52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: Nick's Great Idea

Nick's Great Idea (#39)

Ah, the straight man vs. the funny guy. The oldest double act in comedy,and explored in detail this week. Anthony Backman's deadpan is so perfect in this. Dang near steals the whole sketch despite the way I loudly carry on, not to mention Douglas Gabrielle's hilarious cameo. And look at that picture quality/editing job! We're spoiled this week, folks.

I think the closest friendships stem from people who enthusiastically participate in each other's terrible ideas. There's a bonding quality to finding yourselves neck deep in trouble from all sides. My high school pals and I used to have at least one terrible idea every day, and those friendships have lasted for years. (Though we did spend most of our teenage years horribly grounded.)

That seems to be the relationship ol' Nick and Jerry have. I was kinda surprised at how epic in scope this little three minute video wound up feeling. You get a pretty clear picture of the past, present, and future of the entire relationship. Too much fun, I tells ya.

Also: I wasn't joking about seducing Beyonce. It's gonna happen.

52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: First Kiss

I'm back in LA and ready to kick the crap out of some auditions! Woot! Until then... here's the new ATX!

First Kiss (#8)

Ah, thank God we managed to shoot an episode in a location besides our apartment. The backdrops help to give an illusion of variety, but I would like to see us switch things up more than we do. But new locations require either generous friends or shooting permits. Sooo that's why that can be tough sometimes. It's probably partly my fault. I can get a little timid about asking people for favors when I'm sure more often than not it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. Man up, Wellman!

But speaking of asking for outside help, we got ourselves a bona fide Groundlings alum! I met Sara Cravens through the Virginia Avenue Project, which is a children's theater group I got involved with last July. She's one of those fearless actors where you say "Okay, now you're going to climb on top of me and scream right in my face as loud as you can" and she very comfortably replies with "Like this?"

I was a little nervous about this one as I was writing it, because originally the roles were switched, and it was the guy who was the awkwardly aggressive kisser. It kinda worried me because I was afraid maybe it would come off a lot darker than intended. The safer (and much funnier, I think) idea to have the girl be the aggressor came to me maybe a few days beforehand. I ran it by Sara and we both agreed that it was funnier, so I went through the script and swapped character names around. Funny how just one change can improve a script so significantly.

Also got to put my editing hat on for this one, which I'm a little proud of. Matt did most of the editing, but I went in last week while I was in Kentucky and cut a few things down. Basically I just cut some of the monologue at the beginning (it was WAY too long) and a joke at the ending that didn't really work. Took me a good hour whereas it probably would've taken Matt about three minutes but I'll still call it a victory. 

Barely posted this sucker on time! I was madly scrambling to throw the video onto the internet before midnight like Cinderella trying to escape the Prince's dance before the spell breaks and everybody finds out she's just some poor tramp. But by Jove, we made it! Two months in and we've hit every deadline! Stay tuned!