The man who walked around the world

August 16, 2010 9:17 PM

The man who walked around the world. SLYT of actor Robert Carlyle advertising scotch whisky, elegantly and entertainingly done in a single take.
posted by wilful (89 comments total)

It's certainly a fuller use of him, with more plot and character development, than Stargate "Reset Button" Universe.
posted by Artw at 9:21 PM on August 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

That's a really good ad.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:29 PM on August 16, 2010

I went to the link just to watch the beginning and was absorbed straight to the end. Nicely done.

... and I don't even like blended whisky.
posted by wabbittwax at 9:29 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

johnnie walker pepsi blue label
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:29 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Too long, didn't watch the ad all the way through. Did he glass someone at the end?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:35 PM on August 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

Subtitles? I mean really. Subtitles?
posted by kipmanley at 9:38 PM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

It's strange now to hear him speak in his natural accent, because even when he's playing a character who is Scottish it's more like Scottish-lite. Post Begbie, at least.
posted by Roman Graves at 9:39 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is really good, but I'm kind of surprised it took nearly a year to hit Metafilter. I recall seeing it linked on Twitter when it was new, but after a cursory search, it's not a double. Weird, considering that Robert Carlyle seems like Metafilter's sort of actor.
posted by explosion at 9:41 PM on August 16, 2010

Too long, didn't watch the ad all the way through. Did he glass someone at the end?

No, it turned out he didn't, but we can never be quite sure what his motives were for not glassing someone at the end.
posted by Wataki at 9:42 PM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Johnnie Walker Blue: $150
posted by leotrotsky at 9:44 PM on August 16, 2010

we can never be quite sure what his motives were for not glassing someone at the end.

Well at the end of the day, he's the cunt with the pool que.
posted by Roman Graves at 9:45 PM on August 16, 2010 [7 favorites]

Subtitles? I mean really. Subtitles?

I know... Johnny Walker's too cheap to spring for a quick overdub into English?
posted by zvs at 9:46 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Sort of a double,
was one of the links below the fold in this post.

http://www.metafilter.com/87196/December-5-1933-The-Good-Old-Days-are-Back-Again
posted by St. Sorryass at 9:49 PM on August 16, 2010

I'm pretty impressed by the whole thing, even given my inability to appreciate scotch, unlike the rest of my family.* The timing and set design were impecable, and Carlyle's conditioning (he was walking at a nice clip) is pretty impressive.

^{You know the requests for various forms of high end, duty-free liquor have gone too far when the duty-free shop starts giving you free sampler sets and luggage with which to carry your purchases.}
posted by Ghidorah at 9:49 PM on August 16, 2010

because even when he's playing a character who is Scottish it's more like Scottish-lite.

Sounds exactly the same as in Hamish Macbeth, to me.

Subtitles? I mean really. Subtitles?

It does start with Satriani bagpipes... the subtitles are for the people who've already hit mute.
posted by pompomtom at 9:50 PM on August 16, 2010 [9 favorites]

Sorry here is a working link.
posted by St. Sorryass at 9:51 PM on August 16, 2010

I'm doubting very much that was done in a single take. Do you have a cite for that?

Subtitles? I mean really. Subtitles?

I'd speculate it's a bit of misdirection. The sound would have been recorded later (which is why you hear nothing but his voice) and with such a long speech, he's bound to have moxed some of the lip synching. The subtitles distract enough to not be able to focus on the face as much as one would if they weren't there, hiding some of the flubs of ADR.
posted by dobbs at 9:51 PM on August 16, 2010

I love the history in this pepsi blue walker. You can call me a sucker, but this just reminds me of the fact that I have a 196N vintage Johnny Walker red case box in my kitchen. I inherited it from grandad and used it to transport his beer glasses, along with the predilection towards alcoholism.
posted by thusspakeparanoia at 9:57 PM on August 16, 2010

And here I thought the dude was going to play bagpipes for six minutes straight. Now that would be an achievement.
posted by koeselitz at 9:59 PM on August 16, 2010

Now that would be an achievement.

You do know how bagpipes work, right?
posted by pompomtom at 10:04 PM on August 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

As impressive the performance by the actor, IMHO it is exceeded by that of the camera person, focus puller and microphone handler.

Also, a single long shot does not necessarily equal a single take (the longer the single shot the less likely it wasn't). The actor isn't the only one that needs to perform flawlessly for the entire take.
posted by spock at 10:05 PM on August 16, 2010 [8 favorites]

Subtitles? I mean really. Subtitles?

