Tuesday, 10 February 2009

A Step by Step Analysis of the Shot Used

As a group we are trying to make a thriller opening that exhibits various aspects of the genre from its beginnings to the present day thriller. As you can see above we have fully finished our opening I hope you enjoy it! Below is a step by step analysis of the shots we used:

This very first shot was specifically designed to look like a CCTV camera to add a sense of being watched, which brings up the mystery of who is watching; both are thriller signifiers.



This shot of the CCTV camera, stresses the point made by the previous shot that Tanwyn's character is being watched. on top of this, in this shot there is a slow zoom which also adds interest and emphasis on the CCTV recording, with dawning apprehension. This shot is not full of action so it is quite short and we have added titles to add extra interest to the shot and also it is better to have the titles on a boring shot than on a shot full of action as they will distract from the full meaning.

We cannot see Tanwyn's character properly in this shot as he is profiled against bright white light (chiaroscuro lighting). Both the lighting and the silhouette are thriller signifies and they help to maintain a sense of mystery surrounding this character, in so doing reeling the audience in.
All the way up to this point the music has been just a steady beat (like a heart) but as soon as this character walks through the door the ebat carries on but there is a rising tone that builds, symbolising his imminent death or the character's walk into danger.

This shot carries on with the same point as the last shot except this shot is less straightforward as the camera has panned round to view the character through grubby glass, that blurs his silhouette and reflects his corrupt nasty personality. As soon as John (Tanwyn's character) has walked past the dirty window the music reaches its peak and a heavier beat begins showing that there is no going back.

At the beginning of this project our group decided that we wanted to achieve a stylish, interesting result, in this shot we did this by emphasising different aspects of it, with this there is the white walls, almost clinical but a bit too dirty; this contrasted with the black stairs and silhouette creates a powerful and stylish shot. this also symbolises how bad John's character is. This shot is influenced by the film noir's we saw as a group and their use of black and white, especially the shot from 'The Third Man' when Harry Lime is revealed.


This shot was greatly influenced by 'Vertigo' as it makes you feel as if you are about to fall and it disorientates the audience because of the bird's eye view. This type of shot is very popular in the thriller genre and we especially liked it because all the while you can see John's Hand on the rail or part of his body walking; the partial shot of the character allows the mystery of who he is to be kept and built upon. Also he is walking up the stairs towards the camera, which suggests he is walking towards something, in this case it is his own death.


Over the end of bird's eye view shot and the beginning of this runs the internal monologue, another of the thriller signifiers which show the innermost thoughts of a character. This character is usually the main protagonist making them seem more important, however John Vanik gets killed so we have added a twist into the opening that he is not actually the main character which is yet another thriller signifier.

This character walks very boldly seeming confident, this along with his internal monologue which is also quite cocky implies that this character is powerful; it is not infact him who is powerful it is his father but the image of him being arrogant and over confident fits his personality. At the end of this shot the briefcase that John has been holding all the way through the opening is swung into shot right in front of the camera, which adds significance to it and its contents which are unknown throughout the opening. On top of this it provides a new and engaging transition between this and the next shot.

This shot is merely used to see him walking into the trap that is set. However when the door becomes fully open the light from the otherside seeps through and shows really nice use of chiaroscuro lighting.

This shot is needed basically to make the narrative flow so wehave a variety of shot lengths and also so that the shot is more interesting to the viewer, as we had to do something to spice up the dull action of walking through a door. Just looking at this shot though you can see that he is walking out into light but either way he walks there is darkness so it is a symbol for leaving safety and travelling into the unknown. For the audience have no idea where he is going.


This is an over-the-shoulder shot that is introducing us to the other character, our main protagonist, Smith. The shot also enables the audience to get a good look at the grungy monotonous mise-en-scene of the car park and a view of John's walk.


This is my favourite shot out of all of them due to the fact that the framing is so unusual because the scene is encapsulated in a triangle making it feel claustrophobic and looks like a play button symbolising the action that is to come. The lighting in this shot as in the last also is just so brilliant with the chiaroscuro effect and the fact that they are white lines getting closer together the further behind John you look. This has the effect of making the distance he is walking look longer and so prolong and build up the tension that is mounting. This shot also utilises deceiving vanishing points that are not really there, but are good to have as they are another thriller signifier.
This shot is the same as the earlier over-the-shoulder shot except John is closer to Smith. This looks as if Smith has been standing stock still and has perhaps been waiting for quite a while implying that he may be angry because John is late. This shot an the last are two of my favourite as they are perfectly balanced and they keep Smith's identity a complete secret as we can see merely and outline of him, although we are so close.

