Cracker: Wallywood
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Here's a thought. The sign could say Wellington. Hollywood is, after all, the actual name of the actual place. The very nature of the sign is reference enough.
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The people who will see the sign most are ground-level Wellingtonians, not air passengers (many of whom arrive and leave via the south anyway). It is located at the entrance to Welli's film industry enclave, so it's labelling that rather than the whole city.
Having said which, it does not seem to be finding much favour beyond the city's rather bland mayor.
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The very nature of the sign is reference enough.
Plus the copyright that could be attached???
Having said which, it does not seem to be finding much favour beyond the city's rather bland mayor.
But it has found the debate, which surely is the intended purpose. So maybe not bland, just tacky? :)
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I somehow doubt the airport company or council approvers thought "let's inspire a debate"
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I somehow doubt the airport company or council approvers thought "let's inspire a debate"
Well, let that be a lesson to them then, because that's what they got. :)
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I learnt to do the binocular thing( although I don't recall using that term) so I could put down the stereoscope and just go googly eyed. It was very cool.
I taught myself how to do this when I was a kid, sitting in our dining room and staring at the wall opposite. We had this deeply 70s wallpaper, with a repeating pattern of decorated orange and brown circles marching across the wall in rows.
If I looked at one of the circles and then sort of lost focus on it and let the image of the circle next to it move across until it was sitting on top of the image of the first circle (by progressively going more and more cross-eyed), once the circles were perfectly aligned they would "lock together" and all of sudden it would all go 3D. Hours of entertainment to be had during boring family dinners.
I can still do it - it works easily with any horizontally repeating pattern - or of course with a proper stereoscopic image. You just have to find the locking point.
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Thanks Geoff and Recordari, yes, dark areas of consideration, best to just leave it at that... Geoff I'm still interested if you have access to any info on actual movie popularity. I'd also be keen to read that Sight & Sound interview if you can post a link.
The people who will see the sign most are ground-level Wellingtonians,
Who I'm sure are well aware of the location of Miramar.
Thanks for the heads up on the actual Hero figure Ben.
Here's a thought. The sign could say Wellington. Hollywood
Having been asked numerous times where I'm from, I'm 99% met with the standard 'beautiful country ' routine. People know this about New Zealand, tourists go there for the natural beauty. beauty such as a lush green hill in the middle of a densely urbanized area. The whole concept of ruining that with a big fuck off ugly sign shows scant consideration for the niche tourism market we inhabit. Sometimes I've tried to move the conversation onto other things "we also have a burgeoning film industry", I generally find
1. Few (relative) outside the country know the films that were made in New Zealand because they're essentially just;
English (aka American) language films, globally distributed with maximum 'splash' distribution and marketing. ie Avatar, 2012 etc etc.
2. They don't really care, because anyone can make a movie.
It's a case of stick to what you're good at it, i.e being bushy and beautiful. and once again that old Fred Dagg number is ringing in the ears.
Still on the topic Pinewood in England got it right, and something more regional like Kauriwood would at least show the mildest sense of culturally relevant creativity. From everything I've read on this topic, I think it's high time those guys at the airport were sent looking for new jobs and time Wellington elected a new mayor.
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It's a case of stick to what you're good at it, i.e being bushy and beautiful.
What's most useful to emphasise - unless we see ourselves as nothing more than a service economy overrun by tourists - is that we're really smart and practical. That's exportable, and it's what expat New Zealanders are already known for in many industries.
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I agree Sacha, hence the beauty that is Welllington's urban planning should be allowed to breath.
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<duplicate>
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Geoff I'm still interested if you have access to any info on actual movie popularity. I'd also be keen to read that Sight & Sound interview if you can post a link.
Box office is the prevailing measure, even though it often employs very creative accounting.
The Tarantino interview doesn't appear to be available electronically (or I can't find it) but I am happy to send you a copy through ye old postal system. Just bung me an email <lealand@waikato.ac.nz> with your address.
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Chris, to be fair I don't think anyone is concerned at the prospect of losing a lush natural feature - it's a nondescript scraggy lug of rock.
Their civic dignity on the other hand..
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Thanks Geoff, I'll have an ask around here before troubling you too much.
Sacha, what I would give to look out my window and see a nondescript scraggy lug of rock. those planes, mosquitoed against the seascape. It's paradise...with wind.
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It's a case of stick to what you're good at it, i.e being bushy and beautiful.
That does sound like a recipe to just do nothing, which I don't think is especially cool, however apt to it that we are.
