Frozen Laughter

So. Sitcoms in Britain. Remember when they were shot in front of an audience and the audience laughed, and all that shizzle? Well, one day Stephen Merchant and Richard Jarvis (or something like that, I can't remember the mong-faced* twat's name for some reason) came along and decided that comedy should not involve laughter.

In order to prove this, they wrote and starred in "The Office", during which almost no laughter can be heard. This was a stylistic choice in order to 'sell' the conceit that this was a real "fly on the wall" documentary. It worked, for the most part - a lot of the humour was contrived around being embarrassed on behalf of the main characters. As a one-off, this conceit works.

But unfortunately, corporations took notice. What happened was that TV executives the length and breadth of the country decided "Oh yeah! Laughter is out! Live audiences are out! That is so OLD HAT that I could live off the mould growing on the brim!£ And so a whole generation of 'silent' (as in, no audience) comedy has been spawned in this country.

And I'm left wondering why?

My argument is NOT that programs like "The Inbetweeners" or "Phoenix Nights" or "White Van Man" or "Man Down" or ... well, pretty much everything since "The Orifice", are NOT funny. I love quite a lot of them. But what they do lack, when divorced of the specific narrative construct of 'Fly on the wall documentary about a man having a mid-life crisis' that David Brent brought to the fore is... well, any reason to NOT have an audience.

The problem with any recorded media is separation. Whether it be factual or fictional, 99% of us aren't there when it is made. And so we are at least one-degree removed from being within the narrative. Movie and TV execs have spent years trying to find ways of involving us in a scene as if we were there. Close ups. First person POV. Musical soundtracks. Anything to get us to feel it closer, make it more personal. And with comedy, feeling as though you're a part of it is more important than any other genre - laughter is a pretty special thingy when you think about the emotional responses required in order to produce it. Hell, what normal new-parent hasn't spent hours trying to get their baby to laugh?!

So why has British comedy devised a set up where, almost as a standard reference now, we're deliberately told "You're not really here - these are just some idiots and you're just watching through the fourth wall"?

Ask any stand-up comedian about how important a good audience is, and they will tell you that an audience can make or break a show. They can go to the Fringe and perform the same material, word for word, note for note, identical night-in night-out, and bring the roof down one night, and yet be met with a sea of stony faces the next. The material and performance are EXACTLY THE SAME - but one night the audience loves it and the next they hate it.

Some stand-ups have learnt that if they laugh along to their own material, it 'jolts' an otherwise unresponsive audience into joining in and giving a bit of a chuckle. But it's not like the audience are being hood-winked into laughing along to material that isn't funny - it's just that it is natural as a human being to let your inhibitions down a little if you believe that people around you have similar tastes. We've all been on the bus, read something funny, but stifled the laugh: it seems like it's a natural defence against ridicule to not let anyone else know what you like.

So it's not that hearing other people laughing makes the material funnier - there's only so many ways you can say "penis" - but if you feel you're in amongst other people who think that the word "penis" is inherently funny, you will feel dis-inhibited and enjoy hearing the word more than if you were, say, round at your staunch Catholic grandparents' house.

So enjoyment stems, it seems, in equal parts from both the words being said AND the atmosphere into which they are spoken. So why the fuck is laughter surgically removed from modern British sit-coms? "Ballot Monkeys" had the makings of being a true classic. It was so topical that parts of it were recorded only hours before broadcast. Ben Miller portrayed a Lib-dem in the midst of ideological and mental break-down perfectly, and Hugh Dennis' sublime Thatcherite Tory facing up to modern Conservatism was brilliant...

...But it was just so fucking cold. Things like that or "The Thick of It" are truly brilliant, but if you're in the wrong mood and feeling particularly bitter about the human race, they can misfire completely. Whereas the programme upon which they are modelled, "Yes [Prime] Minister" has audience laughter throughout and within minutes his guaranteed to raise any mood. If I were up at 3am and feeling depressed, I would not expect "Bad Education" to cheer me up. But "Allo Allo" bloody-well would, even though the set ups are ridiculously contrived, the catchphrases so worn out and the performances to stagy... And I know half that audience are dead now, laughing from beyond the grave.

Let's face it: Hearing other people laughing at and enjoying something helps US enjoy it too. "The IT Crowd" was shot in front of an audience and broadcast with their laughter. And it is hilarious. And so was "Black Books", "Father Ted", "The Fast Show", "Red Dwarf" (mostly), "Fawlty Towers", and pretty much everything else that's been funny on TV since 1936. So why are we so goddamned opposed to hearing laughter on British sitcoms now?!

