All You Need Is Cash is a
mockumentary based on The Rutles, a British Rock Group that has resemblance to
The Beatles which is "purely - and satirically - intentional". The
Rutles are just a parody of the Beatles and the events and songs featured in
this film are parodies as well. Eg. Yellow Submarine is Yellow Submarine Sandwich
and Get Back is Get Up And Go. What I classified as the opening for this one is when the first song ends, the titles have been shown and we have our explanation of who the Rutles are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA7bYjCbfX4
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At the start of the film, we are met with a mid shot of screaming girls, not in terror but joy. Before we even see the group we know they're a big deal, because of just the sheer happiness the fans seem to have. The audio is diegetic screaming that bridges into non-diegetic when the shot freezes. The moment the shot freezes captures the expressions of the fans, emphasizing what I mentioned before. Everything before the title is in black and white, which from a timeline standard makes it believable if we're considering The Rutles follow the same basic event structure of The Beatles. This should be the early days of the Rutles, which for the Beatles was 1960. Color TV's didn't become mainstream till mid 60's, early 70's, so it makes sense for this to be in B&W. The shot then swipes to long shot of a plane, which we could believe has The Rutles within. This swipe allows them to transition in a way that isn't a straight edit but also isn't a scene transition, just changing perspective. It then goes to a crab shot of more screaming fans before freezing again, but this time its a close-up and the fans are behind a gate. With how close they are to the gate, it has the illusion of busting out of jail which shows the determination of these fans. Non-diegetic music has just started to fade in, which sound like The Beatles song Get Back. When you listen to the lyrics however, you can tell it has the exact opposite meaning, as this isn't Get Back but a parody of it called Get Up And Go. The Rutles themselves have had a lot of songs made for them that are straight up parodies of Beatles songs, which provide humour due to the different meanings of the song and because it plays with expectations of what you think the song will be.
The freeze frame then swipes to a long shot of the planes nose opening, not something you see often and since the audience can see that part of it that is opening, it creates a bit of suspense as to what's inside even though they can probably work out what it's going to be. When the shot turns into a long shot that zooms into become a mid shot of the front of the aircraft, we can see the door the Rutles are there, smiling and waving. This sells the audience that they are a big deal, because they act like they are. We're also sold on it by the reaction in the next shot, where the fans are smiling and waving back. The screaming is still there, but not as loud, to continue believability. It then cuts back to the mid shot, with the Rutles jumping down and walking forward, leading into a freeze with the text "The Rutles" appearing on screen in red with a white outline. The colour red stands out on the B&W background, to draw more attention to how important he is.
The text fades out and then as the music follows, from top to bottom scrolls a mini introduction to The Rutles, an introduction done in a humorous way. The first half of it is a joke on how every group these days are called living legends, so they incorporated "living" and "legend" into every way possible in the sentence. It's funny because it's redundant and people just can't take it seriously. It's also helped by the way after that this story is called semi-legendary, making it sound underwhelming which is humorous in its own regard. The second half of the introduction comes down to the speed of the scroll, which is too fast for the narrator to keep up with, so he has talk fast to keep up. This is humorous because of how unnecessary it is. It takes something that could be very standard and changes one element to make it funny. The names of the Rutles are also said here and they create humour themselves because of how strong sounding 3 of the names are and how average the last one is: "Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry". As the text finishes scrolling "Get Up and Go" continues playing.
The entirety of the next shot is a gag, a forty second long one. I would say how the camera starts, but it isn't consistent, zooming in and out. We see the Rutles getting in a car to avoid fans, door shuts, immediately out that car the other side to get in another car, door shuts, out that car to get in the front of the van, shut the door, climb out the back, brush themselves down, get in a final car and then be driven away. The reason this joke works is because of how cartoonish it feels. It takes a fairly standard concept we expect, rushing into cars to be driven away, and plays with our expectation of what happens. The first time, it's funny because its unexpected. The second, it's funny because its even more unexpected when they already pulled that joke. The truck is an unexpected vehicle choice and going from front to back is also funny. The truck also gets laughs with the fact the lyrics at this time in "Get Up And Go" are about a truck. After getting out the back, you see them briefly slow down and wipe themselves down which creates humour in the fact they have time to clean themselves up a bit when they should be running. When they get in the final car, we see the number plate "Rut 1", which while it is part of Rutles name, it also provides humour because of "rut" having two definitions. "A long deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles", which is funny because they are in one. The other definition is "a habit or pattern of behaviour that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change" which implies that things won't go very well. As they drive off text in similar fashion as before fades on saying the title "The Rutles in All You Need Is Cash". This title is a parody of a phrase commonly associated with The Beatles due to it being a title of one of their songs "All You Need Is Love".
The music then stops and we're taken to present day, where someone is introducing the Rutles and walking down a street while doing so. What starts of as an inherently normal scene, changes to become more comedic as it goes along. First off, the man is introducing them in a perfectly straight and normal way, but what he says is underwhelming and at points downright silly. Two examples are how the Rutles would "last a lunchtime" and "Their first album was made in 20 minutes. The second... took even longer." This is a clear parody of typical explanations that describe sensations by making them seem unimpressive or not giving us a solid idea because this entire line of dialogue is taking the mick. Apart from the dialogue, there's also humor obtained from the way the shot is filmed. It starts of as a tracking mid shot and follows aside the man. However, the camera is placed on a slowly accelerating bike, so the reporter needs to keep up with it. While it starts off at walking speed, eventually he needs to pick up the pace, to jogging, to running across the street when the bike goes to fast for legs to carry. This provides humor because it's not only ridiculous, but it's making fun of the shot usually used at this point in a documentary, which is usually slow paced and occasionally not engaging. It perfectly captures the mocking elements the genre is known for, while progressing the coverage at normal pace.