Just being bushy and beautiful has basically nothing to do with me, nor much of the NZ I spent 99% of my time in. I don't think that having a small piece of the place aspiring to emulate Hollywood is really that awful, although I'd personally just as soon have us aspiring to Silicon Valley, but that's just me being selfish.
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we're really smart and practical.
Yes, it does seem foolish to copy an idea for the sake of copying a city who were filming nearly 100 years ago and put their name of their suburb on their hill.
This idea is nothing more than the "fart" joke it probably was at some dinner party. It will always get the odd laugh followed by the majority who would see it as a poor attempt to copy another place, besidesHollywood wont allow it anyway.What an insult. -
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I'd personally just as soon have us aspiring to Silicon Valley,
So let's put one at the top of Mt Aspiring. Tongue in cheek all the way. Or at least Tongue and cheek, with broken body parts. MT ASPIRIN....G. ;)
I'll get my coat. -
That would be a Freudian twist, to put a valley on a mountain. Ambitious too.
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to put a valley on a mountain. Ambitious too.
National even. "Ambitious for New Zealand"
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Actually are we not going to have a few valley's in some of our National Parks? Mr Brownlee has an original Idea!!
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Although more ambitious would be to build some symbol which was even more gaudy and massive than the original. Then Wellington would have it's Sky Tower.
My favourite suggestion is a giant Kong. It is a little bit symbolic of the NZ film industry, after all. A beast hidden on a remote island, worshipped only by the locals, is captured by an American film magnate, and displayed in chains for the pleasure of the crowds. But then it busts free, and heads straight for the nearest symbol of American Awesome Hugeness.
I hope it doesn't have the same sad ending, though. Shot down by critics, it slides from the dizzying heights, free falls, and smashes into the street below, giving hundreds of reporters their last money-shot and a chance for some cheezy analysis.
More likely is a far more NZ solution, it retires back to it's island, stalking it's home valley, chomping up all the prettiest local actors, and the legend is forgotten when some Australian actor puts on a Tarzan suit. Kong then moves to Australia for the tax cuts, and gets a job as a dolly grip. He loses the job after accidentally-on- purpose dropping a 200 kg camera on Russell Crowe's head, causing a huge brawl. Crowe is narrowly beaten, and signs Kong up for the Rabbitohs. The team fights it's way to the final, but Kong is accused of steroid abuse, and refuses to give a urine sample, and the Rabitohs are humped. Enraged, he climbs Centrepoint Tower to enjoy a revolving buffet of the winning team, the Warriors. A congenital heart condition makes this his last meal, the fatty meal clogging his arteries, and he plunges way less distance than he would have if it was the Auckland Sky Tower, straight into the monorail terminal, completely destroying it. No one is hurt initially, but the monorail does not shut down, and every single person in every carriage is dropped onto Kong's carcass over the next 30 minutes. Due to the Warriors victory, these are mostly NZers on their way to the revolving restaurant. The pile of NZ dead grows higher whilst the Australian parliament debates whether it is actually in the nation's interests to contact the monorail authorities. But the government is overthrown when it is found that Shane Warne was actually in one of the carriages, going incognito in his real hair, and to quote the Leader of the Opposition "They'd sat around on their fucken fat arses doing nothing while foreign monkeys crushed both their sporting dignity and one of their greatest heroes". The station is renamed "Googly station", and any NZ involvement in the affair forgotten.
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1. Few (relative) outside the country know the films that were made in New Zealand ...
But surely they've all seen the classic Battletruck!
That would be a Freudian twist, to put a valley on a mountain. Ambitious too.
With supersymmetry (if its not a silly con) it would be more of a Moebius twist - voila the Anti-Valley...
another way of having a valley on a mountain ~ that slow moving, Russell Crowe chiller - GlaciatorAmbitious for New Zealand"
aah yes the Rethink Big meme
I think they meant "Ambit IOUs for NZ"
...stuff we'll be paying for, for years to come
with often no visible return... -
Shot down by critics, it slides from the dizzying heights, free falls, and smashes into the street below, giving hundreds of reporters their last money-shot and a chance for some cheezy analysis.
That would be The Lovely Bones, wouldn't it?
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That would be The Lovely Bones, wouldn't it?
That's in Bad Taste, surely, he said Feebly... :- )
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That's in Bad Taste, surely, he said Feebly... :- )
Yes, but,You knew that. :)
That was very funny Ben :))
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