I've decided that I think that it has nothing to do with you or I or audience appreciation. It's about appearances. It's about Director John saying to Producer Bob "I made something even less funny than you last week - not even the crew dared laugh." Because appearing high-brow and artistic has become more important than actually being funny. When "The Office" was made, despite being the genesis of what I now consider to be poor 'cringe-factor' comedy, it had a unique edge and an internal consistency. We as an audience could work out where every 'Fly on the wall' camera in that room was supposed to be. Now the docucomedy has become such a trope that no director even cares about cutting from one shot to the next where a camera should logically be in the way. It's just how comedy "Is" now.

And yet...

What's this...?

The most popular TV comedy ever in world history was shot almost entirely on one set in front of a live studio audience. "Friends" may have finished over 10 years ago, but face it "The Big Bang Theory" has replaced it in the charts, it's still made the same way, and bejeebers... Even when the Schroedinger's Heisenberg jokes go over your head, it makes you laugh because you feel you're a part of the crowd and laughing along with everyone else. The most successful comedy on TV in the world right now is made the old-fashioned way:

With atmosphere and LAUGHTER. I hope Britain realises that soon.





* See "Herring vs. Gervais" 2012, 'Is "Mong" acceptable in modern language? Of course it fucking isn't you dick-head'.

Slit Scan Animation

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a Doctor Who fan. They also know that I am inquisitive to the point of annoyance. So when, in 1994, I read about the techniques used to produce the Doctor Who title sequences I decided to try them out. Unfortunately, I was 14 and had only my dad's camcorder to play with - so whilst I managed to recreate the method used for the earliest sequences, the dominant 1970s "slit scan" sequences elluded me.

Not only did they ellude me in terms of being able to make my own, they elluded me in understanding how they even worked. I understood the basic principle, but not how a working animation could be produced this way.

The basic principle is both neat and simple - it relies on the fundamental property of good old fashioned film: if you only expose part of the frame to light, the rest of the frame can be exposed later on. How this is applied in the slit scan process used in Doctor Who is that a piece of artwork would be placed on a moving platform and backlit, and above it a rostrum camera was mounted in such a way that it could be tracked in and out from the artwork.

Between the camera and the artwork, a black piece of card or acetate would be fixed in position, with a pattern cut out of it so that only a small piece of the artwork could be seen from the camera. The cut out pattern is the 'slit' that gets 'scanned' - hence the name of the process.

And this is where the clever bit comes in - the shutter of the camera is then opened and kept open. At the same time, the camera is then tracked towards (or away) from the artwork, at the same time as the artwork is moved along under the the slit. The outcome of this is that the frame of film is gradually exposed in a different place to a different piece of the artwork.

A simplified example is shown below...


Background artwork to be slit scanned

This rainbow artwork is to be slit scanned, and so is fixed onto a moving plate.

Artwork with black card / acetate in front, with slits cut out.

Here, the blackened piece of card or acetate with the patterned slit is fixed in front of the artwork. Exposure of the single frame of film begins.

Artwork is moved along beneath the black card.

The artwork is moved along beneath the black card, so that different parts of the artwork are exposed onto the frame of film. Simultaneously, the camera is being moved away from the artwork. This means that as the artwork moves along, the slits get smaller and smaller, exposing towards the centre of the frame.

End result - the artwork has been slit-scanned.

The end result is shown above - the effect produced here is similar to the first few seconds of the 1974 Doctor Who title sequence.

All this produces just a single frame of the animation, and everything must be reset to produce the next frame. In order to produce motion, however, the artwork starts from a slightly different position for each frame. As you can probably tell, this made producing such an animation a long and tedious process, and I never had the equipment in order to try it out myself.

Then a few days ago, I realised that I've been a computer programmer for over 25 years, and that last year I wrote my own image manipulation library in C++. I decided to write a program that would reproduce the slit scan process, as close as possible to analogue process, in the digital domain.

The method I adopted is essentially the same as the analogue way. The program loads an 'artwork' bitmap and a 'slit' bitmap. However, instead of exposing film, the 'slit' picture is applied to the 'artwork' as a luminance map. This produces a single sample.

This is then repeated, and then the second sample is downsized a fraction to simulate the camera moving away from the artwork. Next, the second sample is merged with the first sample. This is repeated a predetermined number of times (I've found that between 100 and 200 times, depending on how much I resize the samples, works best), until finally the full frame has been composed.

Background artwork chosen for experiments.

The background artwork I chose for these experiments is a time-lapse photo of a light fitting - the exposure was about 4 seconds, while I wiggled the camera around. It's actually an old photo, but I thought it was appropriate! I stretched it to 8000 x 960 pixels.

One of the slit patterns chosen - rotoscoped from a photo I took of the real police box at Crich tram museum.

A single frame produced by the program.

The results of running the program are by no means perfect. In an ideal world, many thousands of samples would be taken per frame, using a luminance map where the 'slit' is quite dark and no more than a pixel thick. Another of the limitations is that, with already over 100 samples per frame, that's a lot of luminance mapping, resizing and merging to do. As such, fast rather than high-quality algorithms have been used (for instance, the resizing is 'nearest pixel' rather than bicubic or even just bilinear resampling).

