Purple Tentacle's Time To Go Adaptation

[Purple Tentacle]

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD (39MB)
right-click, save as, .avi format

If you don't already have it, you WILL need the Divx 5.1 codec, which can be found in PC flavour:
http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX511Bundle.exe

and Mac flavour
http://download.divx.com/divx/mac/DivX511Installer.sit

Don't install the player, just the codec, it runs through Media Player or Quicktime.


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Hello there.

I'm posting this up purely as an item of curiosity for any interested whores. This is my final year project for the film course I completed three years ago, an adaptation of Chris Morris' Richard Geefe columns, details of which used to be available on this very site.. they appear to be down at the moment, so I'll summarise...

Morris wrote in the Independent as columnist Richard Geefe, at first in his usual dark Blue Jam-esque style, before throwing in an attempted suicide a few weeks in, followed by the promise that he WOULD kill himself in 6 months' time, and that he would document his life leading up to his inevitable suicide.
This is thought to be a reference to John Diamond, the columnist who documented his life with terminal throat cancer.
(Also married to the ever lovely Nazi Nigella)

Anyway, the columns are a joy to read, full of doom and gloom but with an added sensitivity and vulnerability that has never really been evident in Morris' other works.


Anyway, seeing that Morris wasn't going to adapt it for himself, I phoned up his very nice agent at Talkback who gave me his current agent to ask for permission to adapt the columns. She agreed as long as Morris vetted the script, which I duly thrashed out, with a cheeky request that he record a quick voice-over for me.
To my delight she replied saying that the script was fine (whether he actually saw it I doubt, but it was nice nonetheless), and that he "didn't discount the possibility of doing a voice-over".
And so in the winter of early 2001 I shot this film, an adaptation of my favourite Geefe column.

Eagle-eared viewers may notice that the voice-over is NOT performed by a Mr C Morris, but did you expect anything else?  (I flatter myself thinking that he was busy with the BES, rather than the fact that he had better things to do than satisfy some student fanboy).


Aaaaaanyway, three years on I've put it up for download as the faults in the piece become increasingly obvious, and I'd be very very interested to know what you lot think.

It was shot entirely on 16mm film, and it was my first proper stint on an AVID, the previous years I had cut everything by hand, so the editing is rather shoddy to say the least.
Richard Geefe is FAR too young, but there were certain mitigating casting factors too tedious to go into here (basically amounted to the ease of procuring a hittable child), and lots of other signs I'm sure you'll all be happy to point out.

One note of comfort is that My Wrongs, made two years later, actually turned out pretty similar to my effort, although whether a professional BAFTA winning short film should look like an end-of-year student project is doubtful.

Anyway, let me know what you think, I'm pleased to say that I've done better stuff since, but it was a right hoot to make.

Oh yeah, there's blackness for the first 10 seconds or so, so stick with it for a bit before deciding that it's not working. And do download the codec!


Cheers!!


P.S. I would love to see other Verbwhores' short films. What's stopping you lot? This is Multimongia after all!

[wasp_f15ting]

That was good.

I must admit up and till the park scene I was a bit "hmm" but narrator taking the voice of the charachters was great. Heh the best bit for me was the jumping into the river part. good stuff all in all. I'd love to see some of your latter stuff.

[Dusty Gozongas]

Nice idea for a thread :-)

That were good that.

[Hairy Chin]

I was very impressed - enjoyed that a lot. If that was mine, I'd be very proud of it, so I hope you are.

Are you? Well? Hmmm?

Top work sir.

[Ambient Sheep]

Excellent stuff!!!  And I do mean that.  Having helped out with a short video myself (the Xmas comedy tape mentioned in the other thread) I do realise how good that was.  I am impressed.  And maybe restored my faith in DIY films a bit.

The voiceover may not have been Morris, but it was very Morris-esque.  You?  Or the lead actor?  Anyway it was all pretty much how I imagined it.  Funny you chose that particular episode, because I think that was my favourite as well (although I haven't read them in a long time now).

