In the words of sadly departed (or has he?) Michael Jackson, ‘This is it!’ – the last Jackal Film in what has been an amazing year. There’s been ups. There’s been downs. There’s been one sideways and a diagonal. It’s with mixed feelings and a mixed cocktail that we appraise the year and offer you a new treat on this New Year’s Eve!

We managed to shovel together, like so many mixed nuts, (I’m continuing with the party accoutrements theme) a selection of beautiful salty comedians earlier this month in Brixton recording studio ‘Artspace’. Of the people that were supposed to turn up, we’re especially chuffed that Waen Shepherd (Gary Le Strange), Antony Elvin, Gareth Tunley, Tony Way, Rich Fulcher and Suzi Lemur, bothered. They are all so brilliant in this here film. To add to the feeling of festive festivity, it was actually snowing outside, and everyone was slightly hungover, all of which added a lot of realism. So it’s with great joy we bring you, ‘This Christmastime’, a charity song that was recorded in 1983, but then never released. Because they realised the lyrics were just awful. Even worse than Live Aid.

Antony Elvin slaved away making this catchy ditty, so thanks Sir Elvo! You’re brilliant. Better than Lionel Richie. Big thanks goes out as always to Annemarie, who shot the bugger. And Bob Pipe, also on camera, who was our brilliant DoP on ‘Making It With Pam’ (he also wore the elephant mask!). Well done Jacqui and Dave Hughes, who quite literally did edit this all over Christmas, and I think did an incredible job, as always. Though there is something really quite magical about this offensive little film which I think they have brought to it, by sprinkling some kind of christmas editing magic over it. The film has an almost wistful quality to it. Though maybe I’m just projecting because I’m sad that this brilliant year is coming to a close.

Thank you thank you thank you to anyone who helped us out with these twelve films. We will never forget you. Unless we have forgotten you. In which case, thank you! Seriously we have had so much kindness and enthusiasm from so many talented talented people – we are humbled – we couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks also to people who have watched, encouraged, cheered on, tweeted, retweeted, facebooked, commented, appraised, and for being a fantastic audience. And for not being too narked when we’ve bugged you with our pesky links – just think of us as affectionate but slightly slow puppies who just won’t let go of your trouser leg. We mean you no harm. We just want to hump you.

There are plans afoot for Jackal next year – GASP! – what could it be?! Perhaps some exclusive behind-the-scenes-and-outtakes footage from this year? Perhaps… a FEATURE FILM?!!! Watch this space! JACKAL SHALL RISE AGAIN MWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!! (Like Mum-Ra. Without the spit.)

Happy New Year! And byesy-bye. For now….

Meanwhile, have a watch of this here film starring Richard Glover, whom you may have spotted as the dim-but-lovely ‘Martin’ in ‘The Sightseers’ and also in ‘The Mighty Boosh’. He turns in a wunderbar performance here, with a chocolatey tone that would induce me to buy a hot drink if he were to advertise one. He valiantly allowed himself to be painted yellow (it is our ambition to paint every comedy actor in the UK a different colour of the rainbow before 2012. A bit like Angelina Jolie with her adopted rainbow orphans, but more altruistic). Bizarrely, once painted yellow, Richard bore an uncanny resemblance to Bill Murray. If they ever make Ghostbusters… 4 (???), Richard should kill Bill Murray, paint himself yellow, and step in. Anyway anyway, I’m getting distracted. It’s the snow. We filmed in lovely DoP Annemarie’s house in Brixton way back in early november. She shot it brilliantly too, and most surreal and weird an experience it was, two weird painted jaundiced mimes, sitting bolt rigid on chairs. The neighbours thought we were a Russian interpretive dance troupe. I swear we will put out-takes and behind-the-scenes stuff up on youtube next year!

Here it is, starring Bill Murray and some woman putting on a bad Spanish accent. She needs to sort out her teeth. Jesus.

Once shot with the aid of lovely talented sound man Sam Nightingale, we handed over the reigns to animator extraordinaire Alex Morris (The Framley Examiner), whose work you should TOTALLY check out here. He gave the short it’s distinctive wobbly charm and terrifying denouement, plus a very excellent end gag! Chris Lince as usually worked his genius for us, painstakingly compositing and compositing. So thanks Chris! Get some rest now – your work here is done. And superthanks, jah? to David Hughes for stepping back into the breach once more and getting back into our editing saddle. Great to have you back, Dave! We love you!

I’ll leave you with that haunting and enigmatic statement. I don’t know what it means. But I was pretty sure it meant something this morning.

