Prax Warrior

My fourth film. This won the BBC Young Film Makers' Competition, and was shown twice: once in the programme "Screen Test" (as featured in the recent feature film "Son of Rambow"), and once in "The Multicoloured Swap Shop".

It cost about £7.50 to make. My main costs were the film, processing, and a light bulb. The ground you see is a small off-cut of green shag-pile carpeting. The reason you never see more than two Action Man figures at once is that I only had one Action Man (realistic hair, but no gripping hands) and my brother's Action Man had to play all the opponents.

I had no splicer, so everything had to be shot in order in one go - edited in-camera. The version you see here is slightly tweaked, but mainly to cope with the ravages of time on the film, and the rather poor tele-cine transfer.

The music is a version of Bach's Toccatta by the group Sky. To make it fit better, I have edited it a bit. The music was the initial inspiration for the film, although in my head things were a great deal more spectacular, involving a horseback chase and duel, lightning, and a cast of thousands. I had to rein-in my ambitions a bit. Another source of inspiration was an advert for the album "Classic Rock".

I was fourteen when I made this, and I remain rather attached to it. It is simple, and I think handsomely coloured. My favourite bit is near the end when the hero collapses - this is done with three shots one after the other from different angles and they go together just as I wanted them to.

Some shots are not animated, but rather live-action puppetry. The galloping horse effect was achieved by making a Meccano seat for the figure and a stalk to stick the horse's head onto, which rocked back and forth when a handle was cranked. The red mist was a red light-bulb and steam from a boiling kettle. Flying arrows (not easy to see) were thrown cocktail sticks with little paper fletchings.

"Prax" is a place in a fictional world: Glorantha, featured in the role-play game RuneQuest.

I got to go to Liverpool and appear on the show "Screen Test", receive a trophy, and meet Brian Truman (writer of "Dangermouse") who was a top bloke. I also was given four reels of Super-8 film, with which I shot my next epic: "Crossing the Runes".

This film has a sequel: the abysmally-named "Hilt and Shaft" - coming to YouTube soon! www.LloydianAspects.co.uk

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Prax
• Warrior
• Runequest
• rider
• animation
• knight
• battle
• action
• man
• screen
• test
• bbc
• young
• film
• maker
• lloyd
• sky
• toccata
• tocatta
• Glorantha
• super
• mm
• super-8
• super8
• 8mm

[checkboard]

Not only a double-bit axe, but a elbow & hand strap round shield !

Mind you, you had a longer attention span than I - my 14 year old effort was a live action sci-fi "Attack of the Killer Tennis Balls". I couldn't have completed a stop-motion epic!

[lindybeige]

@checkboard I was a victim of modern media!

[MikaelDryden]

Why was there a double-bitted axe???

I demand an explenation to this mockery of history, as i recall you made a video about it.

Other than that its a good video :D

[lindybeige]

@MikaelDryden My excuse is this: I was fourteen years old and knew no better.

[Hallo1248574]

Nice one.

Lloyd, would you mind telling me what version of Toccata you used in the video?

Thanks!

[lindybeige]

By a British rock/classical fusion group called Sky.

[WeHaveExplosive]

You know what, this is better than Heavy Metal!

I loved the cat at the end.

[buttflop]

This is pretty good. Thanks for sharing it. :)

[Kukkiluuruu]

Epic vid!

[MikaelDryden]

@lindybeige You are excused, great video.

[upyr1]

great work

[noobler9]

umm.. that's rather amazing in general, nevermind a 14 year old~