If you want more constructive criticism than just gushing praise, I suppose I could rewatch it a few more times and find some faults (and good points) with it, but nothing immediately hit me round the eyes.

Did you ever send a copy of the finished tape to CM?  You should.  And why the HELL have you never posted this up here before??!


Oh...and while I was waiting for the AVI to come down I wrote the following bollocks, which I almost decided to delete, 'cos it's piffling, really.

...an adaptation of Chris Morris' Richard Geefe columns, details of which used to be available on this very site.. they appear to be down at the moment, so I'll summarise...

I think they're still there, you just have to know the right URL for the page on the old site, which I can't remember.

...Morris wrote in the Independent as columnist Richard Geefe...

It was t'Observer, actually...

This is thought to be a reference to John Diamond, the columnist who documented his life with terminal throat cancer.

Several people/articles have said that, but is there actually any evidence for it?  I never saw it as a dig at Diamond's columns (which I also read at the time).  I'd like to think that Morris would be above spoofing that, especially as Diamond was supposed to be a lovely chap.


Oh and one other thing.  I shouldn't admit this, but I've yet to see My Wrongs.  I bought the DVD in the week of release, and then promptly mislaid it in my ongoing house move.  I only found it a few days ago and am waiting for a suitable moment to watch it, perhaps when the memories of all the negative comments here have worn off.  This may or may not colour my judgement of your piece, I don't know, by definition!

[Nearly Annually]

Hellup! Hellup!


I get a few K downloaded, then it completes. Have you exceeded some stupid limit, Poips, or are you just exceedingly stupid and limited?

[Flook]

Hellup! Hellup!


I get a few K downloaded, then it completes. Have you exceeded some stupid limit, Poips, or are you just exceedingly stupid and limited?

There is no limit and its working fine from here atm - maybe you just need to rewind the laccy band in your modem ??

[Dr David V]

I'm downloading this now PT, I'm looking forward to it!

Incidently, as soon as I've done something in my college course which I think people will be interested in, I shall put it up on here. With a bit of luck, this should be around July, when I'll finished a music video. With a little persuasion, it may well be of one of my tracks too. Anyway, back on topic...

Oh, and by the way, how long does it go on for?

[Purple Tentacle]

Hello everybody, glad you're enjoying it. I tend to be hyper-critical of my stuff after time has passed, and get a terrible George Lucas urge to re-edit, re-dub and basically Jar-Jar all my past  stuff, which is kind of missing the point of progress really.

The voice-over actor is not me, it's a friend of mine who's now thrown a huge strop, jacked it in as an actor and moved to Scotland with a lady of under 5 foot. Bless.

I can, however, be seen in the final screen: The little kid running around behind the bleach and the clock is actually old super 8 footage of me as a toddler projected onto a bath.

I did actually send a copy to CM and one to his agent, but despite gentle prodding never heard anything back from either of them. Ah well, it got me through my degree I suppose.
It also did a bit of the festival circuit, although it was usually chopped up by others so it was basically the intro, and then the word "CUNT".

The cunt bit was a peurile gesture from myself, I just wanted to sit at the final screening in the cinema and see the word cunt in 5 foot high letters on the screen for 15 seconds. I'd NEVER be that immature now. (snigger)

Oh yeah, and because it was so incredibly biting cold, we actually filmed half the park scene in my back garden, where warm radiators were in close proximity.


Nobody's mentioned the gross hypocracy of me banging on about all students making films about suicide yet........



edit: Oh, it's 7 and a half minutes long by the way.

edit2: Re: John Diamond... you're right, there is no real evidence to suggest that Morris was satirising Diamond (but it is a scientific fact), but I really don't think he was being malicious. If anything I think Morris was warning how easy it is for self-indulgence (I'm going to kill myself) to be viewed as seriously as terminal cancer.

Having said that, it could just be the funny premise of what would YOU do if you had nothing to lose?

[Nearly Annually]

Nope, 139K only, again.


