New York in Three

Love and Mortar - Interview with David Parker

Australian film industry veteran David Parker admits he would never direct one of his own scripts. Why? Because he believes a director can bring more to a script than a writer can. And Parker would know – he’s been known to delve in screenwriting, directing and cinematography in his long career.
“Screenwriting is the hardest but probably the most rewarding [out of the three]. To think up a story and then write it into a fully fledged screenplay is the most demanding, wonderful and painful process, but when you pull it off, it’s magic,” Parker said.

Parker is back on the scene promoting his latest project, Love and Mortar, a film about a woman struggling with her son’s illness and her husband’s infidelity. After a chance encounter with an Irish sailor and his son, her life is turned upside down. The film explores a dramatic love story that promises to break all the rules. Parker made Love and Mortar with his Melbourne-based production company Cascade Films, which he started in 1983 with his business partner, Nadia Tass. Together the pair have written and directed a number of award-winning feature films, including Malcolm, Rikky & Pete, The Big Steal and the hilarious Hercules Returns.
“Hercules Returns was an absolute hoot. Des Mangan’s script was outrageous. The result is always funny, sometimes silly but always entertaining. That’s how I like my films, Parker said.
But Love and Mortar seems to break away from this formula. Based on a true story, the film has drama at its core rather than comedy. Yet Parker says there are still light moments, heightened by the journey of the characters.
“There’s definitely less comedy in there than I’m used to, but it’s similar [to my other work] because of its strong, well-developed characters, who are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.”

Parker has earned a name in the industry developing such characters. His first feature film, Malcolm, won eight AFI awards, numerous international awards and Parker was awarded the Premier’s Literary Award in NSW as well as the Australian Film Critic’s Circle Award for Best Screenplay. In 1991 Parker shot his first feature for Universal Studios in the US and the following year he produced and filmed Stark, the BBC mini-series based on the Ben Elton novel. He’s even worked for Francis Ford Coppola, who tracked him down and asked him to shoot a pilot his TV series The Outsiders. Yet despite all the jet-setting to and fro, Parker prefers to remain in Melbourne.
“We do spend time in the US, but we have always tried to keep our main focus on films that are Australian. We’ve recently done half a dozen high-end movies for TV in North America, but all the time we’ve been developing projects here, using our ill gotten gains from Uncle Sam to keep our Melbourne based operation running smoothly.”

Parker and Tass were approached with the Love and Mortar script by another producer, and optioned the script from the writer – Lyn Renew – whom the film is about. Despite its more sobering tone, Parker says he is still interested in making comedy.
“In fact, we have a comedy in development right now based on a wedding I went where the best man was let out of jail to attend. There were two beefy warders right beside him all night, but they both managed to get drunk and the best man had to drive them back to jail!”

Love and Mortar will be distributed nationally and internationally.

Al Alcorn, creator of Pong - The Guardian, Thursday April 17

Darryn King and I recently interviewed Al Alcorn, the brains behind the arcade game that started it all.

Read it here.

Or here:

Allan Alcorn was just 24 when he designed the world's first popular videogame in 1972. Fresh out of college and working for the then unknown video company Atari - as its second employee - his first task as a junior engineer was just meant to test his skills. The result was Pong, an electronic table tennis game that paved the way for the modern videogame.

"Pong was such a simple game that anyone could play," Alcorn said. "At that time, coin-operated games were dominated by pinball machines that had sometimes lurid graphics or driving machines that required skills that appealed to young males. Pong was unusual in that it required two players. I think it was the first game that appealed to young ladies and thus was a more social game."

Instant hit

Atari had already marketed Computer Space, the world's first coin-operated videogame. Although a first in its category, the game did not thrive commercially because its instructions were so complicated. Atari's founder, Nolan Bushnell, realised that his company's next game had to be as simple as possible. "Since Pong was similar to the Magnavox Odyssey home game, I didn't expect it to be a big hit," says Alcorn.

Magnavox Odyssey was the first home videogame that hooked up to a consumer's TV set. It was designed by Ralph Baer and was marketed by Magnavox, an American television set manufacturer, in 1972 - the same year arcade Pong was introduced. The game used analog electronics and played a crude game similar to Pong, yet it was not a success in the market. It took Alcorn three months to design the first Pong prototype.