Its an international brand. it is on the internet. the possibility exists they sell to more non-english speakers than english speakers.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:05 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I blame Johnny Walker for the recent absence of Cardhu here in Canada.

*shakes fist*
(that's rage, not DT)
posted by juv3nal at 10:13 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The subtitles distract enough to not be able to focus on the face as much as one would if they weren't there, hiding some of the flubs of ADR.

Its an international brand. it is on the internet. the possibility exists they sell to more non-english speakers than english speakers.

Both of these reason s seem plausible, but I reckon its a sly reference to the subtitling of Trainspotting and other Scottish films for certain English-language markets. This has been much discussed in Scotland. Scots generally seemed to find it funny that it should be needed for a film like Trainspotting where the accents and dialect are not very broad by Scottish standards.
posted by Roachbeard at 10:28 PM on August 16, 2010

FWIW, Johnie Walker is owned by Guinness's. The biggest selling scotch in the world is Irish.
(That amuses some of us with certain surnames (even if we've only been in Eire for two weeks over a decade ago.))
posted by Some1 at 10:32 PM on August 16, 2010

kipmanley: “Subtitles? I mean really. Subtitles?”

Unfortunately, the rest of the world can be a little dense when it comes to understanding Scots sometimes.

"Freedom! Freeeedooom!"
posted by koeselitz at 10:34 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

And, yes, I'm just using this as an opportunity to link to Burnistoun, because it is the funniest goddamned show in years.
posted by koeselitz at 10:48 PM on August 16, 2010 [4 favorites]

A vast pity that all that is wasted on such a lousy whiskey.
posted by jrochest at 10:53 PM on August 16, 2010

FWIW, Johnie Walker is owned by Guinness's. The biggest selling scotch in the world is Irish British.
posted by pompomtom at 10:53 PM on August 16, 2010

He's the man my man could walk like!
posted by Dr. Zira at 11:12 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, the rest of the world can be a little dense when it comes to understanding Scots sometimes.

Ooh, I hate to be such a precious little nerd, but this little Metafilter phase I'm going through dictates it. Scots is a language (dialect?) and it is not what one hears from Carlyle in this ad. It is still spoken and understood by many Scots (that's the people), and it inflects the English that is spoken in Scotland. In its more traditional forms it would DEFINITELY require subtitles.
posted by Roachbeard at 11:48 PM on August 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oops, by "form", I meant form (and form again.) Aye, there's gey strang forms aboot. Gey braw forms 'n aw. Ach, ah fair live fae forms these days. Nae haverin'!
posted by Roachbeard at 12:09 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Scots is a language (dialect?) and it is not what one hears from Carlyle in this ad.

Are you sure koeselitz wasn't using Scots to refer to the people, not the language? Not to be a precious little nerd or anything.

Also: FWIW, Johnie Walker is owned by Guinness's. The biggest selling scotch in the world is owned by a British company, but still produced in Scotland.
posted by incessant at 12:20 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, the rest of the world can be a little dense when it comes to understanding Scots sometimes.

He's speaking English.
posted by fire&wings at 12:26 AM on August 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

It was indeed done in 1 take, but it took them 3 days shooting, IIRC, to get that take.

One needs to understand the meaning and context of 'a take'.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 1:20 AM on August 17, 2010

I liked the bit at the end where he explained how Diageo is closing the plant in Kilmarnock and destroying the local economy.
posted by GeckoDundee at 2:21 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Pity that the ad didn't finish with the information that next year, Johnnie Walker is completely pulling out of Kilmarnock, the town where the company started almost 200 years ago. Would have brought a nice sense of closure to the story. Not that that would have been any comfort to the people of Kilmarnock, who are losing the town's biggest employer.
posted by daveje at 2:23 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Note to self: always use preview, even when making a completely new point in a thread almost six hours old.
posted by daveje at 2:26 AM on August 17, 2010

It was indeed done in 1 take, but it took them 3 days shooting, IIRC, to get that take.

I think was he was getting at was that it is one continuous shot with no cuts. To say it was done in one take would mean everything went perfectly the first attempt and there were no further attempts.

I'm sure it took many takes before they got the shot they wanted, not just one take.
posted by Menthol at 2:55 AM on August 17, 2010

I noticed Carlyle kept looking down a lot -- I strongly suspect an autocue was down there. Pity. Also, nth to the "wth subtitles" bit. Perhaps I'm odd, but I rarely have much issue understanding even the thickest of "Scottish*" accents.

