Pic by rivier50
Just going through some of the unread feed items on my google reader today and I came across this one from Film Birmingham about a new competition for short films (old competition now as it’s closed for entries). It quotes Kevin Spacey as getting excited about Birmingham’s emerging film talent:
“I am delighted to be joining the judging panel for Virgin Media Shorts. This competition will provide a terrific opportunity for emerging talent in Birmingham to find a shop window for their work and it’s great that Virgin Media is supporting British film in this way…..I’m sure that we’re going to see some great short films from Birmingham and I’m excited for the judging process to begin”
Wow – Kevin Spacey has taken the time to say something exciting about Birmingham! Why didn’t I hear about this before? If I was a Birmingham Evening Mail reader I would have actually as they picked up on the press release and did a short article on it. So in doing a bit of research on the competition (it’s a national rather than a regional one) to find out why Kevin had gotten so excited about Birmingham I then came across the original press release from Virgin Media complete with quote from Mr Spacey:
“I am delighted to be joining the judging panel for Virgin Media Shorts. This competition will provide a terrific opportunity for emerging talent to find a shop window for their work and it’s great that Virgin Media is supporting British film in this way…..I’m sure that we’re going to see some great short films and I’m excited for the judging process to begin”
That’s right, there’s no mention of Birmingham at all. In order to localise this story someone has simply put words in Spacey’s mouth. I googled around and couldn’t find the same sentence used for Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle etc. So was it only the offices of Film Birmingham who changed this press release? I know Birmingham wants to big itself up but surely we don’t have to make stuff up?
So unless I’m told otherwise (and please do tell me otherwise) I’m going on the basis that Kevin Spacey has nothing to say about Birmingham’s emerging film talent. Maybe we should invite him up here, show him some films and ask him in person.
(Just to note that my annoyance at this comes from my increasing grouchiness about stuff as I hit 40 on Sunday. It’s all I can do to stop myself writing another blog post about how you can’t buy a Guardian in the Custard Factory newsagents after 11am as they only ever order about five copies – doing so would sound just a bit too middle-aged though.)
Go on – let it out. Containing a grump shortens your life.
As an aging (ie even older than you) hack, I wouldn’t condone making stuff up in the way you show it’s been done here. But given that the whole Spacey quote is likely to have been fabricated by the Virgin Media press office, slotting in the word Birmingham might seem a lesser sin. I can also imagine Film Birmingham’s opposite numbers in Manchester, Newcastle etc regretting a missed opportunity.
I think, by the way, you can moan about the lack of The Guardian in the Custard Factory without sounding middle-aged. Now if it was The Telegraph……….
And at least our Film office does have a fantastic news service that I can subscribe to. The others have nothing. As you suggest, I’ve no doubt that this is usual PR practice but it just seemed a tad lazy here.
I’ve taken to buying my newspaper from elsewhere now by the way. I can’t bear the thought of going to that shop any longer and being dissapointed….