You Must Learn This Now! / videos

You Must Learn This Now! I have a theory that creativity, at its core--stay with me, Internet, almost done--is just putting two things together that you feel like you haven't seen together before. Picasso's cubist portraits. Dickens' epic tale of a lowly orphan. And now, my mix of NBC's "The More You Know" PSAs with WW2 Nazi propaganda. You're welcome, Culture.

We released one of these in the spring as a show teaser, and saved the rest for a fallow period in the KML video production schedule. In a break from our usual release process, we released them first on Funny or Die, one-a-day for a week, to establish more of a presence there. Let's say it worked.

I got to work with many of my favorite KML members on these, including DP Jon Burton, VFX guru Ty Bardi, and of course gifted, funny actors Millie DeBenedet, Calum Grant, and Jon Wolanske, the latter of who stepped in to bail us out of a last-minute casting crisis, killed his role, and then went back to his day job a block away. Like a boss.

I costumed this shoot myself, by the way, driving all over the Bay Area asking wardrobe departments if they had any Nazi uniforms. That's a story in and of itself.

American Art Academy of Art / video

Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 4.10.08 PMBless Killing My Lobster for giving me giving me the opportunity to dig my own holes. My latest comedy short was featured in KML's Spring 2013 mainstage show, Killing My Lobster Learns a Lesson. The vid's a parody of college and technical school ads that makes fun of art school as a career choice.Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 4.08.19 PMThis vid could not have been made without the contributions of Francine Torres, a hilarious actress and fantastic theater instructor who actually plays a theater instructor in this vid. She saw the opportunity to give her students some real-world experience, helped us to shoot at her workplace and offered her students as PAs and background players. Two of her students are actually leads in this piece--I'll let you figure out which two. Oh, and I'm in this one, briefly. I forgot to cast the Advertising instructor, and when we got to that scene, I strapped on a froofy scarf and took one for the team. At least I got the hairline right.Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 4.07.50 PMOn a sadder note, this may well be the last project I get to work on with my regular KML production partner, Jonathan Burton, as he's since moved to NYC. Hopefully not!

PS a disclaimer: I have a lot of talented, successful friends who studied art, and there are several good art schools here in San Francisco. But there are one or two that are kind of questionable, and one for-profit university that (and I could be wrong about this) doesn't make its money from tuition so much as from being the #1 real-estate holder in the city. Just saying.

Social Media For Beginners (Video)

Some of my coolest corporate gigs start while I'm doing a standard one--writing site copy, for instance. At some point, the client notices my comedy videos, and wonders if I can do something similarly fun for them. "Social Media And You" was one of those.

IT juggernaut CA Technologies wanted to encourage their employees to use social media in hopes that they'd spend at least part of their time bragging about their company, retweeting flattering articles, or other such passive evangelizing. They wanted a simple video to show their teams internally. But, of course, they wanted something engaging and worth passing around. That usually means "funny," so they approached me.

I pitched them on doing a primer that looked and sounded like classic 1950s educational films and they went for it. Video is embedded below, and a few more details about it can be found here. Hope you like bees!

Aaaaaand Back To The Wacky Stuff

I like the corporate gigs, no doubt, not least of which because they let me cherish the other projects (where I get to cut loose and get silly) all the more. Here's my latest of the latter, Babies on a Plane. Made for the latest Killing My Lobster show, Killing My Lobster Chops Down the Family Tree, it's a parody that you'll get pretty quickly. I made it mostly in Photoshop, mashing up found photos with a still-shoot featuring KML Actor Andy Alabran. Throw in some royalty-free stock music, intermediate-level sound engineering, excellent VO work from Andy, Allison Johnson, and resident KML Voice-Of-God Calum Grant, chuck it all into iMovie, and the rest is comedy. In theory.

Between this, Bowie, and Human Centipede, I'm on my way to becoming the "Still-Vision" (patent pending) comedy guy. 'Cause the big money is in comedy that doesn't move much, amirite?

Enjoy!

Pocket Corporate Videographer

When you're the Idea Czar, no media escapes your grasp. I've long been a freelancer-of-many-trades for Ask.com, writing  email, UI copy, branding materials, even blog posts. And now, phonecam video. Impressed?

Last month, I covered Ask's latest hackathon in a series of posts, and instead of collecting audio for interviews reference, I collected video. Thanks, iPhone! And because most of the key folk knew me, they felt comfortable enough to answer questions and even mug a little or the camera (see above screen cap).

I ended up with some great (if amateur) footage that I edited together for them to enjoy internally. Their marketing team liked it so much, they had me put together a press cut to show off. Good work begets more work!

Check it out if you're of a mind. I think it does a nice job of showing how much fun they had putting their hacks together. Imagine what I could've done with a full crew (hint, hint)!

Lucha Libre Purim!

Some of my comedy videos, even *I* can't believe I made them. Others, I can't believe how good they turned out. This one is in both of those categories, to the extreme.

Unbelievable because it was inspired by, off all things, the Jewish holiday of Purim, and created for the annual KML show produced in that holiday's honor.

Good because I handed off my outline and few storyboards to the talented Bardi Twins, a husband/wife writing team (who are also an animator and a librarian to boot!).

Ty and Gina turned it onto a killer script with layers of inside jokes, then cranked out an SFX-heavy blood-and-guts ad spot for the ages. In Spanish! Add a pitch-perfect VO from Lobster alum Jon Wolanske and we could do no wrong.

Think we can't do edgy comedy based on something you'd normally see in a synagogue? This video suggests otherwise. Imagine what we could do with Flag Day.

SABADO!

"Coffee Wars" boils over!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMqutKBS5iE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] I've spent a sizable chunk of my spare time this past year writing and teaching for Killing My Lobster, the Second City of San Francisco. And while I feel like I spent the first few months making my bones, earning the respect of my talented co-writers and our equally gifted actors and directors, I like to think I've gone on to acquit myself over this year's shows.

The latest, and possibly most satisfying, example of this is the film I wrote and produced for Killing My Lobster Holds the Mayo, their final show of the year. The film is called The Coffee Wars and it's a Ken Burns parody, showcasing the rivalry between two of the best-known (and my favorite) artisan coffee brands in town.

It's blown up beyond all (well, my) expectations thus far, garnering over 8,00014,000 hits in less than three days, and crazy amounts of Twitter chatter. It's even attracted a hater or two, which is always a sure sign of online heat.

Kudos to director Rand Courtney, actors Fred Wickham and Sarah Mitchell, and the rest of the superb cast, crew, and musicians who made this film such a joy to make and, I hope, to watch. With apologies to Joan Baez.