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archived-vidoes Spads: My new web-comedy!
- Thread starter NickClapper
- Start date
NICE!!!
I've watched all three episodes now. It's watchable and I've laughed a few times 
I think the abrupt gear changes from snappy back-and-forth to longer monologues in ep3 didn't work too well (for me anyway). Also, because it's mainly snappy back and forth in short webseries episodes, I'm finding it hard to really invest in any of the characters.
I'm interested in whether what are emerging as the series's own politics are quite so clear because they are firmly held, or as a result of overcompensation from the opposite direction, or indeed whether I've misconstrued them altogther
Also also, even as a Brit I'm finding some of the accents hard to follow. It's probably just my terrible laptop speakers though.
Look forward to the guest star... I'm intrigued
I think the abrupt gear changes from snappy back-and-forth to longer monologues in ep3 didn't work too well (for me anyway). Also, because it's mainly snappy back and forth in short webseries episodes, I'm finding it hard to really invest in any of the characters.
I'm interested in whether what are emerging as the series's own politics are quite so clear because they are firmly held, or as a result of overcompensation from the opposite direction, or indeed whether I've misconstrued them altogther
Also also, even as a Brit I'm finding some of the accents hard to follow. It's probably just my terrible laptop speakers though.
Look forward to the guest star... I'm intrigued
Oh, I saw this on FB but didn't realize it was actually your baby. Just watched them all. I think they are well put-together, though some of the political nuance may have gone over my head (I know that UK democrats are nothing like american democrats, and margaret thatcher hated unions, but that's about where my knowledge begins and ends).
That being said, I definitely think there is a lot of similarity to the not-actual-politician 'career'" in politics. I gather from the context that 'spads' are campaign staffers, usually poli-sci grads, who are either volunteering or working for little pay in the hopes that if their candidate gets in they will have a staff job in their administration. Overworked, very young, often from privileged backgrounds? Yeah we definitely have those here, though I don't know if we have a cool name for them. (Point being that I don't think the UK-centrism is necessarily a problem for an american audience, at least a politically savvy american audience).
HBO's Veep does a good job of showing that side of the public sector (though that includes the 'important' players as well). I think you've captured it in this, as well. That's what this reminds me of, Veep meet's the TNG episode 'Lower Decks.'
I honestly didn't notice any technical flaws. But for me I think the lack of scoring in some scenes took away for me. That's the only criticism I can think of.
That being said, I definitely think there is a lot of similarity to the not-actual-politician 'career'" in politics. I gather from the context that 'spads' are campaign staffers, usually poli-sci grads, who are either volunteering or working for little pay in the hopes that if their candidate gets in they will have a staff job in their administration. Overworked, very young, often from privileged backgrounds? Yeah we definitely have those here, though I don't know if we have a cool name for them. (Point being that I don't think the UK-centrism is necessarily a problem for an american audience, at least a politically savvy american audience).
HBO's Veep does a good job of showing that side of the public sector (though that includes the 'important' players as well). I think you've captured it in this, as well. That's what this reminds me of, Veep meet's the TNG episode 'Lower Decks.'
I honestly didn't notice any technical flaws. But for me I think the lack of scoring in some scenes took away for me. That's the only criticism I can think of.
HBO's Veep does a good job of showing that side of the public sector (though that includes the 'important' players as well). I think you've captured it in this, as well. That's what this reminds me of, Veep meet's the TNG episode 'Lower Decks.'
And with Veep we come full circle back to the early thread discussion of The Thick of It, both of which were created by the same person
***DON'T MENTION THE THICK OF IT (OR VEEP)***
I guess I feel like we have to aspire to have people respond to characters in the same way that they would over a longer format. I wanted it to be a sitcom about people working in politics, rather than a political sitcom (where all the jokes would be about the job and that world). I can definitely see why the final scene of Episode 3 doesn't work for you, I think, in hindsight, the pace of it could definitely have been brought up a bit.
Interesting observation about the series having a politics. I was pretty keen and clear from the outset that it wouldn't – we were satirising spad culture, not any particular stance. That said, it's fairly common knowledge that most of my experience of this comes from working with the Labour party so I appreciate that may rub off. Ben, my co-producer, thought, after reading some early drafts of the scripts, that I had overcompensated for the sake of even handedness and made Labour pratically unelectable. Certainly in the last few episodes we introduce a few elements designed to blow the contest wide open.
