Adding the Extras in there Lads...

Once we had the raw footage cleaned up, edited together and the audio dubbed over, we had half the job finished. I began to make the opening and closing credit screens to top and tail the episodes. I played with several ideas for this, but settled on an edited version of our original Booze Brothers Band logo.

Our Series Logo, with very little extra thought!

I wanted to do a whole 'opening' credits sequence with clips to introduce everyone, but it would have made it far too long. I liked the simplicity of the logo and edited that into the shorts along with all the fades between scene transitions. Martin then pointed out it still didn't quite feel finished. We needed to employ a trick many sit-coms do, a scene setting image to come up that gives a sense of place. We decided there had to be an picture of the outside of the flat and of the exterior of the pub to give a some kind of context.

Where it all happens apparently

Would you go here after dark? I wouldn't...

The Boar & Hare Pub. Seriously, don't ask.

We would also need a simple tune to repeat over these screens as intro setting music  'stingers'. Martin went off to make the music, I set about sorting the exterior imagery.

Martin did a great job of recording disjointed bits of music from our set list on his keyboard: A lilting few bars of The Peter Gunn Theme, along with a purposely wobbly riff of Shake your Tail Feather to name two. You can hear them in the first episode here.

I had a photograph of the outside of my old apartment building in Norwich. I reverse flipped it over and left it at that, I didn't see the need to be too specific about the location of the flat. I was hoping people would just accept it!

I just darkened the same photo for the evening shot and added a few window lights. Along with this I had a similar photo of the pub around the corner from me: The Nelson, on Nelson Street (believe it or not!) in Norwich.

I added our own joke name to the pub building and reversed that image as well. (The Boar & Hare. Long story, and a terrible in-joke with the band... maybe an explanation for another day!)

These would be our scene setting images, giving us a sense of place and Martins tunes fitted brilliantly over the top.

Once these were inserted into the episodes they made it all feel and look much more like a completed project.

They also had the added bonus of padding extra seconds to the length of the shorter episodes. After one last round of footage editing and cutting, we were finished. It was time to hit internet!

But before we uploaded it all to our Youtube channel we wanted to show the band the finished results of our collective efforts.

Do I hear stingers Martin?! No, it's the pizza cutter rattling...

 

 

As luck would have it, we were gigging back at The Black Swan Rooms in North Walsham - the room we first viewed the original puppet film pitch in. We would have the big telly on again while we set up and the band could watch the episodes while we plugged in and sound checked. As we were tuning up with one eye on the screen, people started wandering in, and became quite fascinated with the big TV. Olly the owner of The Black Swan suggested having the dvd playing, muted, on rotation while we gigged that night. Why not we thought, it can't hurt! As the episodes were playing during our first set that night, being viewed by the crowd, they all seemed to love it. In the half time interval, several people came up to us and said how 'like' the band the puppets were and when could they see them online. We started to think, as a project, it was going to be alright after all!  

Black Swan Gig, A small step for Booze, a big step for foam.

I want to deviate slightly and talk about our props and extras we have. Props are great fun to make, it was one of the processes I enjoyed the most. The first three episodes would need me to create books, newspapers, company logos, pizza boxes, talking cakes and a 12" Mexican. (?!)

Mixing his sciences, with rude words?

In our second episode, Martin wrote some jokes that revolved around a mix of Pavlovian Psychology and Immanuel Kant Philosophy. He wanted his puppet to be reading a generic book to introduce the scene, but not a real one. I did a quick search on the internet for some images and cobbled together a pretend book jacket to get the point across. This would turn out to be the least weird thing I would have to do.

Generic Pizza 'Bor. Norfolk Speak!

One night after a Booze Brothers Band gig at the California Tavern, we all drove to the Caister Kebab shop for some well earned sustenance. Over a combined order of 3 portions of chips, 4 meat feast 9" pizzas and 2 half pound burgers I remembered that I was going to have to make pizza boxes for a scene in the first episode. I wondered if I could scab a 9" pizza box as a template to use later? As I was trying to get a discarded pizza box off one of the band without loosing any fingers, the owner asked me what I wanted a dirty box for. I explained (as best as I could, trying not to sound like a nutter) what I was hoping to do and he disappeared into the back and came back with 4 brand-new flat packed boxes for me. If I assembled them inside out, they were plain white pizza boxes! All I would have to do is design a simple logo, and stick it to the lids. Another job done!