*As seen on TV Scottish accents. These may or may not be representative of the real world.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:00 AM on August 17, 2010

Well, you're not the only one who has a "sense of double", explosion..... It feels like we might have discussed this before, specifically the sound and whether it was dubbed on later or not. And then there was someone who quoted the original cameraman in how many takes it took...I'm probably getting it confused with another forum.

Or... the "takedown" run that happened last year, when Johnny Walker did their utmost to delete all unauthorized copies from the web actually got a link to vanish from MeFi. Naah, probably not.

Either way, the agency must have sorted it out, as the film stopped getting takedown notices and they won a nice shiny award in Cannes for it this summer. In the "internet film" category.

Trivia; it didn't start out as an internet film but as an internal Johnny Walker thing, and Robert Carlyle probably had to get paid once more for the originally unintentional internet screening.
posted by dabitch at 3:02 AM on August 17, 2010

Nicely done ad. thanks for the post.
posted by HuronBob at 3:24 AM on August 17, 2010

Note to self: always use preview, even when making a completely new point in a thread almost six hours old.
I thought it might have been the accent, but I'm guessing you sound more like Carlyle than I do.

Speaking of which, I was shocked and pissed off in equal quantities when "Looking After JoJo" was shown in Australia. That's right, subtitles. There's a scene where Carlyle's character tells his lawyer he is rather keen on the idea of a cigarette. He says "I'm gantin' for a fag". The subtitle? "I'm gantin for a fag". I suppose it was either that or go the whole "Jive Talking" scene in Airplane / Flying High route I suppose. The subtitles didn't really bother me after that.
posted by GeckoDundee at 3:28 AM on August 17, 2010

Fun fact - I went to school with one of the kids in 'Looking after JoJo'.

Anyway, nice ad. Carlyle is speaking what I call 'Tourist Accent'. Go into any tourist attraction in Scotland that has a voiceover, and you'll hear the same over-emphasised glottal stops and rolled R's. Day-to-day, most Scots speak a fair bit faster and quite often less clearly, but this is almost universally seen as 'the Scottish Accent', just like Home Counties accents are often seen as 'The English Accent'. Robert Carlyle is Glaswegian but his accent here is sort of rounded off and stagey, probably from his time at RSAMD.

But yeah, I'm a bit suspicious these days of this kind of 'look how deep our heritage goes' advertising, given how many iconic brands are just names owned by enormous conglomerates. I mean, jeez, Ben and Jerry's is owned by Unilever now.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:01 AM on August 17, 2010

So this is it? We just...post ads now?
posted by DU at 4:18 AM on August 17, 2010

"I think was he was getting at was that it is one continuous shot with no cuts."

Maybe this is one of those things that have different interpretations, but to me a take is a single individual recording pass on a piece of work. I have never heard it used to denote a session of recording passes. Hence, 'take 1', 'take 2', etc.

Either way, there were no edits in this sequence, nor, I think was an actor of Carlyle's experience reading a fucking autocue. These people memorise whole scripts, people, and the guy is gonna have this thing down before he even turns up to work, because he is a professional.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 4:22 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Shot in one continuos take (#40 to be exact) this really shows off the acting chops that Carlisle possesses as he delivers the 5 minute+ bit while interacting with various props along the way"

Full disclosure, fact tidbit taken from my website (that is however, not my post).
posted by dabitch at 4:44 AM on August 17, 2010

it is not what one hears from Carlyle in this ad

Yet Carlyle is a Scot, and therefore could be one of the Scots that the world can be a little dense in understanding, yes? Christ almighty charity can be hard to come by when there's the temptation of an easy nerd niggle right at hand.
posted by bonaldi at 4:51 AM on August 17, 2010

So what's the intended venue for this ad? Six minutes is too long even for a viral internet thing and 12 to 24 times too long for TV. I only lasted a minute before I started skipping through it to the end.
posted by octothorpe at 5:07 AM on August 17, 2010

It's technically challenging and pulled off with flair, albeit a sort of "yet another take oh god please let us get this one right" flair, and certainly compelling enough visually (reverse tunnel effects are terribly hypnotic), so it's a decent bit of footage as far as it goes, but the script sucks in its puffy pomposity -- your tale of aggressive business acumen is supposed to interest me in a fine beverage? -- and overall it utterly fails to interest me in their product.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:08 AM on August 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

bonaldi: "it is not what one hears from Carlyle in this ad

Yet Carlyle is a Scot, and therefore could be one of the Scots that the world can be a little dense in understanding, yes?"

