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Photo TV, a twenty first century show

September 29, 2009 in Media, The other | No comments

As Ben Goldacre has pointed out, programmes for nerds and those with nerdish tendencies, are few and far between on television. The same is true of photography. We live in an age where ownership of photographic tools is widespread.  Camera phones and compact digital cameras are ubiquitous. Many people don’t realise the degree to which, in terms of artistic capability, the type of camera is irrelevant. Good photos are good photos.

Chase Jarvis demonstrates this with his book of iPhone photography: The Best Camera is The One That’s with You (picked up on via Ken Rockwell). Most photographers, in my experience (I’m not a photographer, I’m a hobby master), use particular kit because it makes their job easier, but given a camera phone, or compact digital camera, will produce photographs with artistic merit. Because the greatest common factor between the camera phone or compact, and the professional kit, is the photographer. A pro may require particular professional kit to do their job, but without the underlying skill, it’s irrelevant.

Most, if not all, contemporary technology shows focus on the latest gadgets, rather than what people actually own. It would be a truly wonderful thing if there was a photography show that engages and interacts with an audience, with a particular emphasis on technology that everyone owns. I say interacts because a major part of the show could be viewer submitted pictures.

A magazine format hosted by people with a genuine interest in photography. The show could focus on things common to all photography: lighting, location, composition and colour. So it’s relevant to people regardless of the camera they own. Segments on things like The Rule of Thirds, how time of a day affects a photograph, etc., and, at the end of the show, solicit picture from viewers using things discussed in the programme. Using whatever they have at hand.

There could be segments on professional photography, and photographers. Giving viewers an insight into the world of professional photography. Covering things like fashion photography, commercial photography, wildlife photography, landscape photography, (s)urban photography, paparazzi celebrity photography, and so on. Even photographic history could be examined.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being all old fashioned and Reithian about it. It’d be perfect for the BBC. But I really hope someone commissions a show like that. I claim no ownership of the idea (take it! take it! I have about five to ten ideas a day), it seems obvious to me, and could be talking bollocks. It is, after all, the internet.

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Review: Blood, Sweat, and Takeaways

May 20, 2009 in Media, The other | No comments

I’m watching a mind-fuck via the BBC called “Blood, Sweat, and Takeaways” (it’s on iPlayer). It’s the televisual equivalent of slumming it. Six typical young people are taken to work in developing countries – to work in factories and occupations that sell to the west. First problem is the typical people chosen as the subjects for the show, are naïve, loud, and rude. I’m all for that. Provided it’s funny. It’s not. They’re English Borats. Maybe it’d be funny if I wasn’t English.

I somewhat hope they’ll be mugged. But whatever I hope has no bearing on the subject. To think otherwise is magic thinking, and you’ll go to hell for magic thinking. I know, in theory, the show is good: giving people that don’t read, and have no imagination, an idea of what global consumerism means for people. But in reality it’s just another reality show.

About a bunch of typical people, that apply for a show, are pre-screened, pre-approved, in a fish out of water scenario, acting like twats.

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Reggie Perrin

April 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | No comments

Yes. (Clickable)

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Fuck off.  No. Oh FFS.

Remakes are fucked.  Thing is, the only successful remakes are where they change it nearly beyond recognition (the Battlestar Galactica method), or, keep it reasonably close, capturing the essential qualities of the original despite modernisation (The Star Trek Next TNG method). If it’s anywhere in between the two you end up with Carry on Columbus, Star Trek Voyager, and virtually every other remake or spin-off, including some I probably haven’t watched.

Watch for yourself on iPlayer (click No above). If you’re abroad, you’re not missing much. Things to note: colour saturation, audio gain on the laughter track, exaggerated facial expressions, minimal distance between gags and punchlines, Reggie’s pseudo existential angst, the difficulty in suspending belief, on top of a grinding feeling that you’re watching the original as interpreted by idiots.

They’ve used some kind of phaser in the new version of the old theme tune.  That’s almost a metaphor for the show.

