"YES ALWAYS" In the godfather of all outtakes, Orson Welles struggles under the pressures of doing the voice over for Findus frozen foods commercials. Brought to life in this animated short
When you hire someone, you hire the whole person. Orson was so very right about the god-awful writing of the ad copy; I'd have argued it out as well, being somewhat of a stickler for the English language and the never-ending battle against poor writing. The scripts were offensive to his very being as well, and being the voice talent he obviously was, he had every right....nay, a duty! to protest the shoddy abomination that the world would know he had a hand in. That would be like having Sir Winston Churchill read bad ad copy or scripts; he'd have none of it, and either re-written it himself on the sport, or demand it be put right instanter.
@@markh.6687 This was the early era of the corporate state, so its the first generation of executive management and their desperate need to play a part in what is going on. They cannot have the talent think they are beyond criticism, because it allows the 'employee' to think he's more valuable than they are willing to pay for. I've watched them ruin efficency and performances thru micromanagement
@@markh.6687 Churchill was a megalomaniac responsible for the deaths of tens of millions in WW 1 and WW 2. He was too drunk to do those famous radio speeches. They were done by an actor who did Winnie The Pooh. Churchill should have been strung up after WW 2. Anyway, he went to hell in 1965, so now he knows.
@@man.inblack OTOH, if this obsessively nit picky egomaniac had been chosen to direct the great cinematic masterwork that was Monty Python's "Great Frozen Pea Relaunch of 1971" [ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tnsFO-rgOys.html] it would likely never have even been completed!
As funny as these outtakes are, what really strikes me is that the only reason he's annoyed is that he's actually paying attention to the copy and the visuals. I'm sure many actors doing a commercial would be completely tuned out and would just read the copy no matter how stupid it was and not care a bit.
He was the greatest film director of all time, and naturally he couldn't help himself. He was just operating on a whole other level. All the mistakes with the copy and visuals just leaped out at him. But still, it's hilarious to see just how much it got under his skin and pushed him over the edge.
"Yes, Always" was HARDLY a throwaway Animaniacs cartoon.... Maurice LaMarche executed that perfectly! (Of course he would, since Brain is essentially Orson Welles' voice)
@@popculturehero nope... the OP just added a snippet of The Critic at the beginning for funsies ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7uWW--w4SRs.html
@@rpelzer Because that was his warm up! I forget where I heard it, but before voicing Brain he would recite Frozen Peas so eventually they just said "Heck with it" and animated it. So uhh...yes. Yes he practiced it. The best part was that I had seen that episode like a decade and a half before finding out about Frozen Peas. Weirdest feeling of Deja Vu, lemme tell ya'!
I really wish and hope that at a Con somewhere, someone just approaches Mr. Lemarche and asks him to tell the audience his thoughts about frozen peas. Then everyone applauses. Then he goes on for about 10 minutes with whatever he wants.
Life is made much more difficult by all the idiots and incompetents we deal with daily. I mean, how do some of these people dress and feed themselves, let alone drive to work??
On the set of "Star Wars", Harrison Ford once said to George Lucas (less eloquently than Orson, I might add): 'George! You can type this shit, but you sure can't say it! Move your mouth when you're typing!' The prequels (and Hayden Christensen's performance) proved him right. This situation seems a little bit similar to me.
It didn't really. Hayden Christiansen was performing that way on purpose, because he was playing a socially awkward and very confused young man. And the prequels are great. People have conflicts on set, it's normal, what you ultimately end up hearing may not be what was originally written. I didn't know "guh huh huh, George Lucas bad" types like you still existed though. Glad to be disappointed.
For the longest time, I always thought the Rosebud Frozen Peas scene from "The Critic" was the funniest thing ever. Then I learned that this whole thing had ACTUALLY happened, and the guy from The Critic sounded JUST LIKE WELLES!
i grew up on animaniacs and only recently found out that brain was supposed to sound like orson welles. I don't think brain really sounds like him though
Kevin Schart Maurice says that Brain's voice is 70% Orson Welles, 20% Vincent Prince and 10% someone else he himself can't figure out. I only hear Vincent Prince in Brain's voice.
