Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Sacha,
And, I have just discovered, directed by actual documentarian Leanne Pooley. Ah.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Labour’s was good positive, people oriented stuff too,
but where were the Christchurch MPs or any mention of it,
it is, after all, something that will affect the whole country
for some time, and it has the requisite ‘struggle quotient’…Noticed that too. It's either a "don't go there" call, or they're saving something.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Keir Leslie,
Nah, it is very calculatedly not hammer and sickle. It is Old Labour if I may be excused the Anglicism. There’s someone who has a very precise finger on the pulse, in terms of a targeted retro-but-hipster-but-modern look that is really really in right now.
Yes, and also what I said about how we’ve been focused on the All Blacks heritage. National owns the razzamatazz side of the rugby, but that’s fading already. I think it’s pretty smart to claim the heritage factor.
This is a conscious rebranding exercise, and I think it is going far better than I would have expected.
Having had a close watch-through, I’m inclined to upgrade this thing to “brilliant”.
There’s rebranding and reshaping throughout it. Jacinda Ardern is reworked from career politician to girl from Murupara, without it being inauthentic. Grant Robertson, former Beehive insider, is interviewed in a supermarket like the one he worked in as a student (or so we are invited to feel). Carmel Sepuloni, a mystery to the electorate, turns out to be telegenic as hell. Stuart Nash goes from being a mildly underperforming insider to his grandfather’s grandson. David Cunliffe, former corporate consultant, is presented as an old-fashioned tramper.
And, best of all, Damien O’Connor is interviewed up the hill at Denniston. You don’t whine about mining consents – you reframe Denniston as a heritage site. That’s very good, as is O’Connor himself. Whoever picked him to feature deserves a bonus, because he is not an obvious choice.
The only parts that don’t feel authentic are, sadly, those with Goff. He might have worked as a team figure, but if someone who knew nothing about the party watched this, his is not the face they would pick as that of the leader.
But on the whole: wow. Anyone know who’s responsible for it?
PS: Bonus: the voiceover is by Tandi Wright, star of the rated-its-arse-off Nothing Trivial -- and a trustworthy character in that.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Dinah Dunavan,
What was truly amazing was that given such an easy question, Key failed completely to answer it.
Quite. In a wholly contrived, edited situation, they still couldn't give the impression of him nailing it.
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Vernon Small writes:
Prime Minister John Key has defended his party's campaign opening video, broadcast last night, which featured him speaking at a mocked-up community meeting and answering questions from the floor.
The soundtrack had a persistent hiss, like a slightly faulty town hall microphone. Applause greeted all Key's answers.
Overall the production seemed to be aiming for a "reality" look
It was in marked contrast with Labour's slick documentary-style advertisement recounting the party's history and attacking National's record, which seemed to be aimed at bringing former voters back into the fold.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Sacha,
I reckon the Greens’ billboards are better than Labour’s.
I disagree, but they are doing different jobs. The pitch gets lost on the Green hoardings, where the Labour ones are quite nicely and consistently designed. There's been some talk about why the tops of all the Labour candidates' heads are cut off, but that's a device to make the face seem closer by having it more than fill the frame.
It's more appealing than having crappy little clear-cut heads like National's do. I saw NZ First and United Future ones in Epsom this morning, and they're even worse than Act's. I'm wondering if this will be the election of bad graphic design.
But the Green clip felt like conventional political comms – and all that walking got exhausting to watch.
Yeah, surprisingly conventional, but it did its job.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to DCBCauchi,
Oh look, the Stuff thing on the Hobbit has changed. Not improved, changed.
And there in a nutshell is a key difference between electronic and print publishing. It is really hard to recall all the printed copies of a paper and have another go at something masquerading as journalism.
This can be done right. The Guardian is quite assiduous about annotating changes to online stories.
Stuff, on the other hand, is particularly bad for making significant changes to stories while keeping them under the same URL and headline, and not annotating changes. Things just disappear.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to dyan campbell,
Superb critique, Dyan.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Ah, yes. Dismiss this as anecdata, but I know one elderly white South African woman whose membership in the Black Sash routinely attracted threats of rape, physical assault and harm to her children.
So, big ups Margaret – you’ve managed to demean a woman whose flaxroots non-violent opposition to apartheid should have your respect not your sneering, privileged condescension.
I know another South African woman who has her own politics and doesn't deserve that sort of casual smear either. It annoys me.
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OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I find it interesting, Rich, that apparently being in the same room with Ashcroft (who happens to also be a senior official in the Conservative Party) is not only “participation in *our* politics” but corruption by osmosis.
I rather our PM wasn't meeting with Ashcroft. I think Ashcroft is a dodgy influence-peddler. But I don't think them having lunch is evidence of anything much.
BTW, Ashcroft isn't Conservative Deputy chairman any more. As the 3 News story notes, he resigned last year because his tax status was becoming an embarrassment, especially that given that he promised to "take up permanent residence in the UK" as a condition of his knighthood in 2000 and still has not done so.
If the Conservative party decided it was better off without Ashcroft, I suspect we are too.