards,
    TV’s David M. Green
    That’s right! Ohohohoho… hmmm… mmm…

  • Life-is-like-a-Hur-ri-ca-ne… here in… Co-burg…

    Hello (obviously),

    Jesus it’s just one thing after another with this whole “moved to Melbourne to pursue my dreams” episode of the life of David M. Green (me)… Let me give you the latest…

    Uni started last Monday. The first 3 days were pretty daunting, especially the part about having to watch the TV news, listen to the radio news and read all the newspapers (The Age, The Herald Sun AND The Australian) AND being tested every week on our knowledge of current events. Got to get used to that. But before I could really do any uni homework I moved house (again) on Thursday. Found a nice place in Coburg “with two seeexxxyy ladies!” (to quote The Simpsons). But seriously, they’re okay. The rent is the same as the Altona place, but the house is bigger, cleaner; the walls are thicker and it’s only 8km north of the CBD! On the good side! Observe:

    Of course, taking into consideration the meandering nature of Melbourne’s transport corridors, the distance from the city to Altona is more like 18km, but my new share house in Coburg is connected to the CBD by a roadway with minimal deviations. Not only that, it’s about 50 metres from the No. 1 East Coburg tram terminus. VERY convenient. And you know how I feel about light rail (*two thumbs up*).

    I’m settling in quite well. New house mates are great and I’m definitely enjoying the shorter commute each day. More “me time!” I haven’t had a lot of time to explore all that Coburg has to offer, however I do believe I’ve already spotted the two funniest “sight gags” in the neighbourhood… This is just what you want to see right across the street from your new place of residence…

    And then there’s this one… (hehehe you should have seen the looks I got from people when I took this photo…)

    Yes, so moving on, it was pretty full on last week with uni starting and then the move to Coburg. I also needed to purchase a new wardrobe, desk and chair, as my new room included none of these things. And I hate having my stuff strewn all over the floor, so it was very important that I organise these things pronto. Fortunately just a few shops down from the “Circum-centre” there was a furniture place with just what I needed at reasonable prices (I also checked out Ikea, but their cheap stuff was crap and their good stuff was too expensive). I picked up all three items for $700, including delivery 1km up Bell Street. Not bad I thought. And for the first time in about 5 years I’ve got drawers for my clothes!

    However… just when everything was falling into place, on Saturday the worst storm in 40 years struck Melbourne. As my desk hadn’t arrived, I had my laptop set up on the dining room table and I was finally getting some homework done when very quickly the sky turned black and a barrage of the biggest hail stones I’ve ever seen started raining down (wait… can hail rain? You know what I mean anyway…). They only got to be as big as marbles in Coburg but elsewhere in the metropolitan area they were reported as big as tennis balls! The most recent reports are saying the storm caused over $220 million damage. So anyway, naturally I rushed to the front porch to witness this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, which also included an enormous downpour of rain the likes you’d see in Southern Australia maybe once or twice a decade. I stepped away from my computer for just a couple of minutes. I returned to discover the roof right above the dining room table was leaking water all over my laptop and diary. I quickly rushed to their aid but my laptop was completely drenched and the screen frozen. I picked it up and water came trickling out of the ports on the side. Naturally I switched it off immediately.

    I’m a pretty laid-back guy with most things. If my car windscreen was broken by a hail stone, I’d be irritated, sure, but I wouldn’t have been as freaked out as when I saw my note pad (containing 6 months worth of ideas) being ripped to pieces before my eyes by a crazed individual, or when I thought I’d just lost a brand new $1,500 laptop, that’s my ONLY connection to EVERYTHING I DO. I was freaking out. I hadn’t lost any data. I backed up just a couple of days earlier. It was just the thought of weeks of inconvenience more than anything. My contents insurance wouldn’t have helped me (why would you ever need anything other than coverage for fire and theft?), but I believe the landlord was probably at fault for improper maintenance of the roof. But I wasn’t thinking about the financial cost. I was devastated because I had work to do, you know.

    So I called my tech guy back in Adelaide. He told me to open it up, take the battery out and some of the easier-to-access panels at the back to let all the moisture drain out. I left it to dry overnight and gave the computer another shot on Sunday. It wasn’t working. I was pretty upset. I was so close to getting everything organised. By that stage the desk had arrived but of course, with no computer the desk was pretty useless. It had just been setback after setback with this whole Melbourne thing. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, something else would pop up I hadn’t considered. It had really taken it out of me and this was just another major hurdle that had just been dropped right in my way. You know, I’ve probably cried as much in the last month as I have in the last 2 years. But I had to compose myself and get to the Cinema Nova for another busy night time shift. By the time I’d arrived I’d composed myself and actually, chatting and joking with the customers and the other cinema casuals during my shift really cheered me up. By the time I got home at about 1am I’d worked out a plan of action. I’d take my laptop into a repair place on Tuesday (as Monday was a public holiday) and maybe there were just a few components that needed to be replaced. If not, I guess I’d be looking at buying another one. But before I went to bed I thought I’d give it another shot. Wouldn’t you know it, the damn laptop worked perfectly…

    Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ I’m lucky… Really… There I was worrying about a computer that was totally replaceable (I didn’t lose any data, remember) when there were other people in Melbourne who had their roofs cave in and their entire houses flooded. All that freaking out. Totally unnecessary! Jesus…

    Hey, here’s my Coburg set-up:

    Thank God for that public holiday yesterday. God, I needed it. My appetite seemed to come back today for the first time since I arrived in Melbourne. I really am beginning to feel comfortable again. I also had my first television journalism lecture and tutorial on Friday and I’m loving it. The other journalism topics this semester are all print-based and I was thinking maybe spending $13,000 on this course wasn’t such a good idea. But then we got to television and I remembered why I’m here. I’ll get to host “Newsline” on C31 later in the year, which I’m REALLY looking forward to. Just television, as a medium in general, is something I really want to get involved in.

    To summarise this somewhat rambling blog entry, well, it was a somewhat rambling week. Had some bad days, then a good one, them some bad ones, then a good one again. I’ve often found myself recently thinking and remembering about “the good old days” back in Adelaide, seeing my close friends regularly, working every now and then at the Palace Nova, weekend getaways with Jemima… it was all so care-free… And let me tell you, you never appreciate the beauty of nature and the outdoors so much as when you’re stuck at a desk reading a text book. But then, even though those days were great and I knew exactly what I was doing, I wasn’t going anywhere. At least here in Melbourne I feel like I’m achieving something.

    Hmm, yes I think that’ll do for now.

    How are you by the way?

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Did anyone get the “Ducktales” reference in the title? Pretty good huh?

  • Newsflash: I’m moving to Melbourne!

    Hello!

    Well yes, as you can guess from the title of this blog, I have indeed reached that point that every young Adelaidean reaches when they realise they must leave. After much speculation I can now officially announce that I’ll be moving to Melbourne in mid-February to study a 1-year post graduate diploma in journalism at RMIT University. Hopefully this will give me some legitimate media skills that will make it harder for me to be replaced with a computer (ala my stint as a panel-operator at SAFM).

    But why go to Melbourne to do journalism? Can’t you do that in Adelaide? Good point and well made. Sure, I could do journalism at Uni SA’s fabulous Magill campus. But what would be the point? The radio elective practical is reading the news on Radio Adelaide. Whoop-dee-doo. I’ve already done 4 shows on Radio Adelaide, each with 13-week seasons, plus 27 weeks of  student radio. I want a new scene. I want a new audience. Melbourne’s where it’s at. And I do hope to make the most of my time there and do some more comedy, radio and possibly some TV. They have RMITV after all, where Rove and Hamish & Andy cut their teeth. I couldn’t recommend eating glass. Not even for a freak show segment…

    So the plan is to get over there, find a place to live, possibly some student-type accommodation, study journalism, find a new casual job, make new friends, continue writing comedy and recording sketches and voice-overs and basically live the dream. Piece of cake, right? It’s going to be a big life change, but it’s something I have to do. I’ve really enjoyed the last 2 years since I finished my behavioural science degree at Flinders University. I did some community radio, worked for SAFM, stopped working for SAFM, went back to community radio, dated a wonderful girl named Jemima, wrote a novel that no publisher is interested in, applied unsuccessfully for about 40 different radio jobs, somehow tricked Triple M into letting me and some friends make a once-off comedy show, waited by the phone as promise after promise failed to materialise and miraculously got probably the best casual job possible at the Palace Nova cinema. But I can’t keep doing this forever. I can’t keep mooching off my parents. I’m 22. I need to get a proper job. And there’s only one thing I want to do, and it ain’t working at a cinema full time. It’s radio. It’s comedy. It’s goofing off in front of a camera. Sure, journalism isn’t the definitive answer, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’d rather read the news at a country radio station or be a newspaper reporter than serve customers at the candy bar 40 hours a week. Something’s gotta give! And if it means getting a job as a journalist in order to support myself and pursuing comedy-related ventures on the side, then that’s the way it has to be. As Mr Mister said: Welcome to the Real World.

    So appreciate photos like the one above, because there will be less images of David M. Green with Stobie Poles orderly alined in the background. In 2010, I’m living in Melbourne.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Live in Melbourne? Be my friend! Reasonable prices.