While both working on the movie “Charlotte’s Web” at Rising Sun Pictures (RSP) in Adelaide, Australia, my good friend Dan Wills and I wrote the “Lighters’ Song”. A homage to Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song”.

We had originally planned to act the whole piece out and make a short film clip from it. With two lighters tied together to form an eight-legged spider and a third ‘lighting’ this ‘creature’ with some torch and ‘reflection cards’ made from plastic picnic plates. The chorus would have been provided by another six to eight lighters.

However, the whole thing never came together at the end, but the lyrics remain. For anyone working in VFX as a lighter or lighting TD these should be fairly self-explanatory. For all the rest there’s an explanation of terms at the end of the article.

Here is the masterpiece:

1

I’m a lighter and I’m alright
I light all day and I bake all night

Chorus

He’s a lighter and he’s alright
He lights all day and he bakes all night

2

I aim the lights, I eat my lunch
I go to the client revie’e
On Wednesdays I visit the Exeter
and have pints o’ Pale ’till three

Chorus

He aims the lights, he eats his lunch
He goes to the client revie’e
On Wednesdays he visits the Exeter
and has pints o’ pale ’till three
He’s a lighter and he’s alright
He lights all day and he bakes all night

3

I aim the lights, I frisk and romp
I tweak my’self for hours
I put on spandex stretchsuits
and give my comp’er flowers

Chorus

He aims the lights, he frisks and romps
He tweaks himself for hours
He puts on spandex stretchsuits
and gives his comper flowers
He’s a lighter and he’s alright
He lights all day and he bakes all night

4

I aim the lights, I wear a gag
and butt plug on my jaunty
I wish I’d been a comper
just like my horny aunty

Chorus

He aims the lights, he wears a gag
and butt plug on his jaunty
He wished he was a comper
just like his horny aunty
He’s a lighter and he’s alright
He lights all day and he bakes all night

Explanation of terms

“Baking all night” — RSP’s pipeline at the time required lighters to kick-off the baking of animation & ambient/reflection occlusion before actual lighting on a shot could start. This could take some time and lighters were asked to quality-control the result too; which could come back from the render farm late (at night).

“Client review” — what is mostly called “Dailies with the client” in other VFX facilities.

“The Exeter” is a pub on Adelaide’s Rundle Street that people from RSP use(d) to frequent, particularly on Wednesday nights.

“Pints ‘o Pale” certainly refers to pints (many) of Coopers Pale Ale. Undisputedly one of the finest beers to be found on the 3^rd planet of the Sol system.

The last strophe contains a reference to another anecdote that gave birth to the term “horny comper” and shall certainly not be omitted here.

Not long after I arrived at RSP in early 2005, I joined already ongoing look development efforts on Charlotte, the main character of the movie mentioned above.

I wrote a shader that output a shitload (literally) of secondary passes for look tweaking in compositing. While working on the initial version of this shader, RSP’s 2D supervisor for the movie, Adam Paschke, was passing by my desk.

I told Adam to stop and peek over my shoulder at all the yummy passes my shader would be putting out for him to play with soon.

After grasping what would be available to him after the next batch of renders, Adam emitted a grunting sound somewhere between a hippo that is ready to mate and a kangaroo on psychotropics and started drooling heavily on my shoulder.

Cloyed, I shouted “Get away from me, you horny comper!”. Hence the reference to the “horny comper aunt” in the last strophe.