Shortland Street viewers may have noticed a distinctly different look about the local soap this year. The series, into its 10th year on our screens, has a film-like quality as the result of being transmitted in widescreen format.
This is the standard format used in Britain and Europe, and has been used by Shortland Street for more than a year for its international distribution to those markets.
The show had previously been converted to the standard New Zealand format but this sometimes caused scenes to be clipped, according to its maker, South Pacific Pictures.
"If viewers look closely, they'll find a number of other shows adopt this format, such as locally made Jacksons Wharf," said producer Simon Bennett. "With Shortland Street following suit, we're now delivering an improved picture to our local market that international audiences have enjoyed for some time."
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A British students' union has banned its university's radio station and disco nights from playing the records of American rap singer Eminem.
Fans at the University of Sheffield will not even be allowed into the discos wearing Eminem T-shirts, and there will be no reviews of his music in the student newspaper.
The ban, a week before the opening of the singer's first British concert tour, follows complaints from students upset by the inclusion of words such as "fags" because they contravene the union's "gay-friendly" policy.
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A pair of black panties which belonged to Madonna will be auctioned at a collectors' fair in the eastern Spanish city of Gerona.
The panties, which were left by the star in a laundry basket at a hotel, carry a certificate of authenticity, the auctioneers said. A pair of leather gloves signed by the singer will also be auctioned, along with a sock signed by Deborah Harry, singer of the group Blondie, the original script of the movie Casablanca which starred Humphrey Bogart, and a collection of 46 previously unpublished photographs of the Beatles.
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Cate Blanchett is to take the lead role in a new film about Irish crime reporter Veronica Guerin, who was murdered in 1996.
Blanchett, nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth, will play the journalist who was shot dead as she sat in her car at traffic lights on the outskirts of Dublin. Two men have been sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in the killing.
The film, entitled Chasing The Dragon: the Veronica Guerin Story, will be made in Dublin later this year.
<i>Showbiz:</i> Shortland Street gets big-screen once over
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