"Picture the scene: The other fuckin' week there, doin' the fuckin' Volley with Tommy, playing pool. I'm playing like Paul-Fuckin'-Newman by the way. Givin' the boy here the tannin' of a lifetime. So it comes to there, during the last shot, the deciding ball of the whole tournament. I'm on the black and he's sittin' in the corner looking all fuckin' biscuit-arsed. When this hard cunt comes in. Obviously fuckin' fancied himself, like. Starts staring at me. Lookin' at me, right fuckin' at me, as if to say, "Come ahead, square go." You ken me, I'm not the type of cunt that goes looking for fuckin' bother, like, but at the end of the day I'm the cunt with a pool cue and he can get the fat end in his puss any time he fucking wanted like. So I squares up, casual like. What does the hard cunt do? Or the so-called hard cunt? Shites it. Puts down his drink, turns, and gets the fuck out of there. And after that, well, the game was mine."
posted by bwg at 5:09 AM on August 17, 2010

Octothorpe, I'd have to guess it's mostly a masturbation piece put together for a shareholder's meeting. That's the only explanation that makes sense.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:09 AM on August 17, 2010

octothorpe - it was an internal feel-good film, the kind you'd use at sales-meets and on DVD's to distributers.
posted by dabitch at 5:12 AM on August 17, 2010

In its more traditional forms it would DEFINITELY require subtitles.

I had the same feeling listening to that as I do when I hear Dutch -- I feel like I can almost understand it, but then it keeps slipping away.
posted by Forktine at 5:20 AM on August 17, 2010

Sigh, I'll just never understand the corporate world. Wouldn't shareholders be pissed that they'd wasted all this money on something so stupid?
posted by octothorpe at 5:21 AM on August 17, 2010

Not when the point of it is to sell more stuff thereby increasing the shareholders gain.
posted by dabitch at 5:22 AM on August 17, 2010

Clever.
posted by ph00dz at 5:25 AM on August 17, 2010

So what's the intended venue for this ad? Six minutes is too long even for a viral internet thing and 12 to 24 times too long for TV. I only lasted a minute before I started skipping through it to the end.

According to the comments on YouTube, it played in movie theatres.
posted by ukdanae at 5:51 AM on August 17, 2010

This is the most self-indulgent crap I've ever seen a corporate brand laud upon itself, even sexual deviants with onanist problems don't put this much effort into their masturbation, "pro-democrcy protesters have even adopted our corporate slogan".... ya ya ya

It's a paycheck, I'm sure Mister "looks down at his script so often it's distracting" Carlyle but until you make "Porno" the follow-up to Trainspotting, you'll remain diminished in my eyes.
posted by NiteMayr at 6:02 AM on August 17, 2010

Amazing. I like the bit at the end, where Robert is walking away, and you can distinctly hear him muttering "Fuck yes!"
posted by turgid dahlia at 6:51 AM on August 17, 2010

According to the video credits, it was:

"Filmed on location in Inverlochlarig, Perthshire, Scotland."

A search on Google Maps takes us here.

There are only three roads leading out. If you switch to a map with terrain data you can rule out the road that heads north into the hills. That leaves us with the roads heading east (toward Loch Doine and Loch Voil) and west (away from these bodies of water).

Loch Doine (or Voil?) appears in the distance briefly at the end of the video (about 5:19 into the video). Judging from the distance I hazarded a guess that it was shot somewhere on the road heading west (away from the Loch).

Based on the terrain, slopes, road curvatures, rocks, fences and other features, I'm pretty sure that Robert Carlyle walked this stretch of road.

The piper was at point A where the fence meets the road and the video ends at point B where the camera turns to expose a distant Loch for a brief moment.

Please note the fence to the south. It intersects with the road where the piper was standing and is visible several times throughout the video on the lower left side of the screen (to the south of the road).

Also note the two large rocks visible to the left (south of the road) at 2:33 in the video. If you enlarge that area to maximum magnification, they are quite recognizable even in the grainy satellite image on Google Maps.

After confirming road curvature and other details with the video, I plotted the course from point A to B. Google Maps informed me that the total distance was .3 miles.

The average person can walk a brisk mile in about 16 minutes. Robert Carlyle's height is 5'8'' (only an inch or two below average) and he walks at a good pace. To walk .3 miles, it should take him about 4 minutes and 48 seconds. In the video, it takes him about 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Remember: he passes point A (where the piper is standing) :45 seconds into the video.

