Judging Your Own Work

...From an objective perspective is very difficult, or even trying to appreciate it from the subjective perspective of a potential audience member or consumer, "if I were stumbling upon this, how would I react?" and I think if you're goal is to create good work, as opposed to work that's explicitly commercial  (nothing wrong with that) the main question should be "is this something I would enjoy?"

But of course, you want other people to enjoy it too, and probably if you and your friends have a long list of convoluted inside jokes that have taken on various lives of their own inside and out of their original contexts hearing them parroted back and forth would be entertaining, it would sound like a conversation between you and your friends. Which is not an unworthy goal for something like a Podcast (that by the way is what I'm going to be talking about, get ready) to make something that sounds like an authentic and fun conversation between friends, because doing that is actually pretty difficult, especially doing it in such a way that would be compelling and entertaining to an outside listener.

I've been gradually realizing things like this throughout the process of editing down the recording session of July 22nd, going through various incarnations, finding what works, whittling things down, removing the pauses, adding background music, mixing, etc, etc and now listening to what I'm calling the finished product (while resisting the urge to go back and fix this bit of mixing or cut that piece of dead air I'd missed before) and trying to decide for my self "is this good?" Well yeah actually, for a first attempt ever at this medium, I'd say it's pretty good but then "really how good is it?" my id asks my ego or whatever model we use for the voices in our heads that doubt.

(Side note, I actually spoke to my Mom about it, and even though she's my Mom so of course she did she said she liked it, and specifically the bits I'm going to get into in a moment of a more philosophical nature. This actually made me happier than she probably realized, because I believe that if you can make something which appeals to 60 something baby boomers and people in your peer group, or any wide audience like that, you are really truly doing something right.)

Something I didn't do which is my goal in future recording sessions was to respond from a completely earnest, thoughtful and honest place (as myself, basically). Something that I tend to do in improv/comedy stuff is make a game of tossing curveballs at my partner, which is something I did a lot during our recording session. Like if someone is doing something to enhance the atmosphere of the scene, or has allowed a changed in their character or given circumstances based on a failed communication (like if you, my theoretical scene partner, or I establish one thing, say we're partners in a detective agency but then one of us changes it to make us siblings which doesn't break the scene but inexplicably changes it pointing that out or whatever) or even when something like that hasn't happened, just to see how the other person reacts.

As audience members, we get served that a lot in our contemporary "absurdist" comedy in the vein of Tim & Eric or much of the current Adult Swim programming block, and it's a perfectly valid aesthetic which is much easier to pull off than something like Louie which is completely dependent on the strength of Louis C.K's actual point of view on things as refracted through a semi realist depiction of his world and real life. Doing absurdist comedy well sounds easy but is difficult, depictions of life and adding to them the lens or angle of a specific comedic viewpoint sounds difficult but is actually nigh impossible.

And then again, at this moment I'm focusing on film and television, which is what I'm working on, I'm working on a podcast. In that respect, let's say two analogues entities to the Tim and Eric/Louis paradigm might be Comedy Bang Bang and WTF with Marc Maron, two extremely popular very different podcasts. Comedy Bang Bang sets it self as an interview show, and then becomes absurd (and is one of my primary inspirations for the model I'm trying to work out) and WTF is actually an interview show, which oftentimes becomes as much about it's host and his weird and compellingly specific world view as it does about the person he's interviewing. In the case of Comedy Bang Bang it works because usually all involved are world class improvisors who've been doing it in various forms for years and years, and have had a while to develop the specific voice of their show and Marc Maron is an incredibly compelling interviewer and for that other stuff he draws on 20 plus years of life as a stand up comedian and more than that as a thoughtful but doubting human being. Really, you should just go listen to them to see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, in response to those two archetypes, tons and tons of imitators have inevitably sprung up. One of my favorites from the WTF mold is You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes, which has much of the same structure as WTF where Holmes talks to a guest about his or her career in show business or whatever but often spirals off into very heady discussions about sex or religion or whatever.

I'd like to think that where my goal had been to do something purely resembling Comedy Bang Bang with just lots of comedy bits and improvised sketch type things (which are present in the pilot) we added up going into a lot of You Made it Weird-esque territory, and I actually kind of like that, but doubt my own ability to consistently make something like that work.

But at the same time, what am I gaining by doubting myself? I've only done one of these, and it developed organically and in the process of my editing it into this particular thing, next time will probably be something different and the time after that. And the reason why I'm trying this out is to scratch that creative itch to be making my own stuff that I've blogged about, and to just start learning how to do this thing. Certainly none of the podcast people I admire were doing their shows at the level they do them over night, no one does that, it takes time and practice and dedication. Well, right now I've got some time, so let's see how long I can keep this dedication going and where it takes me.