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Title: SHELL SHOCK

Reference number: 7241

Date: 1991

Director: d. Eddie McConnell

Sponsor: Channel 4 and Scottish Film Production Fund

Production company: IFA (Scotland)

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: col

Fiction: fiction

Running time: 13.40 mins

Description: Take an egg and make it your star. You don’t have to pay it too much. Make sure it doesn’t crack under the strain. Not breaking like an egg should it refuses to be crushed. When the authorities finally put pressure on it a malevolent revenge results. (E. McConnell)

Also known under working title SURVIVAL (?)

Credits: ph. Eddie McConnell
add. ph. Norrie Halley
lighting and effects Alex McKenzie
with Tom Busby
radio voice Bill Jack
dubbing ed. Iain Lewicki
radio voice Bill Jack
dubbing Iain Lewicki

And thanks to David Capey, Jackie Clydesdale, Perry Costello, Eric Coulter, Frank Docherty, Martina and Joe Gormley, Alasdair Gray, Patrick McGurn, Kirsty Scott, Puplis [sic] of Merksworth School, Paisley

With assistance of Scottish Film Production Fund and Channel 4
Printed by Metrocolour
Copyright IFA Scotland 1991

Shotlist: title sequence, c/u skull with egg glowing red, placed in eye socket (0.45) glowing egg bobbing on seashore (1.38) egg now on sandy shore (1.52) two men out to hunt, carrying guns. gvs natural life, including puffins, seagulls, gannet chicks feeding, and nests, deer in field (2.44) man uses binoculars to seek his prey, focussing in on egg in tree branches. Sound of gunshot (3.50) egg floating down stream, crossing walkway over motorway, going up escalator - deranged laughter is heard on soundtrack (4.36) c/u butterfly being pinned into display cabinet (5.26) shot of egg suspended in mid-air, motorway in background (5.33) ints Home Economics classroom [Merksworth High School, Paisley] where schoolchildren prepare fried eggs - they yolks are an array of weird and wonderful colours. A yellow yolk presents itself and people think this is odd. The teacher holds an egg up to her ear to hear deranged laughter (6.39) ints kitchen and family sitting down to a dinner of boiled eggs. One egg is cracked open to reveal a red spurting liquid inside. Another egg cannot be cracked open, even with a hammer. The egg is taken by man in white to an industrial workshop were it is forced to crack by heavy machinery. It glows red and laughter is heard before it finally cracks open (11.00) a bug escapes from the shell (11.57) gvs many eggs washing up on shore and 'laughing' as they speed up the sandy shore (13.06) ecs (13.40)