Posts by robbery
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I don't generally agree with Shane on much, but he did strike something of a chord there. The ideology of Tame Iti does seem to be more about getting himself on TV, than working for the betterment of his people...
as posted on tother thread
tame iti grinsalso of note, who is that smug interviewer and what's up with his pen?, and Paul's story exit reaction.
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here's the tv on demand link for close up,
close up 12 nov tame iti interview??
Check out the eating media lunch style interviewer and his pen, the weird cutting of interview/translation/question, the interviewers superior knowledge attitude, Iti's barly controlled smirk, and if its include host paul's bizarre look after the interview.
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did anyone else find tv1's close up interview with Tame Iti to be somewhat surreal. what was up with the reporter and his purposely in shot pen?
not to mention his bizarre 'interview' technique and that whole translator thing where they eventually just cut out Tame Iti's answers and just let the 'translator' do the talking.
Wasn't sure if I was watching the news or eating media lunch, but at least Tame Iti was in on the humor of it as he barely restrained a smirk. -
I do think it's past time they re-evaluated their actual mission.
or got back to it.
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I suspect that some of the dudes in this position would like to think that even though NZOA has rejected them for not being commercial enough, that their 10-minute feedback solo/excusion into sonic chaos does actually have commercial potential, it's just that the dumb-arses at NZOA can't recognise it.
amusingly enough some of our most respected and biggest selling overseas artists (and granted we don't have many) have been just such feedback merchants, Dead C, Roy Montgomery etc.
it just makes the whole picture that much more complicated, doesn't it. -
But there's this subset of quite vocal musicians that complain that NZOA marginalises them because their music is artistic rather than commercial,
its not that at all.
its offense at the hijacking and mismanagement of a very good concept with good intentions, and frankly the waste of good taxpayer money on some misguided tangent.
As Russell noted, there was a time when NZ on Air was looking very promising indeed, the indie hit disc, plenty of support going to the backbone of nz music (ie the nz labels etc), but that time was a long time ago.Its in black and white in their mission statement what they're supposed to be doing. (see links above)
I'm curious to know how many musicians have applied, how many don't really know they can apply, and how many haven't bothered because they assume it's not worth the effort. I've just been trawling through their archives of funding decisions, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Haven't tried for a while now after a few years of participating in what is lets face it a lottery of a funding system.
The application process is excessive and gives little or no indication to the applicant if they're close or pissing in the wind.The smaller localised grant system of creative communities is a much better prospect although the amounts of money they get to distribute don't help much, but at least its local, tries to interface with the community it serves and does filter funding to artists on a wider basis.
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Is it wrong of me to pine for a system that provides grants to non-commercially viable acts -- but who are somehow seen to be worth something artistically (?) -- to help them do things that are only normally available to commercially successful acts -- tour, record, release.
apparently it is wrong of you, but technically that is what the system is set up to fund, only it has been hijacked and misdirected.
if you read the various NZ on Air Mission statements it says its objectives areto fund things of cultural value (read artistic with that),
"NZ On Air's job is to promote and foster the development of New Zealand's culture on the airwaves"
to fund that which would not get funded,
"We aim to fund programmes and broadcasts, not otherwise provided in a commercial market"Those 2 objectives alone seem to bare no resemblance to the activities of the current system.
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And it's worth reiterating that it was a major label boss who told me that he'd rather use his NZOA funding grant to make a bunch of low-res clips for every track on an album, rather than one clip for TV.
That's assuming incorrectly that the 'quality' of a video comes from the expense of the camera only, which it doesn't.
Broadcast quality is easily attainable from domestic 3ccd cameras, or even a 1ccd camera with good lighting. Image quality really isn't the difficult or expensive part anymore. its the idea, staging and editing that are the deciding factors in a good video, and that isn't any cheaper whether the finished product is rendered to full broadcast quality or you tube video.
You can easily make a cheap video if you have a good idea, and a crew of skilled and hungry video tech people willing to give their time for free, but getting those people to work for free for the second video, is a little harder, and by the 4th, 5th, 6th video they'll be asking themselves what's in it for them.
You tube does nothing for the industry in terms of costs of producing a video, they remain the same, it does however free up the delivery medium, and means you're no longer relying on a few broadcast hours to squeeze your master piece into.
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I don't think I would even want NZoA to make judgements on what is culturally significant or not.
No, me either but I don't want to see 'cultural' dollars being channeled to wipe out our point of difference via the next next piece of commercial radio friendly pap.
it's a difficult thing to put your mind to, deciding what is and isn't us being ourselves, but the way things have gone lately NZoA's actions in the music field have actually helped to erase a little (or a lot) of our perceived individuality, and that isn't what we want our tax dollars being channeled to is it?
I think it all comes down to who you have making decisions and advising. I'd much rather have Chris Knox or some other reasonably literate music genius steering the ship than a bunch of wannabe "music fans" and suits.
Art galleries do their best work when they've had artists at the helm, (see CHCH gallery under Coley, etc), perhaps the same respect could be extended to the field of modern music which is an artform after all, however mass marketed and diluted some of it is, the rest is culture, shouldn't we be focusing our efforts on the rest?
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Jarno
as far as music funding goes brendan smyth of nz on air has stated nz on air make no attempt to target and support culturally significance in what they fund.
we do not "make any value judgements about cultural content" (Direct quote from brendan smyth)I think they got upset abot the lack of success they had in getting the difficult voice of Kiwi onto the extremely narrow visioned commercial circuit so they narrowed their objectives down to simply getting songs on commercial radio and tv. Whether it is 'new zealand' sounding or not is now irrelevant to them.
They are successful at what they do because what they do is of little relevance to their mission statement," our voice our culture"from nz on air about us
"Television and radio play an important role in the lives of New Zealanders, and NZ On Air funding ensures that our unique culture, our stories, our music and our identity are enjoyed today and preserved for tomorrow."
To be fair they are more successful in the field of television as they have succeeded in funding the kiwi accent onto tv screens.
I agree that it would be great for them to put the govt money set aside for kiwi culture toward long term survival of kiwi culture, but for that to happen there would have to be a serious overhaul of management and a re calibration of objectives.
They would also have to face the difficult task (which they presently avoid) of identifying what is relevant as kiwi culture (hopefully seeing a wider vision than gumboots and DB ).
The problem is the people making the decisions and acting as advisors don't appear to have a grasp of what our culture is or the wider significance of preserving it and or creating an environment in which it can thrive.Shall I set up the guillotine?