Evaluation

Evaluating this will be hard. It’s the easyist thing in the world evaluating a film that that you hate as pulling it to pieces and generally slating it is thousands of words in itself. So far the reaction to the product has been quite positive - there’s a first! Sure, it has problems but overall it is pretty sound apart from the sound being at different levels and a brush with the deadly white balance monster. Here goes anyway.

I think the start of the piece will work quite well. It start of the clock with the news which is normal and there’s a hint of what’s to come with the name being dubbed over in a completly different voice. I think this is quite funny and has got a favourable reception. It took quite a few attempts in the edit suite to get the voice to kick in at the precise moment but it seems to be worth it.The voice is at a completly different level than the real news introduction. This is an all too common theme throughout the piece but in this instance I think it works quite well as it adds to the artificial feel of the addended voice over. It toys with the audiences expectations, which I’m lead to believe is a useful tool in comedy.

The news titles are just recorded from the BBC and look mighty dandy. There is a subtle addition to them as the word ‘Barnsley’ fades up and down during this opening sequence. It’s hardly noticable if you’re not looking for it but I think it is a nice touch. It’s not particually funny in any way but it only took a moment to do and adds a little bit extra, a subliminal message that may be picked up by some people. Overall I think the news is quite a nice way of opening the product.

Then to the news and the first glimpse of the acting talents of Mr Adam Hewitt. From memory the sound at this point is a little distorted. This is in no way a reflection on the abilities or frailties of our wonderful sound person but more likely to have been tripped up by the confusing mixing desk. As the final product is a second generation product (so the sound has been passed through it twice of course) this further reduces the sound quality. The newsreaders appearence adds to the overall feel of madness to the piece. It’s a wonderful plastic Elvis hairstyle that fits in with the tone of the whole product. There was other comments on the other elements of appearence of the reader, the fact that he’s wearing a shirt and seems puzzled by the concept. Still it doesn’t have to make sense and this is the kind of film where stuff like that doesn’t really matter.

Overall I can’t find that much of a problem with the first sequence. The fashion policeman holds a plastic corsette which I find quite threatening but again adds to the feel . Perhaps there is a slight jump when we cut to my lines after I walk into the wall of my living room. I get the vague feeling that I’m standing in a slightly different position in relation to the arch. But this is a very minor issue and could perhaps be traced to the fact that I walk through that arch 17 times a day to make tea so am fairly familiar with it. It was the logical way to cut the scene together as the first slapstick take of me walking into the wall had to be in there. After I say my lines everyone burst out laughing so we needed to cut to the close up which is probably what we were going to do anyway.

The link between this and the next element of the programme, the witch is quite short but amply done. The hare running into view from behind the camera wasn’t chosen at random as we had a whole bunch of material of me running around with that pink thing on my head.
The quick cartoony music fits well and cuts out at the right moment. Me cutting out the music in time with a gesture was an idea that seems to have worked fairly well. It was a means to an end really as I don’t think a fade out would have worked and a straight cut with no gesture wouldn’t have been as good. I think the laughing’s at a strange level but how do you know that hares don’t laugh quietly?

I love the sound effects and a lot of time went into synching them up. It creates a very cartoony feel to the piece and most of all they are pretty funny, especially the witch disapearing and appearing sounds. These are wonderfully cheesy. There’s a really jammily timed beating up of the hare as the sounds are perfectly synchronised. This is incredily lucky / skillful.

Close up of Toffee crisp. Steady pull out to gate then cut to close shot of the sign, then a lapse in continuity. Eagle eyed Deb spotted this as I enter the gate I’m not wearing my fleese which is strange as it was freezing. It was due to my changing after my encounters with a whole bunch of very smelly rubbish. There are a number of really tiny considerations to do with this subject to do with the lengh of my sleeves and an appearence of a blue jumper. Again these are minor things and when someone’s getting chased by a special effect you’re unlikely to pay that much attention to what he’s wearing.

All in all I really like the special effect thing. It seems to work as I have experienced a really positive reaction to it. People have been quite complementary about the whole idea. I like the way the tune starts at not quite the start of the track as it gives a feeling of continuation from the first running around scene. At one point I was going to use the theme tune from the prisoner but I decided it wouldn’t fit in. On the whole it’s pretty visually pleasing and fairly amusing.

My only regret about this is the absence of quite a good joke at the end of the sequence. Originally the can was going to be turned over to reveal the writing ‘attracts bees’. I’m not sure what happened here and it is one of my greatest mistakes in directing the project. The shot we shot was completly wrong as I was facing the wrong way and the whole set up was unnatural. It was unusable and done completly differently as I storyboarded. I think this was the only time where I left my directing head behind and the acting took over. It was a shame we also had to cut the bit where the hare’s hiding behind some dustbins and the special effect unable to see him. He then runs away. It was nessesary to cut this out for the purposes of time.
Other than that the whole idea behind it is great and one of the better and memorable moments of the film.

The nessasary break in the narrative to the tortoise for once. Here the sound is at it’s worst and was next on the list to get sorted before the deadline. Some people have had a little trouble making out the diologu and getting ‘heavy’ mixed up with ‘hairy’ but we had to use that take because of the ‘there’s another one’ at the end. I was going to dub over the other instences where the tortoise was involved with the words ‘heavy legs’ to reinforce this message, but we were beaten on the clock on this one.

Gorrilla impersination. The idea behind this is really silly. There’s a good comedy trip on the way into the house, due partly to the vision restrictions of the unconventional headware. I think it’s quite well put together and reasonably well paced as we cut between the two angles of the impersination at a fair speed. Quite a lot of effort was put into making it so we could hear the fart at the end. I’m not sure it was worth it really but it kept me happy and off the streets for a while.

So to the dream sequence, the long standing party piece and excuse for excessive madness. Firstly the voice over at the start is at complety the wrong level and appears to balatantly be added at a later date. How do you know hare’s don’t talk really loud before they go to sleep?

I will pretend to care and click on this to get the rest of the evaluation

please take me away from this place