Gary Oldman narrates "The Man with a Turnip for a Head" animated short - HITRECORD

Gary Oldman narrates "The Man with a Turnip for a Head" animated short

MattConley

May 09, 2024

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2.2k

Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman took the stage at L.A.'s historic Orpheum Theatre ito perform a darkly comic poem penned by Metaphorest about the tragic demise of a man named Fred who was born with a turnip for a head.

This fellow called Fred,

Instead of a head,

Had a turnip on top of his neck

And the children would jeer,

For he looked pretty queer,

And the grown-ups would shout ‘bloody heck!’

Twas a troublesome sight,

To go walking at night,

And stumble upon the strange chap

So to stem the surprise,

In shocked onlookers eyes,

Fred fashioned himself a large cap

Then he drove into town,

But with his hat down,

He couldn’t see where he was headed

A terrible crash,

Turned Fred’s head to mash,

Yes, he was most certainly deaded

The moral herein,

Is that one cannot win,

When ashamed of one’s natural quirks

So parade them with pride,

Never hide them inside,

For fear of offending life’s jerks

Mr. Oldman's live performance took place at the grandest of HITRECORD's live shows - 2011's Fall Formal - where everyone showed up dressed up to the nines with their shoes shined. And, of course, the audience brought their cameras to record the entire evening of theatrics.

Morgan Susser captured some of the sharpest-looking video footage of Mr. Oldman's reading...

Once the Fall Formal had concluded, it was time for the HITRECORD community to start remixing Mr. Oldman's voiceover into an animated short film.

First, the main character of Fred would need to be created. Joe gave the direction that Fred should be a prim and proper, buttoned-up, completely normal-looking man... except for his turnip head.

thefuture contributed these dashing designs of our ill-fated protagonist...

...and then master animator MarieIv put the character into motion...

...while mixing in visual ingredients contributed by different artists on HITRECORD — everything from illustrated background characters to a random photo of a fabric pattern.

Musicians played the various parts of musicinyourhead's composition, and then we had ourselves a completed musical score to pair with Marie's delightful animated portion:

Turnip Head Score Audio CLEAN musicinyourhead

Here is the project page where this short film - and first ballot HITRECORD Hall of Fame entry - came together.