I have seen Orson Welles acting in Citizen Kane, I have watched him relay stories of his childhood to1970s era daytime talk show hosts, I have heard him arguing about peas in July and the gathering of cod in Norway, but no matter what the setting or the subject matter, If Orson Welles is speaking about it, he makes it sound infinitely more important and interesting than anyone else possibly could.
The way you phrase that makes you sound like the 10 Thousand Year Man from an old Brazilian pop song by Raul Seixas, where the eponymous character relates how he bore witness to great and not so great events in mankind's history
Orson Wells, who helped make & broadcast the radio version of War of the Worlds, which almost caused a nationwide panic due to how it convinced radio listeners that the invasion was real, decades later is being told how to read a script for a commercial about fish sticks. Life laughs at us all sometimes.
"Too much directing around here" says Orson Welles. Now that's really funny. If the most prolific director of all time is telling you that you're doing too much directing, you're probably doing a bad job.
I can't help but feel like this is a situation where Orson Welles thinks he's above this kind of thing but desperately needs the money, and yet still can't help but be incredibly critical of the material and direction he's given.
It's a very matter-of-fact declaration. I love the way he puts the emphasis on the word "shit", too. Just exactly like you can't emphasise the "in" when saying "in July". 😂
I think it's meant like bow to you, like how the conquered chieftans would kneel to the victor. Just a guess, since he thinks on a grand, mythical level.
@@annereilley4892 Lol...yes, I'm quite sure Orson Welles wasn't propositioning his sound engineer for oral sex...but that's what makes it so hysterical now isn't it?
@@thisismyname3928 Yes, expressions from the past can sound funny in the context of today's language, like the british word for cigarette. It's also sad to see how far he sunk, debasing himself by doing these commercials for money just to live. it'd be like Einstein doing preparation H commercials, "It is ironic I used preparation H in los alamos while developing the H bomb."
In my ad agency career -- I was a copywriter -- I first heard this in the 60s on a bootleg tap. It's classic. Still makes me laugh. I once bumped into Welles, one of my lifelong heroes, at an LA recording studio and was too flummoxed to say anything. I still regret that.
"How was your day, Honey? How was working with Mr. Wells? I know he's your hero since childhood, you make me watch that movie with you at least twice a year."
It's quite an interesting situation: a man who is by all rights one of the most gifted film makers ever in a diminished state, taking direction from hacks. He's not exactly throwing a tantrum, but he's frustrated at the absurdity of having some idiot jobsworth trying to tell Orson fucking Welles how to read a line. Even if the director was correct, the balls to actually assume that because Welles is collecting a paycheck he can tell his grandmother how to suck eggs is ridiculous. His ego is earned, this is like a university lecturer questioning Einstein on whether he used the appropriate math to arrive at his answers.
@@bluegum6438 Orson's ego was bigger than his 400 pound body. He was hired to do a frozen peas commercial. Just read the damn lines and have some respect for the production crew)))
I think it only seems like he has an ego since we're not getting the full story. These are just snippets of a much longer recording session. We're not seeing how (or if, to be fair) the recording team are trying to micromanage his performance. He's spot on with his criticism of the copy and the direction. For example, there was in "IN July." It was always "every July, ..." and it's awkward as hell to try to emphasize "every" at the start. It makes it seem like you're upset about the event. Just say it to your self and you'll see what I mean: _Every_ July sounds like it should be followed by "that damned Mrs. Buckley and her peas!"
I don’t know what I like better… When he offers to go down on the guy, when he asks what is a gonk or crumb crisp coating. From the depths of my ignorance I can’t decide which I like better.
"Dear Sir or Madam! I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about all these Monty Python's Flying Circus references in the comments. Your fictionally, Biggles, Algy (deceased) and Ginger.
3:38 actually makes a lot of sense. Dialogue in movies and TV often sound like it isn't written as a conversation, and I never figured out how to deserve how describe it until Orson Welles said it however many decades ago.
100% agree. If they had a clue they'd have taken his advice and applied it and been thankful for the critique like they were 1st year know-nothing students and he was their professor.
The man was so devoted to his craft and so driven to finance it that he ... did this! That's someone I respect. Welles is The Master. And such great pipes too!
