The fox and the fire hydrant

I made an 18 second film of the fox on the same Brooklyn block as the ice cream film, on another hot afternoon in 1989. A fire hydrant is open and the kids on the street are running through the spray. He takes his trainers off on the kerb, steps barefoot into the road and walks in under the arc of water. The moment he gets there, the water is gone. A hand is on the hydrant. Every kid around him is soaked, and he is the only dry thing on the street. He stares at the camera.

The story

Every fox film starts from one line: what he wants, and what takes it from him. Here he wants to cool off in the hydrant's spray, and the water stops the moment he steps under it. If the line needs an "and then", the story is too complicated for 20 seconds, and this one doesn't.

The joke is a reversal. A whole street is soaked, kids, grown-ups, the pavement, and the one who wanted it most is the one who stays dry. So the last wide shot matters more than the stop itself. He stands in the middle of a wet road with dripping kids all around him turning to look, and you can see straight away that he is the only dry one.

The open hydrant comes from Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989), which is set on one Brooklyn block over the hottest day of the summer. In it, kids open a fire hydrant to cool off, and the police come and shut it. I took the hydrant and the police turning it off, and nothing else from the scene. Like the ice cream film, I also took the setting, the low and tilted camera, and the year.

The decisions behind it

He takes his trainers off first. A fox who walks straight into the water is a fox who gets unlucky. A fox who stops on the kerb to pull his trainers off has decided he is going in. His face never changes, so the wanting has to show in what he does, and pulling his high-tops off is how the film says how much he wants it. It is also the lead-up the story needs, so the stop lands on something he has put a bit of effort into.

His bare paws get their own close-up. After the trainers, there is a shot at ground level of his paws stepping off the dry kerb onto the wet road. It slows the film down for a beat, right before the joke, and it is the moment he commits.

The gag is shot from behind him. The camera is low, just behind the fox, with him small in the middle of the frame and the arc of water right over his head. From there, you stand where he stands and look where he looks. A side-on shot would show the water and the fox as two things next to each other, and from behind they are one picture: him under it.

You don't see the hand on the hydrant until after the water has stopped. In the rooftop opening the jet comes in from outside the frame, so you see the water and not where it comes from. The first time you see who is in charge of it is the cut to the hand, after the water is gone. It is the same rule as the scoop in the ice cream film: the cause of the joke arrives with the joke, never before it.

The street goes quiet with him. Over the hand on the hydrant the hiss of the water and the music both fall away, and by the wide shot of him in the wet road the street has gone quiet, with the loud part of the day over.

He is small. The prompt gives his size against the kids, with his cap coming up to their shoulders and the kids written as eleven or twelve. He ends up shorter and slimmer than all of them. A small fox among big kids is easier to feel for, and the brick and fire escapes tower over him from the low camera.

The heat is something you can see. It is hard sun on a clear sky and sharp black shadows under the stoops and railings. People sit out in vests. The prompt asks for a woman fanning herself with a newspaper, a towel over an old man's head and box fans in the windows. A man sits on a stoop with a big portable radio beside him. The heat comes from the place and the people in it, never from words like blazing.

It ends on his stare. Many of our fox films end the same way, with him looking flat and bored into the lens, and here he is completely dry, with the man and his big radio and a woman in pink on a stoop soft behind him.

How the prompt is written

The prompt is the ice cream film's prompt with a new story put into it. The style block is the same: 35mm film in 1989, a gritty low-budget look, the low wide camera with a tilt, the camera still within each shot, and the fox as the only animated thing in a real street. Using the same block keeps the two films looking like the same block on two days.

"The top of his red cap comes only up to the kids' shoulders, and he is thinner than any of them, no bigger than a five-year-old child." Every size is given against something else in the shot. "Small" on its own means nothing to a model when the people beside him are children.

"He stays completely dry in every shot: not one drop of water ever touches him." It is in the character block, and again in the list of things it must not do. The joke depends on it more than on anything else, so it is said more than once.

"At that exact moment the whole jet cuts out to nothing at once, from the hydrant to the end of the arc." The model is told the water stops all at once, never weakening first. If it trailed off, the viewer would see it coming.

"Nobody stands near the hydrant" and "No police officer anywhere in the film except his hand on the wrench in the close-up of the hydrant." These are there so the cause of the joke stays hidden until the cut.

"The music and the water cut dead at the same moment when the jet stops." Sound is written in the prompt, so the silence is part of the joke.

"Box fans turn in the open windows above." The heat is written as things a camera would photograph.

The prompt

It was given two of our own pictures, the fox from the front and from behind, and no picture of the place. Here it is as it was run:

STYLE: Real live-action film footage, shot on grainy 35mm film stock in 1989 on location on a run-down residential street in Brooklyn, New York, during a heatwave. It looks like a gritty, low-budget independent film of that year: raw, real, slightly faded colour, heavy film grain, nothing polished. The hottest afternoon of the year: hard, direct afternoon sun from a clear, bleached white-blue sky, every surface brightly sunlit, sharp black shadows under the stoops, the railings and the people. No grey sky, no overcast, no mist hanging in the air. No sun rays, no lens flare, no glow, no haze effects. The street is real and worn: cracked pavement, peeling paint, rusty fire escapes, black rubbish bags on the kerb, a battered old car. The colour comes from real things: red brick, painted doors, people's bright summer clothes, the white spray of water. Every shot after the first is from very low down, almost on the ground, on a wide-angle lens, looking up, with the brick buildings and fire escapes towering behind, the frame tilted a little off level. The camera is locked off within each shot and cuts straight between shots. The stylized fox character from [Image1] and [Image2] is placed into this real world the way a computer-animated bear is placed into a live-action family film: his face stays exactly as the references, with realistic dense orange fur, real contact shadows on the pavement. He is the only animated thing in the film. Everything and everyone around him is real, photographed for real.

