The gigantic guy from Mr. Show and The Sarah Silverman Program did a short film called American Heroine with Laura Kightlinger, who’s responsible for everything funny in the world (and Will & Grace).
The gigantic guy from Mr. Show and The Sarah Silverman Program did a short film called American Heroine with Laura Kightlinger, who’s responsible for everything funny in the world (and Will & Grace). Both of these funnyists are old hats at TV but chose to do a web short because they were given totally free reign.
It seems like the less television pays and the tamer it gets, the more the Internet pays and the braver it gets. You’d be lucky to pocket $20k for writing, directing and starring in a pilot, and it takes a good four days to shoot with additional weeks of editing. Then you get notes from the network and have to alter every joke until it’s dead — and then they kill the show.
The Internet on the other hand, only wants a few minutes and after you factor in the hours, it pays the same amount. You can shoot and edit most Internet sketches in a couple of days. And there are no notes! This short was obviously a much bigger ordeal but I like watching jokes where you can tell nobody told them what to do. Where else can you see a junkie barf out an prosthetic leg for a crippled child?
What’s going on with the TV industry these days is what happened to the music industry ten years ago. The former worked out better for music fans and this change is going to work out better for smile fans. I hope.
Hat Tip: Lance Kilby
TV for comedy is done for Drama though its as strong as fuck mang! True Blood sucks balls BTW and so does Breaking Bad. More comedy, lets go come on! Where is Chris Morris when we need him?
I can’t believe this isn’t on TV!
Where do you get the $20k from when you do internet stuff?
dick doesn’t read closely
If you think Breaking Bad sucks, I’d like to know what you think is worth watching.
20k? Yikes Gavin needs a new agent ASAP
Breaking Bad does suck, I told you something watching is you Mom in orgasm.
Check this shit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLyLGrbKokI&feature=related
yeah, but on the internet, all you get is sketches. you can’t develop funny interesting characters that evolve and have depth to them. skits are fun for about three minutes. and tv pays a FUCKLOAD more. even lowly story editors make about $6k a week. and if you make it to the co-executive producer level, you’ll pull in about 25k an episode. And don’t even get me started about “overall deals” and residuals. and wga health insurance rules! where is the guild/union for internet skit writers. you are uninformed, mr. mcinness!
sure, network tv is “safe” and funnyness does get ruined executive notes. and that’s why there is FX! Archer, It’s Always Sunny, Louie, and Wilfred are amazing shows. And this is because smart, hands-off executives present their notes as “suggestions.” Anyone can write a “skit.” But to be a working writer on a show? To understand act beaks and story structure? to make characters funny and relatable? you can’t do that! so go edit your skit!
PS. the two “funnyists” you mentioned would KILL for a job in TV! Are you kidding me?
Swing-atcha has a great point, the internet is the launch off point if you can’t break into corporatized tv, but wading through nothing but sketches, and a lot of them are amateurishly bad, get’s tedious. A lot of these kids do need to learn structure, beats, and breaks. It allows great self motivated people to get their material out there, but it allows a lot of hacks a forum too.
Also it wasn’t such a great thing for the music industry. Yeah it took control of the public’s musical taste out of the hands of executives and allowed people to get exposure and build followings from a bedroom. Though where is the career longevity and ability for more young artists to make a living solely from making music? The only bands who I see doing tours and living off just their music, without having to work day jobs, are the established acts who have done so for thirty to forty years already.
Yeah the internet stopped music from being a corporately guarded commodity but it didn’t stop it from being a commodity. Now it’s just a free piece of information to be downloaded enjoyed quickly and then discarded as the music fan moves on to the next free piece of music. The fan forms no real bond or sense of value to an artist’s work because they quickly move on to the next artist’s catalog, because it’s all right there to just grab. Music got reduced to a free piece of information that people feel entitled to, to consume and then move on to the next free piece of information. It’s not valued by the music fan anymore because all they had to do was pull it out of thin air. Yes it allows access to as much music for the fans as possible, but it does nothing for the health and longevity of the average careers of artists who have to find multiple ways to support a music career and not have to split time washing dishes to make art for the rest of their lives.
Touching, poignant, funny.
lol @nonsense needs to stop, you need to learn some structure, beats and breaks to making an argument!
I’ve had a crush on Laura for 15 years. I’d marry her.
seriously, so much scrawl over internet jokes? are you a gay?
Yeah, I’ve had a crush on Laura too and she looks really hot as a strung out junkie.
Biggest two words in favour of internet comedy series kicking ass: Childrens Hospital. that shit is amazing.
I gotta say Breaking Bad does suck. after the novelty of ‘wow look they are cooking METH’ wears off (by the 2nd episode?) the over acting / overly caffienated acting starts to grate the fuck. best thing about it was the disabled son, all the other main characters studied at the Shia Lebouf school of over-do everything and act like you’ve had ten coffee’s before saying a line. piss off