Seniors Shoot Comedy Videos

That's a wrap! After laboring for eight 20-hour days on a video-designing project for the American Comedy Network, two Harvard seniors made their mark on the video industry with the completion of two short animated films.

Eric Pulier '88 and John H. Lindauer '87-'88 last month designed animated films to accompany radio gags professionally produced by ACN, a company that provides short spoofs to 216 radio stations around the country.

"I think it was the excitement that pulled us through it," said Pulier. "I would never do it in that little time again."

Bob James, vice president and creative director of ACN, recruited the seniors to help create the company's first television show. But it wasn't until 12 days before the scheduled airing of the show that the team finally met--leaving Pulier and Lindauer just eight days to pull the project together.

"If that had been an animation class at Harvard," said Pulier, "this would have been a semester's project."

Preparation H

The seniors created a clay figure named Abominoes' Roid, a hemorrhoid, to star in a 39-second video based on the Dominoes Noid.

The other film, a minute-long cartoon, features Pope-eye, a holy man. To the tune of Popeye's theme, Pope-eye sings, "I'm Pope-eye, the holy man. I live in the Vatican..." In the short, drawn from the original 1927 Popeye series, Pope-eye baptizes Brutus and hears Olive Oyl's confession as a gay-rights leader.

According to Pulier, the clay Roid--who jumps around in a pants pocket in the shorter video--melted many times during filming because the studio was too warm. The seniors had to keep re-posing the figure in order to shoot the 12 pictures required for each second of the film.

The partners agreed that their collaboration was successful: "We argued enough that we came out with something good," said Pulier, "but we didn't argue too much that we didn't get anything done."

Lindauer had previously worked on three music videos, and a disc jockey recommended that James ask the student for creative assistance. James asked Lindauer, along with Pulier, to provide visualized films to accompany the professionally prepared soundtrack.

Promising Future

"It's pretty apparent that these guys really have a great future in this area," James said.

The two put in so many hours of work that, by the end of the week, they were worn out. The day before their last on the job, they missed a bus back to Harvard because they fell asleep at the Brighton busstop.

"It was a lot of fun," said Lindauer, "but I feel incredibly relieved that it's done."