Yeah I think the cultures are fairly similar (although spads are definitely distinct from campaign volunteers, and are usually pretty well paid). I was on the radio with the woman who heads up Republicans Overseas (I know...) and afterwards she was ecstatically telling me that I had to go over to the US and do a version there. She promised to set me up with people in Hollywood, but where's my phonecall??
Lack of scoring was a conscious decision and is true of our major influences (The T**** o* I*, The Office...) but sometimes I miss it too. This is my first project without any sort of music over the visuals but I think that, tonally speaking, it's the best way of striking the balance the show needs.
Thanks for watching, it's much appreciated!
I think the abrupt gear changes from snappy back-and-forth to longer monologues in ep3 didn't work too well (for me anyway). Also, because it's mainly snappy back and forth in short webseries episodes, I'm finding it hard to really invest in any of the characters.
I'm interested in whether what are emerging as the series's own politics are quite so clear because they are firmly held, or as a result of overcompensation from the opposite direction, or indeed whether I've misconstrued them altogther
I guess I feel like we have to aspire to have people respond to characters in the same way that they would over a longer format. I wanted it to be a sitcom about people working in politics, rather than a political sitcom (where all the jokes would be about the job and that world). I can definitely see why the final scene of Episode 3 doesn't work for you, I think, in hindsight, the pace of it could definitely have been brought up a bit.
Interesting observation about the series having a politics. I was pretty keen and clear from the outset that it wouldn't – we were satirising spad culture, not any particular stance. That said, it's fairly common knowledge that most of my experience of this comes from working with the Labour party so I appreciate that may rub off. Ben, my co-producer, thought, after reading some early drafts of the scripts, that I had overcompensated for the sake of even handedness and made Labour pratically unelectable. Certainly in the last few episodes we introduce a few elements designed to blow the contest wide open.
Yeah I think the cultures are fairly similar (although spads are definitely distinct from campaign volunteers, and are usually pretty well paid). I was on the radio with the woman who heads up Republicans Overseas (I know...) and afterwards she was ecstatically telling me that I had to go over to the US and do a version there. She promised to set me up with people in Hollywood, but where's my phonecall??
Lack of scoring was a conscious decision and is true of our major influences (The T**** o* I*, The Office...) but sometimes I miss it too. This is my first project without any sort of music over the visuals but I think that, tonally speaking, it's the best way of striking the balance the show needs.
Thanks for watching, it's much appreciated!
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No, I get the intention, and I agree that you're doing a good job of the distinction between the two kinds of sitcoms. I don't even necessarily have a problem with monologues - as I said previously, the quickfire dialogue coupled with the short runtime makes it difficult enough to invest in characters, so more talking is a good thing. I wonder if a change of scene and location might have helped for the characters to wax more introspective? But in my view, both monologues jarred a bit (the Tory one more than the Labour one, IMO).
I share Ben's opinion - the Labour party are verging on the grotesque. It's interesting that it comes from overcompensation though. I assumed from the Tory spads at least being vaguely coherent coupled with your own attack on Livingstone and Labour's recent travails in the magazine piece that you would be a true blue yourself
Tell us how you really feel.
Ahh, there's your problem. Hollywood is actually controlled by the Liberal-Elite Democratic Party's Lizard People, not the GOP's Lizard People.
I share Ben's opinion - the Labour party are verging on the grotesque. It's interesting that it comes from overcompensation though. I assumed from the Tory spads at least being vaguely coherent coupled with your own attack on Livingstone and Labour's recent travails in the magazine piece that you would be a true blue yourself
I think that, in general, the Conservative party is easier to make into a cartoon. Even if I were a right-wing commentator, the caricature can still be drawn in broader lines (especially as not many SpAds are really of the radical communist persuasion that might be more stereotypable). And Hector – the vaguely UKIPPY Tory – is definitely our broadest character. But I guess the grotesquery of the Labour spads probably comes from the fact that they're harder to pull into an archetype, therefore more effort has to go into pulling them into the comedy of errors.
As ever, I've failed to make my characters sufficiently likeable!
I know this isn't what you're going for, but I'll put my 2 cents (1 cent?) worth in anyway.
I think this would work best (from a viewer's perspective) if the episodes were even shorter - think in terms of the 2 1/2 to 3 minutes of the average Funny or Die video. Get in, get out, no one gets hurt
But in terms of quality of the videos - great job!
I think this would work best (from a viewer's perspective) if the episodes were even shorter - think in terms of the 2 1/2 to 3 minutes of the average Funny or Die video. Get in, get out, no one gets hurt
But in terms of quality of the videos - great job!
