British Comedy Guide

As Boys Grow

This is "As Boys Grow". Basically it's me overdubbing an old 1950s American sex education reel, and giving all the characters Geordie accents. It's all highly peurile and knob-gaggy but it caught the attention of a BBC producer who said she loved it and wants to develop the idea into a show, which is obviously well and groovy.

I'm actually posting this to illustrate a point, that being - if I'd've submitted this idea on paper, nobody would've given it a second glance, cos it sounds so shit, eg;
"Well you see, what we do is get these old black and white public domain information reels, and basically dick about voicing them over."

See? Sounds shit. So what I'm saying is, if it's at all possible for you to VISUALLY demonstrate your idea, it'll always generate more interest than just a script. I'm not suggesting you film yourself performing, (although if you can act and think you can do your script justice, why not? I believe that's how Gervais sold The Office idea), but even something like a good, interesting pitch can catch a reader's eye and push it to the top of a pile.

When I pitch ideas I usually spend time in photoshop making an eye-catching visual. For instance I've just Photoshopped Micheal Fielding's face onto an office worker's body, to the backdrop of a nuclear mushroom cloud. I won't tell you what the idea is of course, but that image will be slapped onto the front page of the pitch. Anything to make it stand out from the others, you know? At any given time a producer might have a dozen scripts / pitches jostling for his attention and if you can make yours stand out in any way then that can only be a good thing. Although don't sellotape a photo of your fanny / erect penis to the script. Unless it's for Channel 5.

Anyway that's my two-penneth for what it's worth - it seems to work for me but feel free to dismiss / ignore / laugh at.

Here's "As Boys Grow" . http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zrCLIJDJAzI

Oh I've changed that nose-snogging Avatar. It was giving me nightmares. Just a pic of me now, which will give you nightmares.

That is a great idea and so well done and funny. Did you ask the beeb to look in at the youtube version or did you send them a DVD of it or whatever?

Quote: bushbaby @ February 2, 2008, 1:09 PM

That is a great idea and so well done and funny. Did you ask the beeb to look in at the youtube version or did you send them a DVD of it or whatever?

Hey bush, really chuffed you like it. Yeah I uploaded that one to YouTube and sent them the link, and then they asked for a load more of the same, which I then did and put onto DVD for them. Which was a HUGE arse-ache because my computer's like 7 years old and not great at DVD authoring. Got there in the end though.

Very funny stuff.

I couldn't catch every word on the YouTube vid but I got 95% of it.

Maybe the sound's a bit dodgy or maybe it's my ears. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter. They always told me I'd go deaf if I didn't stop it. Or was it blind? Or lose my memory?

Anyway, that vid is excellent.

Cheers Chimes, glad you liked it. Yeah it had to be compressed for YouTube so the sound quality / video suffered quite a lot unfortunately. All my intricate lip-synching was wasted because you can't see the effin' lips mostly.

ok this is fab, it's professional stnadard, it should be on tv, you should be primeminister

and great coordination

Yep I've seen this before and really like it. Glad to hear you got some attention from 'the industry' which shows it can be done and that it is worth writers/performers doing demos or their own versions of their work.

Great stuff! :)

Perry you really need to be on TV.

That was f**king brilliant, laughed my arse off!
I missed a lot because of the sound quality though - it sounded a bit whistley and grainy. You explained of course but I just thought it was a shame.

Top stuff. Did you actually write the music or are you using samples?

EDIT:

Oh no, scrap that I just saw your Duran Duran take. Nice keyboard by the way, the piano sounds beaudiful.

I also saw the Summer Wine and Dalek ones - are these goin to the beeb as part of the same project then?

Brilliant!
You can still see how carefully you matched the lip synching even on youtube. Amazing, really.

I also like the comments underneath. "Geordie is a type of Scottish accent".

Quote: zooo @ February 2, 2008, 5:00 PM

I also like the comments underneath. "Geordie is a type of Scottish accent".

Laughing out loud
I was reading them as well.
There are some real dickshits posting comments on there. I wouldn't bother reading them if I was Lee they'd just make me angry.

Great stuff, well done.

"fannies and spunk and that..." Laughing out loud

Fantastic! Well done!

That was brilliant, the final "thanks for ruining me life" bit had me in stitches. Congrats on the BBC thingy, It's well deserved.

FanTabUlous!
Well done, congrats with the BBC news.
Clever bugger you.

This is great stuff, Perry.

I agree wholeheartedly that taking control of your material and pushing it to the next step is time well spent. Anything you can do to get it off the page.

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