View Full Version : DVC 20 - Swearing (a users' guide); George Williams


George Williams
June 6th, 2011, 12:43 PM
Right. I've had a look at previous feedback threads, and I'll try and stick to the formula. I shot this on my Panasonic GH2, using a 20mm lens (I can't remember what kind, and it's in the other room. Sorry). I can't give you any more technical stuff (mainly because I don't know much about films and video yet) - but Henry helped me alot with this, so if you did want to know I'd ask him. ;-)

The idea comes from my being a teacher (and having spent a bit of time doing stand-up comedy), and is really just a giant, childish joke. Basically, I thought it'd be funny to talk about swearing without actually doing any. The visual stuff is intended as a kind of rhyming slang, although it occurs to me now that unless you're from London, it may not make any sense. Never mind - the whole thing was loads of fun, and an interesting learning curve. Next time, I'll try and do it properly (y'know - write a script, do some storyboards, read the camera manual etc...).

Cheers all, and I look forward to seeing your efforts too!
George

Bill Thesken
June 7th, 2011, 12:46 PM
Holy Canoli. I had to watch it (listen) twice since it's at warp speed. Very #@%*! funny. The ducks, like bad words different sizes and shapes and all together at the end.

Henry Williams
June 7th, 2011, 02:39 PM
Familial bias aside I really enjoyed watching this (and helped far less than George modestly implies- all I did was lend him my zoom h1 and log and transfer the raw footage). It's an upbeat, nicely paced and genuinely funny short film.

Bill - he talks that fast in real life. Unfortunately unlike with this video there is no rewind button so you just sort of have to cling on to the conversation's coattails till he runs out of air ;)

George Williams
June 7th, 2011, 02:42 PM
Most kind, Bill. I'm actually slightly embarrassed - Andris and Chris have turned in these atmospheric, experimental films and I upload a 3-minute fart joke! Never mind (I shall try and up my game for next time). Thank you for your comments, though - I do talk pretty fast, so I thought I'd try and give the whole thing a sort of mad-professor kind of feel.

Lorinda Norton
June 7th, 2011, 10:18 PM
Dear George. Dear, dear George... ;)

That was fun in a breakneck speed sort of way, and I loved the observations you made near the end! So true!!

After reading your post I'm thinking I'd better go back and try to see the rhyming slang aspect just to add another dimension to the video...after my brain has a chance to stop smoking from the input overload.

Well done, and thanks for the laughs!

Chris Barcellos
June 7th, 2011, 10:33 PM
Like Lorinda, I have to spin down a bit and try watching again. I have brain overheat. I actually think you were trying to get us to use a bit of tht bad language. I believed that the irritating beep was an intentional infliction of pain on the the viewer designed to invoke a few choice cuss words :). We shall see what happens on the second go around.

Jay Kavi
June 8th, 2011, 01:00 AM
Totally hilarious. My first three thoughts 1) Wow he speaks fast, 2) where did he find a large rubber ducky? and 3) Bathtubs in London are so small!

Nice pace with the edit and you kept it short. My only gripe is maybe add an extra image or two. Small one though 'cause it was cut very well.

Andris Krastins
June 8th, 2011, 02:34 AM
Mind the | culture | gap! :) It was a bit hard for me to understand, but I got the idea, thanks! :)
p.s. You talk fast, really fast.
p.p.s. Do rubber duckies have some alternative (curse) meaning?

George Williams
June 8th, 2011, 03:56 AM
Thanks everybody! Apologies - perhaps I did overdo the speed thing. For the confused, the rhyming slang thing works like this: "duck" rhymes with a certain rude word, "shirt" very nearly rhymes with another rude word and so on (the knife is "blunt" etc...).

As for the annoying noise, I was kinda stuffed by that point. ;-) I was running out of time on Saturday, and I couldn't make the voiceover work by cutting all the swearing out in the edit (I wanted to dub them out with the Wilhelm scream, originally) - so in the end I found an old car horn, and just sat with it on my lap. I missed out all of the rude words in the script as I read it out and hit the honker instead! I must've looked ridiculous...

Dick Mays
June 8th, 2011, 05:14 AM
I'm with Chris. I wanted to say, "For F*** sake! That little duck is dead!" The whole point of being to drive the viewer into a stream of profanity. The duck was clearly not going to float upright.

Technically beautiful, but I have to listen again with headphones as my hearing is going and I could not make out the voice over speech on my laptop.

Jeremy Doyle
June 8th, 2011, 09:01 PM
That was fun. I dig the fast talk. You were able to pack a lot into a short amount of time.

The one thing irritated me was the level of the beep seemed much higher than the level of your voice. With that many beeps it was pretty jarring to me and also with that many I don't think it needed to be higher to draw more attention to it as you wouldn't miss based on the sheer volume.

That giant rubber duck was awesome! It made me want to hop into the tub.