A man of many talents

WHEN Wallington man Jim Thompson was commissioned to present a marketing pitch for an organic milk brand earlier this year, he didn’t expect to become a songwriter and music video director in the process.
But the challenge to get four dairy farmers out of their comfort zone and into a recording studio and then perform in a humorous video clip to match the music produced a pleasing result.
Jim drew inspiration from his love of Blues music to come up with the catchy tune and lyrics for The Green Pastures Movement, a small, independent milk brand from the Otway Ranges.
“The first challenge was to come up with an effective pitch for the client, without a massive budget,’’ he said.
“Once I had the okay, I then had to convince a bunch of farmers to sing and dance, which was a pretty big hurdle to get them to jump.’’
After a slow start and some gentle prodding, the subjects soon got into the groove, motivated by a sense of fun and as Jim said, an ambition to get it over and done with and back to the dairy as soon as they could.
After the vocals were recorded in a local studio, focus quickly shifted to the outdoors, where the storyboard for the visuals was shot on camera.
“We spent a day down on the farm on the Otways… shooting some of the takes up to a dozen times until we got it right.
“The guys involved acknowledged that they weren’t great to start with, but we were all rapt with the end result.’’
With a strong focus on Australian made content and four farmers “having a crack’’ the clip gives an insight into the daily dairy-farming routine, from the reality of the dreaded alarm clock going off at 4am, through to sampling the finished product before it heads off to to the stores.
For Jim, who is a part-owner of Geelong marketing firm One Rabbit, the chance to work on a grass-roots project at local level was poles apart from the work he normally does with large consulting and legal firms around Australia and in the United States, but given the chance, it’s something he’d like to do again.
“I don’t think I’ll be taking up residency on The Blues Train any time soon, but the project for Green Pastures was very different and lots of fun … a bit of a sanity project for me,’’ he said.
You can view the video at greenpasturesmovement.com.au.