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Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

April 20, 2009 in The other | No comments

Tonight I had a chance to watch Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle on BBC 2. It was good.   I don’t like watching old bands doing their old stuff. I don’t know why. I think it could be the people I associate with attending the concerts of old bands doing their old stuff. I’m not opposed to old bands. Or, to an extent, old stuff. But, when a band becomes, in essence, a tribute act, to itself, and gigs are attended by people mindlessly shouting for the band’s radio hits, it’s dull. The best artists put a new spin on their art, to avoid going mad. Or give it a new context.

The same goes for comedians. Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle probably did interesting things and, until tonight, I missed it. Out of the prejudice that people who watched it are like Genesis fans post Phil Collins singing.  Or people shouting things suspiciously like ‘blahblah-blahblah-blah’  to the first ten or so bars of  Bound 4 Da Reload  by Oxide & Neutrino, at an ironic millennium revival party, in Surrey. Dressed like people from the year 2000.  Because they are, and are so mind-numbingly stupid, they need to be reminded of it at fixed intervals.

It’s on iPlayer.  No doubt bittorrent(s) too.

There’s a collection of his previous work (with – here – Richard Herring) here (that will work in the rest of the world). I can’t say I watched him when he was funny, because he’s still funny. I was going to say that he’s never been funny. But couldn’t lie. On the other-hand, as a species, we’re often twats. And with the previous line I hedge my bets.

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David Mitchell’s face, BBC Fines

April 12, 2009 in The other | No comments

On the Observer website, front page, to the left (no pun intended), is David Mitchell’s face, along with a sub heading that says “I’ll tell you what really offends me”. It got my blood boiling, a bit, because I was thinking: pray tell, what is this ironic thing you have decided to be upset* about for entertainment purposes. It’s something about his face. Given I’ve decided to be upset about something for entertainment purposes it may as well be his curmudgeonly** face.

But, as is often the case, he actually said something interesting; not that I’m implying that he doesn’t say interesting things, he does. He’s just got one of those faces. The face of an angry village gardener. He’s one of those people who, when they’ve totally lost their rag, and are angrily berating, could only elicit laughter. Evolution is efficient. There must be a reason for it. Other than everyone being accidental occupants of 1 in 100 billion planets, in an ever expanding universe, we’re all going to die eventually, and there is no god.

He’s annoyed with Hazel Blears. For those of you who aren’t in the UK she’s a kind of news troll, who craves attention in a very sad way, and is pulled out of the sack as often as Polly Toynbee, every time her party, New Labour, fucks up. Her intellectual news repertoire can be defined as such:

  • The Tories are worse.
  • I agree with the tabloids, but the Tories are worse.
  • In my constituency people don’t care.
  • We never do anything wrong.
  • I’m a common person just like you, I’ll pretend to be as ignorant.
  • Tora! Tora! Tora!
  • Bloggers are all cynical about politics. (lol)

She’s Polly Toynbee for truly thick people.

Anyway, she had a go at Russell Brand and that knob-end Jonathan Ross, again, by suggesting that they pay a fine the BBC received for that stupid phone call that generated a few headlines. The one with that doddering Manuel bloke (¿¿ qué he hecho yo para merecer esto ??).

Aside from the utter stupidity and bandwagon jumping***, any amount of government expenditure, be it social, or hospitals, or porn, dwarfs in comparison to the government debt generated in the last 9 months. When it comes to this government giving anyone financial advice, or lecturing anyone about waste, or anything of that nature, they are the biggest hypocrites.

I heartily approve of Russell Brand’s Twitter stream, it’s a little bit like his radio show****, without the censorship imposed by a political class that have disappeared up their own arses. It could do with Matt Morgan interjecting occasionally.

And, before I leave you, for some toast, the Tories are a bunch of cocks too. People say that a crippling bad back affects your temperament. They can go fuck themselves.

* Yeah, I know, everything below this point I’m only mildly upset about in real life, and I am actually quite mild and pleasant.
** Thank-you Richard Herring.
*** This blog post could be.  I’m not an impartial judge.
**** If radio wasn’t invented and we had to rely on telegraphs, we’d have something like Twitter.