So sad :-(

[Purple Tentacle]

How strange, I just tried downloading it myself and it seems fine. (Well, downloaded about 10 megs worth of it anyway).

I'm going to put a lower-quality 20 meg version up soon, so give that a try.

[Timmay]

Just tried downloading it with Firefox, IE, and Getright, and they all stopped around the 140-150k point.

EDIT: And I just stopped and resumed the Getright download, and it started at 130k, zoomed up to 260k and stopped again.

EDIT2: Ah ha. Just kept pausing and resuming it, got it to around half a meg, and now it's going all on it's own now. Weird.

[Ambient Sheep]

I'm just going to sit here childishly amused that I downloaded it successfully first time in one go just using IE's right-click Save Target As...

[Nearly Annually]

Yo' mama.


Edit: Actually PT, it's working this time. Gonads crossed. 15%...

[Purple Tentacle]

Yo' mama.

Have you got it yet then?

[Rats]

Oooooh, I hope I can get it, tis working fine for me so far, I'm using getright, it's up to 2.5 mb.

[Ambient Sheep]

I can, however, be seen in the final screen: The little kid running around behind the bleach and the clock is actually old super 8 footage of me as a toddler projected onto a bath.

Awwwwwwwwwww, mini-Tentacle!

Talking of Super 8 and stuff, I know you shot it on 16mm, so I'm curious: those solarising effects (sun flashes / over-exposure) round the edges, was that done "in the camera" or in digits by the Avid afterwards?

Also, I'd like to know a bit about the assembly process.  Did you cut any of it on film, just bunging it into the Avid to add the finishing touches, soundtrack, etc?  Or were the raw rushes just all played into the Avid and it was completely cut in there?  Do you know what make of telecine was used to transfer it, out of interest?  And was the raw material transferred straight from the telecine's video output into the Avid, or was it recorded onto something like Digi-Beta first and then that played into the Avid?  After it was all done, what format did you end up with as a master copy (given that you don't get a spool of film coming out the back of an Avid, at least I *assume* you don't)?

Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just interested as to how you go about doing such things?  (never having been involved much with film)

I did actually send a copy to CM and one to his agent, but despite gentle prodding never heard anything back from either of them. Ah well, it got me through my degree I suppose.

Shame you never heard back.  Are we allowed to ask what grade you got?

edit2: Re: John Diamond... you're right, there is no real evidence to suggest that Morris was satirising Diamond (but it is a scientific fact), but I really don't think he was being malicious. If anything I think Morris was warning how easy it is for self-indulgence (I'm going to kill myself) to be viewed as seriously as terminal cancer.

*Thank* you.  That's the way I've always seen it, but somehow never managed to put it into words.  (And I had to resist the "scientific fact" gag too, left it out for fear of making my previous post too confusing!)

Having said that, it could just be the funny premise of what would YOU do if you had nothing to lose?

There's probably a bit of that in it too.

[Purple Tentacle]

I can, however, be seen in the final screen: The little kid running around behind the bleach and the clock is actually old super 8 footage of me as a toddler projected onto a bath.

Awwwwwwwwwww, mini-Tentacle!

Talking of Super 8 and stuff, I know you shot it on 16mm, so I'm curious: those solarising effects (sun flashes / over-exposure) round the edges, was that done "in the camera" or in digits by the Avid afterwards?

Also, I'd like to know a bit about the assembly process.  Did you cut it on film, then bung it into the Avid to add the finishing touches, soundtrack, etc?  Or were the raw rushes just played into the Avid and it was completely cut in there?  Do you know what make of telecine was used to transfer it, out of interest?  And were the rushes transferred straight from the telecine's output into the Avid, or was it recorded onto something like Digi-Beta first and then that played into the Avid?  What format did you end up with as a master copy (given that you don't get a spool of film coming out the back of an Avid, at least I *assume* you don't)?