This shot is one I wrote of in an earlier post, as the top of the shot is cut off by the roof and the framing is not balanced because there is too much space behind Smith. However we could not fix this during editing without making it look worse; we tried moving the screen so there was a black bar at the top and bottom of the screen which did not work with the other shots, enlarging the image to cover the whole screen but this dramatically lowered the quality and we even tried sorting it out during filming by moving closer and tilting the shot which ended up looking even worse. we could have just cut this shot out of the film, but we did not wish to do this because apart from the problems with it, it is a really nice shot with the white light in the middle separating the two characters that never actually cross into the light, they just throw the briefcase across, hinting at their obvious aversion to being good citizens. This shot is quite reminiscent of a western as they look as if they are about to have a stand off against one another, which is a nice effect as it does become a game of brains (Smith) versus brawn (John). On top of this Smith seems almost to disappear into the background which shows his professional ability and his covertness, whereas John just barges in shouting 'Smith is it' in a cocky manner, thus amplifying his need to be heard and feared.

This is extremely dramatic as an extreme close up of Smiths eyes that slowly look up in recognition but total hatred and disinterestedness. As of yet the audience still have not seen smith properly and this is their first chance to see him although we only see his eyes and they are shaded by the brim of his hat (trilby hats; generic of the thriller genre). The lighting keeps one side of his face in shadows whilst slowing lighting up the other half as he moves his head, however the audience never get to see him fully as just when they are about to the shot cuts away to the next. On top of all this the slow zoom that we used on the CCTV camera we have also used here to great effect as it narrows in on his eyes to make him seem even more dangerous and angry underneath his collected persona. This shot was really difficult to take as we wanted the beginning of the shot to be blurry to protect his identity and because the focus on the cameras is automatic and cannot be greatly changed we had the get the camera focused on an object in the background whilst Lukman crouched below the camera out of sight. Once the camera was focused he had to jump up and do the action so the camera would refocus and then we would see his face properly. As you can probably tell this shot took and extremely long time to shoot.
This shot was one that we used for Johns speech, as it shows him and the mise-en-scene with the chiaroscuro lighting up his face but leaving some of it in complete shadow. His face is seen as cast in more light than Smiths as if he is more innocent or is newer to the game.

This shot finally reveals Smith to the audience although his face is still cast in deep shadows and the hat hides some of his face which keeps some of the earlier mystery. Smith turns away from the camera and away from what John is saying as if he does care and wishes he would just leave the briefcase and go. This may be because John has just mentioned Smith's boss and if he does not have a boss or does not like not being in control he may take offense from this comment.
This shot was designed so that the character of John is central but still has enough room in front of himself to articulate the importance of what he is saying with hand gestures. Also in the background the audience has a good view of another high rise building next door that would be great for a sniper to hide in the case of a double cross.

This shot leads on from the last; by cutting to a closer view of John whilst he is speaking his words are given added meaning especially since he just asked him 'You do know who i am, don't you?' which implies that he has relatives in high up places or he has got too big for his boots but the zoom effect adds power and significance to his words. The light landing on Johns face cast the rest into dark shadow which is one of the main features of this opening sequence and is a really nice effect to show his path away from the normal and good to the criminal he wants to become to please his father.

This shot of Smith blinking shows complete and utter disinterest in the news that the man he is facing is the son of a very powerful man who could have him killed. this gives an indication of his total disregard for life and his nerves of steel amidst the threats of murder. The audience by now have a vague idea of what Smith looks like but they still have not seen him properly yet and even in this shot his face is shielded by the shadow from his trilby. There is a line of light behind him but compared with John he is in a very dark area of the car park to keep the mystery. We used a hand held camera effect for this to show that his emotions are little bit unbalanced with humour and annoyance.

Here John threatens to get Smith killed unless he shows him respect but these threats don't come to anything and this just off front view of John gives us an objective view so the audience can understand the empty threat better and feel as if they are the ones being shouted at.

