...BY FAR THE BEST OPTION IS TO TAKE THE LINK TO YouTube BELOW AND THERE YOU CAN FILL YOUR SCREEN WITH THE MOVIE INSTEAD OF STARING AT A TINY IMAGE HERE ON MY APPALLING BLOG...However GORDON THE MOVIE : PART THREE
...BY FAR THE BEST OPTION IS TO TAKE
THE LINK TO YouTube BELOW AND THERE YOU CAN
FILL YOUR SCREEN WITH THE MOVIE INSTEAD OF STARING AT A TINY IMAGE HERE ON MY APPALLING BLOG...
However don't forget all the extra Gordon related jottings here that you won't find anywhere else...
Link direct to YouTube to view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uhFIJr09bE
NEW! Check out the 'Gordon the Movie' quiz on Facebook.
THE STORY OF THE AERIAL OPENING SEQUENCE THAT NEVER WAS...
The intended spectacular opening of 'Gordon the Movie' mentioned in the Venue article below would have been spectacular as intended, had it not been for the deteriorated condition of the meteorological balloons stolen for me from the Granada TV stores in Manchester by my cousin Chaz.
The plan was to open the film with spectacular high altitude wind induced zip pans of the Severn estuary and surrounds, then to descend a couple of thousand feet at a massive rate of knots coming to rest in a close up of the side of Gordon the Dummy's face.
From massive panoramic aerial vistas to extreme close up in one shot.
Eat your heart out, Orson.
This would be followed by a cutaway of the toxic waves of the Severn lapping at the Severn "beach", then cut back to a matching close up of Gordon the Man licking an ice lolly, sat on a bench. This shot we already had from before his death, obviously.
The shoot was planned for about a week before the well hyped World Premiere, scheduled for November 19th, 1982.
Cutting it fine?
Well, perhaps a little.
And we'd have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for those pesky meteorological balloons....
So the set up was, firstly the dummy, with sculpted painted head, and wooden framed flexible body, built by Annie Beardsley (here think 2 x 1 and wing knuts), dressed in typical Gordon attire, i.e. overcoat and scarf, seated on a bench on the Severn Beach prom.
Under the bench is stationed Vic, partner of my partner Sophie's mum Sally, wielding a large hammer on the wooden handle of which is mounted a large fishing reel, on which is mounted a couple of thousand feet of heavy duty fishing line. The line passes up through Gordon the Dummy's wooden thighs, and is then attached to a small lightweight super 8 camera, mounted upside down. Above this, the line is attached to a number of enormous gas inflated meteorological balloons.
The plan goes like this...the camera is held in a close up of Gordon the Dummy's face and the trigger is pulled and locked on....with camera running, the balloon and camera package is released...the package rises rapidly, eventually levelling at a couple of thousand feet, camera still running.....the wind hits the package and blasts it from side to side, giving us the zip pan effect. When the film is processed, it is projected in reverse. Because the camera was upside down whilst shooting, the shot is the right way up when it starts zip panning at 2,000 feet, prior to descending for it's close up....
The reality goes like this...the camera is switched on and locked, giving us the close up...the package is released, and rises according to plan...by about six feet, not according to plan, and then starts to descend...I give it a hefty bat with my fist, it rises again momentarily, and then sinks down over the sea wall to land in the toxic mud they call beach, with camera still running.
I have the resulting footage stashed somewhere in England.
It looks great. Such as it is.
Damn those pesky low flying low budget balloons.
So the film now opens with Gordon the Man scoffing an ice lolly. And not a dummy nor an aerial descent in sight.
Whilst shooting the above, we were asked on a number of occasions if "our grandad" was ok, as he looked a bit pastey. Talk about a concerned understatement.
WHY BITS OF FAMOUS DEAD PEOPLE?
Why does the star of the film sell bits of famous dead people??
And what does it have to do with the aerial opening that never was?
Well, I once had a most excellent friend (he really was!) called Silly Phil, back in my Stockport days.
He had previously been called simply Phil, but he succumbed to the temptations of far too much mescaline in the late 60's and his name changed accordingly.
Around 1970 some anarcho-freaks living opposite him blew up a drug squad car whilst he was being busted in his flat.
Silly Phil became hunted by both the freaks and the police...the freaks thought he'd later squealed on them ( he hadn't), and Det. Insp. Jackson ( his car ) wasn't bright enough to work out the unlikelihood of Phil blowing up the car whilst simultaneously being busted!
So Silly Phil went on the run.
The last time I saw him was in the mid 70's in a major railway station "somewhere in England".
He was still staying extremely mobile.
Then a few years later I heard he was in prison. He and a group of cohorts had been busted whilst operating a cross channel drug smuggling operation using enormous radio controlled cargo carrying model aircraft, controlled from speed boats below.
As a result my planned epic movie was going to have an aerial opening shot taken from a large remote controlled incoming model aircraft. However the idea of a cargo (and thus a plot premise) as mundane as drugs struck me as a bit stock.
Around this time, Charlie Chaplin's body was kidnapped from it's grave.
I needed something small and valuable but a little out of the ordinary for a model aircraft to be smuggling.
Not drugs. Not diamonds. Not money. Not nuclear materials. All too normal movie plot style.
But Charlie Chaplin? Not a whole body obviously, but there it was....famous dead peoples' body parts.
The customers??
Collectors, fans, perverts, those who might think to outlive their contemporaries by consuming them.
I remembered being shown pictures at school of Napoleon's testicles displayed as part of a priceless antique ornament, and off we went.
As time and the script went on, the opening and the model aircraft and the smuggling disappeared.
Only the body parts remained.
