The overarching theme for this video was 'has been'! While not suggesting I was ever 'famous' enough to be deemed a bonafide has-been, I wanted to lean into that energy and really play up the retro and nostalgia vibes. No one was meant to instantly register all these references - it's a good video if you don't have to think too much about it. In fact, my process for putting videos together is largely intuitive so I had to go back and check to list any references I included.
Opening credits
For one, it seems opening credits aren't a thing anymore, although I have a special penchant for them. I was inspired by this old television show from Australia called A Country Practice. Font choices were so questinable back then.
It was one of those shows that was on for a thousand years, but as a I child I mainly remember it as the show that came on after all the favourite shows. You know, like the news, it's a show with the notable theme song which signals to you as a child that the good time is over. I wanted to put a full blown 'vintage' filter on this opening, but it seemed too heavy handed.
(image from http://kramersapartment.com/)
None of this scene would be possible without the music. Most royalty-free music is perfect for cheesy videos.
Infomercial
It was all over once I found a 'VHS tape' filter for Premiere Pro. The glitchy tape, the squarer ratio, the bad colours - it was remarkably easy to put that effect in. I wanted to use this in a million areas, so showing restraint was the hardest part. This idea was simply to invoke those shameless infomercials, which still exist today.
Siri / Ildi / Cooking
Let's face it, 'Siri' is retro now. Yes we still use her (at least I use her to set alarms) and she's better than ever, but let's not forget how utterly useless it was during peak Siri times. I wanted to poke fun at frustrating digital assistants/chat bots or the idea of the sassy GPS (I can't be the only one who talks back when they're so demanding?). This was blended with the cheesy cooking show concept from back in the day where the host pretends to be in their kitchen.
I wonder how useful people found those shows, because I need to replay the same 10 seconds of a cooking video up to 15 times before I figure out what to do next.
JIM COOPER/AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Clearly you can see my kitchen is much better stocked than his. He doesn't seem to have even a single type of paprika.
Csak egy gyonyoru gyongytyukom van
What an obscure reference from a very old video. If anyone got the reference to 'gyuri a gyonyoru gyongytyuk', I'm infinitely impressed.
Google Search Results
I was so curious if anyone would pick up on this one. I filled the Google Search results with stupid stuff, my favourite being 'Baratok Kozt szpoilerek'. My dream was someone exposing me thinking it wasn't intentional (sure tom)
How telling is a Google search history about someone's life? What kind of person would be Googling this collection of stuff?? Plus don't you know of want to hang out with them? The mind is meant to wander.
Nyelvtanulas tapes
Who doesn't love 'language learning tapes'? The rushed 'repeat after me', the 'pronunciation drills', the fake conversations. I think these are largely a relic of the past now that we can learn in more interactive ways or talk so easily with people around the world.
I wanted to find a tape from longer ago, because it's always interesting to see how the focus of these types of resources changes over time. I had to quite a bit back in time before I stumbled upon this Hungarian Basic course from Live Lingua.
Despite some of the dialogue being outdated, it's actually a magnificent resource. It's so thorough and I actually did use it to brush up. Plus who can resist that fuzzy old school charm of cassette quality audio. Though sometimes I questioned just how useful some of the example sentences would be for me today.
Winamp
Casting my mind back to how we used to play audio files back in the day, I wanted to keep up the retro theme by pretending to play it on Winamp (the popular software for audio way back when). Of course I clearly had no consistency into terms of time eras throughout all this references.
It was astonishing to see you can still download Winamp and the 'skins' were still available to help you customise its look. I definitely wasted far too much time down memory lane playing around with the add ons.
As a side note, in the video I included my pronunciation of English words for the cheap thrills. I hope people know I was (mostly) exaggerating!!!!
For all the transition scenes and the ending montage, I used a spectacular royalty-free music which was entitled I think Police Chase. I wanted to simulate the vibe they had in older TV shows like Baywatch or Beverly Hills 90210 that used those dramatic guitar riffs.
It was so necessary to include an Australian animal shot with a Hungarian name. The koala footage was taken at Taronga Zoo. It's incredibly hard to get compelling koala footage since they sleep so much!
I used to give the animals Hungarian names in my old videos, so wanted to pay homage to that. The baby Koala's actual name is Matteo so he became Matyi. The mother I named Kati, but only found out later that her name is Wattle. I was bowled over when people recalled the fake Hungarian names I gave some koalas from 10 year old videos (which was Zsiga es Hercegno)
So there you have it, a few backstories. Again, no one was meant to know all of them all at once, but hopefully it gives the video some kind rewatchability or ever sparks a conversation here or there.
I've never done a long breakdown like this before, so sorry for extreme length!
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