Throwing over the briefcase so as not to step into the light that lights up the whitewash wall and outlines the black brief case, suggesting that its contents are either dangerous or illegal. This shot turned out quite stylish with the black briefcase turning against the white backdrop of the wall. The throw by John is very hard as is shown in the next shot when Smith catches the briefcase with a load thump showing John's anger and outrage at being ignored.

This shot shows the practiced manner in which Smith takes out his gun from the back of his trousers, adding to the sense that he is not new to this business and is very efficient.

This shot is to get the audience to look from Smiths point of view down the barrel of the gun and to realise the danger John is in. This shot is almost like the first over the shoulder shot we had of Smith character with the blacked out silhouette except in this one we can see his entire back and can get into the mind set of Smith's character.

This shot is really nice as it is almost as if the gun is being pointed through the screen at the audience when we look down the barrel of the gun. In addition to this when the gun shot sounds at the end of the shot after Smith has taken aim it makes the audience feel as if they themselves have been shot.
The title of our film was something that eluded us for weeks as we could not think of an appropriate title that we all liked, in the end we decided on 'Single Shot' due to the fact that it fits in nicely with the transition between this and the last shot being the sound of a single gun shot. Also it has multiple meanings as John Vanik only had one shot to get the deal right and he messed it up, ending up dead. The font we used was meant to look almost like typewritten script to fit in with the stylish theme of our opening, however this font is even better because it has aspects of that but also looks smudged and over layed that makes it seem dirty and old like the mise-en-scene, it also flashes about on the screen for a while as if being seen by john whose life is slowly fading and he is blinking quickly, shown by the flickering.

Thursday, 5 February 2009

Prop List

This is the initial plan of the items we needed to use to create the desired effect, due to the fact that we do not have all the professional equipment, we have devised a few ways to get the same effect.

Trenchcoat - Smith is going to wear this as they are stereotypical of the thriller genre (Robert De Niro in 'Ronin') as they are very large and the collar can be turned up to cover the characters face to add mystery.
Black t-shirt - Smith is going to wear this underneath the trench coat, because black shows the darkness of his character and makes the audience view him as dangerous. Also if our thriller is to be in Black and White which we are contemplating this will show him as being extremely dark.
Trilby hat - Smith's hat as they are also stereotypical of a thriller and we are trying to capture the essence of the typicak thriller. Wearing a hat also gives the opportunity to partially hide his face from the audience adding myatery and intriguee.
Fake gun - Smith uses this to kill Vanik, adding to the sense of danger and dark.
Black trousers - Smith and Vanik are wearing for the same reasons as above; black is a dark, dangerous colour, also it shows a professionalism.
Black shoes- For Smith and Vanik to wear also to show professionalism and style to reflect the camera work.
Suit jacket - For Vanik to wear for the same reasons as above.
White shirt - For Vanik to wear, white shows more purity than black and is not so dangerous.
Briefcase - For Smith and Vanik to hold, you never find out what is inside so it adds myatery and intrigue.
Tripod - For holding the camera steady - essential if we are going for a stylish look and feel.
Video camera - For recording
Mini DV tape - For recording
Skateboard - For holding the camera during the tracking shot of the feet.

Update: We did not use the skateboard, as we did not film the tracking shot of the feet for the opening credits. This shot would have been really nice but we just didn't have the time. After our first filming session we had filmed about 50 minutes of footage so to cut this down to 2 minutes we just did not have to time to add in an extra scene as we were happy with what we already had filmed.

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Method 1: G321: Research into how audiences consume film and other elements of the media and popular culture





Comparing the Opening of 'Layer Cake' and 'Sin City'

This is the opening of Layer Cake with Daniel Craig doin the Internal monologue.



This is the opening to Sin City with the internal monologue being performed by Josh Hartnett.



Both of these openings are completely different as you can see but they do bear some great similarities. The internal monologue for starters are both performed by men, although Daniel Craig (XXXX) is giving the history of crime and does not keep any information back except his name as he talks about himself, Josh Hartnett (as The Man) keeps the mystery as we are never sure who sent him and why he was sent to kill the woman, also we do not find out his name either as he is always talking about the woman in red.

In comparison 'Sin City' seems much more stylised and symbolic because it is based on a comic book, with everything in black and white except the woman's red dress and lips adding to the sense of good and evil and the thought of blood/death. Whereas 'Layer Cake' is a more realistic showing a professionalism of XXXX as he talks about his drug business.

