Cannes Young Lions

I’m feeling nostalgic so I’m reposting this happy news (2009) from my old blog.

Just after Tristan and Ara arrived back from the Cannes Lions advertising awards last year, we got together for a celebration. My son Tristan Burrell, and his teammate, Lauren Cassar, took out the Young Lions gold medal for media –Australia’s first ever Young Lions win.

Each year young people in the advertising industry compete at the national level, first individually and later in teams of two in the areas of media, cyber, print or film. A team from each section is chosen to go to Cannes to compete internationally.

After Tristan and Lauren, and the other 25 teams in the media section, received their brief, they had 24 hours to develop a pitch. The challenge: to create a media strategy to raise awareness and funding for the World Food Program, the United Nations frontline agency in the fight against global hunger.

The wait between their presentation, Abolish the Penny and the announcement of the winning team was agonizing.

Tris and Ara look super happy don’t they?

Well they would, wouldn’t they….they’ve just come home after three weeks in France.

Vale Ross Coleman

I wrote this post for another blog 2009 after the death of Ross Coleman. Newspaper tributes described a full and productive life but only his performances can capture his energy and love of dance.

Here on Billy Thorpe’s It’s all Happening, broadcast on the Seven Network in the late 60s, a 17 yo RC can be seen dancing behind Stevie Wright, also about 17 yo, as the Easybeats perform She’s So Fine. Check out his inimitable take on gogo dancing.

RC also worked both as choreographer and dancer, as a teenager, for Bandstand hosted by Brian Henderson. In big demand, he was everywhere in the late 60s.

His TV appearances began as a child with this performance as an original Happy Little Vegemite. This is the second of a series of ads he appeared in for the iconic spread.

His later choreographical work included Pippin and Priscilla Queen of the Desert which will debut on Broadway shortly.

FYI the dark haired guitarist on the left in the first video clip is George Young, older brother of Angus and Malcolm. And the blonde lead guitarist is Harry Vanda. Vanda and Young went on to become influential figures in the Australian music industry.

Been Rich All My Life

What do chorus girls do when they reach their 80s and 90s? Well, if you are one of The Silver Belles, you keep on performing. Been Rich all my Life is a fascinating piece of social history, documenting the lives of four remarkable women.The Silver Belles became friends in the 1930s when they worked together at The Cotton Club and Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

Each of the women has a great story to tell. Fay, for example, left home at 12, hopped on a freight train and went on to lead a rich and fulfilling life as a dancer all over the world. In her 50s when her dance bookings dried up she drove taxis and later, found work on the Alaskan Pipeline.

Been Rich All my Life is a testament to independence, resilience, and courage; catch it when you can.

Tidbits One

Amidst celebrations of the 20^th anniversary of The Simpsons in Cannes, Matt Groening talks about the background to his creation and the family that inspired it. Read more here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/tv–radio/how-a-real-life-bart-turned-his-family-into-the-simpsons/2010/01/08/1262453672924.html

Uh-oh. TV watching is linked to a premature death according to a study published in Circulation.  Professor David Dunstan who works with Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne says

“[p]eople who watch four or more hours of television a day have a 46 per cent higher risk of [early] death from all causes and 80 per cent increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease.”

AND moreover,

‘the increased risk of premature death was independent of other risk factors like smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol, diet or exercise.’

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/12/2790412.htm

This research has huge implications for those of us who spend most of the day in front of any sort of screen.

David Dale discusses Avatar and some attempts to improve the plot so that its ‘storyline [might] match its presentation’ at http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/adding-to-the-shades-of-avatar-20100108-lyv0.html

some holiday relaxation

Be Kind Rewind is a charming flick about friendship, community, and the love of movies.

As a result of an incident at the local power plant a magnetised Jerry (Jack Black) accidentally erases all the videotapes in the video store where his friend Mike (Mos Def) works. In order to meet demand from customers they recreate the lost movies with the help of a young woman from the drycleaners, and using just a camcorder. When asked by a customer why the movies take so long to arrive and cost more than other videos Jerry blurts out that it’s because they have to come from Sweden. “Hence”, he says, “the films are referred to as ‘Sweded’”.