And at the last moment an attempt was made to shoot a rather different aerial opening sequence, but this was inspired more by a Dutch experimental movie I once saw, using a small camera attached to a kite.
The movie camera, attached to the kite, zip panned about spectacularly in the wind, only to descend at great speed to crash into long grass, which it showed in close up until rescued and switched off.
I liked it, so I nicked it.
Almost.
NEW! Check out the 'Gordon the Movie' quiz on Facebook.
THE STORY OF THE AERIAL OPENING SEQUENCE THAT NEVER WAS...
The intended spectacular opening of 'Gordon the Movie' mentioned in the Venue article below would have been spectacular as intended, had it not been for the deteriorated condition of the meteorological balloons stolen for me from the Granada TV stores in Manchester by my cousin Chaz.
The plan was to open the film with spectacular high altitude wind induced zip pans of the Severn estuary and surrounds, then to descend a couple of thousand feet at a massive rate of knots coming to rest in a close up of the side of Gordon the Dummy's face.
From massive panoramic aerial vistas to extreme close up in one shot.
Eat your heart out, Orson.
This would be followed by a cutaway of the toxic waves of the Severn lapping at the Severn "beach", then cut back to a matching close up of Gordon the Man licking an ice lolly, sat on a bench. This shot we already had from before his death, obviously.
The shoot was planned for about a week before the well hyped World Premiere, scheduled for November 19th, 1982.
Cutting it fine?
Well, perhaps a little.
And we'd have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for those pesky meteorological balloons....
So the set up was, firstly the dummy, with sculpted painted head, and wooden framed flexible body, built by Annie Beardsley (here think 2 x 1 and wing knuts), dressed in typical Gordon attire, i.e. overcoat and scarf, seated on a bench on the Severn Beach prom.
Under the bench is stationed Vic, partner of my partner Sophie's mum Sally, wielding a large hammer on the wooden handle of which is mounted a large fishing reel, on which is mounted a couple of thousand feet of heavy duty fishing line. The line passes up through Gordon the Dummy's wooden thighs, and is then attached to a small lightweight super 8 camera, mounted upside down. Above this, the line is attached to a number of enormous gas inflated meteorological balloons.
The plan goes like this...the camera is held in a close up of Gordon the Dummy's face and the trigger is pulled and locked on....with camera running, the balloon and camera package is released...the package rises rapidly, eventually levelling at a couple of thousand feet, camera still running.....the wind hits the package and blasts it from side to side, giving us the zip pan effect. When the film is processed, it is projected in reverse. Because the camera was upside down whilst shooting, the shot is the right way up when it starts zip panning at 2,000 feet, prior to descending for it's close up....
The reality goes like this...the camera is switched on and locked, giving us the close up...the package is released, and rises according to plan...by about six feet, not according to plan, and then starts to descend...I give it a hefty bat with my fist, it rises again momentarily, and then sinks down over the sea wall to land in the toxic mud they call beach, with camera still running.
I have the resulting footage stashed somewhere in England.
It looks great. Such as it is.
Damn those pesky low flying low budget balloons.
So the film now opens with Gordon the Man scoffing an ice lolly. And not a dummy nor an aerial descent in sight.
Whilst shooting the above, we were asked on a number of occasions if "our grandad" was ok, as he looked a bit pastey. Talk about a concerned understatement.
WHY BITS OF FAMOUS DEAD PEOPLE?
Why does the star of the film sell bits of famous dead people??
And what does it have to do with the aerial opening that never was?
Well, I once had a most excellent friend (he really was!) called Silly Phil, back in my Stockport days.
He had previously been called simply Phil, but he succumbed to the temptations of far too much mescaline in the late 60's and his name changed accordingly.
Around 1970 some anarcho-freaks living opposite him blew up a drug squad car whilst he was being busted in his flat.
Silly Phil became hunted by both the freaks and the police...the freaks thought he'd later squealed on them ( he hadn't), and Det. Insp. Jackson ( his car ) wasn't bright enough to work out the unlikelihood of Phil blowing up the car whilst simultaneously being busted!
So Silly Phil went on the run.
The last time I saw him was in the mid 70's in a major railway station "somewhere in England".
He was still staying extremely mobile.
Then a few years later I heard he was in prison. He and a group of cohorts had been busted whilst operating a cross channel drug smuggling operation using enormous radio controlled cargo carrying model aircraft, controlled from speed boats below.
As a result my planned epic movie was going to have an aerial opening shot taken from a large remote controlled incoming model aircraft. However the idea of a cargo (and thus a plot premise) as mundane as drugs struck me as a bit stock.
Around this time, Charlie Chaplin's body was kidnapped from it's grave.
I needed something small and valuable but a little out of the ordinary for a model aircraft to be smuggling.
Not drugs. Not diamonds. Not money. Not nuclear materials. All too normal movie plot style.
But Charlie Chaplin? Not a whole body obviously, but there it was....famous dead peoples' body parts.
The customers??
Collectors, fans, perverts, those who might think to outlive their contemporaries by consuming them.
I remembered being shown pictures at school of Napoleon's testicles displayed as part of a priceless antique ornament, and off we went.
As time and the script went on, the opening and the model aircraft and the smuggling disappeared.
Only the body parts remained.
And at the last moment an attempt was made to shoot a rather different aerial opening sequence, but this was inspired more by a Dutch experimental movie I once saw, using a small camera attached to a kite.
The movie camera, attached to the kite, zip panned about spectacularly in the wind, only to descend at great speed to crash into long grass, which it showed in close up until rescued and switched off.
I liked it, so I nicked it.
Almost.
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