Public Safety

Public Safety

This little skit was the third thing Davin and I ever shot together.  In many ways this is one of my all time favorite skits of ours.  It's fast, makes no sense and has the most jovial walk you'll ever see on film.

We shot this while we were filming "Paper Trail".  Creatively and physically we were exhausted from the gruelling pace we had set for ourselves on "Paper Trail" and we needed to clear our heads and do something less physical, well for me at least I was sitting in the car the whole time.

I don't really recall who came up with the premise of running over Davin...I seem to remember a conversation about how sometimes I just wish I could run over certain pedestrians....and that most likely led to us talking about how funny it would be if someone stopped their car to let a person cross, wait for the right moment and then just hit the gas.  Seems funny to me.

We didn't script this thing at all.  We made it up as we went (we really didn't start scripting until years later with "That Ain't White")

Public Safety didn't take too long to shoot and the only part that gave us any trouble was the actual hit.  There must be a dozen takes of Davin getting nailed by the car and screaming for his life. His screams are so funny that I'm sure we could turn that into a skit somehow.

I also remember the reason we have the camera planted in one direction for so long is because there was about a dozen kids playing just down the street.  At this point the kids were used to us shooting on the street because of "Paper Trail" (which took months to shoot) and were kind enough to be quiet while we were filming.  

Travis

Chew On This

Chew On This...

This skit is a byproduct of a brainstorming session that Davin and I had sometime early Nov. 2008. I was flying to Vancouver to Produce a film and to help pass the time during the flight I came up with 2 or 3 potential skits in my "film journal". A little book where I scribble ideas and random thoughts. 

I presented the ideas to Davin and from there we came up with some new ones. It was Davin who had the idea to make a gum commercial about two guys who sit down chew some gum and get really obnoxious. The concept was simple enough and had the potential to be nice and short but very amusing. Davin insisted that we not prepare ourselves at all for this particular skit as he felt that would make the skit as fresh as possible. So we didn't bother scripting any ideas or making any type of shot list.  

Normally when we make these things, it's just Davin and I which is painful, because it limits what we can do with the camera. Thankfully Bjorn was on board to help with the shooting. It's always nice when he helps out because we don't have to worry about camera setups, he has a naturally eye for these things. Davin and I usually just look through the lens after he's set it up and say yes or no.  

Max was a happy accident. He just happened to be at the location and wondered by just as we were setting up. We changed the skit on the spot and added him, which I think elevates the humor tenfold compared to what it would have been.  

We shot the day after we finished on the film I flew to Vancouver to make in the first place. On a side note, Davin was the camera assistant, Bjorn was the Director of Photography and Max was the sound mixer on that film. We shot on location at our old school VFS in the lobby.  

It was about 7 or 8pm when we started shooting. The annoying thing about shooting there was the heavy traffic of students who were still floating around. We'd get a take or two done and some loud mouthed fool would walk right in the middle of the shot not noticing the camera/tripod setup. They'd ruin the shot and go, "oh sorry" and then just stand there looking half mystified and then bumble on to whatever it was they were doing in the first place.

The production took no more than an hour or two to shoot. We had a lot of good laughs while filming. The biggest laugh of the night was trying to throw that gum so it would hit Max in the face at the right spot. We did about 6 takes of that one shot.  

It's interesting to point out that the shot that's in the skit has been dubbed over with room tone because the minute we hit Max in the face, Davin, Bjorn and I began to laugh uncontrollably. You can see Max trying very hard to keep it together. The gum we used had a nice minty flavor to it, but after about 16 chews I wanted puke the stuff up.  

When it came time to cut the thing, I had a hard time because there is literally 8 minutes of footage of Davin and I just making funny faces and noises. The skit started out at double the length the final product is now. I slowly had to chip away at it to bring it down to a good length so the joke wouldn't overstay it's welcome.  

I think the skit turned out pretty funny and I hope you do to.  

Travis

Whose Bright Idea Was That?

Another question we often get is who comes up with your skits/film ideas and how do you come up with the idea?

The blanket statement I like to give is that I come up with most of my ideas when I'm in the shower.  If nothing jumps out at me in the shower then I usually stay up probably an extra two hours past the point when I should have went to bed.  I find that once my brain is mush it begins to create all kinds of fantastic ideas.

I run the original concept past Davin and then we go back on forth on what we like and don't like about the idea.  If we're really lucky Ricmond (Davin's older brother and one of my best friends) will be around and we bounce the idea off to him.

Since Davin and I have quite a few skits and shorts we'll go over the whole process one skit at a time.  Sort of like a director's commentary.

First up will be "Chew On This"  because it's still fresh in my mind.

Travis

Origin of the name Gradual Upgrade

One of the more common questions we get is, where did the name Gradual Upgrade come from? To get the origins of the this super cool name we have to leave the film world and enter the music world.

Back in 1999 my friend Andrew and I decided to start a band after seeing Our Lady Peace in Saint John, NB.

After a while, Andrew and I had gathered a ragtag group which originallly consisted of Fraser, who would go on to score one of our early films "Fixxers" on keyboards (and what a piece of shit keyboard he had, it looked like it had come from the kids section at Toys R Us), My childhood friend Adam on guitar, and Liz, Adam's girlfriend at the time on another guitar(both acoustic).

The very first song we ever tried to cover was Wonderwall from Oasis. It was pretty lotech. We rented out a disgusting place to practice called "the shack". We had a CD player and we'd play the CD with the volume down that way Adam and the rest could attempt to play along, and I would belt out the vocals.

After a few practices we decided that the world's greatest band needed a name.

I challenge anyone to try and come up with a name that isn't lame and has some relevance to the persona of the band. I've always felt the name should reflect something from the band. For a good week I thought and thought, until one day I was looking around at our ragtag little group and all the shitty instruments we had and thought to myself how truly crappy a band we were. I remember thinking, "this band can only get better, there is no way this could get any shittier. We'll get better, it'll be slow but a steady gradual climb."

Then something in my head clicked. The second I had that thought, images of a nerd fixing up computers entered my brain... and then I had it, we would be called Gradual Upgrade.

Since then I've kept the name and have used it for anything related to the entertainment business.

The name is just as appropriate in the film world as it was in the music world, I think the logo we came up with explains everything.

Travis

So Begins Our Blog

We're going to try this for a bit.

Anytime we work on a skit or a project or if anything happens to pop into our minds we'll post it here.


Travis