Results tagged “tv”

From Sussex Safer Roads: a stunning reminder that you should wear your seatbelt.

Sound up, fullscreen is best.

Charlie Brooker nails it.

“Down The Line” is a radio programme that aired on BBC Radio 4. It parodied the talkback genre, which had the traditional listeners spluttering in protest, unaware that it was all just a laugh. Now the creators have reinvented it for TV:

[Charlie] Higson, who, in partnership with [Paul] Whitehouse, has also been responsible for one of the finest BBC2 sketch-programmes of recent years, The Fast Show, admits that much of Down the Line’s comic charm could have been lost in translation. “Obviously doing a radio phone-in on TV would have been daft. So we had to think, ‘Down the Line has been perfectly designed for radio - what’s the TV equivalent?’”

And then Higson and Whitehouse - with the rapidity of a “Suits You” tailor whipping out an innuendo - had a “eureka” moment. “We realised that all these programmes with celebrities driving round the country meeting people and saying ‘isn’t Britain brilliant?’ would be ideal for us to parody,” continues the 51-year-old Higson, who has carved out a very successful second career as the writer of novels about young James Bond.

Here’s the quoted article^*, from the UK’s Independent. I’m obliged to warn you, however, that the subs got a bit carried away with the exclamation marks! In the article! Which is quite irritating!

Bellamy’s People begins screening on BBC2 from 21 January. So if you’re in Australia you can set your DVR to record it in approximately six years.

^* While you’re there, try clicking the “enlarge” button next to the picture and see how much bigger it gets.

The NBC rebrand, by Capacity, is fresh and vibrant. Here’s a great case study of the thinking behind the project. They only use this phrase:

We wanted to tap into the essence of the brand and leverage the qualities that are ownable

… once.

Via Motionworks.

Peggy Black won a competition to create a new character for The Simpsons:

In pondering her contest entry, Black decided there was a void on “The Simpsons” and that Springfield needed “something like a Casanova,” she said.

[Ricardo] Bomba, a handsome, smooth-talking South American nicknamed “La Bomba,” works at the town’s nuclear power plant by day and “by night, works Springfield’s singles scene,” as Fox describes him.

Not bad … though I was hoping it would be a little more out of left field. He sounds awfully similar to Alberto Tomba, the Italian playboy Olympic ski gold medalist who was also dubbed “la Bomba”.

Chris Lilley (Summer Heights High and We Can Be Heroes) has a new project called Angry Boys:

Lilley has landed a co-production with ABC and HBO – not only an Australian first, but with an order for 12 episodes, 4 more than Summer Heights High. It will also air on the BBC.

Shooting in a mock documentary style, the series will explore ‘what it means to be a 21st century boy by putting the male of the species under the microscope.’

It’s a way off, but this will definitely be one to watch.

Australian blog TV Tonight is reporting that Foxtel will be offering legal TV downloads:

Each file will come with a 7 day license. Box Office titles (which attract a fee) are playable for 48 hours.

Too bad that it’s going to be wrapped up in DRM, and you’ll need to download the catchily-named “Foxtel Download Player” to play it (which will be Windows-only, presumably). Still, a step in the right direction.

Advertising Age reports that the UK is going to allow product placement for the first time.

In the country’s most popular soap, “Coronation Street,” customers at the Rover’s Return pub drink a fictional beer, Newton & Ridley, served on beer mats bearing the mock brewer’s logo. Viewers are used to seeing actors and presenters picking up bottles in such a way as to disguise the brand name, and even to seeing logos covered up with tape. When “American Idol” is shown in Britain, the Coke logo on Mr. Cowell’s cup is pixillated in an attempt to disguise it.

(“Pixillated”? What, replaced with a pixie?)

(Upon further investigation I’ve discovered that “pixillated” is an acceptable spelling. I still contend, however, that digitally replacing the cup with a pixie or other small mythical beast would be an effective - and entertaining - way to avoid product placement issues.)

Here’s a new show with an unlikely cast that I suspect will prove amusing. Premieres September 30 or whatever.

Jason Schwartzman high-fived me once. He’s a stand-up guy.

A woman draws in sand to create a mesmerising animation. From Україна має талант - aka "Ukraine's Got Talent".

Via mUmBRELLA.

