Aussie ad industry condensed into :30 seconds
When creative director Martin Manning realizes he’s dropped to double figures in the Campaign Brief Creative Rankings – thanks to a ruling by the agency’s new CEO to ban the agency from entering awards – he has a meltdown. He then sets out to create an award-winning campaign to get him back to number one, a play for power that has unexpected consequences.
Manning, played by Joel Tobeck of Lord of the Rings fame, is one of the stars of :30 seconds, a six part satirical drama set in the Australian outpost of a multinational agency called BND Worldwide whose motto is: ‘BND. Truth Well Sold’.
Airing mid-year on Foxtel’s The Comedy Channel, it’s a co-productionbetween Andrew Denton’s Zapruder other films and Foxtel. This isDenton’s second foray into portraying the advertising industry – thefirst was panel show The Gruen Transfer, which has been a ratings hitfor the ABC.
The series is the brainchild of Tim Bullock of Prodigy Films, JustinDrape and Scott Nowell of Three Drunk Monkeys (pictured) who firststarted working on it six years ago.
“It’s true to the industry, we are trying to keep the themes and the issues as authentic as possible,” says Drape.
Bullock, Drape and Nowell previously worked together at Saatchi &Saatchi Sydney which is when they first started thinking it would befunny to take the real-life incidents they experienced in daily agencylife – such as flying to Melbourne to judge the grill marks on aburrito – and turn it into a TV series.
They presented the idea to Denton who came on board as executiveproducer and Andrew Knight from Sea Change, Tripping Over and After theDeluge worked as a script consultant. The four-week shoot for the sixhalf-hour episodes started on Monday at Black Sheep Productions.
Other agency staffers portrayed are CEO Bill Brooker (Peter O’Brien) a man who likes rules, conformity and large graphs;senior art director, Sumo (Gyton Grantley) the ambitious creative with a powerful lack of conscience; producer, McBaney (StephenCurry) a man who can get you a giant singing udder inside five hours; copywriter, Kath Bullock (Jenna Lind) the industry newcomer with a still-functioning moral compass; and account directorBarbara Main (Emily Brennan), better known as Boobera, who has never been known to say no to a client freebie. Theclient side is represented by head of marketing for DaiyondaAutomotive, Marion West, determined to break glass ceilings without damaging her biological clock, played by Kat Stewart, most recently ofUnderbelly and Supernova.
While industry types familiar to those working in advertising inspired the characters, they aren’t based on real people.
“Everyone will recognize themselves or people they worked with. There’sa creative director type in the show, there’s a CEO type, there’s acreative type, and client type,” says Bullock.
Andrew Denton, of Zapruder’s other films said: “An extraordinary cast,three talented new writers and a great director – the ingredients,hopefully, for champagne television. :30 seconds is an exciting newdirection for Zapruder’s and we couldn’t have found a better home forit.”
Brian Walsh, Foxtel executive director of television and marketing,predicts that :30 seconds will be one of the strongest shows on theFoxtel platform in 2009.
29 Comments
Fuck yeah fuckers!! It’s good to see you boys never gave up on your dream. All the best I hope it makes it big time.
Vegas
Daiyonda…fantastic! Are their offices located at Darren Point?
Keep chasing that rainbow!
Sounds awesome guys! Sounds like every boss I’ve ever had.
McBaney? Is his nickname “Toes”?
I am confused is this the same show thats on air in the states called “Trust Me” or another ? Trust me has the guy from Will and Grace in it – maybe it’s on Foxtel here – you can down load it.
BNDBOOOOM!
Sounds piss funny.
I can’t believe they’ve been working on it for SIX YEARS!!!
And I thought it took ages to get an ad up.
I’ve worked six years to get an ad up.
Now you can watch yourself in addition to writing about yourself; reading about yourself and talking about yourself Next you’ll fuck yourself. Full bubble!
9.33 am I think you’re right. Just googled it. It seem Australia, that yet again you’re blowing your own trumpet and have already been beaten to it. It’s been done, yet again.
0.30 seconds is a pretty short length of time.
Cool idea and some big names involved.
No 9.33, this isn’t the same show. This is a different show. That’s why they have different titles, different characters and different plot lines. They are both set in an ad agency though, so mad props for that.
What’s really familiar to this blog though is your thinly-veiled jealousy.
Sounds like the tv version of “e” by Matt Beaumont.
1.14
It seems like they have different titles, but the same characters, plot etc. As does every other show about advertising except Mad Men. When trying to make a comedy writers tend to go for the easy, broad-stroked characters.
I just love the irony. Having been told the 30 sec commercial is dead and the future is all digital and content what do we get? A television show called :30 seconds! You gotta love that. Good luck monkeys.
1.39, I thought the same thing.
Should have been called Bitter & Twisted – oh, no that would be a great name for a show about the pathetic world of most Campaign Brief bloggers. Failing that, maybe a show about the exciting world of the advertising trade magazine.
Tristan! Stop pulling Sebastian’s hair IMMEDIATELY.
Phallus, u ROCK!
I have seen Trust Me I don’t love it, it’s a bit cheesy, the plot does sound similar but then look at how many medical shows there it. Advertising is the new hospital.
Wow – 22 comments – *all* anonymous.
Don’t suppose we could start using names could we?
Saves all this silly “Yeah 1.33! You really showed 12.15!!!” stuff.
Anyway, cast sounds good. Denton usually backs winners,
and I look forward to watching it.
Sounds really gay!
Gee i hope that Lynchy and Anonymous make it in the show. I mean we ARE the industry. Oh this is so exciting, Im gonna be on TV!!!
Well done boys –
It’d be great if every twenty minutes or so the retarded mail boy walks into the office and goes ‘DDBOOOM’ then walks out.
Top idea, 8:45. And what about a scenario where the agency puts on $50 million in new business and then ‘restructures’, firing the creative department who contributed to that success?
Nah, too unbelievable.
I’ll condense the Aussie Ad industry into two seconds:
Fucken gay.