Posts by Damian Christie
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Let's just say it was the one pasttime I couldn't claim not to have experienced. I wouldn't say I'm a regular (although don't ask China @ Mermaids, she'll say anything for $10)...
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I was wondering about that. So you think when Katie said:
Out of interest, would either of you two like to get pregnant?
...she was totally hitting on both Rob and myself? Sweeeeeet.
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Would I like to be pregnant? What, and rely on my partner to go out and spear mammoths and stuff for dinner? Don't make me laugh...
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Yeah, you should really try basic fact checking first, like, um, google? It came up with this one...
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Nah, but the males do get pregnant, which is a pretty gay thing to do. Which presumably means the wife is the one who gets to keep smoking during the pregnancy and head down to the pub during labour and hand out cigars when the phone call comes from the hospital saying the baby was born.
Ahhh, those must've been the days eh.
From wikipedia. Which is never wrong:
Seahorses reproduce in an unusual way: the male becomes pregnant. "The female inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch, where she deposits her eggs, which the male fertilizes. The fertilized eggs then embed in the pouch wall and become enveloped with tissues."[4] New research indicates the male releases sperm into the surrounding sea water during fertilization, and not directly into the pouch as was previously thought
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Suspect you're a massive hit on the seniors and retirement home circuit though fulla.
Yeah, I must admit that's nothing new. Generalising here, but out of Close Up/Shortland St/Campbell, I think Close Up has the oldest skew. Most time I meet a lay-dee and she asks what I do for a job, the response is either "I don't have a TV" (Where have all these people come from, seemingly in the year that I've been doing this job?!) or "I watch Shortland St/Campbell".
What usually happens then is that a week or so later, if I see them again, they say "Oh, I mentioned you to my mum, and she totally knows which one you are!"
Yup. That's me. Big with the Mums.
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Oh, and with regard to the RSC reviewers, I read about the critic-ban too, and couldn't for the life of me work out why no-one just said "f*** it" and reviewed it anyway. To draw a long bow, would they do the same if David Cameron said "no reviews of my leadership thanks"?
And I agree with Lyndon: "I try for reviews written for people who will never see the show".
One of my favourite reviews in NZ is Diana Wichtel's TV reviews in the Listener. You never have to see the show she's referring to and you'll understand exactly what's going on. The best reviews IMHO are those that are little works of art in themselves.
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I think its important to remember what your mum told you: "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything". I was happy to remain silent on local musos if they were crap on the basis that I only had a limited amount of column space so why waste it on crap? Better to inform readers of what's good than slagging something...
I tend to agree. I remember writing a book review for the Listener once, the book was awful and I took great delight in pulling it to bits. I submitted it, and Steve Braunias (who was books editor at the time) said that while it was well written, he wasn't going to run it because he'd rather use the space to recommend good books than slag bad ones.
I still got paid, so I was happy, and that advice has stuck with me. There is so much dross out there (particularly with books and music, theatre is a bit different), what's the point finding a crap book and saying it's crap? The only exception I could see would be if there was an Emperor's New Clothes element to it, where the product in question was receiving far too much hype.
One of the traps, I think, is that panning something can make for awfully entertaining reading.
Yeah, it can, but it's awfully easy to be critical for the sake of it. It seems to me that a lot of younger writers/journos are keen as mustard to put the boot in, perhaps to make themselves feel smarter/better than whatever it is they're reviewing. However one should occasionally indulge oneself, again where the hype justifies it. I think the last time I did it was right here about one of the latest Star Wars releases.
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Damian... what settings do I need to have on my Final Cut Pro sequence so that I don't have to render the whole 21 minutes or so?
Ah, yeah, that'd be a technical question. I'll put you through now caller. Please hold.
(I don't know, maybe just leave it overnight to render or soemthing?)
As for current affairs programmes leading by the nose in terms of building on marginal audiences, there's definitely an argument there. But for commercial broadcasters (in which I include TVNZ as long as the Govt wants its dividend), where's the motivation? Why work trying to build on crappy ratings (assuming that there is a potentially viable audience for such worthy shows) when you can choose isntead to screen a show with an instant audience?
It's worth remembering that in a big TV company, the head of news isn't the one calling the shots about whether such shows continue, it's the programmers, in consultation with sales, news etc. And so even if news are saying "we need this programme", sales will be saying "we're losing money hand over fist"...
Of course I'm talking generically about big TV companies here, I couldn't possibly comment on what goes on at the one I work for.
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Oh, and since this is a comedy discussion forum, can I just add something that I found vaguely amusing last night:
I went to the gym after work. There's a nice young girl who works behind the counter. She's friendly and pretty, and kind of like the stripper who looks smart because she wears glasses, I hope that she's working there so she can pay her way through medical school or something.
We do our hi's and our how are you's, and as I'm going through my wallet, rifling through my Eftpos, Visa and AA cards and so forth trying to find my gym card, I mutter something along the lines of "don't you think we have far too many different cards these days?"
"Yeah I know", she frowns..."poor trees"...