In a way, though, the crudeness of the program gives the results a similar feel to the 1970s Doctor Who animations that I'm trying to simulate. Refinements to the software will continue!

The end result!



Richard Herring Is Stalking Me (and definitely not vice versa, honest)

Yesterday I bought my first ever copy of the 'i' newspaper. The selection process was entirely due to the price: 30p. This was because I had no intention of reading the newspaper. I just needed it so that I could indulge myself in a day of pointless CNPS. CNPS in turn was something I was doing entirely because of comedian Richard Herring.

I have actually already recognised that I am spending too much time reading his blogs and listening to his podcasts (although he is partly to be blamed for (a) being a talented comedian and (b) providing a lot of his output entirely for free), and have in recent days been trying to 'cut-down', instead choosing to revisit the marvellous Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series.

So imagine my surprise when I realised that far from me stalking Richard Herring, he is in fact stalking me. This morning, I wearily decided to flick through my as-yet unread 'i' newspaper, only to find Richard Herring staring at me. The coincidence was literally too much for me to handle: a small piece about Richard Herring in a newspaper that I had bought solely for an activity that I learnt about from Richard Herring. I had to go and make myself a full-English breakfast (without beans) in order to recover.

CNPS (or, If You Need A Hobby, Don't Do This One)

Many people won't have heard of comedian Richard Herring. Even fewer people will be aware of the tortuous game he learnt about as a child - Consecutive Number Plate Spotting (CNPS). It's a very simple game with very simple rules: The aim is to 'spot' all the numbers of the old style UK car registration plates (1 to 999) in numerical order. Or more concisely, Consecutive Number Plate Spotting.

I won't go into the details (instead I recommend watching Richard Herring's 'Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace' for more information and for a bloody good laugh), but as an adult Mr. Herring restarted playing this "game" and eventually completed it nearly two years later. As an adult, he also saw fit to codify some rules about the game which he would follow whilst making his attempt.

Now, I have little to do with Richard Herring - I enjoy his work as a comedian, occasionally read his blog, and follow him on Twitter. But I do have a strong association with car number plates. For as long as I can remember, I have looked at them, played games trying to make words out of the letters, or try to use them as acronyms (I can tell you, it is extremely exciting when I see a reg plate with KF followed by another letter - the variety of Kentucky Fried animals I have thought of being enough to sate the appetite of a King). I've even used reg plates as a way of coming up with character names for a book I've never quite gotten round to writing - possibly because I'm too busy looking at reg plates.

And so, having such an abnormal interest in mundane combinations of letters and numbers, as well as a predisposition towards obsessive, boring, geeky and ultimately very sad behaviour, I decided I would play CNPS. At the very least, I am interested to see if it can even be completed in a reasonably time effective and cost-less way - the newer style reg plates now seemingly outnumbering the older style by 3 to 1 as 10+ year old cars get delivered into the great petrol station in the sky. Great for spotting numbers 2 to 11 or 51 to 61. Crap if you need number 347. Richard Herring himself Tweeted that I would never be able to do it now, and part of me believes him. But I do have a secret weapon: I live in the north.

CNPS bears a similarity to train-spotting. With train-spotting there is a published list of all the numbers of each train, listed by type. When you've spotted all the trains of a type that interests you, you can at least tell all your friends (in the unlikely event that you have any) that you've seen all of them. This is, obviously, pointless. However, I feel that I should point out that CNPS is even more pointless than that. When you finish the CNPS game, all you've actually done is spot 999 random cars in a particular order.

My CNPS playing got off to a very shaky start. I told my wife, Keeley, and my sister-in-law, Stacey, about it, and within a day they were beating me. My wife got to 11 within a couple of days and barely a week in, I last heard that Stacey was upto 21. I was still in need of spotting a number 1. There was clearly something terribly wrong with my game plan.

Then it struck me: in order to play CNPS, you need to leave the house. You can't just sit around on the sofa all day waiting for 999 random cars to come through your living room in a particular order. Unfortunately, I don't work, so I don't have much call to leave the house. Indeed, my job at the moment is applying for jobs, and it is a near full-time occupation of mine.

For the last week, I have found myself concocting spurious reasons to leave the house, and have been seen to dawdle at roundabouts in the hope of catching a fleeting glimpse of a No.1. Fat chance of that around where I live: in the middle of one of the largest council estates in Britain.

As the weekend approached, I knew I had to up my game. To be beaten by two women who are not nearly as obsessive or deeply-disturbed as I am was a shameful thing to live through. This led to me devising a plan. First of all, I decided I would not play CNPS. Job done. Well, not quite. Having heard both Keeley and Stacey get confused about which number they were upto, I felt that I needed some sort of proof of my endeavours.

