news that matters, campaigns that count

for Birmingham, the Black Country and beyond

SPACEY FILLER

03-07-2008

Kevin Spacey

Blogger Dave Harte was pleasantly surprised when Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey started praising Birmingham's film output. But the actor's enthusiasm wasn't all it seemed.

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.

(Dave Harte runs Digital Central in Digbeth http://www.digital-central.co.uk/ To read his blog visit http://daveharte.com/)

DISCUSS THIS ON THE STIRRER FORUM