Hasta La Creative!

Top of the Ticker: A recent regulatory filing by Newsmax revealed that the network paid $40 million to settle its defamation lawsuit with Smartmatic. The case was settled in September with the terms initially remaining undisclosed, Newsmax’s filing also revealed that Smartimatic would be able to purchase 2,000 shares of preferred stock of the cable…

Top of the Ticker: ABC News will offer special coverage leading into the 97th Oscars on Sunday, March 2. On Friday, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts will host the primetime special, Countdown to the Oscars with Robin Roberts: A Special Edition of 20/20 at 8 p.m. ET. GMA’s Lara Spencer has been on the ground…

Former President Jimmy Carter will be honored with a state funeral on Jan. 9 in Washington, D.C. The 39th president passed away at 100 on Dec. 29, and will lie in state inside the U.S. Capitol rotunda starting Tuesday. Following the funeral, Carter will make his final journey to his home in Plains, Georgia, where…

We’ve arrived at the final Friday of 2024 and as Tom Lehrer so aptly put it decades ago–that was the year that was. But TVNewser suspected that news industry insiders probably had more to say about the historic 12 months Americans watched unfold on their outlets of choice, whether that was legacy media or social…

The biggest night of America’s political calendar is upon us. On Nov. 5, millions of viewers around the country to tune in to see which presidential candidate will enter the Oval Office in January: Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. With 2024’s contest polling so closely, the outcome of the election will…

The 2024 U.S. presidential election is heading into the home stretch and the BBC will be with it every step of the way. The U.K. public broadcaster plans to dedicate more airtime than ever before to the match-up between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Extra hours of programming and entirely new…

Does Brian Wilson know who Lorde is? Or why there’s a tiger on his piano?

This lavish video boasts an array of stars performing Wilson’s 1966 Beach Boys classic “God Only Knows” to help launch BBC Music, described by the company as “an ambitious wave of new programs, innovative partnerships and ground-breaking music initiatives.”

Karmarama created the clip, which features luminaries representing various generations and styles. The Impossible Orchestra, as it’s called, features Wilson, Lorde, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, One Direction, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl, Jake Bugg, Emeli Sandé, Chris Martin and many more. Kylie Minogue floats in a soap bubble. Baaba Maal rides by in a balloon. Alison Balsom sits perched in a gilded cage.

The extravaganza debuted yesterday during a pan-channel BBC broadcast, and the video’s nearing 800,000 YouTube views already. The song also benefits BBC’s Children in Need charity, is available for download and streaming and was released as a physical CD single in the U.K.

“One of the things that interested me most about this project was the ideas of bringing together so many different styles of music,” says Ethan Johns, who produced the tune. “To make so much diversity work within one piece of music was quite a challenge.”

Naturally, the initiative’s been compared, favorably and otherwise, to other musical megastar team-ups, such as the 1997 Children in Need reboot of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” which was a global smash. (Elton John is only star from that outing to appear in “God Only Knows,” by the way.)

One story in the Guardian brands the new effort as “not quite a perfect day,” noting “There’s something self-aggrandizing about this—but with the amount of music the BBC covers, perhaps it is deserved?” Coverage elsewhere on the site disdainfully notes that “God Only Knows” arrives just as “the corporation’s battle to retain the television license fee [is] getting almost tougher by the week.”

Tough crowd.

BBC Music director Bob Sherman explains the project, and the song choice, thusly: “Everybody gets the significance of ‘God Only Knows.’ And that’s what we’re trying to do with BBC Music. We’re trying to make it feel like it’s an all-encompassing brand for everybody.” That quote comes from the “making-of” clip, in which Queen guitarist Brian May—whose trademark fret runs on “God Only Knows” are a highlight—seems to offer a slightly different take, calling the song “quite enigmatic, really.”

Some view the CGI effects and costumed theatrics as overkill, but I’d say the grand scale fits the message, which is quietly captured in the closing bars of the performance. Wilson sits alone at the piano, sans tiger or bombast, just looking into the camera and singing his brilliant song.

