7 On 7 Reject: Credit Crunch Hustle

As I still haven't heard anything, and have criticized everybody else's entries all ready, here's one of mine for autopsy. I assume not hearing anything amounts to complete and total abject failure...

All comments welcome

Dan

=======================
Credit Crunch Hustle
=======================

ROBERT PESTON:
So, here's how Evan Davis and I, Robert Peston, did it.

GRAMS: 'HUSTLE' MUSIC FOR THE 'HOW THE CON WAS DONE' EXPLANATION AT THE END

EVAN DAVIS:
First, we bumped up house prices by me speculating how high house prices could go.

ROBERT:
And I bumped up the banks' confidence by blogging how mortgage securities were amongst the safest investments for a guaranteed return.

EVAN:
Then, I explained how they were so complicated no-one could possibly understand how they made a profit.

ROBERT:
And they heard 'blah blah blah blah, profit!'

EVAN:
So they piled their money in.

ROBERT:
And shares went through the roof.

JONATHAN ROSS:
And, with a clever sleight of hand, everyone was distracted by my shenanigans.

RUSSELL BRAND:
With the assistance of me.

ANDREW SACHS:
And me!

EVAN:
Then I spoke of how mortgages were a load of old gumpf.

ROBERT:
And I described how the banks couldn't get their money back, even if they wanted to.

EVAN:
And we explained it in such a way, that even people who watch soap opera could understand.

ROBERT:
Then the banks really were in trouble.

EVAN:
Because everybody wanted their money back. So they queued.

ROBERT:
And queued.

EVAN:
And queued.

ROBERT:
So with a little scare-mongering—

EVAN:
—And a twinkle in our eye—

ROBERT:
The whole economy started to crash.

EVAN:
So we simply walked out of there with our new massive reputations.

ROBERT:
And enormous amounts of profile.

EVAN:
Job done.

END

Quote: swerytd @ March 10 2009, 9:08 AM GMT

As I still haven't heard anything, and have criticized everybody else's entries all ready, here's one of mine for autopsy. I assume not hearing anything amounts to complete and total abject failure...

All comments welcome

Dan

=======================
Credit Crunch Hustle
=======================

ROBERT PESTON:
So, here's how Evan Davis and I, Robert Peston, did it.

GRAMS: 'HUSTLE' MUSIC FOR THE 'HOW THE CON WAS DONE' EXPLANATION AT THE END

EVAN DAVIS:
First, we bumped up house prices by me speculating how high house prices could go.

ROBERT:
And I bumped up the banks' confidence by blogging how mortgage securities were amongst the safest investments for a guaranteed return.

EVAN:
Then, I explained how they were so complicated no-one could possibly understand how they made a profit.

ROBERT:
And they heard 'blah blah blah blah, profit!'

EVAN:
So they piled their money in.

ROBERT:
And shares went through the roof.

JONATHAN ROSS:
And, with a clever sleight of hand, everyone was distracted by my shenanigans.

RUSSELL BRAND:
With the assistance of me.

ANDREW SACHS:
And me!

EVAN:
Then I spoke of how mortgages were a load of old gumpf.

ROBERT:
And I described how the banks couldn't get their money back, even if they wanted to.

EVAN:
And we explained it in such a way, that even people who watch soap opera could understand.

ROBERT:
Then the banks really were in trouble.

EVAN:
Because everybody wanted their money back. So they queued.

ROBERT:
And queued.

EVAN:
And queued.

ROBERT:
So with a little scare-mongering—

EVAN:
—And a twinkle in our eye—

ROBERT:
The whole economy started to crash.

EVAN:
So we simply walked out of there with our new massive reputations.

ROBERT:
And enormous amounts of profile.

EVAN:
Job done.

END

View original

My problem is the subject matter. The financial meltdown is confusing and not terribly interesting. You put a nice spin on it, but I'm not sure you can escape the tedious nature of the crisis. This is a problem with all sketches on this subject. None really work for me.

Yeah, and all my sketches were credit crunch-based, which is probably where the problem lies...

Cheers anyway

Dan

See what Chipolata's saying, but then again I liked the sketch, captured the tone of the smug reveals at the end of hustle and fould it well-written and funny.

Best part for me was

EVAN:
Then, I explained how they were so complicated no-one could possibly understand how they made a profit.

ROBERT:
And they heard 'blah blah blah blah, profit!'

I don't have a problem with the subject matter, I thought more that it's a bit to much effort to stick Sachsgate in for one line each?

I quite like it but if all your sketches were about the credit crunch then that might not have helped. I can't begin to imagine how many credit crunch sketches they got sent (at least one from me!)

I think the Sachs-gate thing was a good line but not necessary.

Apart from that, I can only really say that maybe you broke the 'show-don't-tell' rule?

