Dan had the idea. He liked the idea of a guy who took the time to look ridiculous and then having the guy hating being called ridiculous.
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Related posts tagged 'Coming up with ideas'
Yes I do. I'm constantly talking to my phone. Whenever an idea occurs. Sometimes I don't say enough. I'll dictate "large coffee cup" and have no idea of what I thought was funny about that subject.
It’s just a series of steps that take place haphazardly. The file cabinet contains most of the things that are sort of in waiting, ready to be transformed into a usable language, you know? That’s the holding pen. The observations keep coming and the comparisons that the observations represent that are, you know you have a world view and it’s like your matrix and so, when you see things happen, you’re comparing those things to what you already know and how you already feel. That produces your impression. So those are things I write down, those impressions that I get from the world. So, some of them are in half form states, some of them are just ideas, just highlight, the key words, patterns, ...
Initially they came in and I was just doing the scripted lines and I asked "Do you mind if I try something?" and then 18 hours of recording later, they had the genie. I just started playing, and they said "just go with it, go with it, go with it." So I improvised the character. I think that in the end, there were something like 40 different voices that I did for that role.
Question: Peter and Nancy are my favorite characters on the show. What was the inspiration for Peter's pasta addiction and will they go anymore adventures like starting a B&B??
Answer: That came from a real dinner that Carrie and I had in Los Angeles. And we were looking at the menu, and we just thought "well obviously we can't order pasta, so I guess we have to order this." So we started talking about, why do we have to avoid pasta so much? So it was more that we were weighing the difference between the difference between enjoying life and really living, or ordering salmon.
One of the great things about the internet - beyond the amazing reddit AMA experience - is that you can research any voice you want, just by going to YouTube. Which was very helpful in figuring out the Canadian accent, the Pennsylvanian accent, C-Czar (I watched a lot of Riff Raff to get that accent down).
I try to sit down and write, but I don't do that a lot. I tend to think of an idea, then work it out on stage. But I should do more homework.
There is no line that I know in terms of what's "too far," whether that means too sentimental or too ...I don't know, controversial or confessional....a "boundary" is an artificial construct, we have to create boundaries when they involve other people, precisely because it makes empirical something that would otherwise be frustratingly subjective (like that neighbor that just kind of 'feels like' their yard extends into yours, in which case you have to go to city hall and pull out a map with lines on it). In matters of creativity - when you're sitting and writing dialogue by yourself, there's no lines needed because you're not having to function in cooperation, your job in creation, I think,...
i usually just think of one funny grain of the character's identity and let it build from there. with hoho, for instance, i just wanted to be an elf who delivers toys to naughty kids.
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Related posts tagged 'Making a show'
GRANT! U.S. Grant (Hiram Ulysses Grant was his true name). I have been messing with an idea for a screenplay about the man. I quiet, unassuming fellow who was passed over for years by everyone around him (nickname "Useless") but in the end he drove it home and saved our beautiful republic.
The pros and cons of live action and animation are pretty much what you'd expect: in live action, you can shoot the same scene from a thousand angles for a thousand takes and figure out how to assemble the scene in "post," but if you realize that a character should have been looking a different direction or wearing a different kind of hat, you're either CGing their eyeballs or you're screwed. In animation, you can make eyeballs and hats change until the cows come home, but on the other hand, your script has to be darn near finished before the first actor even records their first line. The funny thing to me is that in live action, you can type "a room full of people" and nobody will have a he...
Oh man there were so many. I actually had butterflies in my stomach during a lot of those dates. Rachel, who doesn't like wearing socks, was tough to get a read on. But a fascinating person. LA, the lady who was trying to promote her album, was also a delight. Lais, who tried to kiss me.. that was a really intense one for me. It was very surreal how seriously competitive the women were getting. Actually, a fight broke out (verbal, not physical) between two of the women over how much time they were getting with me. We ended up cutting it from the episode because it felt a bit too much like a moment you'd actually see in The Bachelor, but it was a very crazy moment and a very surreal night.
I like that the show goes in different and unexpected places. It's sometimes fun to set thing up then take a step back if the business owner starts having their own ideas or pushing things forward. Later this season, I encounter a business owner that actually gets more into the idea than I am. But yeah, I like a variety of responses or reactions.
It was very taxing, because we didn't get to move around a lot, and we would work 15, 16 hours a day sometimes, and right into early Sunday morning. So it was not easy work. I can tell ya. It's tough to cover 8 people around a table without moving the camera, moving the camera, moving the lights, it takes FOREVER, and you have to do it over, and over, and make it look fresh, so if people realized that - it can be very taxing and very tough work.
My parents were never informed of anything. They were never paid to do the show. They never shot promos for the network. They were just living their lives and we would show up and prank them. This was before anyone had seen anything like this on TV so it was a much different reaction from people watching back then. People freaked out!
The situation certainly is. Half my family growing up were carers of some sort, mostly retirement homes (stroke, Alzheimers), and Derek is like my fictional superhero of an everyday gentle outsider. I suppose they're all little fables about kindness. And possibly, a love letter to my lovely, poor and humble family growing up.
Her name was Tracy and I accidentally named Traci Reardon the same name - I came into the studio planning to name Traci Reardon Brittney Reardon and I just told Scott my name was Traci on accident! I did the original "tracy" again but changed her name to Amanda Calzone. You can hear her on the first Betsy Sodaro ep of WSGLL.
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