Both these openings use pathetic fallacy (the weather mirroring the characters thoughts and feelings) to put emphasis on what the internal monologue is saying for example Daniel Craig is talking of how good his business is and how much money he can make out of it, which is quite a cheerful subject to himself so the weather is sunny and the images are bright, whereas in contrast Josh Hartnett is talking about the last moments of this womans life before he ends it, so the weather is extremely dark and wet which contrasts with the bright lights of indoors to shows the difference between safety and danger, good and evil.

The two shots that are most interesting are of the woman in red from 'Sin City' when her cigarette is lit her eyes flash from black/grey to electric green showing her beauty and perhaps her inexperience or sickness. The other piece of special effects is in 'Layer Cake' when XXXX is walking through a store full of designer drugs that suddenly turn with a wave of colour into normal groceries. These two special effects show something ordinary and boring into something extraordinary or vice versus. In the case of 'Sin City' the effect is to make her seem more alive when she talks to him and when he shows her the slightest piece of kindness or perhaps it is because she realises that he is going to give her a nice peaceful death. On the other hand the Layer Cake special effect symbolises how everything in the world is tainted by illegal money ro drugs, also that illegal drugs are considered the height of fashion.

The opening to Sin City is very strange in the respect that there is very little music and that which there is is faint and fades in and out, this adds emphasis on what the man is saying in his internal monologue and when talking to the woman. In addition to this it makes it seem as if they are the only ones in the world with the silence, in so doing when the gun does go off, even with the silencer on, it comes as more of a shock. In comparison with this Layer Cake has no music right at the beginning the only noise is Daniel Craig's voice, however when the back doors are blown off the back of the van the music starts as a quite undertone so his voice is still the predominant factor but it adds an extra flare to the proceedings and makes the different time eras flow into one another to the present day when talking about morty that the music cuts out and the film starts.

Thursday, 29 January 2009

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In connection with the thriller genre our media product uses many generic thriller signifiers, for example, the chiaroscuro lighting in the staircase and the speaking scenes behind Tanwyn, this was influenced by the strobe lighting in 'Essex boys' when driving through the tunnel our has the same effect but as the characters are not moving they lighting stays still but still symbolizes bars of a prison or a trap. The sleazy and dingy mise-en-scene in an urban car park whilst raining which shows the leaks and cracks in the setting, this was inspired by 'Ronin' with its dark and dingy surroundings and the unused grey warehouse. The main protagonist being male like most generic thrillers (Vertigo, The Third Man etc), however we added a twist of our own to challenge the convention of real media products and to throw the audience off guard, we had Tanwyn's character do an internal monologue like in 'Layer Cake' but usually the main protagonist does the monologue however this character gets killed at the beginning and is not our main protagonist. By choosing an Asian actor as our lead character we are challenging the conventions of real media products and are appealing to a wider audience. By doing our peer assessments of each others thrillers our group were told that our thriller contained lots of thriller signifiers so they are obviously evident in our product.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As with most thrillers ours is told from the point of view of the male protagonist. Using this narrative represents that in the world of crime; men are dominant especially since there are no women in the opening sequence.

The opening also glamorizes crime showing the criminals in plush suits and making the shots and narrative stylish gives the criminals and added flare. On top of this Lukman's character is really cool, calm, collected and extremely slick, showing this by the way he pulls the gun out and the manner in which he says nothing and has no qualms about killing the son of a big time gangster like Harvey Vanik. In contrast with this we have also managed to capture the unpredictability of the trade and the uncertain feelings that surround it as the audience do not know what character is the hero or the villain as there are no visible signs of good and evil, in so doing we keep the mystery and intrigue of the audience.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

If our film was to be made in full it would be distributed by a Multi-plex cinema as it is a main stream thriller following most of the conventions whilst also challenging them a little. However if all of the people involved in its making are not well known by the public and there are no famous actors that appear so not so many people would be enticed to come and view it unlike the way they would do if it was like 'Ronin' and had a full star cast. So in this respect our film would probably be exhibited in an art house cinema. Due to this point and the fact that our film is an independent British film with little funding it is more likely to be exhibited in an art house cinema.

Who would be the audience for you media product?

