Posts by Jason Kemp
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Hard News: What you lookin' at?, in reply to Rich Lock,
Thanks Rich. I liked Xena for that female super lead idea which predated “Buffy” by some years but in talking with some of the people who were on the show they also knew they were mocking various genres and that was a big part of its charm.
I was just wondering if part of the NZ commissioning problem is that we are just trying too hard to make serious TV rather than say something like the “IT Crowd” which is very likeable.
But what do I know – I found “Madmen” and “Breaking Bad” both unwatchable.
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Hard News: What you lookin' at?, in reply to Cecelia,
Isn’t this the Golden Age of TV?
Maybe. In our house it sort of is but it has very little to do with broadcast tv itself except as a historical source. Being able to programme ones own viewing “advertising free” for weeks via Netflix or some other streaming source makes it a golden age for viewing but not broadcasting.
I’ve even worked out how to avoid most of the crap episodes and entires series of shows by reading reviews beforehand and just watching series 1 & maybe 2 in some cases.
The only broadcast channels we watch are Māori TV and Al Jazeera. Its not even worth trying to watch the “news” any more as very little of it is actual news.
I think those making TV for broadcast audience are in a race to the bottom as that is probably where the biggest numbers are. As long as funding is based on numbers it destroys the usefulness of broadcast as a medium at all.
I suspect that this audience is savvy with multiple online options but you only need a few percent of a key demographic to stop viewing and the mainstream is toast.
I don’t know anyone under the age of 20 who watches regular mainstream TV. I’m sure they exist but it is a shrinking group. Youtube is the real attraction for them.
As an aside – I have just watched a few episodes of Xena Warrior Princess. It seems deliberately bad but lots of people I know worked on it and paid the bills. Maybe something that is deliberately bad has a future. As opposed to just intending to make a good programme and failing to connect with an audience.
I’ve never watched Dr Who – but I’m told it was pretty terrible for many years and that is why people liked it.
Just maybe the real problem with Filthy Rich it that it is not bad enough to be good. They could dial up the satirical elements maybe?
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Last night we were talking about design and how having access to Photoshop/clip art or some other tool of the trade doesn't make anyone a designer. At some point the topic of the flag design came up. Everyone there thought that the new design was just "clunky" and poorly executed. A number of others like the idea of the new design but wondered why it doesn't have the "real" silver fern element included.
From what I can tell it is because the mainstream silver fern design - belongs to someone else who won't licence it for use on the flag and therefore the compromise.
What was interesting (to me) is that while people like the idea of a new design they are very uneasy about the official option. And it has something to do with design as well as the general unease over the process and politics so far.
And while no one was wildly in favour of the current design the overwhelming impression is that we should only be making a change if there was an obviously better design to change to. In my view that hasn't happened.
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That auto translation of your tweet hit the spot. I call it auto-pilot publishing. And it seems to be default mode. Auto-correct seems to make the problem even worse in most cases. I guessed the story about “racist father” was a Daily Mail headline. I just wish Herald would put the source at the top left rather than the bottom so I don’t have to scroll down first.
The other night I watched an old Bruce Lee film where all of the audio was apparently dubbed in later. In some cases English over English. It was 1972 they had an excuse. Despite it being terrible it was actually so bad that it was entertaining and then the fight scenes were magic and I usually hate those.
This is not the case with current MSM.
And this from a TED talk Alain de Botton gave back in 2009.
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A few years ago, I was thinking about this, and I went to “The Sunday Sport,” a tabloid newspaper I don’t recommend you start reading if you’re not familiar with it already.
10:09
(Laughter)
10:10
And I went to talk to them about certain of the great tragedies of Western art. I wanted to see how they would seize the bare bones of certain stories, if they came in as a news item at the news desk on a Saturday afternoon.
10:22
I mentioned Othello; they’d not heard of it but were fascinated.
10:25
(Laughter)
10:26
I asked them to write a headline for the story. They came up with “Love-Crazed Immigrant Kills Senator’s Daughter.” Splashed across the headline. I gave them the plotline of Madame Bovary. Again, a book they were enchanted to discover. And they wrote “Shopaholic Adulteress Swallows Arsenic After Credit Fraud.”
10:43
(Laughter)
10:44
And then my favorite – they really do have a kind of genius of their own, these guys – my favorite is Sophocles’ Oedipus the King: “Sex With Mum Was Blinding.”
10:53
(Laughter)
10:56
(Applause)
10:58
In a way, if you like, at one end of the spectrum of sympathy, you’ve got the tabloid newspaper. At the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got tragedy and tragic art.”————
The whole click bait process has now made most daily newspapers parodies of themselves but not in a good way.
Just yesterday I saw a travel story which referred to Jetstar as Jestar in the actual heading. I’ve included it below (actually displays at the top). When no-one proof reads even the headings then you are in trouble. Not so long ago a sub editor might have made a pun out of the mistake but now ?
And TV – well the big thing there is that with the deluge of excellent back catalogue from online sites there is no need to watch current broadcast TV ever if you don’t want to and if the newshub new team is going that way then its all over red rover.
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Kate Tempest on Friday, 15 January 2016 at Kings Arms Tavern looks to be sold out. Here's hoping they get a bigger venue or an extra show.
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I suspect that the real challenge for any mayoral campaign is to get anyone to actually vote. I know a few of the local board members and they seem to be very motivated to work for the good of the community over a number of years.
Even so most of them get very little support. It doesn’t strike me as a network that can be “managed” very easily at all. I suspect that Crone should be looking at the city CEO role which she would be qualified for and not for the mayoralty. It looks like a moonshot.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Steve Todd,
Thanks Steve - the PV system is indeed more complex than it seems.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Steve Todd,
What I meant was that when 3 of the 5 designs featured ferns - that people who liked ferns would vote them 1, 2 and 3 before voting for the other non-fern designs.
If there had only been a single fern design then the voting pattern might have been a bit different and the 2 designs which were not ferns might have got more preferences.
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There must have been some interesting conversations in Xero circles since Rod Drury was on the flag consideration panel itself.
Also very interesting about the long list of 40. There were some much better designs in that group but to have 3 fern based designs in the final list felt like a setup. I voted for Red Peak but the way preferences work it was not a surprise to be beaten. If we were to have a new flag I would still prefer something like Tino rangatiratanga but I can also see why the history behind that would be a problem for many. What is good about Red Peak is that references many of the same ideas but in a new way.
I was interested to see this entry in an official website.
The national Māori flagI think that most people will vote against a new flag now – not because they like the old one but because they don't like the new ones.
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Map at Canada St entrance for those unsure where the access point is
This from Sam >
"1. I can’t think of a single cycle project that has generated as much excitement as this..."
What I was thinking of when I said the lightpath symbolises great things for a re-imagined Auckland - becoming a world city with trains and people as well as the usual cars.
