Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 3926 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| THE DUDEY MOVIE | 2006-2008 | 2006-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: DVD Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 10 mins Credits: Credits - Each of the children sit in front of a colourful back ground and take masks away from their faces as their names are held up on a piece of paper. Hannah, Jack, Tom, Josh, Nino, Alex, Emil, Joe, Rose, Ella, Pipa, Anna, Beth, Rob, Alex, Jenny, Athena, George, James, Production Team Tim Copsey, Charlotte Diefenthal, Jane Revitt, Chris Squire, Andy Wicks. Thanks to The Watershed for assisting Dudey Movie. Shabang Theatre Adventures for the used of the black and white costumes and special props. Supported by Heritage Lottery Fund Arts Council England Kirklees Met, Council Impossible Theatre Participatory Arts Events. The Dudey Movie 2006-08 Subject: ARTS / CULTURE EARLY CINEMA EDUCATION ENTERTAINMENT / LEISURE SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY |
| Summary Made by the Impossible Theatre group, this film tells the story of two superheroes who uncover a dangerous mob, lead by the Hollywood film industry, who plot to steal the creativity from the Bamforth films. The film was made by a group of local teenagers working to develop the filmmaking ideas pioneered by Bamforth of Holmfirth. The movie has man ... |
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Description
Made by the Impossible Theatre group, this film tells the story of two superheroes who uncover a dangerous mob, lead by the Hollywood film industry, who plot to steal the creativity from the Bamforth films. The film was made by a group of local teenagers working to develop the filmmaking ideas pioneered by Bamforth of Holmfirth. The movie has many features in common with the early silent films which were their inspiration including humour, physical comedy, simple camera tricks,...
Made by the Impossible Theatre group, this film tells the story of two superheroes who uncover a dangerous mob, lead by the Hollywood film industry, who plot to steal the creativity from the Bamforth films. The film was made by a group of local teenagers working to develop the filmmaking ideas pioneered by Bamforth of Holmfirth. The movie has many features in common with the early silent films which were their inspiration including humour, physical comedy, simple camera tricks, cross-dressing, and local talent.
After creative sessions with local teenagers, we made a film inspired by the First movies shot in Holmfirth.
The pioneering ‘Bamforth Short’s’ were made over 100 years ago at the very dawn of the movie era.
Dudey Movie.
Title – By 1898 James Bamforth was producing films for international distribution from his studios in the West Yorkshire village of Holmfirth. Meanwhile, Hollywood was just a one-horse, dirt track, tumbleweed town. For some this has always been too much to bear…
(Bamforth Archive Film) The film opens with boys sliding in the snow. The image is displayed inside a picture frame. A face surrounded by lights breaks through the frame.
Title – Dudey Movie.
Two children dressed as superheroes run in slow motion and fast speed towards the camera. By day, these two superheroes are just regular boys. A boy with glasses and a boy lying on the sofa are both in a cartoon living room. One of them runs around the sofa and does star jumps in front of the other boy. He also hides behind the sofa and does press ups in speeded up motion.
Another one of the boy students is dressed as a woman wearing a pink coat and blond wig. The mother character stands in front of cartoon kitchen scene. She hears the telephone ringing and walks into the living room to pick up the telephone. The woman goes to pass the phone to the boy lying on the sofa, but the other boy who has been running around grabs it from her. She shakes her head and walks off. Shocked by what he hears on the other end of the phone, the boy mouths “Oh My God!” The two boys stand up, look at each other then to the camera several times, fling their arms out in the air, and morph into superheroes.
The villain of the film, a face surrounded by lights, appears on the top of a microphone. The superheroes jog out of the cartoon house and get into a yellow car, one seated behind the other. The one with the black mask drives the car, and the one with a gold mask sits in the back of the car on the telephone.
Using a simple camera trick, cartoon sets are intercut with live action perform by the actors: A yellow and blue toy car travels along a cartoon street set. The boy in the black mask turns the car quickly causing them to lean from side to side. A yellow and blue toy car travels along a cartoon street set. The driver of the car breaks suddenly screeching to a halt.
The villain and head of the Hollywood operation is on a stage. Two boys dressed in suits hover onto the stage and put make up onto the face.
Cartoon factory building (Bamforth – Danger Keep Out).
The two superheroes run up to the factory and look at each other thinking of an idea before reaching for plungers and ropes. The boy in the black mask jumps onto the building and walks up the side using the plungers. Still on the ground, the other boy wearing the gold mask gives him two thumbs up. The boy with the black mask throws the length of rope down to the boy with the gold mask who begins to climb.