We just showed some Jackal Films at the amazing Cube venue in Bristol as part of the Bristol Old Vic’s ‘Jam’ festival, devoted to the theme of improvisation, brainchild of genius Tom Morris. We showed only films that had been created using improv, and what a lovely reception we had! And an amazing party afterwards! Thanks so much to Sarah Acton and David Hopkinson for inviting us, being so great and boogying with us into the wee small hours. We were supporting the incredible Reggie Watts. If you don’t know who he is, then you will, and you should try to see him live as soon as possible. He spontaneously samples, beat-boxes, throws his voice, impersonates, sings, entertains, philosophises, etc, etc. We discussed the performance afterwards and agreed that he is the closest thing we have ever seen to God.

If God had a massive afro, which I think would be a good selection. The clip below doesn’t really do his live performance justice, which is entirely improvised. Thanks again to Bristol for having us and we look forward to returning a.s.a.p. t.b.c. watch this space!

Starring the marvellous Sharon Horgan, and the formidable Steve Evans, I really think we have discovered the new horror dream cast. It’s like Caroline Munro and Boris Karloff have been reborn as 21st century comedians. Please watch and enjoy, and try to get some sleep afterwards. If you can….

Thanks to our amazing producer Renee Vaughan Sutherland for making this all possible. Many vampiric kisses to you! The lovely Paul Synnott wrote some truly chilling and atmospheric music and sound design. And thanks a billion to Matt Stronge for mixing and editing the sound. Together you have made a beautiful spook-athon symphony!

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

However, it all pulled together last minute. And talking of ‘Pulling’, one of our stars this month is the amazing brilliant writer and actress Sharon Horgan! Sharon kindly gave up her saturday morning to grace us with her presence and did a hilarious performance. She even brought her kids along to the shoot who were so well-behaved and sooo cute! Co-starring was the brilliantly funny Steve Evans of ‘Hyperdrive’, who endured several hours of makeup and subsequent scrubbing from a makeup lady called Sabina. Both Sharon and Steve were absolute stars, and bravely marched on with filming, despite decapitations, plane crashes and numerous strange coincidences…

Okay, none of those bad things happened. That’s the film ‘The Omen’. But to be fair, on our shoot there was a strong howling wind, a cat who kept trying to get in shot, and a woman outside the ‘Fried Chicken Kitchen’ who refused to move out of frame until we gave her some money. For heroin, one can only presume. I don’t like to be judgmental, but she was about forty and didn’t have any teeth. You need to be addicted to quite a powerful drug to stop giving a shit about that kind of thing. She was sucking on some chicken bones she had found in a bin. A modern witch perhaps? In a shell suit? Anyway, she was delightful. And her dog looked very well maintained.

Can’t wait to show you this one. It’s going to be so frightening, you’re not going to want to leave the house after this. You’ll be scared to switch off the internet because you’d rather not be alone. You’re going to need to watch something light afterwards like ‘Place in The Sun’. And even then you’re gonna be frightened of the presenter because she’s grinning at you like that. And then it’s gonna send you insane and you’re gonna lose all your teeth and hang out outside ‘Fried Chicken Kitchen’ in Stoke Newington. I’m sorry but it’s true. I can reveal that our forthcoming film features a haunted shoe. Yeah. A shoe. Doesn’t bear thinking about does it?

Renee Vaughan Sutherland produced for us this month and kindly allowed us to invade her wonderful house in Stoke Newington. So thanks to the super-amazing Renee for dealing with all the Satanic tampering that this month brought. She’s an angel. And thanks to all of her lovely housemates for putting up with us taking over their house! Happy halloween, people!

However, we decided to ‘breathe Life back into the Spam’ as it were, and ressurrect the heart-rending format. We managed to ensnare the brilliance of the amazong (that was a typo but I’m going to leave it ‘cos it’s strangely groovy) Rich Fulcher. As soon as we spooned Rich into a blue polyester babygro, we knew we were dealing with GoldDust. Gold Dust. No less. After we’d finished coaxing Rich away from a tree, we commenced filming and the progeny you see below was ‘birthed’.

The hilarious Sarah Kendall also stars here in a somewhat traumatic role. Not since Shelley Duvall was harassed by Kubrick during the making of ‘The Shining’ has an actress dealt so admirably with so many distressing factors. One of them being, being aggressively pawed by an adult man in a babygro whilst cradling one’s infant daughter. So applause for Sarah Kendall. If previous experience is anything to go by, she will probably win an Oscar for this. I shouldn’t think the fact that this is an internet short will go against her in the panel’s mind. It’s a bit like ‘Lilya Forever’ but with more laughs.

Isn’t he amazong? Thanks as always to Annemarie DoP extraordinaire! Daisy Robertson, the fabulous producer of LifeSpam, came all the way to Putney with her wee baby, Booker, just to dazzle us with her baby yoga moves, so thanks Daisy! You might recognise her as ‘Cleopatra’ in the LifeSpam opening credits! Also special thanks goes out to Henry Naylor: Thank you SOOOO much for letting us utilise your house and family. You are Brilliant with a capital B. Such a lot of fun to hang out with you guys!