All posts tagged fall

  • August 12, 2013

    Shorthand story: ‘The Making of England v Australia’, July 2013

    A story for Shorthand, a Brisbane-based digital technology company. Excerpt below; click the image to read the full story.

    The Making of ‘England v Australia’

    The Making of 'England v Australia' by Andrew McMillen for Shorthand, July 2013

    The first project released by Australian digital publishing company Shorthand details one of sport’s ultimate rivalries, yet ironically, it only came to fruition after partnering with an iconic British media outlet which recently launched down under. In collaboration with the Guardian Australia, ‘England v Australia’ is a long-form interactive story that traces the history of the the two countries’ ongoing contest, which spans generations, oceans and sporting codes.

    “We wanted to develop a tool that would be used by the publishing industry,” says Shorthand executive manager Ben Fogarty. “And what better way to find out what it needs to become than working with someone like the Guardian, with their experience and their approach to storytelling, news and features? It was a great opportunity to get straight into the thick of it with a very well-known, professional organisation, and see how and where Shorthand fits into that scenario.”

    The Brisbane-based start-up was founded in March 2013 in recognition of a problem that had emerged in online journalism: how could publishers tell ‘epic’ stories without the requisite eye-popping budgets, labour-intensive web development, and months of lead time?

    In short: how to craft an interactive masterpiece like ‘Snow Fall’ without breaking the bank each and every time? The start-up saw a gap in the market to provide a high-quality, affordable platform for digital storytellers. Although Shorthand’s goal was clear, the team still had many unanswered questions.

    “‘England v Australia’ helped us define our scope very well,” says Fogarty. “We had a big question around where the content was going to come from, and how digital storytelling is crafted. Do you start with media and put text around it? Do you grab text and find the media to go with it? Being part of that process from an early stage with the Guardian Australia has helped shape in our minds how to create the product features that’d work best for telling these sorts of stories for the web.”

    To read the full story – and get a better idea of the tool that the company is developing – visit Shorthand’s website.

    No Comments / Feature Journalism, Published Writing /

  • December 12, 2012

    Rolling Stone Q+A: Paul Kelly, December 2012

    A Q+A with Paul Kelly in the December 2012 issue of Rolling Stone. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    Q&A – Paul Kelly

    The singer-songwriter on his new album, having his life documented, and nephew Dan’s cooking skills

    Few of us will ever know the feeling of watching a feature-length documentary about our own lives while sitting in a cinema filled with friends and family. Paul Kelly is one of the lucky few, though he probably wouldn’t use that adjective when describing the premiere of Stories Of Me at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August. Its limited release in October coincides with the release of the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s eighteenth album, Spring And Fall, which sees Kelly pare back rock-band tropes in favour of largely acoustic, softly-sung songs.

    Before we discuss that, though: what was it like to watch your life dissected on film? “It’s something I want to do only once in my life,” Kelly replies. “I had some of my brothers and sisters there. That was the best part of it for me; the celebration of my family. The rest of it was a pretty awkward thing to watch. But I got through it.”

    First the memoir two years ago, now this film. What in your life hasn’t been documented, Paul?

    I think too much has been documented, so it’s probably time to jump back into the shadows again for a little while! [laughs] I gave Shark Island [Productions] pretty good access, but from that point it was their film, not mine. It’s funny; I don’t feel connected to the doco like I would to my own work. I liked that they picked up a lot on my family; generations back, as well as my wider clan. That’s showing that people don’t work in isolation – they’re a product of a whole lot of things.

    Speaking of family, you and your nephew Dan have spent thousands of hours together, both onstage and off. Which trait sticks out more in your mind: the fact that he’s a great musician, or that he’s family?

    Family’s first, but he’s a joy to play with. He can be a bit of a worrier. He’s a great cook, so he’s great to travel with. He cooks like he plays [guitar]; never really follows a recipe, but he’s a great improviser. His playing has big, deep roots, because he listens widely to a lot of music. He’s got one of those ‘fermenting’ brains: there’s always a lot going on in Dan’s head, and it’s just a matter of catching it as it falls out.

    Spring And Fall is a love story – what can you tell us about the starring characters?

    It’s a love story from a couple of different points of view. Some of the songs are narrated, like ‘When A Woman Loves A Man’; ‘Time And Tide’ feels a bit more like a third-person story. Others are more directly speaking from the characters involved. But to me, the emotional arc of the record starts with love’s beginning – the ‘spring’ – and there’s a turning point in the middle around ‘Someone New’, followed by the aftermath.

    With your characters, do you go as far as envisaging their physical appearances and personality traits?

    Not on this record. I didn’t have it that defined; I don’t have names for them. But a bit of a model was a Willie Nelson album from 1974 called Phases and Stages. It’s the story of a divorce: side one is the man’s point of view, side two is the woman’s. I wasn’t getting quite as specific as Willie, but I kinda liked that idea.