Due to the rude language and occasional violence our thriller film is likely to be certificated as a 15. Most thrillers also have a high age certificate, such as 15 or 18 age ratings, which means that the thriller genre usually appeals and targets an audience of 15 – 30 year olds, as shown in the results of my questionnaires. This film will also predominantly appeal to males due to the main protagonist being male (as is usual in classic thriller films e.g. “Vertigo” – Alfred Hitchcock, “Chinatown” – Roman Polanski, “Layer Cake” – Matthew Vaughn) and they will be able to relate better to the main character and sometimes aspire to be like him as in James Bond movies. On top of this during the film there are very few female characters and many of these are not very strong characters or are portrayed as weaker than men, although some are mysterious, dangerous, treacherous characters (femme fatale). This marginalised female character, also predominant in the thriller genre, will not appeal to the female audience due to them being viewed as weak, sometimes pathetic and dependent on the male protagonist.

There is a very wide choice of social classes, because the thriller genre incorporates many aspects of different genres however, classic thrillers, like ours would appeal to B’s and C1’s due to the fact that thrillers have complex plots that cause the audience to think. They also have ambiguous endings with flaw heroes as the main protagonists which cause the audience to think. Our target audience are therefore probably university educated, like teachers, lawyers, and managers. Also these social classes are the ones who are most likely to go to the cinema often as they can afford it. Our thriller is aimed predominantly at a British audience and a English speaking audience like ‘This is England’, due to the fact that it is performed in the English language and all of the filming takes place in England. Our film also has the advantage of appealing to an Asian target audience as the main male protagonist is Asian.

The audience we are trying to appeal to would like other typical thriller films and the mysteries involved, so they will also like detective programmes on the T.V. like ‘C.S.I.’ or ‘Waking the Dead’, due to the fact that many thrillers revolve around crime and investigations just like ‘Chinatown’ by Roman Polanski. The audience would also enjoy other thrillers like ‘Layer Cake’ by Matthew Vaughn, ‘The Departed’ by Martin Scorsese and ‘Ronin’ by John Frankenheimer, as these were the stem of our inspiration for our thriller and the story lines and very closely linked.


How did you attract/address you audience?

To attract our target audience we used popular thriller conventions that heighten the film's interest and appeal. We also included some swearing and violence that will make this film a 15 certificate, so the target audience will be able to relate to him and perhaps aspire to be like him. In addition to this the main character Lukman Hussin, is British Asian which will appeal to people of the same background as they will further relate to him.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before this project I had only used a video camera once or twice and never for anything as sophisticated as this so I learnt quite a bit about to technology. The video camera was very simple to use all you had to do was set up the shot to how you wanted it to look and press record to video the action you have practised. However you had to make sure to switch off during shots as the battery only lasted about an hour. The camera was not of a very high quality and the focus often faded when the light changed due to movement, as it was automatic we could not control this
. As it was a hand-held camera to obtain fluent steady shots we had to constantly use a tripod which was hard to move for a panning shot and the spindle was stiff so the shot became jerky, and it only extended to a limited height. On the other hand the tripod was an advantage as we managed to obtain some great steady shots with it and the legs could be made different lengths to stand on steps easily or to get a variety of shots.
The sound quality on the camera was not very good and it picked up so much noise that during editing we could not remove it, so on the video there is a continuous buzz/hiss during the speech due to the fact that we could not sort it out.

The other piece of technology we had to use was the editing software called Adobe Premier Elements 1.0, this was completely new to me so it was lucky we got to practise with it when editing our preliminary task, otherwise i would have been lost on how to use it, but once you got used to it and its limitations it was quite simple and easy to upload different content and effects to. Even so it has limited supplies of effects, and fonts this is why we had to download all of the ones we wanted off copyright free websites.

We were told in our peer assessment that the speech was quite hard to hear because at the top of the car park in the middle of a city picked up lots backgroud noise. After hearing this we turned down the music slightly and turned up the voice however there was no way with the technology we had to cut out the sound so by turning up the speech we also had to turn up the background noise. However by asking our peer assessors to re-see our thriller we ascertained that we had fixed the problem to the best of our abilities given the limitations in technology.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at the preliminary task and comparing it with our thriller opening it looks very simple and quite boring with no variety in the shots. So since the preliminary task I have definitely learnt a lot.

