BACK TO PROJECTS
I went to the University of East Anglia in September 2002 to study Film and Television Studies (UEA is home to one of the top film courses in Britain). During my first year I was living in University accommodation and had gotten to know my housemates very well by Christmas. It was over the holidays that I began talking with one of my male friends about my camera and we began brainstorming ideas of what we could film.
He mentioned how his friend had filmed a Jackass-style show called �Bad Ass� and that we should take the name and do something similar. At first I went along with this, but was turning it more in the direction of the Adam and Joe Show. I suggested making �fucked up toy movies�, and this was initially the idea we had.
However, when we got back to University, the idea fell flat on its face and we decided not to go down that route. The actual conception of the Uni Video was by mistake. My housemates had staggered back drunk one evening and I decided to film them and their drunken exploits. Then inspiration struck! We were going to document our University years!
�The Uni Video� featured many drunken exploits and a few skits (such as �The Man In The Tree�) and was filmed in the Spring semester of 2003. I then edited the footage rather crudely during the Easter break. It was simply a matter of REC/PAUSE as I proceeded through the footage on the original Hi8 source tape in the camera itself.
For this first video, I filmed titles from my laptop computer screen, finally achieving the text on a black background credits style I had long been after. The video had full credit sequences for the opening and closing, as well as the now obligatory �Favourite Phrases� and �During The Making Of the Video� title sequences. I even included inter-titles to break the video down into a series of segments.
After editing the video, I added music via the �audio dub� feature I had previously used on The Evil Ted. It was a rather lengthy process to add music, but it nonetheless made the video better as a result. What I had to do was link my video camera to my ghetto blaster (yes, an old school mid-1990�s music box) via an audio lead. I then played the music whilst recording and so whatever track was playing was being fed into the camera. I then transferred the Hi8 footage to a VHS and then this VHS would go towards the �audio dub� process.