    I’m not sure what you’ll make of this, but every time I listen to your song ‘When A Woman Loves A Man’, I think of how perfect it’d be as the soundtrack for a sex education video.

    Really? [laughs] Well, you know, if you know people in the know, then send it off!

    “Time and tide wait for no-one,” as you sing. You seem to have taken aging in your stride better than many musicians, perhaps even working harder as you grow older.

    Songwriting’s really a form of play. I still find it fascinating. It doesn’t feel like a grind. There are certain aspects of my job that’s grinding; sometimes the touring, and proofing, and approving YouTube videos. [laughs] If you want to be any good, you have to get involved with everything. There’s more work on the creative side now. And also, the record companies do less now than they used to: I do it, or me and the team do it. But the actual thing that starts it all is ‘play’: writing a song. Nothing would happen without playing in the sandpit. And that’s all it is.

    That’s a view that hasn’t changed over the years?

    Yeah. Songwriting’s not real work. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s a “craft”. It’s play.

    No Comments / Music Journalism, Published Writing /

  • January 19, 2011

    The Vine album review: Gorillaz – ‘The Fall’, January 2011

    An album review for The Vine. Excerpt below.

    Gorillaz – The Fall

    This album costs zero dollars. Released via gorillaz.com on Christmas Day 2010,The Fall could be the biggest free album release this side of Prince taping his discs to British newspapers in 2007 – but even that cost a pound or two. Sure, Radiohead released In Rainbows that year, but the element of guilt (“pay what you think it’s worth”) translated into at least a couple of million for the band, and that was pre-physical release.

    Gorillaz aren’t interested in that. For the cost of an email address, The Fall is yours. This also puts music critics in an interesting position. Arguably, a key value of music critics to their reading audience, is our willingness to test the artistic waters, musically speaking. To suggest, in part, whether an album is worth buying (or – these days – “downloading”). When music is free, that barrier to entry is destroyed. Here, listeners have nothing to lose besides time. The music critic is effectively defanged. So what you should do right now, before reading any further, is visit thewebsite, plug in an email address, and download your own copy. (Interestingly, the disclaimer at the bottom states that the album may not be “sold, transferred, altered or copied (including burning and uploading to the internet) without the express prior written approval of EMI Records Ltd”. Good luck with that.)

    This isn’t a traditional Gorillaz album like Plastic Beach or Demon Days. It was written and recorded by head Gorilla Damon Albarn while the band toured North America in late 2010. All of the songs were arranged using an Apple iPad, though the production platform is less compelling than the notion itself.

    For the full review, visit The Vine. For more Gorillaz, visit their website. The music video for ‘Phoner To Arizona‘ is embedded below.

    No Comments / Music Criticism, Published Writing /

  • November 10, 2010

    IGN Australia story: ‘Krome Studios: Things Fall Apart’, November 2010

    My first feature for IGN Australia. Excerpt below.

    Krome Studios: Things Fall Apart

    It’s the question that’s been reverberating around the corridors of the Australian game industry for three weeks: what causes Australia’s largest video game development studio to close its doors? Andrew McMillen investigates, and discovers that Krome’s current situation isn’t as clear-cut as first reported.

    The Precursor

    “Too often, game companies can fall into a production line mentality, and I think that hurts the morale of the employees who are naturally creative people – and in turn the creativity of the company, as a whole.” –Ex-Krome Employee

    As the annual Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) event drew to a close on Friday, October 15, the local games industry’s mood of inspiration, optimism and enthusiasm was given a brutal reality check via whisperings that Brisbane-based Krome Studios was shutting its doors. Word spread among the industry quickly, and reports began appearing on sites like Tsumea that the developer – established in 1999 – was conducting a round of staff lay-offs.

    Such events were not unfamiliar to the Australian gaming industry, as the studio had been through regular rounds of employee redundancy in parallel to a decrease in development contracts. At its peak in July 2009, Krome employed over 400 staff across studios in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide; four months later, 60 staff were let go, followed by another 50 in April 2010, and then an estimated 100 in August, which brought Krome Studios Adelaide to an end. The company was co-founded in 1999 by CEO Robert Walsh, creative director Steve Stamatiadis, and design director John Passfield, who left Krome in 2005.

    Read the full story – which runs to three pages, and around 3,000 words – on IGN Australia.

    This is the biggest story I’ve written, both in length and in terms of its scope. For three weeks, the Australian gaming industry had been assuming that Krome was dead. I looked closer, and found something different.

    Thanks to the editors at IGN AU, Cam Shea and Narayan Pattison, for taking a chance on this story. As a sidenote, working with Cam on this story closed a nice little circle: as a teenager, I was a big fan of Hyper Magazine, which Cam edited between 2005 and 2007. Thanks also to the ex-Krome employees and gaming industry contacts I spoke with for this story, both on and off the record, as well as Krome CEO Robert Walsh.

    16 November edit: IGN have also published my full interview with Robert Walsh. Read it here.

    No Comments / Feature Journalism, Published Writing, Tech Journalism /