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3 new comedies stitch up ABC funding
Three comedy projects that were developed under a Film Victoria/ABC TV comedy initiative STITCH will receive funding from the ABC.
The projects were selected from more than 200 applicants and rewarded with a three-day workshop last year
with comedy writing mentoring from Steve Kaplan (whose graduates have worked on Sex and the City, Ugly Betty, Big Love and The Daily Show) and insight from Andrew Knight (Full Frontal, Tripping Over, SeaChange) and and Mike Bullen (Cold Feet).
The three projects are:
Next of Kin – Josh Thomas (Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation), and Todd Abbott …
Second season for Tangle
It’s official.
Showtime has commissioned a second season of Tangle, the acclaimed Australian drama about two generations of families in suburban Melbourne.
Minor Spoiler: Justine Clarke, Catherine McClements, Joel Tobeck, Matt Day and Kat Stewart are all returning. Due to the plotline nature of the season cliffhanger, so far there is no confirmation on a return by actor Ben Mendelsohn.
As revealed by TV Tonight, Don Hany (East West 101, Dirt Game, Underbelly) is also joining the cast.
The second season has been written by original writers Fiona Seres (Love My Way, Dangerous, The …
TV’s family values
Some years ago when he was Treasurer, Peter Costello suggested Australian families should have one baby for mum, one for dad and one for the country. Maybe he should have thrown in one for television too.
The traditional, nuclear family is disappearing from primetime television. Yet TV families are amongst our most popular genres.
If you step into the fictional suburb of Erinsborough today you will find great change from its origins. Under the roofs of Ramsay Street there is an array of family groupings: married couples, children, brothers and sisters, friends, step-parents, …
TV history comes alive
They’ve got a clip of Kate Langbroek breastfeeding on air, the actual Dexter the robot, a spanner from Charlene, a model of the Big Brother house, plus memories of Seachange, Shirl’s Neighbourhood, and Simon Townsend’s Wonder World.
The Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne today opens its doors to ‘Screen Worlds’, a new permanent, interactive exhibition.
On show is everything from cinema’s early beginnings to the rise of television, games, the internet, new media and the dominance of the digital age.
The television component is the biggest of its kind at ACMI …
ABC gets the Lowdown on Adam Zwar
The ABC will produce a new 8 part comedy, Lowdown, starring and co-created by actor / writer Adam Zwar (Wilfred).
Zwar, who has just completed a second season of Wilfred for SBS, told TV Tonight, “I created it with Amanda Brotchie, an AFI Award winning filmmaker. It’s based very loosely on my career as a celebrity profile writer for a Sunday newspaper.”
Joining Zwar in the cast are Paul Denny (Love of Lionel’s Life, Wilfred, Hawke), Beth Buchanan (Hey Dad, The King) and Dailan Evans (Eagle and Evans, Mark Loves Sharon.)
During his time …
SBS Drama exec returns to ABC
An SBS Drama executive is heading back to the ABC.
Carole Sklan, who commissioned two seasons of East West 101, plus Carla Cametti PD and the upcoming second season of Wilfred for SBS, has re-joined ABC TV as a Commissioning Editor for Drama.
Sklan worked at SBS for three and a half years where she was commissioning editor on the telemovie Saved, the animated feature Mary and Max, the five minute comedy interstitial series Marx and Venus, and the indigenous short series, Bit of Black Business.
Amanda Higgs, Acting Head of ABC TV Drama …
30 Seconds cast ad nauseum
Peter O’Brien, Joel Tobeck, Gyton Grantley, Stephen Curry and Jenna Lind will feature in 30 Seconds, the new scripted comedy Andrew Denton is producing for the Comedy Channel.
The show is a character study ‘based on the moral dilemmas people face, heightened by the excesses of the advertising industry and the three maintain no character in the show is based on any single person they know, but drawn from many of their real-life experiences.’
The show’s creators Tim Bullock, Justin Drape and Scott Nowell, who met in 2003 when they worked together at …
Vale: Reg Evans
The Herald Sun has noted the death of character actor Reg Evans, 80, in Victorian bushfires.
An English migrant, Evans was born in 1928, started in television in 1964 on Consider Your Verdict, and worked on many Australian series: Skippy, Division Four, Matlock Police, Power Without Glory, Homicide, The Sullivans, Skyways, Are You Being Served, Prisoner, The Flying Doctors, Snowy River, MDA, Seachange, Something in the Air and Blue Heelers.
His film career includes Mad Dog Morgan, Mad Max, Manganinnie, Women of the Sun, Gallipoli, Kitty and the Bagman, Strikebound, Evil Angels, …
End of the road for Seachange bridge
To many it’s just an old bridge, but to viewers of Seachange it’s a memorable location, and a long-running joke for the fictional characters of Pearl Bay.
And to the locals of Barwon Heads south of Geeling, Victoria, it’s part of the town’s history. But the days of the Barwon Heads Bridge appear to be over.
Heritage Victoria last year gave VicRoads the OK to knock down the historic 1927 timber bridge. VicRoads had decided that for safety purposes that the bridge linking the town with Ocean Grove would have to go.
The …
Second series for Packed to the Rafters
Here’s an announcement we all saw coming, and a win for Australian drama.
Seven has approved a second season of Packed to the Rafters. As if there was any doubt…
It’s fair to say Rafters has struck a chord with Australian viewers, slamming all those who contend local drama doesn’t rate. Even at this early stage of the show’s life, we haven’t seen figures so consistently high since dramas like Blue Heelers and SeaChange. Rafters, along with Underbelly, is one of the few success stories of a tough year.
All cast members are confirmed …
Drama Exec leaving SBS
One of the best in the biz, Drama Executive Sue Masters, is leaving SBS citing personal reasons.
Masters has only been with SBS since April, previously with TEN and the ABC. During her tenure SBS has produced or developed Carla Cametti P.D, Bogan Pride, and Swift and Shift Couriers plus second seasons of East West 101 and The Circuit -she will remain as an Executive Producer on series two of The Circuit.
Masters has previously worked on dramas including Brides of Christ, The Secret Life of Us, Wildside, Seachange, RAW FM, …
SeaChange bridge under threat
Pearl Bay’s bridge was something of a long-running joke in SeaChange. The easiest connection between the fictional towns of Pearl Bay and Port Deakin, it was destroyed years earlier and every attempt at fixing it always goes to ruins. Eventually Bob Jelly (John Howard) blew it up.
Now Heritage Victoria has given VicRoads approval to to tear down the 81-year-old timber bridge which links Ocean Grove to Barwon Heads on the Bellarine Peninsula, south of Geelong.
VicRoads intends to “reconstruct” the bridge six metres downstream from its site, using as much as possible …