The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 29

ii. A i4 of Sheepdogs make, ratinas New series asks questions about survival Page 23 Recordings: Pages 9 to 12 Sight Sound: Page 13 Letters: Pages 26 27 Home Computers: Pages 28 to 30 round-up bid Paae 5 Edited by MARK LAWRENCE TV RADIO RECORDINGS VIDEO HI-FI PCs 29 MAY 4 JUNE fit Most viewers don't know his face, but hundreds of thousands enjoy his work. SUZY FREEMAN-GREENE talks to Ted Emery, the man behind many of the hilarious images of 'Fast Forward'. Today's Apocalypse Now skit, being filmed under grey city skies, Is a crazed marriage of the ultimate Vietnam film and the Liberal Party's 'Flghtback Package'. The storyline Is simple.

Lieutenant Kilgore (Stephen Blackburn) has a job description made in hell: publicist for the Liberal Party. His mission? To bomb Vietnamese villages with 'Flghtback' leaflets. The scene is significant for two reasons. It is a graphic illustration of Emery's belief that anything can be done if you put your mind to it even a spoof of a $30-million cinema classic. And it Is a subject surprisingly close to Emery's heart As a youth in the navy, he saw first-hand the surreal folly called the Vietnam War.

His ship took Australian troops to the battlefields. ITIHE FILM: Apocalypse Now. The place: a strip of beach In 1 1 Port Melbourne under the 1 1 shadow of the West Gate i I Bridge. The director Ted Emery, a former clarinet player, able seaman and producer of Countdown who is widely regarded as the quiet Inspiration behind Fast Forward. Art Is Imitating art.

But unlike the making of the original Apocalypse Now, there Is no sign of Ted's wife, Barbara, hovering In the background with a movie camera. Nor Is it likely that Channel 7 will suddenly reclaim its three model helicopters to handle an insurgency back at the studio. There Isn't even a hint of an actor with a drug problem. Ted Emery's segment of Francis Ford Coppola's mlnd-and-budget-blowlng blockbuster will be made with four potted palms, six sandbags, some bamboo screens, a handful of flares, four fake rifles, a smoke machine, some plastic toys, two comedians and four extras. It will be funny, fast and created on a budget a description that might also apply to Mr Emery himself.

A tall, shambolic figure dressed In his trademark outfit of army pants, T-shirt and runners, Emery strides around with an air of driven enthusiasm. The closest this man comes to a directorial tantrum Is when he Is asked to put on a jacket by a photog rapher. Emery definitely has a budget taste In clothes. He is rumored to own Just two pairs of pants: the ones he is wearing and a summer pair that zip off Into shorts. But it is not Ted Emery's dress sense that makes him one of the best directors in Australian television.

As director and co-executive producer of Fast Forward, he is the man behind the look and the feel of a program famed for Us ability to parody our television, cinematic and advertising heritage. Ted Emery and his crew have an uncanny knack of getting things right They have reproduced ancient episodes of the Mr Ed sitcom, right down to the scratches on the film. They have given us the saccharine lighting and nauseating music of a mock Barbie Doll advertisement. They re-created in awful detail the film clip for Cher's song If I Could Turn Back Time, in which the under-dressed singer straddled the barrel of a gun turret amid a naval entourage. Emery and crew made their Melbourne version of that filmclip at HMAS Cerebus, where Emery had once done a fire-fighting course.

They used "a clever, alternative-thinking some old air-conditioning ducts and 200 navy personnel to recreate the clip in just 10 hours. Indeed, as a viewer you are sometimes so busy laughing at the look of a Fast Forward skit that you forget the words aren't particularly funny. JUST what is it about Ted Emery that has the cast of Fast Forward paying homage to him In frequent media interviews? Co-executive producer and close friend, Andrew Knight explains, "He's a master of lighting and look. He quickly evokes a mood and he knows how to throw your rhythm when you watch something so you don't become complacent as a viewer He's naturally a very funny man and he's got an extraordinary visual sense." Continuod: PAGE 6 nnni i Aeraa The LASER 386SX Notebook is the best value system available in Australia today. VGA Screen Superior 64 Grey Scale BONUS ADDITIONS: OPTIONS AVAILABLE INCLUDE yMo4 0 3.5" 1.44 Mb Floppy Drive LASER 5.25" Ext.

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