I’m posting today’s song because I finished up classes at university for another semester and what better way to celebrate than with a favourite song? That, and it’s hella ropey outside — the weather is yuck — and it’s just the kind of warm, sunny tune that can help combat the weather, even if only a little bit.

The song is called ‘The Right Track’ and it’s by Billy Butler. Just try not moving your hips a bit. Impossible! I’ve started singing along to it quite loudly as well recently, but I’m trouble like that. Just count yourself lucky you’ve not heard me do it.

xoxo Nyssa on the 25th May, 2012 | 2 comments
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My project for Narrative for Multimedia is due next week and sadly/not sadly, all the fun bits — the research, the thinking up ideas, the talking it over with everyone — is over, and now all that’s left is to just pull the script and storyboards together, just the presentation.

The name of my project is called ‘The Richards Hotel’ and it’s named after the venue in the story.  The venue is named after Keith Richards, a rock ‘n’ roll immortal, in both legend and let’s face it, reality. Ages ago, my Dad suggested to me that after the apocolypse, the only things left would be cockroaches and Keith Richards. It’s that kind of spirit you look for in rock ‘n’ roll, and to name the venue after him just seemed appropriate.

Of course, as anyone who has attempted to Google Keith Richards can attest, it often turns into the following shenanigans. This is ripped from my Facebook last night:

Nyssa: attempt a google search on keith richards. type in “keith”. first suggestion is keith urban. LAME, GOOGLE.

Michael: well keith urban is highly popular at the moment
Nyssa: he’s probably prettier than keith richards. i just horrified myself.
Kathryn: did you know Keith Richards real name is Keith Richard? or so i’ve been told … the internet is full of dubious information
Kathryn: the more i read, the most theories i come across. don’t look, don’t look!
Nyssa: i was looking for pictures of him looking young, like in the film. i got to page 5 before i uncovered my eyes.
Nyssa: my fav rolling stones fact: no one knows how old charlie watts is. people pitch him in his mid to late 60′s.
Kathryn: hahahahahaha that comment two above made me laugh, a lot!
Michael: wikipedia says 70 :-p
Nyssa: i know! DAMN YOU WIKI! stop making me look bad!
Michael: wikipedia ruins everything
Kathryn: google image search of “keith richards” ruined my eye-sight.
Nyssa: i liked your result though!
Michael: oh dear god i just google image searched…and i had safesearch ON!!!
Nyssa: if i’m going down i’m taking you all with me.

The result of Kathryn’s Google search is actually quite lovely. I pinned it for quick reference.

Source: patrishka.wordpress.com via Nyssa on Pinterest

Anyway the other reason for the recent enthusiastic interest in The Rolling Stones is that Kathryn, Michelle, Neil and I went along to the ACMI to see a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ (AKA ‘One Plus One’). Just to let my inner former film student out, it was more Godard than Godard, going off on tangents about the Black Power movement of the 60′s, amongst others. However, the footage of the Stones’ recording ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, one of my favourite tracks of theirs, is gold. Watching the song grow from a slow-jam to the strut that it is today is fascinating.

And, thanks to the Internet, here are the 42 best minutes from the film!

So I will see you guys on the other side of this assignment!

Week 12 is here! This is the week that my script-project is pushed out!

The script is there. I’ve been handwriting it in coffee shops like a wanker and am looking forward to typing up the bones of it this evening. I might post it in a week or two’s time.

What’s also coming along nicely is the accompanying social media aspect of the work. After much consultation with my “target demographic” (read: my smart friends who like music), it was pretty much decided that characters existing within a Facebook network was not acceptable, as Facebook is a personal space, however Twitter was an excellent location. Friends who enjoyed spending time online would use Twitter for entertainment reasons, whereas everyone is pretty much required to use Facebook for social reasons. There was one exception and that was if there was a real-life event involved. Using an example from my story, if there was to be a rally for live music, a Facebook invitation was a must.

So I have been developing the accompanying Twitter dialogue and I will not lie, it requires thinking beyond the ten minutes accounted for in the script. Around 45 seconds to 1 minute of the script is dedicated to catching the viewer/user up on past events, much like what you would see on a regular drama where one of the characters purrs in a voiceover, “Previously on ‘Gossip Girl’,” and then it flashes through a season in a sexy and dramatic way (I tried to find an example but production houses are on top of this sort of copyright breech). There needs to be a collection of corresponding tweets as well to demonstrate the interaction between their characters and their world, including characters that may not necessarily be mentioned heavily on the show, but would be an important part of a social network.