Another data point: he passed the two unusual rocks at 2:33 (about 1 minute and 48 seconds after passing point A). This also makes sense given their distance from the start of his brief course.

Would anyone involved in the making of this fine video care to confirm or deny this location?

That's a really good ad.

Indeed.

The video was excellent. It was well written, directed and brilliantly acted. According to the BBH website:

"Believe it or not, the film contains no trickery. There are no cuts. The actor memorised all of the lines and walked at precisely the right pace..."

Certainly a video this good deserves a good parody. Shooting the parody in the same location could make something good even better.
posted by stringbean at 6:57 AM on August 17, 2010 [12 favorites]

I noticed Carlyle kept looking down a lot -- I strongly suspect an autocue was down there. Pity.

I bet he was just trying not to trip.
Cool vid - I watched all the way, and it's not even my brand. If you can't call these stunts "one take" shots, as in, "it's all in a single take," what can you call it?
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:17 AM on August 17, 2010

I bet he was just trying not to trip.

Indeed, most single-track roads in that neck of the woods are quite stony underfoot.

Cool vid - I watched all the way, and it's not even my brand. If you can't call these stunts "one take" shots, as in, "it's all in a single take," what can you call it?


I think the industry jargon is just long takes.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:23 AM on August 17, 2010

I noticed Carlyle kept looking down a lot -- I strongly suspect an autocue was down there. Pity.

People tend to look where they're going when they're walking on unpaved, uneven surfaces. It helps avoid falls. Try it yourself sometime without looking down.

Also, I'm pretty sure Carlyle can memorize a 6 minute monologue without an autocue.
posted by NationalKato at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2010

Entertaining, and a much better ad than a crappy old blended whisky deserves.

Single malt, all the way.
posted by Decani at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2010

Also, top googlemapping stringbean.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2010

Roachbeard: “Ooh, I hate to be such a precious little nerd, but this little Metafilter phase I'm going through dictates it. Scots is a language (dialect?) and it is not what one hears from Carlyle in this ad. It is still spoken and understood by many Scots (that's the people), and it inflects the English that is spoken in Scotland. In its more traditional forms it would DEFINITELY require subtitles.”

incessant: “Are you sure koeselitz wasn't using Scots to refer to the people, not the language? Not to be a precious little nerd or anything.”

I was talking about the language. I turned off the main link in this post the minute I saw it was Robert Carlyle, so I have no idea whether he was speaking Scots or not. I know it's a separate language – and yes, I believe it's a language, not a dialect. Like I said, it was just an excuse to link to the show.
posted by koeselitz at 7:37 AM on August 17, 2010

Interview with Director Jamie Rafn on the making of 'Johnnie Walker, The Man Who Walked Around The World.'
posted by ericb at 7:37 AM on August 17, 2010

Jamie Rafn:

"Six and a half minutes is a very long time to be walking and talking without any cutting.

... The take that you have seen is the very last take we did at 8pm on the last day of the shoot. Take 40. The tension as we watched Robert do this take was unbelievable. It was such a good take at every stage and so the longer it went on without any fluffs the greater the pressure grew for nothing to go wrong. When he got to the end and I got to call cut there was this huge roar and applause from the crew and agency and I knew we had it."

... It was shot near Loch Doyne in Scotland.

... We also had one of the best operators in the world - George Richmond. He was sat on the back of a rickshaw being pulled up and down this rocky hill by two grips. At one point they hit such a large bump the whole thing came tumbling over and we were paranoid we'd damaged the camera. Fortunately all was fine. Everyone dusted themselves off and got on with it. The crew were brilliant."

posted by ericb at 7:42 AM on August 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

One thing though - I'm astonished nobody has mentioned the piper at the start of the clip, who appears to be playing so hard he's on fire.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:42 AM on August 17, 2010

May 2010: BBH's Johnnie Walker spot takes top honors at One Show.
posted by ericb at 7:46 AM on August 17, 2010

Mick Mahoney, BBH London Creative Director:

“Every director we spoke to told us that it wasn’t possible to do what we wanted. That we would need concealed cuts and so on. Which would still have made a good film, but it’s the undertaking, the commitment, of doing it all in one take that makes it. Jamie Rafn was the only director who felt the same. Getting Robert Carlyle to do it then just took it up a gear. He has exactly the screen persona that we wanted. Tough, uncompromising, enigmatic.”

