Cereal Offenders Sound Research: The Mighty Boosh

As the script for Cereal Offenders contained various strange and required a lot of experimentation, especially in the sound department, I decided that I should try and research some shows and other media that have a similar style in order to gain a better understanding of how to implement and work with the more experimental aspects of this production.

'The Mighty Boosh' is a comedy television series which ran between 2004 and 2007 and was created by comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. The two also star as Howard Moon and Vincent Noir respectively. The show (during season 1) follows the everyday adventures of Howard and Vince as Zookeepers who find themselves in various strange situations.

The characters consistently break the fourth wall and appear to be aware that they are characters in a television show. Many conventions of television are broken such as the characters standing in front of the camera and personally addressing the audience, introducing them to the show. I feel that this is the kind of style that our script is trying to emulate to an extent, where certain conventions must be broken to create a more experimental experience, particularly in the scenes involving various hallucinations.

In terms of sound, the music is typical of popular music during the late 1990s and early 2000s. For example, the music for the title sequence is a slow-paced rock tune featuring heavily distorted guitars and layered synthesizers reminiscent of the style of bands such as Blur and other popular rock bands from that era as well as some psychedelic influences from bands such as The Beatles, later popularised again by Oasis. Already, this is the kind of style in which I feel I could try and emulate as the show does bear thematic similarity to our own project.

Here are the opening titles for 'The Mighty Boosh' for reference:

This style of music is common with comedy shows such as this, with a small rock or jazz instrumental that plays when transitioning into another scene. As our project is supposed to be a comedy, I feel that it is important to try and emulate this in order to show and understanding of the style and conventions of a comedy drama.

In terms of other areas of sound, the sound effects are usually over the top and often not representative of the practical diegetic sound that would usually be heard within the scenes. This use of sound effects creates comedy by almost taking the audience out of the program with a sound that really shouldn't belong within a scene. I want to emulate this in order to create more comedy through sound which would hopefully add to what should be already comedic scenes. I also noticed there appeared to be a theme of mysticism within the sound design due to the otherworldly nature of some of the characters present in the show. I feel this could work well for our project due to similar themes if I cant correctly emulate this consistently throughout the sound design.

Cereal Offenders: Story Summary

Here is a quick summary of the story of Cereal Offenders, from the script which we shall be filming our final project from:

Three boys Sam, Danny and Ralph are trying and failing to present a popular podcast focused around cereal found in popular entertainment mediums. They are contending with a girl called Graham whom has so far been much more successful than the three. After some berating from Graham, Sam has the idea to create a 24 hour livestream, watching several cereal-themed films in oder to gain more followers.

The three become tired and burnt out after several hours. Ralph messages his friend to drop off some illegal drugs in oder to try and liven things up. They end up each hallucinating. Danny hallucinates that he is presenting a cookery show, Sam finds himself in a idilic world and Ralph appears to have become a sunflower and enters conversation with two other sunflowers in a field. Each hallucination ends with a dark figure taking them away.

They eventually wake up from their individual hallucinations to see Graham in their house, who has come to shut their live-stream as they are stealing some of her ideas. The three can only see her as a giant penguin, still suffering the effects of the drugs. The dark figure eventually comes to take her away (though in reality Graham just walks out).

Later on, after recovering slightly, Ralph accidentally babbles out some Government secrets while the livestream is still running and are eventually detained by Government agents when the livestream cuts out.

Cereal Offenders Production Team:

Here is a quick run-down of the crew involved in the production of Cereal Offenders for reference in future blogs:

Director: Will Barker

Producer: Callum Mulholland

Camera Operator/ Cinematographer: Jason Efstathiou

Sound Operator/ Sound Editor: Andrew Ayres

Editor/ Media and Advertising: Aimee Kerr

Year 3 Final Project Start

We have now started our final project of the third year of the Television Production course.

As the previous project was only a high concept pre-production that was never actually going to be made, I had always planned to join one of the other groups in order to help them on their larger project that they had been previously planning.

As such, I have joined the group in the role of sound operator and sound engineer. This roles involves the operating of various sound equipment and editing the sound during post production. I chose to take this role due to being stronger in that area in previous projects, with some of these being focused exclusively on the sound. I also feel that this was also the strongest aspect of my high concept pre-production project despite my various issues with the final result.

The working title for our project is 'Cereal Offenders' and the script centres around a group of friends who are desperate the gain views on their internet livestream show and thus go to some extraordinary lengths to achieve this.

As we already had a rough script prepared, it was easy for us all to become familiar with the material we are working with. I decided that I would read and annotate the script. This means that, if I mark where I feel certain sound elements would be appropriate, I would be able to set to work on it and discuss these with the other members of the production team straight away. These annotations consisted of ideas for soundscapes and background noise, such as cars being heard in the distance from a bedroom. Others included effects within the audio feed itself such as when the characters are talking loudly through a laptop microphone, creating a distorted sound effect.

Here is an example of the annotations I made on the first page of the script (please excuse the language involved):

I have already started work on creating some of the soundscapes, mostly that of the bedroom. The sounds included are the faint sound of various traffic that has been muffled slightly to give the illusion of distance. A faint buzzing of a light has been included in oder to help add to the general atmosphere of the setting. I have done this in order to show the rest of the group these examples in order to gain feedback so there is a good feed from the group in order to help produce a clear vision for the project.

Final Production Presentation 1 Notes:

You have:
-18 weeks/ 126 days

Major Project +
-On top of completing your major project you should also be thinking about:
-Your degree show screening
-CV
-Showreel
-Media profile
-Job searching
-Make the most of your time here o get the above completed with help from tutors

Degree Screening
Date: May 23rd
Venue: Maidstone Studios
Programme featuring the full length version of all Major Project works
Evening
Some budget available- but some student contribution will be required