4/8/08

Chet And The Free Backdrop

Chet fails to heed an important warning while viewing a video backdrop he found on the internet.

7 comments:

jenji said...

LOL

totally random. nice.

However, I'm concerned that by using the term "motorcade" and thereby implying an attack upon it (pickles or not), you might trigger a totally "random" hit by Homeland Security as they employ their justifiably legal approach for monitoring the www for threatening buzzwords by those people over in...the guys with the....the dudes who wear...those bloaks who worship...
--you know, the evil do'ers.

I would hate to see Chet thrown into a Guantanamo gulag with other treasonous individuals like Sesame Streets Bert, who clearly had it coming for
1. being gay
and
2. that "ethnic" unibrow.

If the term cleanse comes to mind for anyone, it's Bert.

Be careful Chet, your green hair won't look so Fraggle once you've taken a justified ride upon the water board express, you know what I'm sayin?

I'm just saying, you might trigger something. Or maybe this comment will.

Hmmm...apologies.

jenji

Paul said...

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks for the warning, Jenji! Bubble boys, as a rule, are not accomplished water boarders (or tobogganers, as it turns out).

But it's really not my fault cuz that background totally made me do it!

Anonymous said...

ROTFLMAO!

Paul said...

hehe... thanks, Sue!

When I sweep up the floor later, I'll hand that part of yours back to you ;)

Sculptor Dude said...

Do you videotape puppets only? I really enjoyed that little video ... it made me feel like I was six years old again. Just found your site. Keep it up!

Paul said...

Keith --- Thanks very much for dropping by. It's always nice to be found by fellow creative types such as yourself.

And yes, puppets are the actors in most of my moving-image endeavors.

Anonymous said...

PROS:

1). Nice concept, good & simple set-up for the gag.

2). Good backdrop given what the gag is all about.

3). Good puppet, looks good for what it has to do.


SUGGESTIONS:

1). One possibility that you could try is to make this skit longer so that the gag has more of an effect. As it stands, the puppet goes from completely normal to complete hypnotized fairly quickly. This causes a disconnect that can undercut the overall gag. Try a more gradual transition (the puppet looks at the screen, gets a little hypnotized, corrects itself, looks at the screen again, gets more hypnotized, says more comedic things before snapping out of it, looks at the screen, etc. so forth until complete hypnosis).

2). There's really no difference in how the puppet moves between being hypnotized & not hypnotized. While there's an audio cue (the voice changes a bit), what would've sold the change even more is if there was a movement cue as well. For instance, perhaps the puppet begins to shake it's head (like a tremble) slightly every time the hypnosis effect occurs, with it getting worse each time. With the puppet's hair, even a little tremble would have a significant effect.

3). Perhaps a different visual cue you could add would be for his eyes to appear hypnotized (such as the typical "spiral" illustration). Depending on your tech level, you could either green screen the eyes & superimpose an image or have a physical replacement. Either method would probably require a camera cut or a zoom & pull back to push the character out of the frame so that the replacement could be added.