Thus created did I "XTREME CNPS". Not only do I have to spot the numbers 1 to 999 in order... I have to photograph them as well. But how to prove that I have done this in order? I decided that each time I went out "spotting" I would take one of the day's newspaper with me, write the current number I am looking for on the front cover, then photograph the reg plate with the newspaper. For each successive number photographed in a day, I would add it to the front page.

This has created a nasty side effect to gameplay: unless I learn to be particularly dextrous, I am limited to spotting parked cars on foot. None of this 'driving around and seeing other moving cars' business that Keeley and Stacey laughably believe is a challenging thing to do - especially as they both have to drive around during the day for their jobs. No, I am the one true XTREME CNPS player.

So I found myself this afternoon in Sheffield city centre armed with my game set.

In order to do this hobby you will need today's newspaper, a black marker pen, a bruised banana, a granny smith apple, a flask of weak lemon drink, half a packet of biscuits and some cheap chocolate. I have chosen ASDA cheap chocolate, but other varieties are available.

In order to ensure that I am not cheating (though as I am the only player, cheating would be more pointless than the game itself), I also photographed the unspoiled front cover of the newspaper (an 'i', chosen largely because it was the cheapest newspaper that could be found):

And for additional proof, here is today's date on the newspaper:

And so 'i' and I were ready!

Thankfully, Sheffield city centre boasts several open air car parks where foolish car owners are wont to brazenly leave their cars unattended, their naked reg plates in plain view for all responsible and irresponsible CNPS players to see. It is simply sickening how the minds of the owners of these cars must work, but I was grateful for their indiscretion as within minutes my XTREME CNPS ball was rolling:

The spirit of Simon Quinlank was with me: this No.1 was in view of no other road than Eldon Street. And once you've got No.1 you'd have to be an exceptionally poor player not to find 2 to 11 very quickly in a full car park of easily an acre's size. Thankfully I am not an exceptionally poor player:

There then followed a sight to warm the hearts of all eager CNPS players in their early stages:

Yes, I know, incredible isn't it? 4, 5 and 6 just sitting there. I don't mind the duplication of 4: it was worth it just for the thrill of taking that photograph.

As you would expect, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 followed very quickly:

But now the hard work began: I needed 12. Keeley hadn't seen a 12 all week, and whilst I'd seen one of the cheeky devils a few days before, I did not fool myself into believing that it would reappear if I clicked my fingers as though summoning a whore to my palacial bedroom.

Annoyingly, this car park contained a 13, but not a 12. I found myself in a new and scarier world of walking alone through the wilderness to find a different car park, following the route past the dangerous country of on-street parking.

But then there she was. Placed there by the CNPS deity: the first car you see when approaching the new car park. I nearly fell to the ground and prostated myself before the beauty that was:

Oh such a cheeky flirt she was, she even had the temerity to be sitting opposite an 18, behind a 16 and a stone's throw from a 19: her Siren-like friends taunting me to cheat as they knew I didn't need them yet. I needed 13. I had even seen a 13 already. But would it be still there if I went back?

Yes. And not only that, I passed another 12 lurking in the shadows of an alleyway on the way to be reunited with the beauty of my 12's darker sister.

I couldn't believe my luck. I'd been playing XTREME CNPS for less than an hour and I had already got 13. By now, I even knew where each of 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 could be unmasked. I felt so sure that I could draw level with Stacey in just a short amount of time.

But oh... What tales of woe I could tell you about my quest for No.14. Wandering aimlessly around parts of a cold lonely city which I had never ventured into before. At my lowest ebb, I convinced myself that sitting next to a set of traffic lights and smoking a fag was the best way to capture the elusive beast of 14. I even entered that most treacherous and despicable of places: NCP. In a way I was thankful that I didn't find 14 in that cavernous hell-hole: I did not want to sully my quest by needing their services.

Oh! The time that passed, though. I felt taunted, tortured even. I saw a 24, 44, 94, 114, 414, and droves of 54s. I stopped to catch my breath outside a building and saw it was No.14 Fitzwilliam Street, sneering at me. And plastered on every shop-front as I trudged along was the echoing laughter of Sheffield's area code, 01 14, teasing my weary soul. Indeed, I felt that the game was over for today. It was around about now that I drank my weak lemon drink.

However, lady luck had one last cruel joke to play on me: I ventured forth and found that my sexy red-coated tease of a 12 had been replaced. It took me a moment to realise that I had indeed succeeded: the number had been irresponsibly disguised, testing me to decipher it:

The victory was hollow. By now, my memorised list of locations for 15 to 22 was wasted: all but 18 had buggered off for the night.

And so must I also. I must rest... The Quest Continues!