Yamaha ad now on Youtube: Media Studies

Here is the original gumboot song of the Fred Dagg 70s. I see that it comes from a Billy Connolly number but the Yamaha Grizzly ad definitiely riffs on the kiwi version (although John Clarke aka Fred Dagg has now lived in Oz for decades and the ad has an Australasian feel.

More info about Dagg

See the light: representation of national identity

Take a look at the new TV ONE promo which uses the Evermore song "I see the light surrounding you" - it appeals strongly to our sense of national identity. Click here to go to the TVNZ website where you can watch it online.

Below is an article about the cost of it. Good for audience studies too.

$1m, batteries included

www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=260&objectid=10435768

Television New Zealand paid about $1 million for the new TV One promotion, the one where people are shining torch lights hopefully into the sky looking for ... well, something. Some media suggested it cost $300,000. In fact, that is what TVNZ paid Sydney consultants Ink, effectively to change the colour for the One logo from blue to orange, setting it against a blue sky. One million sounds a lot for a new commercial but, as any advertiser will tell you, branding television commercials always cost an arm and a leg. The channel promo is screened a lot and TVNZ desperately needs to sell TV One. A lot of people in the advertising industry are snitchy, saying the aspirational, cast of thousands imagery was ostentatious and the refrain from the young girl not unlike Saatchi's ads for Telecom. The new ad is like previous TV One campaigns - Welcome to Our World, the Monty Pythonesque animations - appealing and necessary but ultimately wallpaper. As for the $300,000 paid to change the colour of the One logo, from blue to orange, one contact was bemused. Couldn't you change colours by pushing a couple of buttons on the office PC?

The Lovely Bones Student Guide

I have just finished a rough copy of a guide to The Lovely Bones. It's about 20 pages long so I converted it to a PDF.

Writing correctly - especially for year 13

Here is a wonderful site about grammar, punctuation and language techniques.

From the same site is George Orwell's useful list of writing rules

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Orwell was a famous novelist whose works include Animal Farm and 1984.