Olly Benson sent me this fascinating link from today’s Guardian. It details how “a four-minute film made by Gwent police has become an internet phenomenon, which has now been seen by millions of people and featured on TV news channels in the US”.
The four-minute clip is part of a half-hour drama, made for just £10,000, depicting the dangers of texting while driving.
It’s strong stuff, containing graphic images. It’s also extremely good.
I gather Northern Ireland has a tradition of uncompromising public information films, particularly where road safety’s concerned. I found this out when I was in Belfast last year, and stumbled across this on primetime TV.
But then, tough messages call for tough storylines and strong imagery. As proof, a remarkable TV ad from Northern Ireland, first shown in 1992. And when I say remarkable, I mean it.
Blimey, my most depressing blogpost to date by a factor of ten million. Normal flippant service will be resumed in due course.
As many who know me will confirm, I’m obsessed by Public Information Films – those short adverts that TV channels used to show during their quieter moments in the 70s and 80s.
And, perhaps most crashingly redundant of all, not to run. (Yes, that’s right – Her Majesty’s Government spent money instructing us not to run.)
Back in the mid-90s some enterprising individuals put out Charley Says and Charley Live – two video compilations of the greatest Public Information Films (or PIFs) ever made. They are fantastic viewing: tiny bitesize bits of social history, ranging from the absurd to the frankly chilling.
My favourite ad from the two volumes was Dangerous Diamonds, made in 1979. It delivers a simple, yet trenchant message: if a sodding great truck brimming with chemicals is on fire 10 feet away from you, it’s probably best to move away, rather than directly towards it. And that’s advice we can all benefit from.
The thing I loved about this particular PIF was its music – which managed to be simultaneously funky, threatening, triumphant and swingy. All while soundtracking a load of symbols saying OXIDISING AGENT and FLAMMABLE SOLID.
You can relive its majesty here.
Imagine my geeky excitement, then, when I discovered the full version of this advert’s tremendous soundtrack… on a compilation of French library music, released earlier this year.
Library music, if you’re not familiar with the term, is composed and produced to provide off-the-shelf options for people making TV shows and films. It is intended to soundtrack a generic mood – like horror, happiness, or “the future”.
This particular compilation is called Serie Noire (Thriller). It’s full of weird orchestral figures and discordant electric guitars, every element adding to an atmosphere of brooding tension.
The cut which ended up soundtracking Dangerous Diamonds is called New York City Police. It’s a tough listen (which was heavily, and cannily, edited for the sake of the ad), but I love it.
The fact that it’s French just makes me love it even more. Check out the ubercool sleeve design.
Unfortunately my geeky story does not have a happy ending.
Searching on YouTube, I discovered that the Central Office of Information (who commission and produce these films to the present day) revisited Dangerous Diamonds in the 1980s.
They left the video as it was. But they completely redid the audio.
Gone are the sexy, Gallic cop-show stylings of the original music. Gone is the earnest voiceover provided by (unless my ears deceive me) Ray “Mr Benn” Brooks.
In its place, a bombastic read from Patrick Allen, and music which can only be described as Miami Vice lite.
