Melbourne Herald Sun 1st May, 2010
At the start of my working life, as a cadet reporter, purgatory was weeks and months covering the magistrate’s court. Forget the drama of Law and Order, a petty courtroom is a sleep-inducing atmosphere.
But every few weeks things would liven up when someone would strenuously defend themselves against a speeding charge or parking offence or shoplifting indiscretion. They would roll out well rehearsed arguments, drawings, photographs, medical records sometimes even lawyers to prove their case. And you watched with detached compassion because you knew they didn’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of getting off.
In three years of weekly courts I can count on one hand those who succeeded. It rammed home a lesson to me. As the saying goes, ‘You can’t fight city hall”. Or the magistrates and police, or the tax man. Not unless you’re very persistent and very well heeled.
A Melbourne food importer, Alfred Abbatangelo, learned this the hard way in the Federal Court last month. The attempt to persuade the tax office that Perfetto Mini Ciabatte are bread and not crackers - and therefore free of GST - will cost him an estimated million bucks, not to mention six years of his life plodding through the courts. “No,” was the verdict, “It’s crisp, it snaps, it’s a cracker."
A friend of mine discovered this six years ago. Andre Scibor-Kaminski is a smart IT man who developed a phone directory on CD called DtMS. The one disk had the every phone and every business in Australia, instantly searchable. Groups could be collected, mail-outs organised, reversed searches from a number to a name. It was far superior to anything on offer from Telstra or Sensis today.
But Telstra sued Andre for breach of copyright. The rebuttal was: how can you copyright a number? It’s not an original work of authorship or art. He lost the case, despite some heavyweight legal opinion in his favour. He appealed and lost again and finally after five years the money ran out and the company went into liquidation.
Yes, size does matter. And so do deep pockets. There again, even city hall can’t fight Spring Street. In recent months we have seen Stonnington and Yarra councils battling the Victorian Government against extended clearways on busy shopping streets.
The money hasn’t extended to the millions yet, but certainly hundreds of thousands have gone in advertising, legal fees and lost parking-fine revenue. And you just know that in the end, might shall prevail. Just as it did when the Victorian Government battled the Australian Government over hospitals.
Now you know I don’t like to despair in this column. So there is a chink of light. It is possible to beat city hall, sometimes. Remember Geelong’s sanga-gate.
Forgotten already? It was only a year ago when Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson were sacked by Geelong Council because they used some left-over asphalt to fill a couple of pot-holes at the Leopold Sportsmans Club. Their bribe for this “theft” was a steak sandwich in the clubroom.
Well this is where you put the media to good use. The story got out and suddenly hundreds of people stormed the city hall, encouraged by the news crews and, it seemed, half the world’s media. Peter and Mick, with his beard and beanie, gained their fifteen minutes of fame in one night.
The Australian Services Union leaped in, closely followed by lawyers and politicians. And finally the council caved in and reinstated the men, city hall was beat.
But don’t expect that to happen next time you get a parking fine and are positive you did not exceed the permitted time. I can tell you right now, you ain’t got a snowball’s.
ray@ebeatty.com
01 May, 2010
To succeed, match your Madonnas with your virgins
Melbourne Herald Sun, 15th December 2009
In a world of stars and celebrities, spare a thought for the producers - the hard-working business men and women, maybe a bit like you, who have the courage to take risks and invest their meagre funds on someone’s talent.
Take Seymour Stein. This legendary record producer was in a hospital bed when he heard some Madonna demos and signed her on the spot, in 1983. A year later he risked accusations of heresy by pairing Madonna with a new song Like a Virgin. The rest is history.
Stock Aitken and Waterman were a production team in London. The Neighbours “wedding” of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan had been watched by half of Britain in 1987. The Aussie girl had a good voice and they thought they could put her through their “hit factory” and make a buck or two.
But when she arrived they had forgotten she was coming. While she sat in the waiting room they wrote a song that she could immediately record. I Should Be So Lucky became a number one hit around the world. And the rest is...
Perhaps genius is coming up with the smart idea at just the time when it is needed, so it’s pretty close to luck. In the history of music and theatre, luck has been ever-present.
