FILM REVIEW - HER How it should look

The new HAL is Her(e)

HER Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi MA15+ 126 mins Director: Spike Jonze Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson



I always liked those amazing ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes when I was younger, and even last year the wonderful ‘Black Mirror’ intrigued me. The film ‘Her’ appears to be picking up on the same themes. 

Joaquin Phoenix plays Ted Twombly, a lonely writer who develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased computer software operating system that's designed to meet his every need. 

This film could only come from the mind of Spike Jonze, the man who brought us the wildly wacky Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. This film features a wonderful support cast including Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson as ‘Samantha’ who just might be the new HAL 9000.

(originally published in Ultimo Buzz, February 2014)

RADIO ADVERT ... Should look (and sound!) like this

RADIO ADVERTSING

There are 2 main styles of 'straight' (non-creative) Radio Advertising. If you wish to write a radio advert, this is probably the style you should follow. Creative ads, are very difficult to write, but by all means, if you feel up to it... try it out! I will discuss the basic styles here:

The first style is TWO people speaking. One asks questions, the other answers
VANGUARD EXAMPLE 1:
SFX: A Johnny Vanguard song (Rolling Haystax) is playing and female(1) voice is singing along with it.
SFX: Door bell continuously rings.
Female 2: Sorry to interrupt, but I heard you rocking out to one of Johnny Vanguard's songs, and I thought you'd be THRILLED to know Johnny is releasing his NEW Album CITIZEN URBAN! on the 2nd of June!
Female1: No WAY! A new JOHNNY VANGUARD Album?
Female2: YES! Citizen Urban! It has loads of songs you can rock to including the smash hits Rain with the sun, Rock the Floor, and Money I don’t need. Citizen Urban is the MUST Have Album for this year.
Female1: Where can I get it from!?
Female2: You can purchase Citizen Urban from ANY leading music stores near you from the 2nd of June! or download it at iTunes or http://johnnyvanguard.blogspot.com/, but wait there's more... with every purchase receive your very own signed Johnny V poster, but hurry, stocks are limited.
SFX: Johnny Vanguard's music fades out.


The second style is one person speaking with SFX/Music in the background:

VANGUARD EXAMPLE 2:

ANNOUNCER:
The incredible Johnny Vanguard is preparing to launch his much anticipated NEW ALBUM, Old Revival Back Home, Featuring his new hit single- “Resurgence”!
SFX: “RESURGENCE” CHORUS: 3 SECONDS
Next Thursday, May 1st the rocking third album ‘Old Revival’ will be launched at the Gaellic Club in Sydney with a selection of songs performed by Johnny himself!
It will all kick off at 7pm. Free entry, great music performances and the new album! This is the first we have heard from Johnny, and it’s about time! This album is a loud and mottled compilation of songs ... and it definitely ROCKS!
There’s no sign this music legend is going anywhere without another ARIA. Already commended for beautiful beats and exceptional drum work, Rolling Stain says this album is 'worthy of a goood listen'. ‘Old Revival’ is a tribute to rock, incorporating an amazing collection of rock styles, and as the name suggests- Vanguard is reviving a lot of his old styles including some acid rock…
Vanguard won’t be promoting this album anywhere else in Sydney!
Not even ‘Back Home' .... Where ever that is!
So, be at the Gaellic Club, May 1st, 7pm OR make sure you grab the album-
IN STORES FROM May 3rd or download ringtones and samples at http://johnnyvanguard.blogspot.com/
SFX: LOUD CYMBAL CLASH – END

PRINT ADVERT ... should look like this 1

VISIT!

The Springfield Nuclear Power Plant

Visit the famous Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on your next tour to the town of Springfield. This infamous Plant houses a single reactor and contains a state of the art Fissionator 1952 Slow-Fission Reactor

On your tour of the plant you’ll be introduced to all of its famous features including:

• Glowing rats in the bowels of the building
• pipes and drums leaking radioactive waste
• plutonium used as a paperweight
• cracked cooling towers
• and dangerously high Geiger counter readings

VOTED worst nuclear plant in 1986 !

PRINT ADVERT ... should look like this 2

For this exercise I decided to choose the TV show The Simpsons.
The entire print ad was created using Microsoft Publisher.
The idea came from a publisher template.
The ad promotes the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant that is famous in this show.
The images were taken from the internet.
Once the publisher phase was finished, the ad was printed and then scanned to a JPG format.
The entire process took about 2 hours.

It is not always possible to get an ad to look this good, especially when you are working only with BLOGGER, but there are many interesting things you can still achieve.

Photo post ...how this should look

The Outback
My Thoughts on the outback.

Here are a few photos I've found on the outback. These come from the internet (www.google.com) and also SMUGMUG (www.smugmug.com ).

The first three all represent images of the outback. The last one is a QANTAS ad I found about the bush.

I like the second photo. It has a good feel to it.

FEATURE STORY Should look like this

Salvation Army Officer comforts bus crash children

A veteran Salvation Army officer is providing counselling and ongoing support in the aftermath of last month’s bus crash in Vaucluse that injured six school children.

Anthony Mcadam, an Envoy in the Salvation Army for 20 years has visited many of the sick children in hospital offering his help to parents and friends after the accident that happened last week.

