Brett Debritz’s archive

With film almost a thing of the past in the stills photography business, it looks like we will soon kiss goodbye strips of film that run through projectors. The major US motion picture studios have agreed on a digital standard, meaning they’ll be making their movies (we won’t be able to call them films any more) in the same format. This presumable means a lot of cost-cutting efficiencies for the studios and their distribution arms – no more bulky containers to ship around the world – but might it also mean a change in what we see on the screen? At last week’s AFTRS screening, there was a noticeable quality distinction between the short films made on celluloid and those created with digital gear. Just as some hi-fi buffs still insist on listening to vinyl records or tape, will the real auteurs continue to use film?

After a big night out, one could expect to see double … Today I caught up again with Sylvester McCoy at the Regatta Hotel and met a second former Doctor Who, Colin Baker. Here’s the photo to prove it.

A Kenyan civic official who offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for the hand of his daughter, Chelsea, five years ago, is still waiting for an answer.

Who’s that with Sylvester McCoy, the British actor who became the seventh Doctor Who? It’s me, I’m afraid. The very obliging and extremely interesting Mr McCoy and his predecessor Colin Baker are in Brisbane today promoting the Inside the Tardis stage show which will play at the Brisbane Convention Centre on Monday. Last night, when this photograph was taken, they were at the very loud opening-night party for the Brisbane International Film Festival at the South Bank Cinemas.

The radio rumourmongers almost had it right. DMG’s new radio stations will be called Vega (not Veva or Viva as speculated). Here’s the website for the Sydney station, which will go to air on Monday. DMG boss Paul Thompson says the stations will be aimed at baby boomers, aged 40 to 60, and will play “40 years of music”. According to The Age, the Sydney and Melbourne stations will share the line-up of Wendy Harmer (mornings), Francis Leach (afternoons), Rebecca Wilson and Tony Squires (drive) and Mike Perso (nights), but have different breakfast hosts. In Sydney it will be ex-Triple J and ABC702 announcer Angela Catterns, but the host for the Melbourne station – which won’t launch officially until Spetember – hasn’t yet been named.

Microsoft’s next operating system, due for release in 2006, used to be code-named Longhorn. Now it’s called Vista. I can’t imagine why, but apparently somebody thought the original name was open to misinterpretation.

We all love Pluto, Goofy, Lady and Tramp, don’t we. Well it seems that the folks at Disney, the company that invented those characters, isn’t quite so keen on canines after all. Bosses at the new Hong Kong Disneyland have asked authorities to round up and destroy at least 40 dogs at the theme park site. The dogs were befriended, then abandoned, by construction workers. What would Uncle Walt think?

The rumour mill is always running hot in Australian broadcasting industry. Here’s a few of the latest:
1) Longtime radio man Jamie Dunn is leaving Brisbane’s B105 for a breakfast gig on the Sunshine Coast. Status: Not true, at least not yet, say Austereo sources. Other sources mention the phrase “flying a kite”.
2) Triple M Brisbane breakfast duo Greg Martin and Greg Sullivan have been seen lurking the corridors of rival Nova 106.9. Status: unconfirmed and unlikely since they they don’t seem to match the youth-oriented station’s format.
3) DMG’s new 40-plus Sydney and Melbourne stations to be called Veva or Viva. Status: all to be revealed at a launch tomorrow.

OK. So this probably qualifies as an ad – but the t-shirthumour.com website is worth checking out for this and many other amusing reasons:

Eddie McGuire popped in to Brisbane yesterday for a quick whirl of media engagements and to spruik his quiz show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Over lunch, McGuire frankly admitted he’d been “looking a bit bored” on the screen until recently, but now felt reinvigorated – and pointed out that the Channel 9 show was holding its own in the ratings against Channel 7’s breakaway ht Desperate Housewives. Wearing his AFL cap, the Collingwoood chairman and commentator also said the sport was now in danger in its Victorian heartland because the interstate teams were dominating the competition.