posted by ericb at 7:50 AM on August 17, 2010

Johnnie Walker Blue: $150

Give me a Balvenie 21 over that any day. I never got the attraction of expensive blended whisky. Consistent, maybe, but it really dilutes the character that makes really good scotch interesting to drink.
posted by chundo at 7:52 AM on August 17, 2010

Yeah, to concur with what GeckoDundee and daveje said upthread: fuck 'em. I don't care how good the ad is, maybe they should have spent some of that money not ruining an entire town they've been part of since 1820. And it's not even that the factory was losing money; it's in profit. Kilmarnock was already suffering pretty badly, its various industries ripped out over the past 40-odd years; this is just a final fuck-you from a corporation that owes its very existence to the town and its generations of people.

And Robert Carlyle – whom I've previously had a lot of time for, both as an actor and someone who seemed to give a shit about politics and the working classes – should be fucking ashamed of himself.
posted by Len at 7:54 AM on August 17, 2010

follow-up to Trainspotting,

I'm still waiting for Ravenous 2. Because the first one left so many openings for a sequel.
posted by quin at 8:03 AM on August 17, 2010

And Robert Carlyle – whom I've previously had a lot of time for, both as an actor and someone who seemed to give a shit about politics and the working classes – should be fucking ashamed of himself.

To be fair to the man, the piece was shot a few months before the Kilmarnock decision was announced. Still, Bill Hick's "artistic rollcall" and all that.
posted by daveje at 8:21 AM on August 17, 2010

To be fair to the man, the piece was shot a few months before the Kilmarnock decision was announced. Still, Bill Hick's "artistic rollcall" and all that.

Ok, in that case I take back some of my ire.
posted by Len at 8:28 AM on August 17, 2010

Ironic that they're trying to sell us on the 'virtues' of blended whisky by making a big fuss about their single-take advert, no?

It's a hard sell - why anyone would knowingly guzzle that mouthwash when a triple distilled single malt waits patiently to cascade down their throat like the Holy Velvety Urine of God....
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:39 AM on August 17, 2010

octothorpe - it was an internal feel-good film, the kind you'd use at sales-meets and on DVD's to distributers.

It's been cleared for TV broadcast in the UK but I've never seen it - perhaps one of those deals where they buy up the break?
posted by mippy at 10:18 AM on August 17, 2010

TBH I'd assume any UK version wouldn't have the subtitles.
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on August 17, 2010

I hate subtitles because I end up staring at them no matter how hard I try not to look. This ruined a lot of watching Flight of the Concords for me too because I had friends that wouldn't understand WTF was going on unless I turned on the subtitles.
posted by zephyr_words at 11:22 AM on August 17, 2010

The subtitles were bugging me until I realized that Carlyle was reading his lines off of them.
posted by revgeorge at 12:22 PM on August 17, 2010

A thing that annoyed the heck out of me recently with subtitles: In The Diving Bell and The Butterfly the paralyzed Bauby is clearly spelling out words in french, and my crappy french is enough that I can follow this, but in the subtitles the individual letters are from the English spelling, so he's saying "M" and the subtitle will say "D" because they are spelling an English word... annoyed the shit out of me.
posted by Artw at 12:40 PM on August 17, 2010

koeselitz, I have to thank you for linking Burnistoun. I spent a large, sneaky part of my day watching as many of the videos as I could. Brilliant stuff!
posted by idest at 5:24 PM on August 17, 2010

I just realised that in all my life I've never tasted Johnnie Walker whiskey.
posted by bwg at 5:32 PM on August 17, 2010

I'm ashamed, yet obligated to report that this advertisement apparently worked. I don't know the last time I bought or drank Johnny Walker, but I just walked out of the liquor store with a bottle. for no apparent reason.

How can my life proceed with my consumeristic impressionability laid bare?? Oh wait, I have a bottle of whiskey.
posted by cmoj at 3:42 PM on August 18, 2010

It's JOHNNIE! Not JOHNNY.

It's WHISKY! Not WHISKEY.
posted by ericb at 10:14 PM on August 18, 2010

Like I give a shit. I said I hadn't had the stuff within memory.

Plus, I'm Irish or Texan, whichever you prefer, so it's whiskey.
posted by cmoj at 11:25 AM on August 19, 2010

You don't become Scottish just because I am Scottish.

If it's from Scotland, it's whisky, if it's from Ireland, it's whiskey.
posted by bonaldi at 10:17 AM on August 20, 2010