BACK TO PROJECTS
Pretty much the first thing I ever filmed (Christmas 1999), NOTLT was a spoof of George A. Romero�s 1968 zombie chiller. I made this short with a friend at the time who like myself, was obsessed with a late night Channel 4 television programme called �The Adam and Joe Show�.
We had already shot a spoof version of this show (a long running series of �The Matt and Nick Show� lasted two episodes!) up to a year or more before hand. Unfortunately as far as I am aware all this footage is no more. Of course, the main attraction with Adam and Joe was the toy movies they showed every week (plus the Star Wars toy movies). Adam and Joe took soft toys and figures from Lucas� space epic and made toy versions of famous films and television shows (such as the Star Wars version of �Stars In Their Eyes� and soft toy movies such as �Saving Private Lion� and �Se7en Dwarfs�). We wished to emulate our TV heroes and so made our own versions of films.
To my recollection, there was �Robo-Ted�, a lampooning of John Carpenter�s �Halloween� (featuring an orange stabbed to death) as well as a whole host of Star Wars related buffoonery.
But I digress; Night of the Living Ted was an Adam and Joe-esque �toy movie�. We used a number of my childhood relics (including a replica of the Knight Rider car), but I also constructed an elaborate set made entirely out of cardboard and old doll�s house furniture.
The filming was not planned per say, but it had been discussed at least a little. Therefore when it came to props for the graveyard scene, spray cans and PVA bottles became tombstones and a wicker basket became a tree. We did the voices for our characters (I distinctly remember stretching my breaking voice to its limits in the course of creating a series of personalities), but every now and then we found ourselves voicing characters the other was supposed to be doing. It was somewhat chaotic, but it was all good fun.
Finally, to add an edge of professionalism to the short, a brief shot of a model muscle car before cutting to the house explosion in �Critters� provided a mirror to the truck blowing up from the original film. And as for end credits, we handwrote them on pieces of paper stuck to the carpet. I panned the camera across these sheets as we played the end credits sequence from the original movie in the background with the sound turned up high so as to capture the soundtrack from the film.
Night of the Living Ted was edited �in camera�, as was as a result quite rough around the edges, but the spirit was there and inspired myself to make a much more elaborate second toy movie outing.
I would later return to this short in January 2004 to make a �re-dux� version, the definitive version with proper credits and tighter editing eliminating unnecessary scenes or in-filming accidents. The end result was a much tighter product with a fuller soundtrack to help create tension and mood (despite the fact it�s a bunch of soft toys running around with funny voices spoofing a cult classic chiller).
