Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds

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Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds

DVD cover for the film
Directed by Jordan Cooper

Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds (2004) is a short film by Jordan Cooper and James Jajac. It is a parody of lame passionless daily comic strips, and ponders what kind of person could make such a thing. It is in "mockumentary" format, 37 minutes long, and a comedy.

Contents

[edit] Official Synopsis

"Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds" takes a look into the world of Tim Warner, creator and artist of the world famous “The Silver Lining,” a daily comic strip with heavy comparisons to the likes of Garfield, Ziggy, etc. The comic strip is all but devoid of humor, is mostly sunny, optimistic and predictable. Tim Warner himself appears to be a miserable, uptight and alone.

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In mockumentary style, we learn about Tim's childhood, early career, the many products "Silver Lining" endorses, and his dark period called "Silver Hell", where a nervous breakdown crippled the strip and left it full of expletives and violence. Many characters, fans and "experts" are interviewed, offering varying opinions on the "Silver Lining" phenomenon.

One day, as Tim checks for his Sunday edition of the strip, he notices it's missing. A new and more popular comic strip, "Sitting Ducks" (a parody of "Mallard Fillmore, Doonesbury, and other straight faces political strips) by cartoonist Lance Gold, has taken it's place. "The Silver Lining" has moved to the obituaries section. Tim and Lance begin fighting and name calling through the comics page, but then take it to the street in a physical and bizarre brawl.

[edit] Characters

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Tim Warner (played by James Jajac): Tim Warner is the creator of world famous comic strip, "The Silver Lining." He is assumed to be in his 40s or 50s, unmarried, and wears purple pants that hide a giant bottom. He does not show passion or heart for his work, except when it comes to its merchandising, yet is highly threatened and riled up when "The Silver Lining" is replaced by a new comic strip. He prefers as little fan interaction as possible, to draw as little as possible, and to repeat the same strip gags as often as possible. According to his biographer, he has been married 40 times.

Professor Nougat (Matthew Koff): Truly the biggest "Silver Lining" fan around. Author of over 12 books on the subject, Professor Nougat claims to be a psychologist and teacher who has devoted his life to researching and analyzing Tim Warner and his comic strip. Prominently featured in the documentary, Nougat is not shy about his somewhat controversial takes on "The Silver Lining." He has also written volumes of poetry dedicated to the strip, and he some how finds time to spend with his ex wife and children.

Melissa (Emily Felger): A sweet girl for whom "The Silver Lining" is nothing but a beacon of hope, love, kindness, and some hilarity mixed in. Her room is buried in every kind of Silver Lining product, the most special of which her Ted, Squiggles, and Doggy puppets. Completely devoted to "The Silver Lining" and its positive message, if it were to be corrupted in some way, she is not sure how she could handle herself and her identity. She has mixed feelings about "Silver Lining: The Movie."

Brian the Squiggles Maniac (Sam Brown): Possibly the most hardcore "Silver Lining" fan. Always wearing his Squiggles hat and shirt, Brian's favorite thing is sticking his hands up in the air and saying "meow," just like the catch phrase of his number one cartoon cat. He even has his own cat named Squiggles, who loves him very much. Brian works as a busboy and has mixed feelings about "Silver Lining: The Movie."

Lance Gold (Dave Fox): The villain. His comic strip, "Sitting Ducks" replaces "The Silver Lining" at the top spot in the paper. Bald and penguin-like, Lance is a fan of guns, women, cigarettes, and politics. He hates strips like "Silver Lining" with a passion, as he feels they are "ruining America."

[edit] THE SILVER LINING

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"The Silver Lining" stars Ted, Squiggles, and Doggy. It is a bright happy comic strip, where silly things happen (usually involving Squiggles.) Some strips do not end with a joke at all, but rather a positive affirmation.

CHARACTERS:

TED: Ted is the homeowner. It is unknown what his job is, or his last name. One thing you do know is that he always wears a green shirt.

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SQUIGGLES: The break out star of "The Silver Lining," who's catchphrase "MEOW" (with hands in the air) stirred the nation for years. Squiggles can often be seen skateboarding, knocking over bowls of food, or sleeping all day! Squiggles is gray and expressionless.

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DOGGY: The "underdog," if you will, of "Silver Lining." The least favorite among the fans, Doggy is a little yellow fat do who always has his heart in the right place. More expressive than Ted or Squiggles, Doggy is an under appreciated dose of personality to the strip.

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COUSIN ESKIMO: Introduced during a dip in the strip's popularity, this character caused an even deeper and darker dip. Ted's cousin from Alaska, Cousin Eskimo stayed with the gang for a few months before fans grew tired of the intruder and rebelled. This led to the darkest time in the strips period...

SILVER HELL: This was an alternate version of the strip published for just under a year, during a mental collapse suffered by Tim Warner. While it must be seen to be appreciated, many of the strips did not have any jokes at all, but were rather dark, abstract, frankly psychotic distortions of the original strip.

[edit] SITTING DUCKS

"Sitting Ducks" is the politically themed comic strip created by Lance Gold. It was drawn once, in 1991, and then photocopied and adjusted with new text in the word balloons for each day in the paper. The nameless duck who wears a necktie and smokes a cigarette offers his sometimes uncomfortable views on life, politics, and America.

[edit] BEHIND THE SCENES

The film was outlined excessively by Jordan Cooper and James Jajac, for Jordan's thesis at the School of Visual Arts in 2004. It was based on a 15 minute long improvised interview they taped for fun while they still had the school's video camera for one extra night.

For preproduction, James Jajac and Emily Felger handled the bulk of the props and puppet making. For it to be a believable "popular cartoon," many items such as posters, dolls, blankets, snowglobes, magnets, etc had to be made. James Jajac drew all of the Silver Lining comic strips and products, (many were also done during filming), and David Fox drew all of the Sitting Ducks strips. Together they totaled over 60 comic strips!

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The production was a one man crew of Jordan Cooper on camera, sound, lights, and directing. For larger scenes such as the fight scene, everybody lent a hand, including Elizabeth Sandoval for makeup. The production stretched out over 2 weeks to provide a relaxed, somewhat stress free pace, as Jordan Cooper is prone to vomiting from the stress of a film shoot. Ironically the most difficult sounding footage was the first and easiest, which was a cameo from cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. Berkeley Breathed is known for his comic strips "Bloom County" and their spin-offs, "Outland" and "Opus"

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Postproduction consisted of Jordan editing for roughly 3 months, and then composing the score in under a week. James, and Emily sang back up on the theme song "Ya Gotta Look At The (Silver Lining) and Dave provided a guitar solo.

[edit] POST-POST PRODUCTION

Tim Warner: A Life in the Clouds screened at the Big Apple Comic Convention (2005), MOCCA (the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art), and at a screening of films for the Antagonist's Art Movement. Film author John Kenneth Muir gave the film a glowing review on his website, followed by an interview with Jordan Cooper (and an addition from James Jajac.)

Currently the film can be seen at IFILM

Jordan and James are working on handing the film out and having it be seen by as many people as possible. Jordan has stated that he would like to edit it down to under half an hour, should he have access to editing equipment, which he does not.

[edit] The DVD

The DVD includes the movie (37 minutes long), plus extras:

- 3 Deleted Scenes reels

- An outtakes reel

- A gallery of all the "Silver Lining" and "Sitting Duck" comic strips

- An artwork gallery of "Silver Lining" ads and products, fan mail, art.

- A behind the scenes photo gallery

- Interactive menus and music

+ a full length "Silver Lining" Activity Book by Tim Warner

[edit] Links:

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