It wasn’t hard to decide to re-make Terms and Conditions.

The potential of the story was apparent, but since the original was made as part of a 24-hour film contest, the plot wasn’t completely formed and the “film race” format required the inclusion of elements that really weren’t necessary. And there were some shots that didn’t come out to our satisfaction, so we wanted to correct those mistakes.

Thus, the re-shoot was born

Most of Jackson’s running footage was preserved, but everything else was re-shot.

A New “Shoe Guy”

Originally credited as “Guy in Commercial”, in the script he had a name: “Iggy”. In the re-do, this character was reformulated entirely. One viewer of the original film referred to Iggy as “that clown guy”, which told us we weren’t striking the right chord of “weird” that we were after. With a change of wardrobe, hair, glasses and even a new voice, the new Iggy seems weird enough. Here are “before and after” shots:

And we added his name to the commercial, so we can identify him, by name, in the credits.

Film Race Elements Dropped

All three of the required elements from the film race were dropped.

• • Although the timing element remains central to the plot, the line, “Time’s up!” was dropped.
  • In the original, the presence of the action figure wasn’t really explained, but viewers seemed to supply their own take on it. While that has a certain appeal, we don’t want want to make films that leave the audience completely guessing. Even we didn’t know exactly how it fit, so in the re-make, the ending was altered slightly to obviate the need for the figure.
  • The “reflection” element, which was the runner admiring the new shoes in the mirror was also scratched. It just wasn’t central to the story.

Out into the World!

The new film finished post-production on August 28th, 2018 at which time it began its film festival journey. In October 2019, we made the short available for public viewing.

Watch Terms and Conditions (2018)

We had also put together a teaser-trailer:

Trivia

The shoe panels that the runner scrolls through in the unboxing scene include Mountain, Disco and Disney. We kind of ran out of ideas for running surfaces, having already used Cross-Country Course, Road, Hill, Trail, Beach and Snow. We also had a panel for Space, but we didn’t use that one. Kinda hard to run in space.

Iggy’s sunglasses were part of the new look for this character, but the idea to use them came about because Terry, who played Iggy, had a nasty eye infection that had to be covered up. You can catch glimpses of the ugly eye in scenes with Dad, which Terry also played—sans glasses.

The Runner’s hair is significantly longer in the running montage than it is in the rest of the film. Jackson, who played the Runner, was starting college the week after shooting and had his hair cut just before the re-shoot. Most of the running sequence was shot BH (Before Haircut).

Filming took place in two phases. Most of the running footage was captured on June 30th, 2018 as part of a 24-hour film competition. The rest of the footage was shot between the afternoon of Friday, August 10th and the morning of Sunday, August 12th.

Iggy’s hair had to be created twice. It required an unhealthy dose of “Surfer’s Hair” and a thorough coat of blue hair paint. Jackson sprayed Terry’s hair blue on Saturday morning for the shooting of the commercial. That afternoon, the planned outdoor shoot was rained out, so the process was repeated Sunday morning.