Hi Dan,

For me this was clever rather than funny per se.

As others have mentioned, the Brandgate stuff felt a bit shoehorned in.

Quote: swerytd @ March 10 2009, 9:08 AM GMT

As I still haven't heard anything, and have criticized everybody else's entries all ready, here's one of mine for autopsy. I assume not hearing anything amounts to complete and total abject failure...

All comments welcome

Dan

=======================
Credit Crunch Hustle
=======================

ROBERT PESTON:
So, here's how Evan Davis and I, Robert Peston, did it.

GRAMS: 'HUSTLE' MUSIC FOR THE 'HOW THE CON WAS DONE' EXPLANATION AT THE END

EVAN DAVIS:
First, we bumped up house prices by me speculating how high house prices could go.

ROBERT:
And I bumped up the banks' confidence by blogging how mortgage securities were amongst the safest investments for a guaranteed return.

EVAN:
Then, I explained how they were so complicated no-one could possibly understand how they made a profit.

ROBERT:
And they heard 'blah blah blah blah, profit!'

EVAN:
So they piled their money in.

ROBERT:
And shares went through the roof.

JONATHAN ROSS:
And, with a clever sleight of hand, everyone was distracted by my shenanigans.

RUSSELL BRAND:
With the assistance of me.

ANDREW SACHS:
And me!

EVAN:
Then I spoke of how mortgages were a load of old gumpf.

ROBERT:
And I described how the banks couldn't get their money back, even if they wanted to.

EVAN:
And we explained it in such a way, that even people who watch soap opera could understand.

ROBERT:
Then the banks really were in trouble.

EVAN:
Because everybody wanted their money back. So they queued.

ROBERT:
And queued.

EVAN:
And queued.

ROBERT:
So with a little scare-mongering—

EVAN:
—And a twinkle in our eye—

ROBERT:
The whole economy started to crash.

EVAN:
So we simply walked out of there with our new massive reputations.

ROBERT:
And enormous amounts of profile.

EVAN:
Job done.

END

View original

I can tell you exactly where you went wrong with this ... you don't seem to have written it for radio.

It's about two minutes long.

How many different unidentified voices can you process in a two minute period?

There's 5 voices used in this, two of which are identified at the start but then never again, so the listener needs to concentrate on them to distinguish which is which.

You then introduce three new voices who only pop up to deliver one line each - and none of them are identified to the listener.

I suppose a decent impressionist could do a passable Jonathan Ross that people might get. But what is Russell Brand famous for, what is his unique selling point? It's his flowery Dickensian way with language. He gets five words - so how could the listener possibly recognise Russell Brand from five ordinary words?

And then there's Andrew Sachs - what does Andrew Sachs sound like? I don't know. So how could he be identified from just two very short words?

I think there's too many voices happening with no regard to identifying them, resulting in a mess.

If you listen to any radio plays, even the Archers, you will notice that every voice is identified (Hello Tom, hello Dick, or look, here come's Harry etc), it's not particularly naturalisitic but it's necessary.

And take a listen to some radio sketches and ask yourselves how many voices can you process in a two minute sketch - I bet it's no more than 3, maximum 4.

Hi all

Thanks for the comments.

Re: Sachsgate. I initially thought it was too much but thought it might work as the point of Hustle was the art of distraction, which I thought it did quite nicely. More of a nod to that show than anything, but still relatively topical and something people can relate to.

I think Ross is recogniseable but disagree that Brand wouldn't be recogniseable in five words. Pretty much everyone knows him and the way he talks. I agree totally about Andrew Sachs -- bar making him say something like 'F**king my granddaughter' in a mock-Barcelona accent -- he would indeed be totally unrecognisable.

I did wrestle with dropping the whole section but thought it would get more laughs than not. Obviously, that was misjudgement on my part.

Upon a similar note that Peter raises, I was more worried about the Evan Davis/Robert Peston characters. Pretty much no-one knows Robert Peston's voice and not many more would recognise even a spot-on Evan Davis impression. Not cos people don't know them, but because they're not particularly distinctive. The best solution I could come up with was to get both of them to actually do the sketch themselves, in an ironic 'laughing-at-myself' kind of a way!

I'm not convinced about the necessity of the voice identification. I think you should absolutely try and avoid saying 'Hi, I'm Fred Bloggs' at pretty much all times and only use that if it's absolutely a last resort. Maybe I'm being uncreative, but I couldn't think of another way of introducing them bar this last resort. (I consider soap opera exempt from this btw as it has such a high turnaround they don't have time for clever plot devices and just have to get it out there.)

Re: Clever rather than funny. Ponderer, I think you've hit the nail on the head about most of my sketches, unfortunately! At the end of the day, I don't think it's funny enough and I did have concerns as I sent it in.

Cheers again all

Dan