Inside the factory and hidden behind a stack of boxes, the superheroes look onto the factory floor. Many people are working on the ground floor and two balcony levels. On the wall is a large screen that is being zapped with a beam. The workers in the factory pass each other orange tubes. Still hidden, the two superheroes continue to watch the workers. A variety of glass containers, with different colours inside them, are passed a long the line of workers. Five workers are mixing different chemicals at a table.
One of the workers holds up a piece of 8mm film while another starts a projector. The film travels through a series of machines until it reaches a television screen which displays one of the Bamforth films, Women’s Rights. A worker takes a special vacuum gun which sucks the images from the screen. The film images travel through other machines and has liquids added to it. An alarm sounds, and all the workers stop what they are doing to gather together in front of the large screen. The face surrounded by light appears on the screen and speaks to the workers.
Title – “Together! We will suck the creativity… From the Bamforth’s movies, so that no one can deny… That Hollywood was the FIRST to make the magic moving pictures.”
The mob begins to cheer. The superheroes sneak out of their hiding places and tamper with the machine changing the cycle to “Reverse.” A siren sounds, and the face surrounded by light orders the mob to catch them.
A comic fight scene begins as the mob tries to attack the superheroes. The heroes bash the villains into each other, trip them up with their feet, and tie them up with ropes. The face surrounded by light looks on in horror and then rolls off the stage and bounces away. It is followed by the two floating men in suits. The fight between the mob and the heroes continues as one of the heroes picks up a villain and swings him around on his shoulders before knocking them all to the ground.
The heroes collect the Bamforth films the mob had been using and carry them away in a box labelled “Bamforth’s Film Archive.”
Back at home, the mother is sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper. The front page headline reads, “Lights, Camera, Action! Creative Super kids save film (some more small text).” There is also a photograph of the two heroes. The mother turns to the two boys and asks them,
Title - Why can’t you do something useful like those two?
The two boys look at each other and laugh.
Credits – Each of the children sit in front of a colourful back ground and take masks away from their faces as their names are held up on a piece of paper. Hannah, Jack, Tom, Josh, Nino, Alex, Emil, Joe, Rose, Ella, Pipa, Anna, Beth, Rob, Alex, Jenny, Athena, George, James,
Production Team
Tim Copsey, Charlotte Diefenthal, Jane Revitt, Chris Squire, Andy Wicks.
Thanks to
The Watershed for assisting Dudey Movie.
Shabang Theatre Adventures for the used of the black and white costumes and special props.
Supported by
Heritage Lottery Fund
Arts Council England
Kirklees Met, Council
Impossible Theatre Participatory Arts Events.
The Dudey Movie 2006-08
Additional information: Extras on the DVD include “About the Project,” a feature showing where the students gained their inspiration, pre production research, and making of the film. There are also One Minute Wonders: “Bamforth’s Early Films” a montage of Bamforth films, “Dudey Movie workshop” showing the exercises the group went though in order to put the film together.
Context
This film is one of a number of recent films made by the Impossible Theatre Group, based at the Watershed in Slaithwaite, Huddersfield. The Watershed Workshops are a local charity promoting creative engagement with communities. The Impossible Theatre group are based in Holmfirth, the location of the subject of this film, Bamforth Films. They describe themselves as, ‘a participatory, live and digital arts organisation. We create many types of innovative art works and events involving a wide...