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Horne & Corden: Kicking something while it’s up by telling people to watch it

March 15, 2009 in Media, The other, This | No comments

Seeing is believing.  I think there’s going to be a bit of a Horne & Corden backlash – as reported by Andrew Johnson in today’s Independent.  I think that people should make up their own mind.   Maybe I’m being snobby and elitist (although such accusations are tacit admissions that the show is simple). Maybe I’m some kind of prude.  Maybe I’m jealous.

I really think people should make up their own mind.

So, with no further ado, here’s the show on iPlayer, and for all of you without UK proxies, here’s ‘ Two new fragrances by Fag Le Jay Jean-Peterson‘ (I am not making this up – not my words, not internet irony, not the words of the Westboro Baptist Church,  but the words of BBC 3* ).

On the internet you can slag a television show off merely by telling people to watch it.

* ‘… Tim Goodall, a gay TV journalist, who’s more interested in sipping Pina Colada and discussing how fit the soldiers are in Basra than delivering breaking news …’ – translation: lol, gay – not my words, but the words of BBC 3′s press department.

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Homosexual Nazis, gay war correspondents, and for fuck’s sake

March 14, 2009 in Media, The other | No comments

Years ago, at school – a macho boys school – homo and poof were frequent terms of abuse for anything that seemed effeminate or weak. It was primarily driven by a lack of life experience (ignorance), a kind of lazy, ill-thought out, homophobia. Upon leaving school most people, possessing half a brain or more, and a bit of life experience, rapidly realise that people are generally people regardless of their gender. There are copious amounts of stupid people of every gender. It’s the one thing that unites all nationalities. The basic problem with humour derived from gay stereotypes is pretty much the same as humour derived from any other stereotype. Unless it’s ironic, or has some deeper meaning, it’s obvious, and because it’s obvious, it’s retarded.

I could be missing something about Al Murray’s ‘gay’ Nazi, and Horne & Corden’s ‘gay’ war correspondent, because I don’t think any of the comedians in question are homophobic. In Al Murray’s case he’s got a track record of taking the piss out of homophobia in the form of the pub landlord (‘never confused’). But in the case of the ‘gay’ Nazi and the ‘gay’ war correspondent the humour is derived from some pretty negative homosexual stereotypes. This can be contrasted with Sascha Baron Cohen’s Brüno – here for instance – which is essentially about peoples reactions to absurd situations, and absurd stereotypes, rather than a strict play on stereotypes. If people are just laughing at the stereotype then the comedy is retarded.

I’m not homosexual, and I’ve never experienced the kinds of bullying or discrimination that people have, but I have seen how ignorance about other genders can lead to a kind of lazy, semi-malevolent, homophobia. I’m principally opposed to the ‘gay’ Nazi sketch and Horne & Corden’s ‘gay’ war correspondent sketches because I think they’re retarded sketches, aimed at idiots, and lazy, in some very fundamental ways. People forget that in order to be edgy you have to be smart.

Given how thick people are it should do rather well.

FFS.

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Stabbed: The Truth About Knife Crime

January 20, 2009 in Media, The other | No comments

On your BBC.  It’s not like there’s anything else going on.  A good use of the license fee.  Everyone is affected by knife-crime.  So let’s wheel out grieving relatives of knife crime victims and ask them what they think should be done nationally.

Sure to be as objective as past media treatments, see 5cc here for selected highlights.

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The New Capitalism

December 9, 2008 in The other | No comments

Robert Peston’s thoughts on the future of the world economy. PDF linked from the blog entry.

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This week’s Screenwipe

December 3, 2008 in The other, This | 2 comments

The current episode of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe is quite special (series 4 episode 3, or series 5 episode 3 if you count from somewhere else, see comments below). During the programme he chats with several prominent UK screen writers about their work. It’s available on iPlayer here, and foreigners will soon find it on YouTube.

I don’t normally like watching things like that episode, because it sometimes reveals a dispassionate professionalism in heroes that tinges the way I see them forever, like they’ve been dipped in the bog of eternal stench. I don’t necessarily want to know the artist to appreciate their art. I’m that childish.

But all of the people in the programme (Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Graham Linehan, Russell T Davies, Paul Abbott, Tony Jordan) came across well, and none of the questions asked by Brooker were stupid in a way that I, as a layman, could detect.

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