S*D Comedy Video: "Decent Proposal"

This was without a doubt our most laborious video to date.
After we wrote the previous full-length comedy vid ("Birth Of RILOD") we immediately re-imagined the character of Bradley Stevenson (at that point, S*D's enemy) as a friend to the band. Brad Rohrer (who plays Bradley Stevenson) is just such a funny contrast to the band already that we knew he'd work better being able to play with that, as opposed to being an enemy, which meant we would be together rarely, and the focus of us together would really have to be anger. Not a lot of opportunity in deviation of types of comedy there.
So we all agreed that making Brad our friend was the best way to do things, so we originally had come up with an idea that revolved around us meeting his mother (who he continually wrote to in the video that had his first appearance), and ending the video with an extended dinner scene with Brad and his mother that S*D was ruining. The thing is, we came up with this in Sept '08, and we weren't ready to do another full-length video until Sept '09! During that year, we (Sousa, Brad and myself - who write the videos) came up with a TON of jokes (we come up with independant jokes all the time, and have a list of jokes on hand for videos that help us shape what we're writing) and we still hadn't found a real REASON for S*D/Brad to join forces in the first place.
So by the time we scheduled our home show (we scheduled it for Nov 13, '09), for which we would be creating the video, it was around early Sept, and we started doing the video (videos take about 5 - 6 weeks for the entire process, and they have to be up about two weeks before the show). So we sat down to write, and slowly, the surroundings of the video came to us. We came in with about 110 jokes we had written - anything from physical comedy bits to cutaways to clever one-liners to story ideas. We had about 4 solid nights of writing before we had the story pretty much done. We knew Brad needed a reason to hang out with us, and that we needed a reason to hang out with Brad, so we came up with the idea that Brad was forced to try to change us into "decent" citizens, and that we needed a letter of recommendation from a fire marshall (which he was) to play our homeshow. The loose story was that by the end he'd grow to like us, and we'd like him. To add a little more story, we gave him a love interest (Casey) that we'd help him with, to show him we're good guys.
But as we neared the end, I knew there was a lot of funny stuff here, and I knew that B Lau (our DP) and I were going to storyboard and make this (without a doubt) our most professional video yet, so it bothered me that I thought we were doing a tiny bit of set up in the beginning, a resolution at the end, and basically a very repetitive entire middle of the video.
I came to Brad and Sousa and said I thought the video was funny, had a good shape to the story, was well-rounded in terms of comedy, but that we needed to have more tension-risers; we couldn't have the video just kind of be us pissing off Brad over and over - we needed the stakes to continually raise.

So it basically had started like this:
1. Brad is forced to hang with us or he is fired
2. We are forced to deal with Brad
3. Brad likes a girl
4. We piss off Brad about 8 different times, and piss off the girl
5. We help out Brad with the girl
6. Brad explains to his boss that we are good, and we're all friends

and we changed it to this:
1. 1. Brad is forced to hang with us
2. We are forced to deal with Brad
3. Brad likes a girl
4. We piss off Brad slightly
5. Brad brings in a girl, and we really piss her off, which makes him really mad
6. Brad is mad, and we piss him off AGAIN - and he leaves us, saying he won't help us in the way he was going to, so all is lost
7. Brad talks to his boss, and his boss threatens firing him AND now he has to bring us TO his boss to prove we've changed
5. Brad comes back to us, and we help out Brad with the girl
6. Brad explains to his boss that we are good, and we're all friends

