David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Tag: TV

  • The Twitter Holy Grail: Retweeted by Q&A!

    I couldn’t believe it.

    Last night was the first time I’d twittered along to ABC TV’s political discussion programme “Q&A” and my second ever use of the #qanda hash-tag was put on TV!

    They were talking about the Tea Party movement in the United States, and whether that sort of movement would ever happen in Australia.

    My first tweet was: “I think someone needs a tea bag”. But then I thought of a better pun I had a feeling would be right up the ABC’s alley…

    I’m not entirely sure how they decide which tweets to put on TV. I figure there’s probably one guy who scans the twitter feed and somehow transfers the relevant/funny ones. I’ve heard the show gets tens of thousands of tweets during the hour, so I was quite surprised and very honoured to have achieved the Twitter “Holy Grail” of every comedian and journalist alike, especially on what was essentially my first attempt.

    Within seconds I had about 10 replies on Facebook and Twitter, including one from The Sydney Morning Herald’s Glenda Kwek:

    curious_scribe yes, @david_m_green, a #greenteaparty sounds good. Healthy bowels for all! #qanda

    And I liked this one too from my Internet friend in Townsville:

    Pantomime_Horse Perhaps they’ll hire Hugh Jackman to do the advertisements for a Green Tea Party. #qanda RT @David_M_Green How about a Green Tea Party?

    Several of my friends in Melbourne and Adelaide inform me they gasped in amazement when they saw my name on TV, as did my cousin Laura in Canberra, who apparently nearly fell of her chair. Even one of my RMIT journalism lecturers, Alex Wake, who was watching from the Solomon Islands, allegedly “laughed and laughed”.

    Hehehehe… *sigh*… Can I have a job now?

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    As seen beneath Gail Kelly

  • C31 Melbourne approves 31 Questions for second pilot!

    The title says it all!

    Fellow 31 Questions producer Simon Eastwood, as well as RMITV Student Television general manager Eliza Beck and I met with C31’s Kirk Goodsell yesterday to discuss our TV game show.

    The meeting went about as well as we could have hoped. Channel 31 seemed to love the show. So much so that they’ve given us the rare opportunity to actually re-film our pilot episode because, as we all agreed, the concept is strong, but our execution can be better.

    We were provided with excellent feedback from C31. It’s always refreshing to receiving constructive criticism, as opposed to just criticism.

    So I’m happy to announce that we’ll be filming a new pilot in late March. I’ll return as host, with the lovely Minky Cooper as the show’s scorekeeper. And joining us this time at the moderator’s desk will be the resplendent Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall, as Lachlan’s movin’ to Colac to actually make use of his journalism degree. We wish him all the best.

    We’ve got a re-designed set in the works and a long list of lessons we learnt from the pilot. I personally can’t wait to prove we can do better.

    Assuming the pilot redux goes well, there shouldn’t be anything preventing C31 from approving us for a season starting in June and running through to the end of August.

    Hopefully, we’ll one day hoist our logo somewhere on the C31 Hall of Fame – if there is such a thing – next to past stand out shows as: “Chartbusting 80s”, “Hotdog with the Lot” and C31’s infamous “Overnight Fishtank”, which I can only assume was the same one in their waiting room:

    Also, while I’ve got your attention, we’ll be needing some contestants for the new pilot, and the eventual series. That’s where YOU come in!

    This was recently sent to all RMITV Student Television members (you should totally sign up, by the way):

    Hey! Are you under 30? Do you like trivia? Wanna be on the TV?!? THEN READ
    THIS!

    “31 Questions” is a brand new game show produced by RMITV coming soon to Channel 31 Melbourne. And we need contestants!

    Hosted by TV’s David M. Green and assisted by the glamorous Minky Cooper, with Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall as the show’s moderator, “31 Questions” gives ordinary people a chance to prove their trivial superiority.

    So if you’ve got a knack for general knowledge and pop culture, and used to watch shows like “Sale of the Century” and “Vidiot” in the mid 90s, all the while wishing that was YOU answering those questions, now’s your chance to live the dream!

    You could even win some fabulous* prizes…

    If you’d like to be a contestant, contact our lovely producer, Simon Eastwood – simonpeter.eastwood@gmail.com

    Make sure to include your name, gender, age, email address and mobile number, as well as any previous television experience (no experience necessary).

    31 Questions. The people’s quiz show.

    *Prize fabulousness subject to personal opinion.

    Now… we have a lot to organise…

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Keep checking back for the latest 31Q news, or better yet, follow me on Twitter or Facebook!

  • Tom’s employed. Now David M. Green wants a job!

    The image you see above is a photo of my bed, lined with 22 rejection letters, the majority of which I’ve received in the last 2 years.

    And don’t worry, I’m aware of the irony of so many examples of rejection placed at a location where I’m usually quite successful at getting jobs…

    This is of course not an accurate reflection of how many jobs I’ve applied for.

    The ABC recently changed their policy of sending rejection notices via mail, and now conduct their rejections via email, putting them in line with most of society.

    Well, I say “most” but then again, commercial radio and TV stations rarely get back to me at all. It was a very rare occasion the other week when I received two letters from commercial radio station jobs I’d recently applied for.

    Not only that, but they both had signatures written with an actual pen, not some xeroxed mass produced rejection template… So a genuine thank you to K-Rock Geelong and ZooFM Dubbo for taking the time to personally respond.

    Once in a blue moon will I actually receive a phone call. Those are usually reserved for occasions where I’ve actually made it to an interview.

    So here’s the situation folks…

    I’ve finished my graduate diploma in journalism (with distinction!) from RMIT University. I would like to stay in, or at least close to Melbourne, because there is a high probability that I’ll be hosting a TV game show on Channel 31 in early 2011. And I just can’t miss this opportunity.

    But in the mean time, I have a strange craving to WORK. I would like a job, preferably in the field of media. Radio or TV ideally. Wouldn’t say no to a job in print at this point. Doesn’t have to be journalism related. I may or may not have mentioned on this website that I’m also a comedian… And a producer for that matter.

    Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green

    PS. Probably my favourite rejection letter in the above photo is the one I got in 2008 from RMIT University, rejecting my application for the journalism degree I’ve just completed (with distinction).

  • 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!