Nope it's not fine drama it's just a f****** commercial read the copy get your check and go if you were such a great actor you wouldn't be doing a commercial
I am a retired ad executive and I remember, not fondly, the absolutely pretentious and puffed up ‘creative’ people who believe they are writers in the truest sense and see their work as small film… no it’s just selling that uses creativity (just). It’s fabulous the way Welles cuts them up and excoriates them. Bravo.
My father used to be an ad writer, both freelance and for firms. If Findus frozen foods knew any better, they'd have skipped the ad firm altogether and just hired Welles to write the copy, direct the accompanying video and do the voice. Would have gotten a better product and spent a lot less money than the story boarding alone probably cost them.
Watch the documentary about Orson Welle's last unreleased film The making of the other side of the Wind, and you might come to think that Orson Welles himself played a part in it as well
He was often his own worst enemy, couldn't budget,and wouldn't see projects through..having to rely on "other people's money", the bane of his existence..
@@hankkingsley9300 it takes two to tango. I don't think anyone but him could truly untangle it all, and even then probably not. That's why the true mark is being kind and understanding even when it's totally undeserved.
This man was a perfectionist to the end! Many people confuse perfection with being difficult. People also forget that his name was attached to all of these commercials, so he wanted to protect his reputation, as well.
I once acted in a radio production and for two whole recording sessions, the director and the sound engineer constantly argued and tried to take control away from the other. It was troublesome.
He didn't "give notes." The engineer asked him to repeat the line as he felt he had flaws in the sound recording - That's a perfectly reasonable request however he should have explained it to the director first before talking. Also Welles is being difficult instead of reading the line - Its a frozen peas commercial not a movie script.
You know what, as someone trying to break into voice acting, I can totally understand Orson's frustration here. Man was an acting legend by this point, and he's got the most inane directing notes being thrown at him by some peon on a food commercial
This segment from 3:02 to 3:18 is so true. When I recorded narration for instructional videos, I found out very quickly that what works on the page doesn't work well when reading it out loud.
When I went to radio college, I was astounded to find that even things from the _associated press_ had major mistakes, spelling problems, things that would throw you off I then had a job for years where I'd assembly-line read and record hundreds of little short clips a day, alternating with writing and assembling them, and the other writers would just.. frequently put zero thought into how they did it, make it so difficult to read without jumbling it up, leaving my numbers lower from all the retakes. diversity hires, natch. but not exclusively.
GhostPlanetFilms both, the man wasn't some stuck up prick who didn't know anything, he was a legend. It's true he was very obnoxious but when your that good. You kinda have that right.
I love the animation in this. Very Terry Gilliam. What got me laughing was him rolling his eyes & saying _"Crumb-crisp coating"_ in such a loathing way. 😆
I guess the point was that even if you did it would sound weird. As if you are emphasizing the idea of being the month itself rather then inside of it. It's a passage of time rather then a place to be. You can emphasize being IN the hospital and it makes sense, but you try emphasizing that you are IN 12:45pm and you sound like a lunatic.
As funny as this is. He has a point, why _would_ you emphasize "in" instead of "July" or "beef" instead of "prairie-fed"? You emphasize "July" to show what month you are talking about. You emphasize "prairie-fed" instead of "beef" to show that the cows are fed from a prairie! I could see why this hurt his brain, it hurts mine! IN july, prairie-fed BEEF. Urg. That's not how well-constructed sentences work.
"This is a lot of shit, you know that" is honestly something I may or may not want to say when I'm handed a pile of paperwork, while "In the DEPTHS of your ignorance what is it that you want?" is when I'm about to snap.
Understand that by this point in his career, Orson Wells was a living legend. Imagine taking say, Jack Nicholson into the booth to do VO for frozen food and then giving him BAD tedious notes and commentary about every minute detail. It would be super rude. Orson Wells wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the greatest film ever made. They should have been thankful that he agreed to do it at all, and left him to it. His version would have been just fine.
@Jonathan Campbell I don't believe you for one minute! You would really shoot somebody to death? Stab them to death? Strangle them to death? Poison them to death? Take an innocent life just to see Jack Nicholson do a commercial?