The BBC's official trailer for its coverage of next month's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, has its champions and detractors, with some applauding the 90-second clip's epic sweep and others lamenting its dark tone and dearth of emotional appeal.

Created by RKCR/Y&R and director Tomek Baginski, the film focuses on hyper-realistic winter desolation, its frames filled with frozen peaks, dagger-like ice formations and majestic pines toppling in plumes of snow. A booming narration by actor Charles Dance, as the voice of nature, begins: "I am the dreadful menace. The one whose will is done. The haunting chill upon your neck. I am the conundrum." And he gets even more intense, warning: "The ones that came before you. Stood strong and tall and brave. But I stole their dreams away. Those dreams could not be saved."

Athletes appear around the one-minute mark, trekking across a lonely mountain pass, like some lost party of explorers inexplicably hauling skis, skates and hockey sticks in a haze of hypothermic delirium.

Response has been decidedly mixed. Mostly I applaud the BBC for trying something a bit unexpected. If nothing else, the approach is sparking conversation and debate, fueling the promotional fires, while a more aspirational/feel-good spot, no matter how marvelously executed, would've been predictable and perhaps left some viewers (and reviewers) feeling a bit numb.

Yes, a focus on individual athletes or specific events might have been compelling, but the clip does well in positioning the Winter Games as an outsized, soul-stirring challenge, a war waged against almost mythic forces poised to smite us at every turn. The voiceover, from Tywin Lannister himself, drives home the point that the Olympics can be the ultimate game of thrones.

Misturando imagens históricas com animação, a Apple Records apresentou por estes dias Words of Love, uma espécie de videoclipe promocional para divulgar o lançamento de On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2. O filme criado pela Passion Pictures – que também assina a intro de Beatles Rockband – é uma viagem no tempo, com destino a beatlemania.

O álbum duplo reúne gravações ao vivo, realizadas no teatro da BBC em março de 1963, quando uma plateia alucinada gritava sem parar cada vez que John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison e Ringo Starr tentavam abrir a boca para falar ou cantar.

Apesar de contar com algumas das primeiras composições dos Beatles, o grande destaque deste disco são as covers, como Beautiful Dreamer, de Stephen Foster, Lucille, de Little Richard, e I’m Talking About You, de Chuck Berry. Mas foi Words of Love que acabou conquistando a equipe criativa da Passion Pictures, como a canção capaz de realmente ajudá-los a contar a história da ascensão dos Beatles.

O filme é cheio de detalhes interessantes, que a gente vai descobrindo aos poucos, como é o caso da “participação” mais que especial de  Buddy Holly, autor de Words of Love e um dos grandes ídolos da banda. Na realidade, os músicos nunca chegaram a se encontrar de verdade, já que Buddy morreu em um acidente de avião em fevereiro de 1959 (o mesmo que matou outra jovem promessa do rock, Ritchie Valens).

Para ver e rever.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Na próxima segunda, 26 de agosto, a BBC Radio 2 levará ao ar um audiodrama para celebrar os 40 anos do clássico álbum “The Dark Side of the Moon” do Pink Floyd.

Escrito por Tom Stoppard, roteirista de “Brazil”, “Império do Sol” e “Shakespeare Apaixonado”, a história sobre medo, ganância, consumismo e loucura é diretamente conectada com as músicas do disco, assim como o trailer acima utilizado para promover a atração.

A Aardman Animations criou uma colagem de imagens digitais, CGI e elementos artesanais que ditam o tom do drama. A produtora utilizou as metáforas e surrealismo das letras do Pink Floyd para representar visualmente a história, como os simbolismos cíclicos do sol, lua, olhos, relógios e turbinas.

A minha pergunta é: Por que não fazem logo um longa animado disso tudo? Pink Floyd, Stoppard e Aardman. Não tem como dar errado. De qualquer forma, tem streaming online liberado da BBC Radio 2, caso você queira ouvir o audiodrama. Um dos locutores é o sempre incrível Bill Nighy.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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