The story builds more in the second list, and we needed that. We finished writing the video around Oct 9th, when Sousa and his girlfriend Casey were going away.
Brad and I did a read-through, which put us overtime (we wanted to do 23 minutes, the read-through was about 26). We cut tiny bits here and there from the script, and started storyboarding.
B Lau and storyboarded at my house, Quizno's, the Coffee Depot, Ruby Tuesday's and somewhere else I can't remember - it was grueling. We draw out every shot (which, in turn, makes changes in the script) and I believe there was about 180 different shots in this video, and each shot was drawn out as a panel (like a comic book). It took hours upon goddamn hours, but it's worth it for the final product. We had it done around Oct 16th.
There was some preparation that went into the props (and we were getting everything ready for our huge shows coming up) so shooting started a few days later. The schedule for shooting was horrible. Sousa and Casey get their schedules on Saturdays, which means we can't plan the following Monday - Saturday until they get it, and they each work five shifts a week plus a call-in shift. A call-in shift means they PROBABLY won't work that day, but if someone calls out, they have to go in. I refuse to schedule a shooting day during one of their call-ins, because everyone is fucked if they are called in, and we all wasted our time - I have too much to do to risk wasting my time like that.
So scheduling was absolutely killing me - the thing is, the list of tasks we do in the video are as follows:
- Writing: Chuck, Brad and Sousa
- Storyboarding: Chuck and B Lau
- Directing: Chuck and B Lau
- Acting: Everyone
- Editing: Chuck
So, there was never a point in time when I wasn't working. When we wrote, Tom, Christian, etc could be doing something else. When we storyboarded, Sousa, Brad, etc could be doing something else. When I edit, EVERYONE can be doing something else. And when we shoot the scenes - everyone has different scenes they shoot, so sometimes Brad isn't there, sometimes Tom isn't there, sometimes Sousa isn't there - but I always have to be there.
It was very very difficult because at the same time, we were getting ready for our homeshow in terms of music and the show, and the same went for our sold-out House of Blues show in Boston with Girl Talk (which was a huge and important opportunity) - so practicing was extremely important. We usually practice twice a week for about 1.5 - 2 hours at a time, and we had pushed it up to three times a week at this time.
It was really running me ragged. and there were a few scheduling mishaps where people "forgot they were busy," which fucked us so much and made me so stressed out - of course, the final editing was like three days straight, during which I got between 2 and 5 hours of sleep a night.
We really did our absolute best to schedule everything well, and we started very early (about 6 weeks before the video was to go up) but when people work full-time jobs and are trying to make something this professional and involved, it's extremely extremely difficult.
Halfway through shooting I realized we had a 40 minute-video on our hands, so we desperately cut a few short exchanges and two big scenes, as well as trimmed some stuff in the editing room.
The shoots were fun and difficult at the same time. With our new style of shooting (lighting one entire scene from one area and shooting all those lines, then doing the next shot, then the next), the comedy was difficult to judge, as there was such little rhythm during the actual filming. Not only that, sometimes it would take 15 - 20 minutes just to light a single shot. If we're doing 15 - 20 shots a night, it can get really horrible. Shoots ran long, props were forgotten, we were rained out - a specific scene even had to be rewritten because when we went to shoot it, we didn't think it was funny enough.
It was a ton of work (and oddly enough, a lot more props than normal, which really throws a wrench in the gears), and the biggest cast we've ever had - which ALWAYS makes things harder, but we really loved the outcome. The entire time, I was looking up sound effects and seeing where we'd need little bits of music, or transitional sounds, to make the video really seem dramatic and emphasize all the things we wanted to be emphasized.
The shooting basically went from Oct 19th - Nov 1st, and by around 5 or 6 AM on Nov 1st (really Nov 2nd morning at this point), the editing was done. Nov 2nd (at night) we played the House of Blues show, we shot a few live songs with Fox Providence (TV) the next morning, and I went back to getting the video HTML stuff ready and we had it up late during the night on Nov 3rd. Everyone seemed really happy with it - I think you can tell how much we stepped it up just by watching it.
We went in with about 110 jokes/ideas and used about 60. After the cuts, that went down to about 40 of the jokes we had originally brought in (plus a lot of new ones).
The video basically got unanimously positive response and is at a 95% funny rating on funnyordie.com as of this writing. I think it's the best video we've done, and I'm looking to polish it further (and maybe make a director's cut with everything we cut out) and it's going to be the main thing we sent out to people to try to get someone interested in paying us to make our comedy vids.
- Chuck Staton