Their sweded films are hilarious and along with the camouflage scene at the power plant are highlights of the movie. According to the credits they should be available at the Be Kind Rewind website, but sadly, not so. You can find some made by others, however @ http://www.swededmovies.org/ and on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/user/BeKindMovie#p/f …………….or perhaps make your own.

It was wonderful to see Mia Farrow again; and the casting of Mos Def as Mike is brilliant, his calmness a counterpoint to Jerry’s excess.

BTW at our place we’re planning on sweding an episode of Man vs Wild. Follow this link and you’ll get an idea of what inspired us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osE542oTMDA

The Power of Web 2.0

The easy to use social software associated with Web 2.0 has provided the basis for an increase in, and expansion of, communication and collaboration activities on the Internet. Social networking sites, blogs, podcasting, social bookmarking sites, wikis, online gaming communities, and expressive forms such as mash-ups are ‘transforming the way people live, work and play’ (Corriera, 2000, p.8).  As forms of user-led content creation these activities draw attention to how passive website consumption has given way to active roles as producer and user for website visitors (Bruns, 2008; Benkler, 2006).It is important to develop an understanding of how these platforms are changing the way we interact, and the way ‘we produce and consume information’ (Deuze, 2006, p. 66).

Developing out of the interactivity enabled by Web 2.0 technologies a ‘new capacity to collaboratively develop, distribute, share, and communicate knowledge’ (Flew, 2008, p.21-22) has opened up an online world of participatory cultures. Terms like social production (Benkler, 2006) and produsage (Bruns, 2008) are used to describe the activities of people working together to produce content online. These terms focus on the role of the active user; the website visitor who is both a producer and a user of a site (Bruns, 2008; Benkler, 2006), in processes of user-led content creation[1]. Central to this process is the concept of collective intelligence which refers to ‘the power of networked communities in developing  knowledge systems that are not only greater than the sum of their individual parts, but that grow, evolve, and collectively learn through ongoing interaction’ (Flew, 2008, p. 64).

References

Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Berners-Lee, T., (2000). Weaving the Web: the past, present and future of the World Wide Web by its inventor. London: Texere.

Bruns, A. (2008) Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: from production to produsage. New York: Peter Lang.

Correia A. (2002). Information Literacy for and Active and Effective Citizenship. Retrieved October 9, 2008 from http://www.nclis.gov/libinter/infolitconf&meet/papers/correia-fullpaper.pdf. Sorry, this link appears to be broken.

Deuze, M. (2006). ‘Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: considering principal components of a digital culture.’ The Information Society. 22:2, 63-75. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from Informaworld database.

Flew, T. (2008). New Media: an introduction. (3^rd ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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[1] These ideas are not new. This is how Berners-Lee had perceived the World Wide Web from its conception, in terms of intercreativity; that is ‘interaction and collaboration’ together with ‘capacity to create and distribute new content’(Berners-Lee 2000: 183).

Vale Ellie Greenwich Part One

The great songwriter and singer Ellie Greenwich died earlier this year. Don’t recognise the name? These song titles might jog your memory: And then he kissed me? Leader of the Pack?

The first clip is a track recorded by Ellie herself, looking oh-so-60s with straight, blunt cut hair, thick fringe, dark eye make-up, pale lips and THAT outfit.

[Sorry, this clip has been removed by YouTube ]

In a later collaboration with Phil Spector and Jerry Barry, she wrote I can Hear Music, recorded by The Ronettes. A later version by The Beach Boys is one of my favourite songs.

How can they not be distracted by Mike Love’s whackiness?

Welcome

Welcome to media[tions], my new blog where we can talk about media old + new, and popular culture in it’s very broadest sense:  everything from advertising, fashion and celebrity to film, music and books.

My early posts will probably focus on the history of popular culture as I’m working on a little project which looks at the intersection of popular culture with biography.

Although I’m a sociologist I have no background in media and cultural studies, so I’ll be finding my way; look out for loads of posts tagged cultural studies 101.

But first I must share with you  a recent column from Richard Glover in which he responds to Sir Tim Berner-Lee’s confession that the // included in web addresses are really not necessary. He discusses “The not so superhighway”.

I’m sure this column will chime with digital immigrants everywhere.