Comments on: John Safran vs the World

John Safran vs the World

goo — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:53:12 -0800

In 1997, the ABC gave John Safran, "Australia's most exciting guerilla filmmaker", his big break on Race Around The World. Although he came last in the competition, it's not too hard to fathom why he won the popular vote, with these submissions: Don't screw with the rules in Japan, The ambulance chaser (Mumbai), Anarchy in the Renault family hatchback (Bristol), The right to bare grudges (Cote d'Ivoire), Mum I'm not Jewish any more (Cote d'Ivoire), Father Pino vs the Devil (Sicily), Mohammad's guide to busting a move (Lebanon), Football's my religion (Jerusalem), The series of unfortunate events and The happiest place on earth, my butt (Disneyland). youtube; each ~6 minutes

By: goo

goo — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:58:23 -0800

Scuse typo - 'bare' is a (sic) though.

By: goo

goo — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:02:20 -0800

And if you only have time to watch one of these, I recommend the final one (Disneyland).

By: Jilder

Jilder — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:39:58 -0800

That lively fellow. John Safran Vs. God is also worth a watch. It's a pity I can't find the Voodoo road test. It's fantastic.

By: Jilder

Jilder — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:42:10 -0800

Oh! The Catholicism road test also rocks my socks, if only for Father Bob.

By: humblepigeon

humblepigeon — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:42:35 -0800

Off-topic: Why do loads of YouTube videos have the same style of intro text, which is white Arial against a blue background? Is it because that's all Windows Movie Maker can do, or is it something built into YouTube?

By: fFish

fFish — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:17:35 -0800

These days he can be found kicking it with Father Bob on TripleJ's Sunday Night Safran. His series John Safran's Music Jamboree for SBS was also a ripper :-)

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:49:46 -0800

No to mention Not The Sunscreen

By: liquorice

liquorice — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 06:32:14 -0800

My favourite was when he interviewed klan members in "John Safran Vs God" and admitted to them that he was Jewish. Fun times.

By: zog

zog — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 08:47:55 -0800

he da man!

By: beelzbubba

beelzbubba — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 09:24:33 -0800

By: beelzbubba

beelzbubba — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 09:26:14 -0800

Duuuuuh. Never mind. My amerocentrism blinded me to the Australian Broadcasting Company. So sorry.

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 10:19:28 -0800

Great post.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 12:04:51 -0800

Wow. I thought the first one was mildly amusing but barely worth the time, but the second one (Mumbai) was terrific.

By: interiority

interiority — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 13:53:47 -0800

Thank you so much for this. I love all his work that I've seen (vs. God, Music Jamboree, Speaking in Tongues), and I've been very curious about Race Around the World. For some reason, looking for it on YouTube never occurred to me.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:13:49 -0800

For the uninitiated, what is the name of the program encompassing the rating of the videos? Don't think we USians have that bit. I thought the bits were ok, nothing overly stimulating so far that I've seen, but I'd like to see what he was competing against and for. I guess you found your answer, but for anybody else who doesn't look up the first wiki link, the videos were part of a reality TV show, in which people had to travel the world & produce a four-minute 'doco' every ten days: The successful applicants undertook a brief course in documentary film-making, before deciding on an itinerary for their journey around the world. They were then given a digital video camera, and sent to their first destination. Over the next 100 days, the racers were required to devise, arrange and film a series of ten four-minute documentary films, as well as a stand-by documentary and five "postcards". This gave them ten days to travel to their next destination, film the video, and send it back to the ABC in Sydney with detailed editing instructions. The series was broadcast as a weekly half-hour program, with four films shown per episode. Each film was then judged by a panel of three media and film experts including Sarah Macdonald, Tony Squires and Sigrid Thornton, as well as being put to a popular viewer vote. Points were deducted for late submissions. Another contestant, John Thiris (think it was him), was pretty funny, too, in an ultra-cynical way. He seemed to treat the competition as nothing more than a free trip around the world, and would submit the most token videos possible: "here's me having lunch with my family in Greece!" Hearsay from friends in the TV industry is that he admitted as much.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:17:30 -0800

Oh, and I recommend the Jerusalem video. That one caused a bit of a collective national "WTF?" when it aired...