Arts & Culture

Are You Talkin’ To Me?

A Film column by Jamie Hill

The end credits are something that we all take for granted.

It’s that bit at the end of the movie where you can finally get up out of your chair and shake off all the popcorn without annoying that couple behind you who kept tutting throughout the film whenever you shifted slightly to get more comfortable.

We don’t exactly sit there transfixed trying desperately to spot the name of Julia Roberts’ personal assistant‚ hairdresser‚ pet’s therapist. Or who was that second extra from the left in that scene where Daniel Craig went into a shop to buy a packet of Revels.

A lot of hard work goes into a film. A whole army is involved. But we don’t care. We just get up when the time comes ignoring the fact that blood, sweat and tears went into getting the fat suit just right in Big Momma’s House 5 - Momma Brings Peace To The Middle East. It doesn’t matter to us.

All that matters is that occasionally you get someone with a stupid name like Geoff Fuchs - the assistant kettle carrier for Martin Scorcese in his classic movie sequel - Kundun - The Return (which incidentally had the tagline - he’s reincarnated again but this time it’s personal.)

Some cinemas even put the lights on before the end credits have even finished. That’s like blowing a raspberry straight into the face of Stephen Spielberg. Cinema attendants start cleaning the aisles even before we’ve found out that WETA had a CGI analyst just to do the hair molecules on Donald Sutherland’s eyebrows in The Hunger Games Five - Mockingjay and Silent Bob Strike Again.

The reason I know about sitting through the credits is because of the increasing number of films which force us to sit down throughout as they’ve added ‘a credits scene’ tucked right at the very end.

It started with blooper reels. Those hilarious out-takes from the main feature that run at the same time as the credits. Pixar do those magnificentally. My all-time favourite blooper reels though are still from the Cannonball Run movies. They were funnier than the films!

But it’s the Marvel franchises who’ve really gone to town on making us sit through the credits just so we can see the hidden scene that is tacked on the end to make us salivate for the next film in the franchise.

Marvel have got so greedy they’ve even introduced a mid-credits scene so you get two hidden scenes in the same credits.

That makes finding out who had the job of cleaning out Thor’s codpiece just that little bit more worth it.

Personally, I think we should all pay a bit more attention to the work that goes into something. This shouldn’t just apply to movies though. It’d be good if other industries started to do it.

Wouldn’t songs be that much more interesting if after the final beat we then got a list read out to us of everybody that was involved in a monotone voice?

No? How about restaurants? Menus could list the chef, the sous chef, the dishwasher, the waiter, the man who fitted the carpet, the farm, the cow’s parents, the cow’s grandparents, the animal that cows evolved from etc. etc.

I think you get the general idea.

Credits: Jamie Hill, his wife, his kids, his mum, his dad, that teacher who told him he wouldn’t amount to anything when he was eight, his first boss at the chip shop, the faulty condom factory. etc. etc…..