"Pong was a hard-wired machine that just played Pong. There was no computer involved," he says. "It is very difficult for anyone today, including engineers, to believe that something can be built without a computer. Microcomputers didn't impact videogames until 1974."

The original arcade Pong was made from simple digital logic chips and ran with a 14MHz clock. There was no microprocessor: they did not exist in 1972, so there is no surviving code for the original game. (The home version of Pong, introduced in 1974, had a custom chip designed by Atari.) Once completed, the prototype was tested in a small bar near Atari's offices in Santa Clara, San Francisco, the area now known as Silicon Valley.

The game's only instructions - "Deposit quarter" and "Avoid missing ball for high score" - reflected Bushnell's earlier wish to make the game as simple as possible. The following day, the bar's owner discovered a long line of people waiting outside his premises, quarters at the ready. Pong was a hit.

In many ways Pong's release ushered in the games industry. Alcorn says it took game developers more than a year to develop the skills needed to create their own videogames.

"Just about the time our competitors in the coin-operated business figured out how to create their own arcade videogames, we created a home business that threatened to take away players from the arcades. They were not happy with us."

Pong was a sensation for players because it successfully combined digital electronics with a TV display to create a new medium for gameplay. For the first time, people could control what they saw on their TV display. The experience was so engrossing that some believed the laws of physics were the same in the game as in real life. "Most people thought that you could 'spin' the ball in Pong, just as in real life," Alcorn says. They were mistaken. Alcorn had simply designed the "bats" so that if you hit the (square) ball near the edges, it would rebound at an angle.

Alcorn was put in charge of designing the home version of Pong. This version took things to a new level for the once-tiny video company, establishing Atari as the market leader in home videogames with a profit of $40m around 1977.

Like other prominent people in the computing industry of the 1970s, Alcorn saw no market for home computers - a belief that led Ken Olsen, co-founder of the then-mighty Digital Equipment Corporation, to remark in 1977: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." Alcorn says: "I must confess that at first I saw no market for home computers. I couldn't see my wife interested in anything computers of that day could do. At the same time, I had no problem believing that people would play videogames at home, but I just never imagined that the market would be so large."

QuickTime and beyond

Alcorn left Atari in 1981, frustrated with management brought in by Warner Communications, which bought Atari in 1976. He joined Apple in January 1986 as a "Fellow" - one of his duties was to "change the industry". Alcorn did exactly that with his early work on MPEG (the Motion Picture Experts Group, who developed the eponymous algorithm) and QuickTime, and went on to start his own company, Silicon Gaming, in 1993. He then founded Integrated Media Measurement Incorporated and worked as chief technology officer, running the engineering wing which monitors broadcast sources to analyse the success of commercials.

Alcorn is now looking for something new to sink his teeth into. His most recent venture took him to Melbourne, Australia, where he attended the opening of Game On - the world's largest exhibition on the history of games and gaming. The exhibition was first launched at the Barbican Art Gallery in London in 2002.

"I enjoy talking about the early days of videogames and the fun we had," Alcorn says. "Perhaps I can inspire a young person to get involved in science and technology. Videogames are part of worldwide culture and as such we need to understand where it came from and where it is going. I hope that as a medium for entertainment it will add to the public good."

The industry has come a long way from a couple of paddles and a square ball, but not everything has changed. Modern gaming is just repackaging the same excitement and joy of play that drew crowds to Pong more than 35 years ago.

So can Alcorn see where videogames are headed? "Videogames have always been the technology leader for consumer electronics. Today's game platforms have more computer power than the largest computers from a decade ago," he says. "We have only begun to apply the advances in input and output technology to this business. I have some ideas. But I might want to develop them myself. So I will be coy about sharing them now."

Perhaps we'll only know when he's developed them when we see a line of people outside a bar, nursing their coins while they wait.

Laura Parker, Freelance Sub-editor

Is your business suffering at the hands of those narky sub-editors that you're forced to pay weekly, even though they only do a few hours work? Fire their arses. You need the services of a freelance sub-editor, someone who can come in on short notice, starting from just one day a week during the quiet times to five days a week during deadline.

