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Shooting a serial for Euphoria Films for BBC2, a
pussy cats point of view -running upstairs, round a door into a bedroom,
jumping up onto a bed occupied by a bonking couple - finally spurred me on
to develop an idea, long-time festering in my mind, to free me from the
viewfinder and which I would now name ‘Pussycam’ (obviously!) ... The Director was Adrian
Shergold, the film Eureka Street, and the idea - to fix up a helmet with a
viewfinder - nothing new – the military do it in many forms and you can buy one for
about twenty million quid with a free fighter aircraft thrown in. My
pocket had a hole in it. Some months later my son helped me grapple my
head into the first prototype and promptly collapsed in hysteria
at the sight of me. Little did I realise how telling his reaction was to
have been. The working prototype saw the light of day on Endor’s ‘The Private Life of Michael Fry’ for CH4, I had to run up a staircase ending up on a close two shot. Couldn’t use steadicam - we hadn’t booked one.... So there I was wearing the matt black helmet with the great gob of viewfinder across one eye and a piece of ND6 gaffer taped to my forehead covering my left eye. I must have looked prehistoric. Director Marc Munden in his inimitable way peered curiously at me and said “do they fire you out of a cannon wearing that thing?” The entire unit collapsed in the very same hysteria my son had - and thus vanished the first few grand of development cash. In my unworldly innocence I had applied to register
Pussycam.com. You are
permitted to laugh - Pussycam.com was not available of course and as a result of the
host name application, our computer was deluged with... you know what! Then came Adrian Shergold's
‘Swallow’ a Tony Marchant script
for CH4 in which we wanted a powerful visual signature for the frustration
disorder distress and madness (of clinical depression) portrayed through,
what began conceptually, hand held camera. Adrian took me to a
very small council house and described a shot that I couldn’t achieve
with any handheld method available. The moment had come - the pimple of
festering inventive finally burst forth and Wonkycam was born on the back
of a fag packet. In the middle of my grubby machine shop I sat in pavilion
splendour contemplating the developing confluence of man machine and
madness. I only ever intended the ‘cobbled together’ kit to be very
temporary on the Swallow shoot... a kind of tribute to Heath
Robinson...I’d had no real time to build, so I turned up with a shoe box
of bits just for the one shot… but Adrian with his fertile
imagination ended up shooting whole sections of ‘Swallow’ in
what became ‘WONKYCAM’ There was wobbly Wonky,
fast Wonky, backwards Wonky and more but the First complained that setting up Wonkycam was too
schedule expensive. Firsts will be Firsts. One
of the rubs… Wonkycam is strenuous to operate requiring fitness, body
control and stamina. Anyone who frequently does hand held with a
moderately heavy film camera can learn to use Wonkycam -
you’ll discover muscles even lagers don’t know.
My initial efforts were without experience and we felt that
what we were achieving what could only be described as partial Wonks. But,
inevitably, after a morning to set up one shot moving through every room in the tiny house -
beginning still, running down very
narrow stairs passing the actress on the way and panning around her head
to look back, doing a ten turn pirouette and finishing up being sick in the kitchen.
The
committee unanimously agreed that, at last, a full Wonk had been achieved
- and Adrian was treated by the paramedic for severe overexcitement. The rig survived the shoot
- just - and my muscles
are stronger but Wonkycam would be far too fiddly and time wasting to keep
setting up on a more pressured schedule typical of the way British TV is
going; thus I have now
completed the first versatile prototype which can be fitted up in minutes.
A host of further refinements and minor electronic and mechanical
additions are under development for prototyping and testing in the near
future. “What you wonk is what you get…”
- Freya
Ceirios Russell Hobson Oct
2001 ‘SWALLOW’
made by Box TV was a three part serial screened on CH4 in November 2001. 16mm Film. Printed on Kodak print stock graded by Dave Kelly
and Telecine colourist Chris Beaton.
Shot entirely on location in Wonkyville with my own Aaton Prod and
Wonky XTR cameras. Directed by Adrian Wonkers Shergold.
Operatic Production Design by David Roger.
DOP in Balletic Wonk by Daf.
And all the cast and crew were so supportive
and fantastic.
Thank you all.
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Wonking for the future
Daf Hobson
Oct 2001
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Wonkycam - 2001
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