It's a Wrap!

Last weekend we wrapped up the principal filming on The Ex-Factor.  Astonishingly, as they planned, they filmed 90 odd pages of script in just four filming days.  I haven't seen any of the footage, but from past experience and from what I've seen of the filming, I think it's shaping up to be what I wanted it to be. I designed the show to be as easy to produce as possible, but the extent that the production was streamlined was shocking even to me. The first shooting day they shot all of the studio scenes, which was about half of the script.

Comedy is hard. Also, hot and sweaty.

Making Bullion

"Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes." - John LeCarre


This past weekend Malarkey Films shot two days worth of The Ex Factor web series.  The script for The Ex Factor, as it stands now, is 91 pages or the equivalent of a full-length screenplay.  After the first day of filming they had filmed approximately half of it.  They expect to finish shooting next weekend.  Even though I had written the web series to be as simple to produce as possible, the efficiency of the process they've developed is kind of astonishing.

I was able to sit in on the first day of shooting, in which they shot all of the Studio scenes.  The extreme speed is made possible by how they're shooting the studio scenes.  The two actors are shot by three cameras.  They run through the scene a few times, first playing the scene as written and then a few times improv-ing their way through the beats of the script.  In the editing, they'll choose among the takes to create the full episodes.

A few days before we started filming, the lead actress asked me if I minded that the plan was to stray from the words I slaved over for so long. It's a real question.  The final result will almost assuredly not contain many of the lines that I liked, ideas that I included, things that have been important to me that I've been working on for a year.  As I sat in the back of the room watching the scenes being run, there were times that the final result resembled my script in only the most cursory ways. It brings to mind the John LeCarre quote that started this blog with.  Is this something that I can live with?

We Need You..

...to help film the pivotal scene for The Ex Factor. On Sunday, May 22nd from 10am-2pm at The Burren in Davis Square, Somerville. We're filming the climactic scene in which lots o' stuff goes down. I mean, there will be old love letters, karaoke, serenading, and drunken antics aplenty.  See it live before you see it on film.

To RSVP, go here: Evite

The Ex-Factor is ready to roll

"For three long years, Josh and Hilary dated, until they both mutually agreed that it was a terrible, terrible idea. Now these 'just friends' are back, and they're podcasting together. Look out world. This… is the Ex Factor."

Last September I convened a small group of actors and my producing partner to do a table read of a comedy web series called "The Ex-Factor".  The series is about a couple who used to date before breaking up, but who now produce a weekly comedy podcast together with predictably mixed results.  We had thought we'd be able to start filming in the fall or early winter, but then the producing partners fell through due to financial reasons, and I had to start over from scratch. 

This... is the Ex-Factor

So here's the thing I've been working on for about two years that I'm finally able to talk about.

 

"For three long years, Josh and Hilary dated, until they both mutually agreed
that it was a terrible, terrible idea. Now these "just friends" are back,
and they're podcasting together. Look out world. This… is the Ex Factor."

Almost two years ago, I started working on a web series, a group of short films designed to be distributed over the net.  My reasoning was that if I could make it as cheap and produceable as possible, I could then find someone to actually make it as opposed to having it languish in my hard drive.

The premise for the series I came up with was this: Two people who used to date for a non-trivial amount of time broke up, but together they produce a weekly comedy podcast together.  It ties together a lot of the things I like to write about.  It's a "backstage" piece, and I find myself writing about people who are involved in some sort of media or art quite a lot.  The premise of Exes having to work together leads to scenes of social awkwardness galore, and broken "bad first date" type of dialogue is something I like writing.  Finally, it's about podcasting, which is something I've been more or less obsessed with since I got an iPod.  First the iPod was all about music, but eventually it's now all about podcasts.  It's a curiously intimate thing, having strangers chat in your ears for hours at a time about whatever you're interested in.  The question that comes to mind is: Who does that?  Who does all the work it takes to put together a podcast, especially if you're not doing it for money.  And why?

That was the thinking that went toward writing The Ex-Factor.  I created the two lead roles to answer that question for me.  Josh, the guy who does most of the work behind making the podcast, who seems to do it to keep close with Hilary, his Ex. He's really good at hosting the podcast as he's an improv comedian who can keep the banter going.  Hilary plays the podcast sidekick, and unlike Josh she has fewer creative outlets as she's stuck in her dead end job, so she's on the podcast to flex her creative muscles not quite realizing the size of the torch that Josh still carries.  Over the course of the series I play with their relationship in various ways.  They're good at making amusing podcasts, but every once in a while something goes awry.

I wanted a specific tone for the web series, as many of the ones I've seen seem to go for the wackiness as a first resort.  I don't mind the "slam cut to something ironic" style of comedy, it's just that it seems to be overused.  I wanted to have all of the comedy of the show to be derived from the relationship between the main characters.  I wanted to establish who they are and then smash different problems and situations against that relationship and see what happened.  It resulted in two really interesting characters that get fully explored over the course of the series.

After I got the writing done, I started showing this to people and got a very positive reaction.  I pursued making this with one friend of mine, and we got quite a ways toward actually going forth with it, but finances caused this friend to pull out of the project last fall.  I then took the project to the folks at Malarkey Films, whom I had just worked with for the 2010 National Film Challenge to see if they were interested, and after some discussion on their part they decided to take it on.  It's interesting to go through the process with different parties as they have different perspectives on the material.  Some things that were crucial details to one group were totally inconsequential to the other.  It really shows how collaborative filmmaking is, and why "Making Of" commentary tracks exist.

So, this is the Ex Factor.  We're holding auditions on April 3rd, and if all goes well we'll be filming this summer. Stay tuned.