Here’s a Vanity Fair article about the fascinating TV show Mad Men that focuses on its creator, Matthew Weiner, and his obsessive attention to detail:

John Slattery, who plays the droll and sybaritic Roger Sterling, one of the agency’s two named partners, told me about a scene he shot opposite Christina Hendricks. She plays Joan, the office manager with a Marilyn Monroe–esque figure and, beneath her steely command of the secretarial pool, a similarly Monroe-esque vulnerability. In the scene, the two characters are enjoying an adulterous afternoon in a plush hotel room. “We’ve ordered food,” Slattery recalled. “She doesn’t want to eat and I’m eating whatever it is—I’ve grabbed something and stuffed it in my mouth, which I think, to me, is part of the hedonism of the scene. It’s very decadent. And Matt comes in and he says, ‘You can’t eat! You can’t eat!’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean I can’t eat? In the script I’m talking about food and I’m encouraging her to eat, and the stage direction says I walk over to the food.’ He says, ‘It’s disgusting. You can’t eat.’ And I say, ‘All right.’ And he says, ‘All right, fine. If you have to eat, O.K., but just don’t take such a big bite.’ So I break off the tiniest piece of whatever the hell I was eating, but he goes, ‘It’s still … you can’t … no, you can’t.’ So, you know, he wants what he wants. And he has some freaky ideas of what’s palatable.”

I found this quote interesting:

He talks about “training the audience” to learn how to read the show, and says things like “It’s been a process for the audience to trust the show on some level, to think that we’re thinking about it as much as they hope we are.”

My experience is that newcomers to the show have to be “trained” (myself included), as it’s so different from anything else on TV.

Season three begins in the USA this coming Sunday.

When it comes to television, if it’s happening in the USA there’s a good chance it will happen everywhere else. So based on this article from Advertising Age, I suspect my TV viewing is set to decline even more:

Walt Disney recently disclosed that its ABC and ESPN TV networks are testing the efficiency of “upper-third messaging,” or graphics that appear in the top third of the TV screen. This comes after IAC Corp.’s Ask.com search site ran “crawl” ads along the bottom of the TV screen on selected networks earlier this year, marking one of the first times full-fledged advertising has run during a program, not just in the ad breaks that disrupt it.

Now that the gaping masses have adopted timeshifting technology – and its concomitant ability to skip over ads – the networks can no longer bunch all the ads together in between programmes. Fortunately for advertisers, however, consumers have become so used to being bombarded with messages simultaneously that we won’t mind allocating some neurons to absorbing sponsors’ messages while being spoonfed the latest celebrity swill.

Advertising is set to become a whole lot more difficult to ignore. If you keep watching TV, that is.

It’s weird to see Sacha Baron Cohen not in character for once. He seems like a pretty ordinary guy (although I don’t think he’s a fan of the musical stings that Letterman’s band give him – boodoom).

Via BuzzFeed.

Videogum nails what I’ve been saying all along … Entourage Season 6 in a Stupid, Boring, Lukewarm Nutshell.

Via Peach & Shag.

Oh man would this be a fun project. Two self-described Arrested Development superfans – Neil and Jeff – undertook to create a documentary about the show. It looks as though they’ve interviewed a lot of the key players, including Mitch Hurwitz and Ron Howard. From their description:

The overall goal of the documentary is to provide awareness and education of this brilliant, witty and original comedy. We are looking to interview viewers, cast, crew and any other industry figures that are fans or critics of the show.

You can watch the trailer, and there’s more information on their website.

Via kottke.org.

A well-researched, compelling argument that Liz Lemon is actually just Kermit the Frog (with genitals).

Via kottke.org.

So it has come to this. SBS’s “World News Australia”, the go-to channel for news hounds that prefer an international perspective, has been getting more commercial over the last few years. It used to be so serious that it was once parodied by a comedian with the phrase “we leave you now with pictures of people burning”. Tonight, however, they crossed into self-parody as we saw just how far they’ve slipped. The final item? A skateboarding dog. Replete with awful dog puns.

Alas, SBS World News Australia, we hardly knew ye.

Everyone’s favourite drama about a fictional advertising agency in the 1960s is set to return in August. There hasn’t been anywhere near enough on-screen smoking, womanising, and casual alcoholism since season two ended.

Via kottke.org.

Reminiscent of the popular trailer mashups (such a trailer for The Shining edited so it appears to be a sweet, heart-warming tale), this is the original opening of 80s sitcom Diff’rent Strokes set to a creepy score: Disturbin’ Strokes.

Get out of there Willis! He’s evil!

Via kottke.org.

Over the weekend I found time to watch the widely-reported battle between Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Jim Cramer of Mad Money. Stewart took issue – primarily with CNBC – over the way the networks were reporting the financial crisis. The series of clips escalate the “feud”, culminating in Cramer himself appearing as a guest on The Daily Show. The final clip makes for excruciating viewing as Cramer prostrates himself entirely, promising to try harder in the future.

Cramer vs Non-Cramer. Uncomfortable television at its finest.