This film is one of a number of recent films made by the Impossible Theatre Group, based at the Watershed in Slaithwaite, Huddersfield. The Watershed Workshops are a local charity promoting creative engagement with communities. The Impossible Theatre group are based in Holmfirth, the location of the subject of this film, Bamforth Films. They describe themselves as, ‘a participatory, live and digital arts organisation. We create many types of innovative art works and events involving a wide range of people, offering fresh perspectives on life, contributing to change, helping to develop an active culture.’ The group was formed in 1984, kicking off with a fascining production linking together the lives of Buster Keaton and Frida Kahlo – and so already taking an interest in early film. As well as making films, the compnay do live music, theatre and other kinds of performance arts. The film premiered in the PictureDrome cinema in October 2006, and was entered for the 2005 Langsett Independent Film Festival (LiFF). The Group work in all sections of the community, including over the years, victims of crime – through Victims Support, the Probation Service, Youth Justice and others. Especially working with schools and colleges, they recently worked with Newsome Junior School and junior schools in Kirklees. As well as creative projects they also often run workshops on a wide range of topics. In 2009 they put on events as diverse as the more lightweight Chromolab, exploring colour and light, to more serious topics, such as the Holocaust and more recent acts of genocide. Whilst based in West Yorkshire, they have put on events right across Yorkshire. Their website provides a listing of current and past projects. The group are invariably innovative, as seen in this film, showing the value of imagination over being just 'high tech'. The original idea for the film started at the Phoenix Youth Club, and was made over several months working with a group of local teenagers who were involved in both the research and production. The idea was to make a film that resembled the characteristics of early silent movies, as they put it: ‘humour, clear-cut plot lines, physical comedy, simple camera tricks, cross-dressing - and local talent’. On this project the film credits thank the Shabang Theatre Adventures for the use of the black and white costumes and special props, and the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, as part of the ‘Young Roots’ scheme. One of those with the theatre group working on the film, Chris Squires, states that the youth involved gained, ‘new technical expertise, raising personal skills and improving confidence and self esteem.’ Apparently the youth participating in the film were unaware of the Bamforth films, despite their being local to Holmfirth. Given that Bamforth stopped making films during the First World War, and their production of saucy postcards – still going – presumably appeals more to an older generation, this is hardly surprising. The Bamforth company made films in two separate periods: from 1898 to 1901 (approximately) and between 1913 and 1915. They are probably Yorkshire’s most important early film company, although they were by no means the only one, and there were many more across the country – see the Contexts for some of their films on YFA Online, especially Some Twins, Kiss in The Tunnel (1899); and for the later period Winky Causes a Small Pox Panic (1914). The claim that is sometimes made about Bamforth, repeated in this film, that it was the English Hollywood is perhaps overstating the case – especially that Hollywood might have stole some of their ideas from there – or sucked out their creativity. Different filmic ideas were mushrooming right across Europe and the US at the beginning of Hollywood, and everyone was pinching ideas from each other. The face in the sun – representing an unscrupulous Hollywood – is probably inspired by the Georges Méliès’ famous film A Trip to the Moon of 1902. It is true that Hollywood was just a small village until Cecil B DeMille and Jesse Laske came along in 1913 to make The Squaw Man (1914). From there it very quickly mushroomed into the biggest film production site in the world. In fact the Selog film company had been making films in Los Angeles since 1907. What is true is that its original pioneers, these two and those that soon joined them, were prepared to grab creativity wherever they could find it, paying between $200 to $300 a week for the best actors. It is doubtful though that they ever took anything, or anyone, directly from Bamforth. The inspiration for this film though is clearly as much US comic books as the early films of the Bamforths, especially as adapted for the 1960s Batman and Robin US TV series (probably still running on some TV channel). This starred Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, and the resemblance between this and the way the filmmakers have produced this film is easy to spot. The Batman TV series has become something of a cult, and it is not hard to see why. Like many other US TV series at the time – the spoof spy comedy series Get Smart which ran around the same time comes to mind – Batman and Robin sent up its original inspiration by camping it up and generally going over the top. The series deliberately took on board features of the original comics, such as Zap bubbles. This film is a kind of spoof of a spoof, with its even more low budget special effects and use of ordinary objects for supposed sinister ones. The connection between film and comics is an interesting one, with each influencing the other. Early comics were strongly slapstick – as was much comedy of the time – and this is seen too in the early films. The comics that came out at the time of the early cinema, such as Chuckles show this, and one, Funny Wonder, even had Charlie Chaplin as a character. The first superhero was Superman, invented by two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and this first came out with DC Action Man Comics in 1938. Both science fiction fans, Siegel and Shuster’s original ‘bad’ Superman – following the common misconception of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, a very different kettle of fish – was made into the good guy after Hitler came to power in1933. Batman, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, soon followed in Detective Comics in 1939; and he was joined by the Boy Wonder, Robin, to form the Caped Crusaders the next year in 1940. Since then the dynamic duo have taken on a more darker aspect in the hands of Frank Miller, but their more zany characteristics live on. So too do the films of Bamforth. Coincidently, a docudrama was made linking Holmfirth to Hollywood, called Holmfirth Hollywood, around the same time as this one, in 2006. But in many ways The Dudey Movie stays truer to the fun and improvisatory quality of its inspiration. And it shows that these old films can still inspire a young generation, as well as that a young generation can show how to bring the old films alive again. References Frank Miller, Batman: the Dark Knight Returns, Titan Books, 1986. George Perry and Alan Aldridge, The Penguin Book of Comics: A slight history, Allen Lane, 2nd edition, 1971. Robert Skar, Home-made America: A Cultural History of American Movies, Random House, New York, 1975. Impossible Theatre group ‘Dudey Movie’ Screening The Impossible Dream, in Teaching Times Blair Kramer, Superman |