Feedback from the parents of the children, with whom he is working with closely, indicates that his work is having a beneficial effect. John Marton, of Kogarah said “Envoy Mcadam is very helpful in providing an opportunity to share our suffering, and as a means of comfort and healing”.

“These visits have opened up for me some of the richest and most rewarding opportunities which I have ever experienced. There were some very precious moments with these very brave children,” Envoy Mcadam said.

“Everyday people, from all walks of life, have expressed their concern about the accident and the suffering.”

The accident occurred last week when a bus carrying the children collided with a car driven by a 63-year-old American tourist.

In the week following the accident, Envoy Mcadam has made daily visits of many hours to the hospital.

“By day three the condition of many of these children had noticeably improved,” he said, adding that all have now left hospital.

The driver has been ordered to face court on negligent driving charges early next month

FILM REVIEW - How it should look

Poignant 'Brokeback' a new trail mix

Stars: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway.
Director: Ang Lee
Running Time: 108 minutes

Rating: Four Stars

The nights are cold and lonely in the mountains of Wyoming. Two isolated cowboys stumble across a way to take the chill off as "Brokeback Mountain" gently unfolds into an epic, heartbreaking love story that's far greater than the sum of its parts.

Even while director Ang Lee's magnificent achievement is being reduced to the catchphrase "the gay cowboy movie," "Brokeback" is also about the classic American journey and what we've lost along the way, including our diminishing bond with this great land of ours.

It's 1963, and two Marlboro men who barely grunt hello apply for a temp job herding sheep. Rodeo rider Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and rugged, Gary Cooper-ish ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) are so flat broke that Brokeback is their only option - a thankless job for two with a pup tent for one, and no one to keep them warm.

Except each other.

Ennis, who speaks few words, conveys plenty. He's been brought up to believe men don't go with men, a lesson reinforced by something horrible he witnessed in his youth.

But the nights are cold, the whiskey hot. After an unplanned, energetic tumble with Jack in the pup tent, satisfying a need as primal as that for food, Ennis uses up some of his precious supply of mumbled words: "I ain't queer, ya know."

Maybe, maybe not. What these two feel is eternal and nameless - even they don't know what it is (although the more adventurous Jack has an inkling). The closest Ennis gets to acknowledging his feelings is when he doubles over and wretches.

Brokeback gets them good, as Ennis later remarks.

The landscape is vast (it was filmed in Canada), but the neighbors' minds are narrow. So the cowboys go their separate ways, marry and have kids, and lead lives of quiet desperation despite a few quickie reunions back where it all started.

Jack and Ennis are victims of their time, and not just sexually. They're cowboys, that iconic figure of American history, but they could well be the last ones, their skills and rough edges increasingly useless in the modern world.

The persistent ache in this movie comes from thwarted desire. Forget the sex (and the sex scenes are decorous). The great tragedy is that they leave everything they value back on Brokeback. Ennis trades in the great outdoors for an airless apartment over a laundromat. Jack gives up bucking broncos for motorized farm equipment.

Thematically, the movie - adapted from a story by Annie Proulx - fits right in with the upcoming "The New World," in which the bond between Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith is likewise rooted in a shared love of a wild, unruly, rapidly disappearing landscape.

Jack and Ennis' feelings transcend anything as mundane as sexual orientation. In fact, the sexiest moment is when Jack doesn't peek as Ennis strips down to wash just yards away.

Gyllenhaal is terrific, as are Michelle Williams as Ennis' crushed, bitter wife, and Anne Hathaway as Jack's coldly oblivious one.

But the movie belongs to Ledger, who turns in an astonishing, Oscar-worthy performance as a man who knows he's drowning but won't swim. His words choke in his throat from fear of what they might express.

Like many of Ang Lee's films ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), this one drips with longing - in this case, for a vanished breed of man, for the vanished wilderness, and for a pure kind of love that has no label and needs no justification.




Thanks to NYdaily news:
http://www.nydailynews.com/12-09-2005/front/story/373326p-317189c.html

NEWS STORY- Should look like this

Randwick bus crash injures eight children


Eight Sydney primary school children were injured when a car driven by a 63-year-old American tourist collided with a school bus carrying 60 students on excursion today, police said.
The accident - which also involved an ice-cream van - happened about 11.20am (AEDT) when the man allegedly did an illegal U-turn in Randwick, crashing into the busload of Vaucluse Primary School students.

The young pupils were headed to the University of NSW for a field trip.
Eight Year Five and Six students were taken to the Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick with minor injuries including a suspected broken wrist, superficial abrasions and shock.
The driver of the car, on holiday from the United States, was charged with negligent driving, police said.

Police were not immediately sure where in the US he was from. The bus and car also came into collision with an ice-cream van.

"There was a collision between a bus and a vehicle, and at that stage they then careered into a third vehicle and that is how the ice-cream truck became involved," a police spokesman said.
"The school is contacting parents to let them know what had occurred."

The 52 uninjured children were transferred to another bus and returned to school shortly after the accident.

"The two occupants from the other vehicles were not injured," the spokesman said.
Police took possession of all the vehicles involved for further investigation, the spokesman said.