One example of a character who wouldn’t be mentioned a lot on the screen but would be vital to the characters’ online presence is the local street press, who would be publishing gig guides and local music news. For example, in the real world, there’s physical and virtual publications such as Tone Deaf, Mess and Noise, Faster Louder, Beat, Inpress, it goes on, and they each have their own personality. Mess and Noise and Tone Deaf have quite an opinionated tone, whereas Beat, Inpress and FasterLouder take a much more objective view to music. You and I know this approach as branding.

I work for a company whose Facebook presence has a personality. I’m not going to name names and shatter illusions for people — some of our customers might be upset if I told them the helpful lady on Facebook wasn’t real — but the marketing department At Work have created a character to be the face of our customer service.  Let’s call her Mandy because I think that’s quite a cute name.  She writes helpful blogs, signs the newsletters, sends out discount vouchers, writes interesting things on Facebook and, most important, responds to Facebook questions.

Of course, the whole time, it’s just we customer service plebs doing all the work here, but we like that our customers have Mandy to relate to. I had a quick conversation with our head of Marketing and the head of Customer Service (my boss).  I thought I was going to gain some wonderful, thoughtful insight that was based on theory and research, but actually it’s a far more organic journey for our faceless face of customer service.

Marketing: “Actually, I didn’t come up with that at all.  It was all The Boss, he made her up.”
Customer Service: “We used to outsource our Facebook page and the person in charge didn’t want to use her real name on Facebook, so she came up with the pseudonym Mandy.  When we took the Facebook page in house, we kept Mandy.”
Me: “You know we all kind of associate a personality with her, right?”
Marketing: “Really?”
Me: “Yeah, I always pictured her in her early-to-late forties, really friendly and approachable.  Very patient.”
(note: Due to the type of product we provide, this is very close to our target market.)
CS: “When we respond as her on Facebook, we try to keep it really cheery.”
Marketing: “I think I remember you saying CS that she also helps take the heat on some trickier questions.”
CS: “It does make the customers feel listened to.  Sometimes they’ll ask something on Facebook that requires a specific answer, so Mandy will always recommend they email customer service.  Then we’ll receive an email that says, ‘Mandy said you were the best person to talk to.’  Although lately she has been handling more technical questions directly on Facebook.”
Me: “Are you suggesting that’s she’s learned something while working here, grown with the company a bit?”
CS: “I never thought of it like that, but I guess you’re kind of right.”
Marketing: “I didn’t realise you guys read into her character like this.  We never planned any of that at all.”
CS: “You know, I always thought she had a kid.”
Me: “Me too.  Mainly because Mums are patient.”

I’d never stopped to think that Mandy had actually grown within her role At Work, mainly because she’s a figment of everyone’s imagination.  I do like that a fictional character has had quite the impact on our workplace — she’s encouraging us to be cheerier in our responses, we can blame her for things that annoy us (such as a sudden influx of emails based off a newsletter she sent), and our customers have someone  to relate to.

So this means even the smallest details of what my characters Tweet is important, because as we’ve learned here today At Work, even the seemingly boring, inconsequential details are important to the story, and online characters such as the Street Press and the Twitter account of the venue in the story need to have a voice that is loud and clear.

(I just heard my co-worker explain to a customer on the phone that Mandy wasn’t in today and how could he help.  Fantastic!)

xoxo Nyssa on the 21st May, 2012 | no comments
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A sad moment for music this week, as the news of Donald “Duck” Dunn’s passing was announced. His bass playing was immortalised on Stax Records as he was a part of the house band, along with being involved with Booker T and The MG’s.


Check out the girls dancing in this video, so cool and aloof.

However, and maybe you’re like me, your folks weren’t into soul music (it’s a relatively new thing for me, Neil introduced me to it a couple of years ago), but there was a sound they did dig. Or they loved the car crash sequences like my Dad. Whatever the case, my first introduction to Dunn’s work was this.

Twice as much Friday today, enjoy!

xoxo Nyssa on the 18th May, 2012 | no comments
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Introducing Hello Friday! where I get all the fun of scouring You Tube for my favourite Friday songs.  I mean, I like all the serious schoolwork and everything, but these are the songs I’m listening to when I’m doing some sewing, swanning around in a pretty dress or putting the final touches on the week before the weekend lands.

And of course, I’m always looking for new songs, so the more posted in the comments each week, the better!

First up is Johnny Taylor’s ‘Who’s Making Love?’ and I’ve chosen it for several reasons:
1. It’s on a Stax compilation vinyl Neil got for me for my birthday this year and it’s the song I look forward to hearing the most when I put the record on (I don’t have a digital copy of this one yet).
2. The cat sees me sauntering around the house while it’s playing and hides.  Known fact: my cat has no taste.  I mean, he likes cat food for goodness sakes.
3.  The suit Taylor is wearing in the video is enviable.  You need to see it.

xoxo Nyssa on the 11th May, 2012 | 1 comment
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