Idiots in Time Part 2

The scene in Cracktown's apartment was the first scene we shot, and I was a little worried that the script was a bit too wordy and lacked any obvious visual gags, so I put the advert straps in to liven up what would otherwise have been a long (but important to the narrative) sequence with a few cheap gags.

This was also the only remaining trace of an idea I had (well, Quentin Tarantino had it first, but more people have seen Idiots in Time than Deathproof, so maybe in retrospect it was lucky I left it out...) to make the film look like it was made in the 80's and went straight to video (I was going to put VHS noise, fake trailers and a crappy company logo on it)

That idea went out of the window when a) I realised it was going to be way too much like hard work and b) once I put in the Top Cat scene, it seemed like there would be enough jokes after all.

I'm particularly proud of the first Santa scene - the Magic Bullet filters give it a nice sheen and the Nazi Robot fight is also a nice (if cheap) gag.

Also, the captions which appear at the start of every scene were thoroughly researched, so 341AD in Lyceia really was where and when the real Saint Nick lived - you lean something new every day huh?

[Thanks to the ever reliable Wikipeadia for that fact-nugget]

Idiots in Time Part 1

Idiots in Time was my second collaboration with Hull based musicians / comedians / big-fat-layabouts Cracktown. It was all written by them, in their secret crime lab - the location of which is a closely guarded secret, known only to a handful of Hull's most influential drunks and street corner shout-artists.

The idea was to produce a three act film to be shown as part of their Christmas shin-dig, but be both funny enough and understandable enough for a crowd of xmas inebriates to follow the plot.

Being fans of both 80's time travel movies and gay nazis, they came up with the perfectly normal premise - What if Rupert Murdoch sent a nazi back in time to kill santa claus and therefore take control of christmas once and for all. Makes prefect sense, right? So all we had to do was to figure out how to turn their script, a handful of hung-over but willing friends cum actors and some pound shop props into a masterpiece that makes Citizen Kane look like an out-take from "You've been framed'

As usual, the answer (and rallying cry of the production) was, we'll fix it in post. Jeebus. Did I mention I was doing this for love, not money?

Introduction

I've been making short films since 1996, and have now discovered the wonders of putting them on-line, but there just isn't enough space on the Youtube page to put all the other info, like making-of annecdotes, tips and hints and gossip about the other losers I work with. so here is the place that I'll be dumping all that stuff for your edification and wonderment.

Feel free to head on over to the CheapAssFilmsHull Youtube channel and check out all my works of wonder and despair

Also appearing there are films by another low/no budget film maker (Thats Ed Hunter in case you were wondering) and sometimes I'll be adding my two cents on some of his films too