Concept and creative process
‘Number On End' was a comedy drama in the 'Play for Today' strand on BBC One. The lead character Steve Jackson is a documentary film maker, but due to a number of inexplicable mishaps, he is on the run from surveillance himself. The titles hint at this malaise when the opening scene we are watching is disrupted by a red wax pencil drawing a line down the frames as they slow down and roll through shot. The camera pulls out to reveal that the film we thought we were watching is actually slowing down in the gate of a moviola editing machine. The film freezes in the gate and the wax pencil puts a cross over the frozen frame of Steve Jackson's face. The heat of the projection lamp promptly burns out the freeze frame and it melts. The same technique was used for the maintitle and author's credit. The live action sequence was shot on 16mm film. The take-over shot from the point where the wax pencil enters frame to where the frame burns and melts was shot stop frame on 35mm. Stop frame animation and optical effects were by Bert Walker, Zephyr films.
Designer/Director - Bob Cosford.