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Status: Completed 4/1/2006
Info:
Short mockumentary project which I will be entering into the 2005 Yamgo.com "Extreme Shorts" competition.
To the right is a rough teaser poster I threw together.
While searching around the internet for the jobs the government says are apparently there for all graduates (not-bloody-likely I�m afraid!), I came across Yamgo.com, an extreme sports website who were running an �Extreme Shorts� competition for 2006. Categories included a variety of land, air and water activities as well as a Jackass/Comedy slot � which was ideal for me as I don�t know any extreme sporty types!
Thinking about the Jackass part of it I immediately didn�t want to go off like all those unoriginal sorts who copy everything Johnny Knoxville does, but instead lampoon it somehow. The whole slapping thing was one of the underlying activities in the show and with items in the news about the new playground craze being �Happy Slapping�, the seed was sewn for the idea. Essentially, I turned Happy Slapping into an addiction which had all the trademarks of an affliction. So I came up with a couple of weird characters � country bumpkin kind of folk � Romeo Face and Johnny Mercury, the master and the apprentice respectfully. Romeo is the leader and the most deeply affected by his compulsion to slap people, Johnny is the follower who is beginning to lose the plot also, a guy with a small physical presence and absolutely no confidence save for the few odd moments he speaks up before being reprimanded.
I proceeded to bash out a few drafts of the script, streamlining as I went to tighten it things up � after all I was aiming for a two-minute running time as per the guidelines � fitting it in between my freelance writing jobs and scripting of �Manhunt Did It�. Finally, over the Christmas break I gathered my two actors � Ben and Gareth � who I had previously worked with � on December 23rd 2005 for a rehearsal session. Here we worked through the script to start getting it sounding like they weren�t reading lines but speaking of their own free will. Most importantly however, was to nail down the accents and physical performance from the both of them � this is where half the comedy was going to be coming from after all. This time around I wanted to stick very closely to my script, previously I have allowed a fair bit of improvisation or I haven�t focussed on dialogue. Now, dialogue is one of my main concerns as I develop my independent filmmaking, but it was the physical performances where I wanted us to go freeform and �improv� some ideas. For accents I wanted something regional (i.e. Herefordian) but that didn�t sound too hot for the script. Fortunately Gareth could do quite a good rural Welsh (he goes to Cardiff University), which worked for his softer character. Ben on the other hand tried out a strange, shifting intonation as I had stated in the character descriptions in the script � but this wasn�t too hot either and through trying little ideas out we settled on an Australian-South-African vibe, which worked quite well for Romeo�s gruff and distressed demeanour.
Over the next couple of days I sent them away to enjoy the over-eating of the season and to keep going over the script until it clicked before filming on the 28th of December 2005. Gareth�s character was a plain-looking soul while Romeo was always envisioned as a scruffy-looking sort (hence the bumpkin-esque Army jacket and uncouth mop of hair � plus the X-Men sideburns were quite interesting). Filming went very well and I picked a spot part way up one of Ross-on-Wye�s many back-road hills to set my action against a winter-mist overlook of rural Ross. With the frenetic style of flitting between various film projects, writing jobs and hunting for media work, doing almost everything yourself can get confusing for a bloke (we can only think of one thing at a time according to science), so when it came to editing there were a few hiccups. Putting my Documentary practical training at UEA to good use I captured the Mockumentary vibe quite well I would say. There are a couple of edits that proved a problem, but nothing that can�t be improved upon and learnt from.
On December 29th 2005 I cut together the Yamgo.com two-minute version and on January 4th 2006 I sliced the definitive three-minute version together. Now finally I can put all my concentration into �Manhunt Did It� � at last � before I start thinking about another couple of ideas I�ve already got sitting on the back burner.