Laura Parker is now available to hire as a freelance sub-editor. That's right, you heard correct.
Laura will work for as little as $150 a day and offer her services in the areas of:

sub-editing
proofing
fact-checking
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intelligent discussions on art, music, science and philosophy

Are your bludgy subs are scratching their arses five days a week and taking your hard earned dollars from under your nose (some of them haven't even heard of InDesign)?
Fret no more. Professional and sweet, Laura can work from home or the office, and is a skilled user of Adobe InDesign on both Macs and PCs.

So call Laura Parker now.

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Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake

The Australian Ballet
Playing at the Sydney Opera House until April 24, 2008.

I know what you’re thinking. Ballet, as far as contemporary entertainment goes, is reserved for snooty housewives and old ladies. Most of the time you’d be right, but every once in a while comes a ballet that jerks the common man from his place and makes him put on a tux. Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake is such a ballet. Labeled an Australian classic by critics time and time again, Murphy’s take on the century-old favourite is simply breathless. With a completely reworked storyline and an innovative blend of classical and contemporary choreography, Swan Lake treats audiences to a first-hand parade of raw, primitive human emotions. The story deals with an ill-fated love triangle between a Prince, his young bride and his greedy lover; a story that is romantic in its nature, and modern in its depiction, complete with cold baths, crazy party girls, insanity, jealousy, love, and, of course, swans.

Murphy, a former dancer with The Australian Ballet, was first given the task of reworking Swan Lake in 2002 as the company’s new Artistic Director. A tough job for any choreographer, let alone one new to the craft, Murphy succeeded in creating an intelligent production that, as he claimed would be his aim, can capture an audience’s imagination without asking them to suspend belief.
“I always wanted to give The Australian Ballet a unique Swan Lake. Every company would love to have one, yet not many do,” Murphy said in an interview for The Australian Ballet.

A job well done, I say. Murphy based his version of the ballet (loosely) on the Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Camilla Parker-Bowles love triangle, and the devastation suffered by Diana when she realises her husband is in love with another woman. Kristian Fredrikson’s set and costume design is a perfect vehicle for Murphy’s vision – from the ingenuity of the all-white opening scene marking Odette’s innocence to the all-black final act to mark her descent into madness, the set is a mix of clean, minimalist lines and reserved opulence that do much to indicate the thorough thought that went into every aspect of this production. Similarly, Murphy’s dance choreography is flawless, using contemporary steps to reveal humour where needed and some of the most delightful and engaging pas de trios routines I’ve ever seen in a ballet.

Since its debut in 2002, Murphy’s Swan Lake has continued to delight audiences both here and overseas, and I have no doubt it will continue to do so for many years to come. This is truly an Australian effort we can be proud of.

R18+ Classification for Video Games

The decision by censorship ministers to put the issue of the R18+ classification for video games to public consultation is a welcome one. It’s become increasingly clear that the only way the Australian Classification Board will approve the sale of R18+ video games is if this decision is placed in the hands of those who are going to be affected directly.

Australia remains the only country where R18+ rated games are banned from sale due to their excessive violent or sexual content. However, the idea that video games are harmful to minors because they condone or incite violence is an archaic one. Psychologists and experts are increasingly being ignored in this debate in favour of a group whose expertise is questionable – politicians. The chief offender in this case is South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, who insists that R18+ video games should continue to be banned in Australia because they contain ‘harmful material’. Arguing this is Victorian Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls, who is pushing for an adults only classification for games citing an inconsistency in policy which allows adults access to other R18+ material but not video games. Yet Mr. Atkinson had an answer for this too: he believes video games pose a greater threat than other media because of their interactive nature. His claim: "The risk of interactivity on players of computer games with highly violent content is increased aggressive behaviour." Again, voices of experts have been drowned out in what has become one politician’s personal belief imposing on policy-making.

