Shane's Epic Archive Adventure!
Mar 13, 2012 1:50:03 GMT
Post by Dave on Mar 13, 2012 1:50:03 GMT
Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the day with Shane and his editor Johnny! They are deep in the process of digitally archiving all of Shane's old short films, unedited short film rushes, and TV appearances.
They've been salvaging footage from all manner of formats, a good majority of which are now obsolete (Shane's still on the look out for a Betamax video player, perhaps you can help?) and all in all the whole endeavour looks to be only slightly less challenging than the Human Genome Project!
I got to see a nice collection of rarities too, including;
Torino Torino - a short about taking Where's The Money Ronnie? to the Turin Film Festival in 1996. You might think it would be a simple documentary, but no, it also has amusing staged scenes of quibbles over money, and discussions about how Italian a white vest makes you (while chugging on fat cigars).
Willy Gumbo (the extended edition) - I've never seen any incarnation of the Willy Gumbo short before, but I had read a few odd things about it. The oddness in those reviews really was justified too!
So, Paddy Considine plays a somewhat mentally troubled 'hick' from the southern states of America who has somehow ended up living in a remote home in the English countryside. He starts by saying how has killed in the past, and later a lost student looking for a youth-hostel is taken in by Willy who does some rather odd things with him (making him constantly wear a Vincent Van Gogh mask is just the tip of the iceberg!).
This was made around the time of Shane's World, and a ten minute version of this was going to be included at one stage.
I also got to see a few bits from the first 90 minute cut of Smalltime (still called Left at that stage). There are quite a lot of extended scenes in this version, some work, and some are definitely better in the released version.
There's more stuff about the dog-food they steal at the beginning, as they attempt to sell it around a posh estate.
Then there was an early Le Donk short from about 1999. It was interesting to see how fully formed the character was back then and how little difference there is compared to the Le Donk of Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee.
and.... I got to see the Gavin Clark documentary! It's really interesting to learn about the man behind the powerful music, and he's really open and honest all through the film. It all builds up to trying to get Gavin to overcome his fear of performing solo to an audience, starting with a living room based gig before cutting to the Union Chapel gig at the end.
What a lucky boy I've been!
Shane and Johnny still have some very interesting looking VHS tapes to archive including the Big Breakfast appearance of legend!
Hope I didn't put their archiving too far behind schedule by hogging up their equipment for private viewings!
They've been salvaging footage from all manner of formats, a good majority of which are now obsolete (Shane's still on the look out for a Betamax video player, perhaps you can help?) and all in all the whole endeavour looks to be only slightly less challenging than the Human Genome Project!
I got to see a nice collection of rarities too, including;
Torino Torino - a short about taking Where's The Money Ronnie? to the Turin Film Festival in 1996. You might think it would be a simple documentary, but no, it also has amusing staged scenes of quibbles over money, and discussions about how Italian a white vest makes you (while chugging on fat cigars).
Willy Gumbo (the extended edition) - I've never seen any incarnation of the Willy Gumbo short before, but I had read a few odd things about it. The oddness in those reviews really was justified too!
So, Paddy Considine plays a somewhat mentally troubled 'hick' from the southern states of America who has somehow ended up living in a remote home in the English countryside. He starts by saying how has killed in the past, and later a lost student looking for a youth-hostel is taken in by Willy who does some rather odd things with him (making him constantly wear a Vincent Van Gogh mask is just the tip of the iceberg!).
This was made around the time of Shane's World, and a ten minute version of this was going to be included at one stage.
I also got to see a few bits from the first 90 minute cut of Smalltime (still called Left at that stage). There are quite a lot of extended scenes in this version, some work, and some are definitely better in the released version.
There's more stuff about the dog-food they steal at the beginning, as they attempt to sell it around a posh estate.
Then there was an early Le Donk short from about 1999. It was interesting to see how fully formed the character was back then and how little difference there is compared to the Le Donk of Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee.
and.... I got to see the Gavin Clark documentary! It's really interesting to learn about the man behind the powerful music, and he's really open and honest all through the film. It all builds up to trying to get Gavin to overcome his fear of performing solo to an audience, starting with a living room based gig before cutting to the Union Chapel gig at the end.
What a lucky boy I've been!
Shane and Johnny still have some very interesting looking VHS tapes to archive including the Big Breakfast appearance of legend!
Hope I didn't put their archiving too far behind schedule by hogging up their equipment for private viewings!