AWARENESS FILM CONVENTIONS

I've decided start calling this sort of post 'Media Conventions Bemoaned' from now on, (and yes I realise its not snappy or funny but I'm not getting paid so get over it). Basically I'll try as best I can to document the highly formulaic rules and conventions adhered to by those pushing music, film, books etc. which have proven successful.

What's got Chris' goat this time? Awareness Films. This ones getting particularly rife and for some reason they all look to have been made by the same people. Below are a few of those principles that come to mind for Awareness Docs:

- They've all won an award or two (and they'll tell you about it in the trailer or on its website, usually in brackets made of Julius Caesar's crown)

- They're 'Important' films (usually touted as such by some relatively unknown scientist/expert of said field)

- Epic music permeates as the aforementioned scientists reel off scores of complicated sounding problems with the earth. This is then replaced by a jaunty track to signify the 'what we can do to help' section which is self-explanatory

- People have gotten at least slightly excited by them at Sundance

- A lot of pictures of industry (some crude oil, a cow being injected with buffalo spunk, a tyre on fire)

- There will be a very definite allusion towards the idea that 'the man is keeping all this a secret', maaaan

- There will be a catchy title and intriguing graphic design for the film

To the part-time cynic such as myself, these films seem to appeal to a rather slim demographic. Well, pretty much just Americans. They cleverly play on gullible, shit-scared American folk's sensibilities and innately nervous dispositions. It'd even seem that they believe beyond all reasonable doubt that climate change and all the other crimes against mother earth mean that we're sure to be dead shortly, a fate depicted here in an artists representation. Oh and don't think for one second that they won't enlist runner-up president Val Gore to make it seem more believable, (it turned out he only wanted to do it because he liked talking). I'm just kidding, we probably will all just die of a lack of water or oil or wheat or something.

Until then I'm going to drive around in my tank that fires water out of it and emits shit loads of nasty toxic waste, eating a GM Food sandwich and cackling.



(Edit: Does the fact that the smoke in this picture looks like a breast mean that Al Gore has fallen foul of the oedipus complex or just that he likes razz mags?)