While there was a lot of blathering about how magazines rake in $2b a year, and how ACP is the largest magazine company and how they have so much influence over women (yikes), rah rah rah, Park St's debut episode offered some great industry insight for uni students, up-and-comers and a youth market crazy for fashion and magazines. Word is the show will feature two mags each ep, with more concrete storylines in subsequent airings.
Though the show jumped from person to person, mag to mag, with each editor giving us take-home snippets about their "brand" and ensuing dramatic moments in between, Gemma Crisp and Cleo's swimwear party (which was getting hammered by rain, hence the shrieking) was the focus. She was quite funny. Her quote of the night: "Cleo is as Australian as Tim Tams and Vegemite, just more fashionable".
Creative Director Carolyn Innis – creator of the company's I Love Magazines campaign – was a hoot but she'd probably scare me in real life. Her quote of the night (about a model in an ad), "This one's a little bit not right". She talked about the importance of ads. High-five, sponsor Pandora.
Madison editor Lizzie Renkert was in it for about five seconds talking about how she's a perfectionist. She's beautiful! I would have liked to see more of her and get a little more insight in to Madison and their features department, so hopefully that's to come. She seems incredibly focused, driven and intelligent, so I look forward to more of her in the future. She also seems a little more mature than the other eds.
Justine Cullen, editor of SHOP Til You Drop, seemed lovely but, like Lizzie, was only in it fleetingly. She spoke about balancing family and work: "No one ever gets the work-life balance right".
DOLLY editor Tiffany Dunk seemed cool. She too talked about her commitment to DOLLY and admitted that "it can eat into your personal life a little bit" (heartbroken look on her face). But I don't know if she was just thinking "should I have said that?" or if she was suffering a little work guilt. She seems like someone I would like to hang out with.
Cosmopolitan's acting editor Jessica Parry* was dealing with a no-show celeb shoot crisis – Jessica Mauboy went AWOL in Adelaide, sending the whole team (who were sitting around waiting for her in a rented house that was about to go into overtime) into a spin.
Apart from that? Gemma Crisp also devoted about 10 minutes to going over the magazine process – editorial meeting, writers allocated features, and mention of spending four weeks interviewing and writing them, then to the ed for approval, then subs and so on. All in all, a good general overview of life at ACP. Hopefully it gets more exciting as the eps go on...
Check out The Daily Telegraph's Annette Sharp behind the scenes at the Park St party...
*Just quietly, Parry is one of my all-time fave ACP girls, though she wouldn't know why. When I was doing work experience in 2005 and all alone and terrified in Sydney, I was in the lift after getting the mail for the hundredth time and she – at the time DOLLY's features ed – was THE ONLY important person who went out of her way to chat to me. She asked me 20 questions, smiled, made me feel super-cool. I will always love her for that.
Lucy @ Girl With a Satchel
4 comments:
I too did the work experience thing at ACP a few times and Jessica Parry is genuinely one of the nicest people I met there. She always had time and things to do for the workies.
I think it was a bit too much of a doco to really get the blood pumping. But hopefully it gets a good following.
Brilliant Debrief Lucy. I am with you 100% on this. Although, I didn't quite expect myself to not like the show. I knew it would be exactly what it was. Predictable, dramatic (thanks to the music) and honest. But like you said, it's great for people outside 54 park street to see what happens inside.
My housemate didn't even know 'Dolly' even existed (Say whatttt? i know!) I banged my head trying to explain what ACP and Pacific Pub are.
I want to see more of Madison myself. It's my favourite of the 5 titiles and its staff is just top class.
But no matter how bad it is, or how many viewers it gets every week - people who love magazines, have worked for them, been an intern there would not miss out on the show.
To be honest, I found it a bit tacky and like some bits had been rehearsed (eg Gemma's conversation with the Sweaty Betty PR woman).
However, Tiffany Dunk was the star in my eyes: she just seemed so down to earth and genuine. I do agree that Lizzie was not featured enough.
I was extremely underwhelmed by Park St. I had such high hopes for it, too! Hopefully it will get better. Completely agree about Jess Parry - she was SO lovely to me.
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