Discordia is Live!
I truly love marketing. Being a creative copywriter and freelance strategic marketer is something I love doing. I live helping people. Putting truth and creativity back into marketing isn’t just a tagline for me, it’s the reality. And I really enjoy working with my clients. Yet sometimes I have felt recently that I’ve been letting the writer in me down a little. Writing to me is a deeply personal thing. I don’t expect everyone to agree with... Read More
The A to Z of Aussie Freelance Resources
If you freelance and you are in Australia, here are a few things that’ll probably make your life easier. If you have any to suggest, by all means send them through! Couple of notes: I have tried to be accurate with URL and description, however if I have got something wrong somewhere, do let me know this too! Any mistakes are not intentional. This list has been done voluntarily. I’ve tried to keep it relevant and helpful to Australia but not include... Read More
Woody Allen on Doing it Your Way
The next half of the Woody Allen documentary I saw in a hotel room in Orange. It was just the shot in the arm needed to remind me that doing things the way feel right for you is better than subservience to the ideals of others. Here is what I gained on Woody Allen and doing it the way that feels right for you: First of all, he bypasses the agents and goes straight to the actors. He personalises the reasons he wants to work with particular actors... Read More
Woody Allen on Creativity
Inspiration comes from the craziest of places. Saturday night saw me chilling out with a sick partner on the couch, watching a Woody Allen documentary. I knew the guy was clever, I just didn’t realise how clever. This is what I gleaned from Woody Allen and his approach on effective creativity: • Maintain a rhythm. Rhythm and timing are key to storytelling. Without it, you have nothing. • If the system works, keep doing it. Woody has been using... Read More
Why Change Aussie TV?
Think about Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Dexter, Skins, Arrested Development, Six Feet Under, Extras, Weeds, Scrubs, Black Books, The Wire, Treme, Sopranos, The Good Wife, Louie and Californication. Now ask yourself- have we had anything remotely close come out of Australia recently? You may have seen the campaign “Save Places for Aussie Faces.” Now ask yourself what future our fledgling writers, directors, actors and producers have in this... Read More
How do Australians feel about home-grown TV?
Is the current Australian TV market a positive or negative in terms of creativity? Are we suffering from reality TV and lifestyle programme fatigue or do we love them and want to see them stay? Are we risk-adverse or innovative? Do we create export quality TV? What do Australians actually want to see on the box? Having had countless coffee and wine debates about the state of Australian TV with everyone from unemployed actors to happily employed producers,... Read More
2 Million Reasons to Smile
A mere five months on from achieving $1million in pledges, Pozible has hit 2012 running by reaching the $2million pledge mark in March. And the goal kicking for the original home-grown crowdfunding platform for Australian creative and socially innovative projects looks set to continue. Fast becoming one of the most popular and effective funding options available Pozible has seen tremendous growth in exposure and audience participation since... Read More
Sydney, now it’s your turn…. Let’s Talk Crowdfunding!
After a successful Melbourne event in late 2011, Pozible now brings “Let’s Talk Crowdfunding!” to Sydney. This free event is for anyone who wants to learn more on crowdfunding for creative projects or simply for people interested in self funding through platforms like Pozible. Join us for a helpful, informative and passionate discussion on crowdfunding your dreams and ideas with like minded individuals. The evening is aimed at giving anyone... Read More
Jaws: Taking a Bite Out of the Competition
Holidays mean sitting back and relaxing, so here I am, late at night watching Jaws. Yes, great viewing for a seaside holiday right? Anyway, that, combined with currently reading 3 books at once, one single message seems to becoming clearer and clearer… people enjoy a slow reveal and anticipation much more than being beaten over the head with a message over and over again. Am I stating the blindingly obvious? You would think so. I know my writing... Read More
Your Project on the Operating Table
Make no bones about it, it really sucks when an idea or project doesn’t work out the way you want it to. But how do you tell the difference between natural causes and misadventure? And what should you do to avoid another untimely demise of a beloved project? Consider this your autopsy and next steps guide to the projects that go belly up! Nurse, I need 10cc’s of Ego, stat! First and foremost, when a project fails to achieve a benchmark, please... Read More
Why a freelancer community?
Some people have been asking me lately what the whole freelance survey is about (for your reference, here is the original post http://unashamedlycreative.com.au/2011/10/calling-all-freelancers/) or where it might lead. Here it is in nuts and bolts… Hello- is anybody out there? I started doing a full time freelance gig in 2009 whilst still employed because I wanted to see if it worked. I had some mates who had varying degrees of success across... Read More
No Sparkly Vamps Here
Oh how everyone loves the idea of a vampire right now. But how funny is each take on how the vampires are indentified, what is unique about them and the kinds of creatures they are. Of course we too have taken our own version of vampire and weaved it within the Varity Vampire story. We have made a more “turn of the screw” approach to our vampires in our writing because we really dig the idea of how undetectable actual true predators are to their... Read More
Calling all freelancers!
Are you tired of auction sites trying to get you to work for $2 a 500 word article or deploy a whole website for $200? Have you had to mop up after countless el cheapie projects for your clients after things have gone drastically south? Do you sometimes wonder why employment agencies or digital/ad agencies pay you 30% of what they bill you out for? Are you working at places that don’t allow you to stretch yourself as much as you would like? Do you... Read More
Pozible hits the Million Dollar Mark
Australia’s first crowd funding platform, Pozible, has hit an amazing $1million in pledges. Since humble beginnings in May 2010, Pozible has become a viable option for creative and innovative projects around the country as a source of funding through peers pledging their support through crowd funding. Reaching the million dollar mark is yet another milestone for a platform dedicated to helping more ideas become reality in the Australian creative... Read More
Sisters are doin’ it for themselves!