That's real film burn there, we were using a 16mm bolex camera. There are two bits that I can remember, the first bit where Geefe is standing by the wall is actually a failed special effect, I planned a split screen thing where Geefe was going to be walking towards the camera at normal speed, while the passers by whizzed past quickly, which would have been done by rewinding the film and double-exposing it with a black mask over the lens. We had the scene all set up, but people KEPT on walking across the frame, fucking up the entire shot repeatedly, especially as we would often have rewound the film and exposed it slightly, burning it.

In the end we were using up so much film we abandoned the idea, but when I saw it processed I fell in love with the effect and cut most of his walking out and just kept the burnt bits.

The other burn where Ivan is looking at the camera is the last shot we did that day in the park, where the film just ran out.

The final burn, just before Geefe crams the biscuit in his mouth, is artificial, a crafy bit of superimposition from another bit of burned film.



Sadly I didn't cut the film itself in my third year, we had to pay extra for that, so I sent off four reels of 16mm and got a boring digibeta back. Quite dissapointing, but the college wouldn't fund the more "pure" way of doing it, reprocessing fees etc.

I COULD have cut it by hand for no extra cost, but I was so sick of doing it by that point. However, I'd love to do that again.

All the telecine-ing was done at the Kodak labs, so I'm afraid I have no idea. However my friend sent an animation off at the same time, and the machine broke at Kodak, immersing his film in developing fluid for 10 minutes. The results were fucking fantastic, all saturated.


But most effects (the sword fight) were done in-camera as I wasn't too sure how to use an AVID at the time. My previous years' project was a mess of special effects, and what a pretentious load of tosh it was. Interesting to make though.

It's such a shame, I probably wouldn't have a clue how to do anything in camera nowadays I'm so used to digital filters. What a shame.

[Nearly Annually]

Well, that was none too shabby. Liked the list of "Fuck a ...."s after the river jump - yes, I did rewind to make sure "Duck" was there. ("Lecturer" indeed, heheh.) Liked the busy street scene too.


Funny isn't it that when you shoot a silent mpeg on a digicamera, the frame rate reminds you of an old cine film. You half expect to hear the clatter of a projector behind you.

[Rats]

That was utter class. Wipes the floor with my wrongs.

[Rats]

I always saw it as getting at the people who read those things and kid themselves that they aren't excited by it. They sit weaping, fingering their genitals and shaking their heads and then rush out to buy the next copy to see if he's dead yet.

[hencole]

I got to edit  some of the footage of John Diamonds health decline for a training video on dealing with terminal illness. I expect it was much better than PT's film.

I will download it out of work as my limit is 5meg a day. [/quote]

[Dr David V]

Very good Mr Tentacle. Thumbs up etc.

[terminallyrelaxed]

I'm getting nowhere with this. At first download attempt it said 1.5 days as an estimate, so I tried again and it looked normal (had a few megs in a few minutes) I've just checked it again after a few hours and it said 3.5 days, 0.2kbps.....

[The Region Legion]

Very good indeed, will probably get repeated watchings.

For those having difficulty downloading I've put it in my Soulseek shares (unless PT would like me not to) so you can get it from there.

[Purple Tentacle]

For those having difficulty downloading I've put it in my Soulseek shares (unless PT would like me not to)

Please be my guest!

[terminallyrelaxed]

Boohoo I don't have Soulseek.

Can you burn it to CD for the next meet Ed?

[Flook]

Is it still not downloading for you TerminallyRelaxed?

Its on a shared hosting server which can get busy in the week but its usually fine evenings and weekends.

If you like I can start up an FTP server on my PC and you can try to get it that way. PM me if you want to give it a go.

[Purple Tentacle]

Boohoo I don't have Soulseek.

Can you burn it to CD for the next meet Ed?

Who's he?

(I'll send you a copy if you PM me your address)

[terminallyrelaxed]

Right, having stopped and resumed the download eight times I've now got over  a megabyte of it, and it seems to be going steady at 50 or so kbps - ooh five megs now. Looking good so far this ime...