PLACE: A Brooklyn block of red brick brownstones with high front stoops and iron railings. In the middle of the block an open red fire hydrant on the kerb shoots a thick, roaring white jet of water in a high arc across the street. Real local kids about eleven or twelve years old, in shorts and vests, run and jump through the spray, shrieking and laughing; a man in a vest stands in it with his arms out; a woman on the kerb lets it soak her legs. The road around the hydrant is wet and shining. People sit out on the stoops in the sun in the background, in vests and shorts: a woman fans herself with a folded newspaper, an old man has a wet towel over his head, box fans turn in the open windows above. Nobody stands near the hydrant. No readable signs, labels, graffiti or words anywhere.

CHARACTER - THE FOX: One fox, small and slight: the top of his red cap comes only up to the kids' shoulders, and he is thinner than any of them, no bigger than a five-year-old child. Slim build, fluffy orange fur, cream cheeks, heavy-lidded golden yellow eyes, thick orange tail with a cream tip. For the heat he wears a plain white sleeveless vest, a plain red baseball cap with no logo, his two ears standing up through it, dark blue rolled jeans and white high-top trainers. Bored and grumpy in every shot: eyes alert under flat, heavy lids, brows a little low, mouth a flat line. His expression never changes, even when he wants to get into the water. Keep his exact face, fur colour and his small size against the kids the same in every shot. He has exactly two arms and two paws. He stays completely dry in every shot: not one drop of water ever touches him, his fur and his vest are dry from the first frame to the last.

0-3s: High shot looking straight down from a rooftop over the whole Brooklyn block in the heat: the street, the stoops crowded with people sitting out, rubbish bags on the kerb, the white arc of water from the open hydrant across the road with kids running through it, and on the kerb nearby, small, the fox in his red cap and white vest, standing apart from them.

3-7s: Wide shot from low down on the kerb, looking up. The kids leap through the roaring spray in the foreground, soaked and laughing. Behind them on the dry kerb the fox bends down and pulls off his white high-top trainers one at a time and sets them side by side on the kerb, his face bored and grumpy.

7-10s: Close-up at ground level on the edge of the wet road. His bare orange paws step off the dry kerb, past his two white trainers, towards the spray. Water bounces off the road in the background.

10-12.5s: Shot from low down just behind him, the fox small in the centre of the frame with his back to us, the thick white arc of water roaring right over his head and coming down just in front of him, the kids soaked and shrieking either side. He takes two steps forward so the arc is coming down straight onto the spot where he stands. At that exact moment the whole jet cuts out to nothing at once, from the hydrant to the end of the arc, in a split second. Not one drop lands on him. The kids either side stop and look.

12.5-14s: Close-up of the red hydrant at ground level. A real police officer's hand grips a big iron hydrant wrench on the hydrant's nut and finishes turning it. The last water dribbles out of the hydrant and stops.

14-17s: Wide shot from low down, tilted. The street is suddenly quiet. The fox stands in the middle of the wet road, bone dry, barefoot, his trainers on the kerb behind him. All around him the kids, the man in the vest and the woman are soaked through, water pouring off their hair and clothes, their skin shining wet in the hard sun, and they all turn to look at him. He is the only dry thing on the street. Water drips from a fire escape.

17-20s: Close-up of his face from the front, low down, tilted, the cap brim above his eyes, his fur completely dry, wet brick and dripping people soft behind him. He stares, flat and bored, straight into the lens.

SOUND: A hot city street: the roar and hiss of the hydrant, kids shrieking and laughing, water splashing on the road, distant traffic. MUSIC: an original late-1980s hip-hop beat with a heavy drum and bass line, playing loud from a big portable radio on a stoop, never any existing song. The music and the water cut dead at the same moment when the jet stops, and only a few drips and the far-off traffic are left. No dialogue, no narration.

NEGATIVE: Not animated, not a cartoon, not a 3D animated film, no computer-generated people or buildings, no rendered or polished look, no sun rays, no lens flare, no painted background, no game look. Everything except the fox is real, live-action photography. The fox never has wide eyes, never grins, never smiles, never opens his mouth wide, never looks excited or cute. No hoodie. The fox never gets wet: no water on him, no wet fur, no splash on him, no puddle splashing up on him. The jet never sweeps, drops low or sprays sideways across the road. The water does not slow down or weaken before it stops; it stops all at once when he is under it. No police officer anywhere in the film except his hand on the wrench in the close-up of the hydrant. No grey sky, no overcast light. The fox is never as big as the kids. No readable words, signs, labels, graffiti or logos anywhere, nothing written on the cap. No dog, no bird, no other animal. No second fox, no change to his face, no feral animal on all fours, no human hands on the fox, no extra arms or paws, no distorted anatomy, no floating. No close-up of sweat, no drops of sweat on his face.

The cut

The model makes 20 seconds, and I cut it to 18. I cut out the second where the model swings the jet sideways across the road, and went from the shot behind him straight to the hydrant, so on screen the water is gone from the cut on. I cropped the rooftop shot a little tighter so the hydrant is outside the frame. A few things on screen are not quite what the prompt asks for. At the hydrant it is a hand on the cap rather than a wrench, the word PRESSURE is cast on the hydrant's side, and in the shot from behind him his trainers sit beside him in the road. I left all three. You read the hand as the cause straight away, and the shot behind him is on screen for less than two seconds.

Before anyone else saw it, I found the cuts with ffmpeg's scene detection, read the shot behind him and the hand at eight frames a second, and counted his arms and paws in every shot.