A growing Empire perhaps?

Discount Dave was another creation of Martins for the third episode, his voice was kindly recorded for us by Voiceoverman in a studio under the supervision of Doc at Radiojingles.com. I threw together a cheap looking logo for his 'Discount Empire' (in the high street, above the kebab shop, in the high street) It's one of our favourite clips so far. We will be using Doc's services again for a new character, Hoagie Hare… (watch this space!)

A 12" Mexican, obvious. Named Paddy, not so much.

Talking of newer characters, The 12' Mexican (that for absolutely no reason whatsoever is now called, Paddy) was really fun to make. He is a foam tube with yellow felt and black buttons for eyes. His awesome hat is a mini sombrero I found by luck on the internet. With the very last piece of my black fluff I had left, I made him a moustache. The fact he doesn't speak at all is a bit of a relief. Who would want to try a Mexican/Irish accent crossover? Yeah, thought not.

He'll be on Page 3, it's where the buns and baps are.

James' pet brick (called Wally) was a rubber brick Martin had in his house for ages, I think he got it one Christmas and had no idea what to do with it. It only features in the 3rd episode so far, but it does feature on the cover of the newspaper Mike is reading; in a rather heavy handed (albeit quick) plot point spoiler.

For the three new episodes we have written, I will be needing to build a lot more props. Magic Hair in a Bottle, a set of logos for two new businesses, a shed set and a whole space ship set. But that's all for another day!

Loving it when a Plan Comes Together...

With the 'flat' scenery hanging from the ceiling in my garage and some incidental outdoor footage shot, I was learning a hard lesson. When I was reading the scripts, the way I wanted to shoot each scene was clear in my head,

Contemplating our next move... get a pencil.

which is fair enough, but the brain doesn't always take into consideration the restrictions of the space and the set build. Sometimes I was behind the camera setting up the angle and sometimes I was in front performing puppets. With the best will in the world I couldn't do everything and expect it to magically look like it did in my head. I needed to make notes.

We had learned that too many puppets on screen at once put too much strain on the width and depth of the scenery. To put it simply; the more puppets to fit on screen, the wider the shot needs to be. That means the walls of the scenery need to be deeper to accommodate the shot and not show the room behind the set boards. I didn't have the room for the scenery to be bigger. We needed to stop and think.

Two Characters is best for our set size. And cake, obviously.

I at last began to see the importance of story boarding. Sitting down with the scripts to the second episode ,with a pencil, I drew (in a square that would represent the screen frame) exactly what I wanted to fit on screen and what angle to shoot from. The sketches became my way of explaining to Martin what I felt I wanted to achieve. He could see what I was planning and I could explain it better.
We could now accurately plan out shot sequences, in a much more efficient way. The drawings also allowed me to figure out what would work and what wouldn't before even setting up the camera. Story boarding  allowed me to edit and cut the scene on paper before we started shooting. It was a real time saver. I showed Martin the plans and then explained that I liked the way sit com editing jumps from person to person speaking. It breaks up the conversation,

Scribblings of a mad man, although I calmed down to shoot it.

and it stops the footage being a continuous, single, front facing shot. This trick allowed much more close ups of the speaking puppets, (what we wanted)  and it would make the whole process much easier. We could set up the required shot of one puppet speaking all their lines for the whole scene. Do the same with the character they were talking to, and cut between them to look like it was all done live in a continuous take.

Eat your heart out Lucas Film.

It would be constructed 'in the edit'. Following my drawings we set the shots up and got through the scenes with startling efficiency. Martin could see the shot I was after and he would know the angle I wanted when I was in front of the camera performing the puppets. Sketching the episodes out also gave me the chance to plan out the green screen dream sequences. Between the two of us we could now both play Director, as the other one performed and vice versa.  Planning all the episodes out on storyboards also brought home another thought. It made me realise that I had an awful  lot of props to make before we began shooting the other episodes!!!

On set with the Martin Booze Puppet, and real Martin of course!

Recording the Dialogue...