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At the start of the film, we are met with a mid shot of screaming girls, not in terror but joy. Before we even see the group we know they're a big deal, because of just the sheer happiness the fans seem to have. The audio is diegetic screaming that bridges into non-diegetic when the shot freezes. The moment the shot freezes captures the expressions of the fans, emphasizing what I mentioned before. Everything before the title is in black and white, which from a timeline standard makes it believable if we're considering The Rutles follow the same basic event structure of The Beatles. This should be the early days of the Rutles, which for the Beatles was 1960. Color TV's didn't become mainstream till mid 60's, early 70's, so it makes sense for this to be in B&W. The shot then swipes to long shot of a plane, which we could believe has The Rutles within. This swipe allows them to transition in a way that isn't a straight edit but also isn't a scene transition, just changing perspective. It then goes to a crab shot of more screaming fans before freezing again, but this time its a close-up and the fans are behind a gate. With how close they are to the gate, it has the illusion of busting out of jail which shows the determination of these fans. Non-diegetic music has just started to fade in, which sound like The Beatles song Get Back. When you listen to the lyrics however, you can tell it has the exact opposite meaning, as this isn't Get Back but a parody of it called Get Up And Go. The Rutles themselves have had a lot of songs made for them that are straight up parodies of Beatles songs, which provide humour due to the different meanings of the song and because it plays with expectations of what you think the song will be.
The freeze frame then swipes to a long shot of the planes nose opening, not something you see often and since the audience can see that part of it that is opening, it creates a bit of suspense as to what's inside even though they can probably work out what it's going to be. When the shot turns into a long shot that zooms into become a mid shot of the front of the aircraft, we can see the door the Rutles are there, smiling and waving. This sells the audience that they are a big deal, because they act like they are. We're also sold on it by the reaction in the next shot, where the fans are smiling and waving back. The screaming is still there, but not as loud, to continue believability. It then cuts back to the mid shot, with the Rutles jumping down and walking forward, leading into a freeze with the text "The Rutles" appearing on screen in red with a white outline. The colour red stands out on the B&W background, to draw more attention to how important he is.
The text fades out and then as the music follows, from top to bottom scrolls a mini introduction to The Rutles, an introduction done in a humorous way. The first half of it is a joke on how every group these days are called living legends, so they incorporated "living" and "legend" into every way possible in the sentence. It's funny because it's redundant and people just can't take it seriously. It's also helped by the way after that this story is called semi-legendary, making it sound underwhelming which is humorous in its own regard. The second half of the introduction comes down to the speed of the scroll, which is too fast for the narrator to keep up with, so he has talk fast to keep up. This is humorous because of how unnecessary it is. It takes something that could be very standard and changes one element to make it funny. The names of the Rutles are also said here and they create humour themselves because of how strong sounding 3 of the names are and how average the last one is: "Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry". As the text finishes scrolling "Get Up and Go" continues playing.
The entirety of the next shot is a gag, a forty second long one. I would say how the camera starts, but it isn't consistent, zooming in and out. We see the Rutles getting in a car to avoid fans, door shuts, immediately out that car the other side to get in another car, door shuts, out that car to get in the front of the van, shut the door, climb out the back, brush themselves down, get in a final car and then be driven away. The reason this joke works is because of how cartoonish it feels. It takes a fairly standard concept we expect, rushing into cars to be driven away, and plays with our expectation of what happens. The first time, it's funny because its unexpected. The second, it's funny because its even more unexpected when they already pulled that joke. The truck is an unexpected vehicle choice and going from front to back is also funny. The truck also gets laughs with the fact the lyrics at this time in "Get Up And Go" are about a truck. After getting out the back, you see them briefly slow down and wipe themselves down which creates humour in the fact they have time to clean themselves up a bit when they should be running. When they get in the final car, we see the number plate "Rut 1", which while it is part of Rutles name, it also provides humour because of "rut" having two definitions. "A long deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles", which is funny because they are in one. The other definition is "a habit or pattern of behaviour that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change" which implies that things won't go very well. As they drive off text in similar fashion as before fades on saying the title "The Rutles in All You Need Is Cash". This title is a parody of a phrase commonly associated with The Beatles due to it being a title of one of their songs "All You Need Is Love".
The music then stops and we're taken to present day, where someone is introducing the Rutles and walking down a street while doing so. What starts of as an inherently normal scene, changes to become more comedic as it goes along. First off, the man is introducing them in a perfectly straight and normal way, but what he says is underwhelming and at points downright silly. Two examples are how the Rutles would "last a lunchtime" and "Their first album was made in 20 minutes. The second... took even longer." This is a clear parody of typical explanations that describe sensations by making them seem unimpressive or not giving us a solid idea because this entire line of dialogue is taking the mick. Apart from the dialogue, there's also humor obtained from the way the shot is filmed. It starts of as a tracking mid shot and follows aside the man. However, the camera is placed on a slowly accelerating bike, so the reporter needs to keep up with it. While it starts off at walking speed, eventually he needs to pick up the pace, to jogging, to running across the street when the bike goes to fast for legs to carry. This provides humor because it's not only ridiculous, but it's making fun of the shot usually used at this point in a documentary, which is usually slow paced and occasionally not engaging. It perfectly captures the mocking elements the genre is known for, while progressing the coverage at normal pace.
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What I've learnt from The Rutles is sometimes simple intros have the same effects as one's that have a lot of effort put into them. It depends how the simplistic nature is used. As long as it gets the point across, it's good. It also shows how a musical mockumentary should be done, with songs that aren't serious and a story that is ridiculous.