We saw the same narrow-minded point of view in November last year, when New Zealand manager of police youth services, Bill Harrison, remarked that youth violence rates in the Western world had risen sharply in the years previous to coincide with the rise of products such as Microsoft’s Xbox gaming platform. Mr. Harrison said he began to wonder about the effect of video game violence when he found his 14-year-old son playing a graphic Xbox game that involved "human beings killing each other". Of course, some might point out that the media is guilty of the same crime.
In 2006 Germany’s parliament proposed that cruelty on humans in video games should be a punishable offence for ‘promoting’ real life violence. The reason for this claim was a school shooting in the Netherlands, where one teenager wounded 37 people in before killing himself. Apparently, the killer was a fan of Counter Strike, a tactical war video game. One of the parliament bill’s sponsors, Bavarian interior minister Günther Beckstein, claimed that: "It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect.’’ Clearly, Mr. Beckstein’s opinion was good enough evidence on this matter.

But what does the real evidence suggest?

Indeed, no definitive research has yet come to light to support claims that violent video games gave any negative impact on behaviour. Research on media violence in general has also failed to prove that it’s even an influencing factor in violent behaviour, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that censorship of any entertainment material in an attempt to address violence in the real world is ineffective. Jonathan Freedman from the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychology published his findings on video game violence in 2001, Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games, citing a number of conclusions that can be drawn from the limited amount of research in this area: firstly that evidence which points to an immediate correlation between aggression and violent video games is far from definitive; secondly that there exist no evidence to suggest that playing violent video games causes any long-term or lasting increase in aggressiveness or violence. Freedman concludes: "There is no such work and no scientific reason to believe that violent video games have bad effects on children or on adults, and certainly none to indicate that such games constitute a public health risk."
Chartered Psychologist and Director of the Communications Research Group in the UK, Dr Guy Cumberbatch, defended video games from media and political attack in his 2001 review of the research evidence, Video Violence: Villain or Victim?, where he claimed that: "The real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern let alone argue with such confidence and even passion that it demonstrates the harm of violence on television, in film and in video games. If one conclusion is possible, it is that the jury is not still out."

With a survey of 1601 Australian households conducted by Bond University in 2005 suggesting 88 per cent of Australians support an R18+ classification for games, there is still hope that the public will do what the politicians have failed to – employ reason and logic to make a decision that above all affects Australians’ freedom of choice.

The Grand Tradition of High Tea

Mention the words ‘high tea’ and most of us just picture snooty English people drinking tea with their pinkies up in the air, talking about their bad teeth or what not. But times have changed. The grand tradition of high tea is fast becoming the ‘it’ thing to try in Sydney, thanks to the promise of soft crust-less sandwiches, fancy cakes and pastries, Scottish scones with jam and cream, champagne, and, of course, tea. And there’s hardly a pinkie-lifting Englishman in sight.

So, with this in mind, my boyfriend and I decided we'd give it a go. Just to see what all the fuss was about. Plus, I've been dying to eat something off those silver cake tiers ever since I saw the Queen do it on TV. Before we ventured in however, I did some research on the topic, just so I knew what I was getting myself into. Here's the lowdown on the whole high tea thing:

The high tea tradition began around the 17^th century, where, prior to, the English served just two main meals per day – breakfast and dinner. It was Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, who first invited her friends to join her for an afternoon meal of bread and butter sandwiches, small cakes and tea. The tradition was later made popular by Queen Victoria, who, quite rightly, saw fit to throw more delicious things into the mix.

And how delicious they were... We stuffed ourselves silly with egg and cucumber sandwiches, salmon and cheese, spinach pastries, mini cakes and meringues and some truly yummy scones with jam and fresh cream. Of course, we didn't leave out the main thing: tea. We got some connoisseur choices brought in from India (whose names I won't even try to spell) and drank to our heart's content. I was surprised to notice my pinkie trying to escape and raise itself high above my other fingers, but I soon put a stop to that by putting on my most bogan accent and asking my boyfriend if we'd even consider returning as bogans one day, just to see how quickly we'd get the boot.

Alas, we behaved ourselves and got through the entire thing like royalty. Not surprising, we were about twenty years younger than everyone else there, even given the largely affordable prices. But then again that's not saying much when it comes to me and cake -- there is no telling how far I'd go for a good piece of crumbly goodness with icing.

Here are some photos to whet your appetite: