“An innocent, benign, unobtrusive, wholesome, little sandwich.”
How much can we pull off with just a 700D?
The idea for this script started with a discussion on shooting in daylight and shooting with the Canon 700D in broad daylight was ideal. We wanted to delve deeper into why some of our daylight shots until then looked visually appealing and why some didn’t. We wanted to experiment with the 700D. Ultimately, our skillset worked to our advantage as we brought out a compelling story.
Simple John and a complex sandwich
The overall plan was to have a unidimensional character for this sketch. John is not a very complex character, his needs are simple. The point was to tell the story from John’s perspective hence none of the other characters is followed in or out of the frame. In an equally, non-simple way, the “harmless” sandwich was set-up. Something was going to happen once John ate the sandwich, but what?
The frustrated narrator
Thirty seconds into the video is when the narrator realises that this is no normal script. He is narrating live and has no clue on what’s going to happen. Or perhaps, John isn’t sticking to the script? In many ways, this sketch attempted to break the Fourth Wall. It’s quite obvious how the narrator tries very hard to set-up the sandwich. He is so emotionally invested in John eating it that every time John goes off course, he gets annoyed.
What can possibly happen in a park?
The answer is – everything unusual. The writing process for this script was so much fun because we had to come up with the wackiest ideas. The characters and objects go from unusual to weird to bizarre. John being interrupted by a beggar seemed normal but by a stripper was weird. To top that, someone handing him a winner’s cheque was not even in the same universe of things! After all that, John ate the sandwich and nothing happened. Therein lay the misdirection. It just made sense to have John get up completely fine and dust himself off. The weirdest ending was the landmine. It was the least expected thing to be present in a 21st Century park.
“Acting as John was a great experience. One particular thing I remember from that shoot is how I acted on an empty stomach. Oh, it was torture. I hadn't eaten breakfast that morning and I did a good 15-16 takes of "almost" eating a sandwich. Each time I brought it close to my mouth, I had to be conscious of not taking a bite. This carried on take after take and I was tempted to eat it. The big bite I take at the end of the video seems natural because I was that hungry!”