In 1786 the hottest property on the European stage was playwright Beaumarchais. When Mozart offered the Imperial Theatre a musical of his most popular play, they snapped it up bidding 450 florins - three times the annual wage Mozart used to get back in Salzburg. The opera Marriage of Figaro became a big hit.
Seventy years later the hottest stage play was The Lady of the Camelias by Alexandre Dumas. Composer Guiseppe Verdi snapped up the rights to make a musical. “We’ll call it The Prostitute, that’ll bring the punters in.” Sure enough La Traviata became one of the most successful operas of all time.
The point is, great art is often the result of good business. History glosses over the fact that these geniuses were businessmen, just like Cameron Mackintosh producing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, which has become the most successful entertainment project in history. It’s still running in New York and London 24 years later.
The producer’s job is to find a great idea and develop it with the most talented people he can find. Sometimes it means taking a risk - usually because he can’t afford the price of the established people in the field. Then he applies an obsessive demand for the very best production values.
My personal experience of this was back in 1979 in a small production studio in Elsternwick where I made commercials. In the next suite a curly-haired doctor worked obsessively over the film editing desk cutting together a movie he was making for a ridiculously small budget.
But he gathered in the most talented actors and crew in Australia - the young ones he could afford - and cast an unknown lead called Mel Gibson. We watched this movie coming together over his shoulders and were increasingly impressed - it was much more intelligent and better made than the shlock we had imagined.
When Mad Max was released later that year it took Australia by storm, and then the world box office to the tune of $100 million. Miller was not just the director but the producer, along with his mate Byron Kennedy. Which just goes to show you how important a brave producer is in making history.
ray@ebeatty.com
In a world of stars and celebrities, spare a thought for the producers - the hard-working business men and women, maybe a bit like you, who have the courage to take risks and invest their meagre funds on someone’s talent.
Take Seymour Stein. This legendary record producer was in a hospital bed when he heard some Madonna demos and signed her on the spot, in 1983. A year later he risked accusations of heresy by pairing Madonna with a new song Like a Virgin. The rest is history.
Stock Aitken and Waterman were a production team in London. The Neighbours “wedding” of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan had been watched by half of Britain in 1987. The Aussie girl had a good voice and they thought they could put her through their “hit factory” and make a buck or two.
But when she arrived they had forgotten she was coming. While she sat in the waiting room they wrote a song that she could immediately record. I Should Be So Lucky became a number one hit around the world. And the rest is...
Perhaps genius is coming up with the smart idea at just the time when it is needed, so it’s pretty close to luck. In the history of music and theatre, luck has been ever-present.
In 1786 the hottest property on the European stage was playwright Beaumarchais. When Mozart offered the Imperial Theatre a musical of his most popular play, they snapped it up bidding 450 florins - three times the annual wage Mozart used to get back in Salzburg. The opera Marriage of Figaro became a big hit.
Seventy years later the hottest stage play was The Lady of the Camelias by Alexandre Dumas. Composer Guiseppe Verdi snapped up the rights to make a musical. “We’ll call it The Prostitute, that’ll bring the punters in.” Sure enough La Traviata became one of the most successful operas of all time.
The point is, great art is often the result of good business. History glosses over the fact that these geniuses were businessmen, just like Cameron Mackintosh producing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, which has become the most successful entertainment project in history. It’s still running in New York and London 24 years later.
The producer’s job is to find a great idea and develop it with the most talented people he can find. Sometimes it means taking a risk - usually because he can’t afford the price of the established people in the field. Then he applies an obsessive demand for the very best production values.
My personal experience of this was back in 1979 in a small production studio in Elsternwick where I made commercials. In the next suite a curly-haired doctor worked obsessively over the film editing desk cutting together a movie he was making for a ridiculously small budget.
But he gathered in the most talented actors and crew in Australia - the young ones he could afford - and cast an unknown lead called Mel Gibson. We watched this movie coming together over his shoulders and were increasingly impressed - it was much more intelligent and better made than the shlock we had imagined.
When Mad Max was released later that year it took Australia by storm, and then the world box office to the tune of $100 million. Miller was not just the director but the producer, along with his mate Byron Kennedy. Which just goes to show you how important a brave producer is in making history.
ray@ebeatty.com
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