The creative process, un-bottled...

We set up a microphone in the middle of a room in Martins house - bought some beers - and got everyone together. We had one read through and then went for it. It's worth pointing out that with the exception of Mike, Mark and Chris, the rest of us had no acting experience whatsoever. We discussed getting everyone to deliver their lines in an 'over the top' fashion, exaggerating their own voices. This was kind of disastrous, as we keep cracking up and no one could deliver the same performance from scene to scene! In hind sight it would have been better to have given the scripts to everyone before hand so they could get familiar with their lines. Collectively we decided to just say the lines in an enthusiastic way and let the puppet characters add the silliness. For this first set of recordings, John was definitely the star. His performance in the second episode is excellent. We think he may have missed his calling in life!
With these three episodes in the can, the sets had been built and we were ready to get to filming. We had lots and lots of other scripting ideas that we continued to hone over the weeks. Repeating the process of writing down ideas and passing them to each other for re-writes. It got to a point where we couldn't remember who had written what,  but the ideas were taking shape.

The Booze Brothers acting up as usual

Once Martin had edited the audio of the episodes together, splicing the best performance lines into order, we took the files into my garage on a laptop and set the camera up. Due to the size of the puppets, and the fact there was only the two of us, getting everyone on screen at once was not only impossible but impractical. The footage looked better when the camera had two puppets on screen together at once. Any more than that and the frame had to be so wide they looked too small. This fortunately played to the strengths of our situation. Working one puppet was actually a two handed job. One to work the mouth and the other had to control the rod for the arm.

Lots of puppets, lots of arm work. Really difficult.

We had written and recorded audio with one scene that required everyone to be on screen at once, we had to be sneaky. I thought if we have two puppets at a time filmed in two halves of the set, it would look like they were all in the same room at once. Watching some test  footage we figured we would be able to get away with it. We then vowed not to write anything else that used too many band members at once! Performing the puppets was also something we hadn't done before. Holding your arm above your head for ages whilst kneeling on a concrete garage floor was uncomfortable to say the least. We began to have a whole new respect for Jim Henson and his team, its very hard work. We got our process down to a simple set of operations. We would get the laptop with the audio file of the current scene ready to play. I would set up the video camera and Martin would get into position so I could line up the shot and press record. I would then join him in shot and we would set the audio running. Whilst looking down at copies of the scripts, arms above our heads, we would mime over the audio coming through the speakers of the lap top.

Two Booze Bro puppets, much more manageable.

After having a few attempts we would give our arms a rest and view the few seconds of footage of that scene to make sure we got it. This was repeated through puppet and scenery changes until we had all the footage done. It would take around 4 hours to shoot one half of every episode in this style. Including breaks for tea, mending puppets and arguing about who should me doing what! Over, quite literally, a month of Sundays we had the three starter episodes done. This was to include some green screen work and some outside location shooting. Filming a puppet in the privacy of you own garage is fine, taking them out into the world was something I found a little odd.

An extra Muppet with the puppets! :)

The first time I did it was for James' dream sequence in the third episode. I took his puppet with me to a real Booze Brothers Band gig at the California Tavern. The pub is a great venue right on the cliff above the beach, and I turned up early to be able to film before everyone else arrived to set up for the gig. I was lucky in that the weather was sunny and it hadn't actually rained for a day or two. Armed with my video camera, stand, JP puppet and his pet brick, I walked to a quiet part of the beach. All I wanted to shoot was JP walking on the beach carrying the brick with the sea in the background. Even though there was no one around, I felt a bit stupid, but I started setting up. All was going well, and I was getting ready to press record on the camera when out of nowhere a couple walking their dog came into shot. I waited until they had passed (they both gave me an odd look) and I reset my shot.

JP before the dog attack. The brick was safe the whole time.

 
This time the dog came back, and decided he wanted to play with James the puppet. It was touch an go, but I nearly lost him to an over zealous spaniel. Again, I set the camera rolling and I managed to get the footage with no more incidents to poor JP or his brick. Martin and I would shoot in the woods around the corner from where we work over a lunch hour and on another occasion, in a children's play area. We decided that this wasn't something we would encourage in future, only in the garage from now on - unless it was absolutely necessary.