You have to love the sexy, sassy and super cool way a heroine lights up the film screen. The same applies (we hope!) to the Varity Vampire story. Like most female vampires, both Ruth and Varity are reluctant heroes- thrown into circumstances not of their choosing, that they have to not only make do with, but also conquer for what they believe in to be maintained. So in honour of the sexy, sassy, super cool reluctant heroines everywhere that have... Read More
What is WOM [Word-of-Mouth] worth?
Crowdfunding is a pretty amazing thing. Watching one dollar add to another dollar and another until a target is reached just shows how much every little bit counts. But what most people may not realise is that even when you don’t have any money to spare, you can still manage to support a project and create a positive outcome. And there is a group of these people already that have made a huge in-direct impact to projects. Pozible has always been... Read More
Varity has Arrived!
Varity Vampire went live last night, just after midnight! She is, she always was and now she says it in cyberspace- Varity Vampire. Bit different to my usual stuff eh? We have set up a main site http://www.varity-vampire.com/ where you can catch all things related to the production, vampires, why we did this and all that jazz. If you have topics for me, let me know. Each week we will be releasing an episode to youtube until Halloween, when we release... Read More
Varity Vampire is Coming!
It’s taken over ten years and tens of thousands of dollars, too many hours to count of meetings, directing, recording and drawing and more rewrites than you could possibly imagine- but Varity Vampire is mere hours from being released! Varity Vampire is the brainchild of Jack Black who thought of an original piece about what it would be like to be trying to be an ordinary teenager when you are both human and vampire. Varity is about what happens... Read More
Green film making? By accident, maybe
Making a film is hard work; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But with the Crackheads, the way the story is designed, there is a little bit of “wriggle” room re: getting things absolutely perfect. In essence, I have actually designed around having no to low budget. Admittedly, it is hip to be a recycling, reusing greenie scrounging up materials to a certain extent I am using this to my advantage. But it is also about meeting budget, making... Read More
The Crackhead’s Get Rocked
As you know, Richard Berndt has donated his time and talent to creation of the musical score for the Crackheads. I can now share with you a sample of that hard work. With the Crackheads film, we toyed with the idea of taking off two well known songs- namely the “Home and Away” theme (changing it to “Homo and Away”) and “Fishheads” (changing that to “Crackheads”) ala Weird Al Yankovic. But unfortunately,... Read More
From the Puppeteers Pencil
Fear not, the puppet project is still alive and kicking, well as much as their stumpy little footsies will allow anyway! It’s just been a little hectic of late on both the commercial and creative levels. The potted history of puppet events are as such: Paul has pretty much finished building our stage, with the exception of a hinge or two. Next comes the backgrounds and how to deal with them Rich has been composing for the background ads and music,... Read More
Puppet on a Shoestring: The Story of Birthing a Puppet Film
From moving to script to actually getting things done is a pretty hard process. It is rewarding though. Time consuming, at times very overwhelming, and punishing because you finish on task and several more sprout up like snakeheads on Cerberus. I am learning as I go along. Music and Sound Anyone who has ever done anything remotely linked to sound will tell you if you screw up the volume or the mix, it just won’t work in your favour. Thankfully,... Read More
Australian TV: When will you grow up?
Offspring is getting rave reviews, Twitter is alight with Hayden’s eviction from Masterchef and I almost choked on a mouthful of Friday night beer when I saw the ads for the new reality show “Dinner Date” which looks like it should be named “The Bogan BBQ Master Wants a Wife (and a spot on a talent show)”. I just wonder when we will see some really brave, challenging TV come out of Australia. And why, when someone is able to introduce... Read More
The Crackheads: Profiles!
Maybe I spent way too much time in the dating industry to truly shake it off, but when it comes to getting to know my characters, there is nothing I like to do better than prop them up on the singles couch and ask them what they think their answer would be to common dating profile questions. Original Crackhead Age: What’s it to ya? Location: Sunny fuckin’ Redfern Height: Does it matter when ya on ya knees?! Body Type:... Read More
Socialising with Crackheads? Ewww!
Social media makes life so much bloody easier for creative people. It really does because you can share your ideas, have a platform to publish, and have a way of reaching a much wider audience than what you would usually do. For The Crackheads, I have spent a lot of time wrestling with the idea of character driven versus marketing driven content and what is best for the promotion, and also what is best for me as a creative person. I could be all “marketing... Read More
My inner child is actually a dirty, filthy bunch of puppets
As a kid, I was the one with the bowl haircuts of fine brown hair, gauche decorated strings hanging from my glasses, pencil in hand writing stories as Miss Piggy or Kermit was tucked under the free arm. I made ball-gowns for my felt tips out of tissue and cello tape and had them dance all night with eye toting socks whilst Barbie stayed dusty on the toy shelf. I preferred wood and wool to plastic and metal. I spent a lot of time willingly inside cardboard... Read More
Path to new Australian TV: Closed Until Further Notice
Australia, to me at least, has a fairly non-existent television market. Even with the introduction of brand new digital channels, we live on a staple diet of imported television and the grisly fat of TV executives and producers who have grown plump and lazy on a diet of reality TV, serial cop and hospital shows. In terms of longevity in the international market, our most successful export is Neighbours. We lay claim to the ratings success of the Masterchef... Read More