I have learnt that planning is a major part of film making and you cannot plough straight into filming with out detailed plans, even if you do later change them, like our Script, without planning that the things said would have been waffle, although some directors like Shane Meadows work without a script they still have an indication of where the dialogue should go. Shooting takes a lot longer than I expected as well, I knew that you have to film several takes and that not all the material you film goes into the end product but we were filming for 3-4 hours just to obtain about 40-50 minutes of material which we then turned into a 2 minute film opening, admittedly we did film some things that were nice but had no place in the film and sometimes we recorded a lot more of a shot than was needed, but then it is better to have too much than to have too little and go out and film it all again. With this theory we only had to film once and we had all the footage we needed. The preliminary task got our group familiar with the editing program which helped a lot as me and Tanwyn had never done editing before, whereas Tom had but had used a different program so we all needed that bit of extra practise.


I have always been quite good as working as part of a team because I work in a shop with a large workforce and so have to be part of the team, however the group that I was placed in for this task was completely new to me; Tom and Tanwyn knew each other from high school but i had to get to know them before we could start working constructively within the group. So we had several initial planning sessions and got to know each other when we started planning. Once we had the main idea of what we wanted from the film we all picked tasks we had to do with regards to planning, and once complete we had decided that once we found and agreed on the location that Tanwyn could be an actor as he has aspirations to be one when he is older and we also wanted to keep the participants to a minimum so that there was no interference and we did not have to rely on many people but ourselves. Basically we shared the workload evenly.

The audience feedback was really useful from this we found problems that we had not foreseen for example the dialogue was not very easy to hear due to all the noise but by dimming the music and turning the volume up on the speech we soon made amends. I was expecting the feedback to be average as I thought because I had watched the film during editing over and over again that it did not have a hook, but once we had received feedback it was better than expected and
it turned out I was wrong and our thriller did have a hook. The audience enjoyed it and they understood what we were trying to achieve and were able to read and follow the narrative of our film well.

Our thriller has followed the conventions of a thriller well but has challenged them also which is brilliant as having a straight forward normal thriller was not what we wanted. Overall I think our project is pretty good but if I could go back and change things I would try and correct the sound as the noise on the dialogue is annoying and noticeable also having some better, more dramatic lighting would be good so we would not have to rely on natural light or the lights in the car park.

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All in all I am very happy with what we have achieved and I really enjoyed making it with my group, and for a first attempt at a stylish thriller I think we have produced an extremely good opening.

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Chris Cunningham

After researching Warp Films and finding out all about Chris Cunningham's work i have come to the conclusion that he is a bit of a creative genius. his work albeit very disturbing and viewed by many people as disgusting has really appealed to me as I am thoroughly intrigued by the gothic, hideousy that is found in nearly all of Chris Cunningham's work, also i am really intrigued by all the cultural, social and political issues he manages to pack into every single piece of work he does. I love it!






Take this music video he made for Aphex twin called 'Come to Daddy' is one of my favorite pieces of his work, due to the gothic images that are really original and the hidden messages and stereotypes, like the old lady having a pit bull which is not the usual species of dog that an old lady would have; smashing the stereotypes of the elderly and of the 'hard man' dog that have a tendancy to be quite brutal. On top of this the little children are shown as out of control thugs just like the popular phrase 'I blame the kids' suggests. However the images of a middle aged creepy man's face suggest that blaming tennagers or children is not always correct and often that the blame should be put on the older generations. in addition to this the faces that are all the same but with different bodies gives the video and especially freaky feeling which Chris Cunningham was aiming for.

I found this one paragraph about the 'Come to Daddy video that captures its essence and meaning perfectly (http://www.director-file.com/cunningham/aphex1.html):

'Its nature as a Richard D. James piss-take aside, Chris Cunningham's "Come to Daddy" is, as it was ten years ago, the story of technology and how we are becoming it. In the video, the faces of Aphex Twin chuckle at us with the same soullessness that occupies the man in the television. When he is borne of that television, we discover him to be a product of his environment: a vaporless void, a mere reflection. He has no soul, and he wants ours. And he is asking us to gather 'round and worship him.'


Come to Daddy was named the 3rd best video of all time in a January 2005 by a poll by The Guradian. As of 2003, the Warp releases of Come to Daddy and Windowlicker together sold 90,000 copies. This immense popularity may have been an aftermath of the controversy it caused; it was banned from showing on any music channels on television till past the watershed and was marked by many people as being grotesque ans should be banned totally, this and also the fact that this video is just very good!