I agree, and Tory cartoons (in my living memory) go right back to Alan B'stard. That said, Thatcher herself was something of a horrific cartoon herself, and her successors still struggle to escape that all-encompassing evil
For me, it's a fine line trying to get comedy out of errors - the latest season of Veep (sorry to break the rule again
) has really fallen off a cliff for me (since Iannucci left) as all the characters are now quite dim and make constant stupid mistakes.As ever, I've failed to make my characters sufficiently likeable!
Not so much that as difficult to know - a function of the format as much as anything. As a writer struggling with a character-led narrative webseries at the moment, I can totally feel your pain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn5Ea3laXUA
New episode, which I hope you all enjoy! This episode will hopefully be our mid-season bump as it guest stars a familiar face from a classic British sitcom (the sort of sitcom I would not like any comparisons to be drawn to.....). Grateful for any watches and shares!
New episode, which I hope you all enjoy! This episode will hopefully be our mid-season bump as it guest stars a familiar face from a classic British sitcom (the sort of sitcom I would not like any comparisons to be drawn to.....). Grateful for any watches and shares!
Keith! 
How did you manage to get him involved? Liberal media intelligentsia again 
?
EDIT: Having now watched it, it's hard (no pun intended) not to draw those comparisons. I was expecting someone to say
at any moment. Of course it's the same problem that every comic role-play scenario has had since 2001, but still..
Some funny lines, though The Tories were very underutilised too, I thought. Look forward to the next part.
How did you manage to get him involved? Liberal media intelligentsia again ?EDIT: Having now watched it, it's hard (no pun intended
) not to draw those comparisons. I was expecting someone to say
There's been a rape up there!
Some funny lines, though
The Tories were very underutilised too, I thought. Look forward to the next part.
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Keith!
I wish there were a sexier story but I literally just emailed him. We only needed him for a half day, so I think it worked pretty easily with his schedule and, yeah, we did the two scenes back to back and it only took a couple of hours.
Some episodes focus more on one party than the other, and this was a very Labour heavy episode. That said, the back stretch of episodes feature 3 episodes that take place outside the office, so the show takes might have a slightly different vibe then. The first out-of-office episode is Episode 7 and the cut I've seen of it looks great, so I'm quite looking forward to getting them out and about!
The show seems to be finding a nice comedic rhythm in terms of performance and editing. I was really laughing out loud in those "improv" scenes. Good writing there, too
The show seems to be finding a nice comedic rhythm in terms of performance and editing. I was really laughing out loud in those "improv" scenes. Good writing there, too
Thank you! It's a funny one cos we shot all 10 episodes back-to-back before starting the editing, so I think that, as much as anything, it's been a case of the episodes getting stronger once some establishing guff was out the way. And, in hindsight, I don't know whether there was much point in the establishing guff cos 8 characters in 5-min episodes are always going to feel fairly indistinct...
Anyhow, here's the new episode this week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqd0xsmJdho
Special IndieTalk thanks to chilipie for being super patient with me being on holiday and managing to get it done ace and on time despite my lack of attention to detail
I found it very hard to hear what was being said a lot of the time, given the number of whispered conversations. Again, this could be down to my laptop speakers, but given the format perhaps the audio needs to be optimised for that kind of setup? I probably missed about 50% of the jokes.
Still laughed a few times though I think this is evolving into more of a sketch show than a narrative comedy ("sitcom"), which is fine by me.
Still laughed a few times though
I think this is evolving into more of a sketch show than a narrative comedy ("sitcom"), which is fine by me.I found it very hard to hear what was being said a lot of the time, given the number of whispered conversations. Again, this could be down to my laptop speakers, but given the format perhaps the audio needs to be optimised for that kind of setup? I probably missed about 50% of the jokes.
Still laughed a few times though
Hmm not had anyone else mention the whispering but it's definitely worth bearing in mind. And you're right about optimising any technical aspect for the distribution format – we made several visual allowances for the smaller screen – it's definitely something anyone approaching a web-series should bear in mind.
Thanks for keeping watching maz, five more to go!
Hmm not had anyone else mention the whispering but it's definitely worth bearing in mind. And you're right about optimising any technical aspect for the distribution format – we made several visual allowances for the smaller screen – it's definitely something anyone approaching a web-series should bear in mind.
Thanks for keeping watching maz, five more to go!
I guess I'm a bit fussy about dialogue, in that (as a writer of terrible dialogue) I want to hear and understand every single word to see what works well etc - I use subtitles for 'proper' telly even though I'm not hard of hearing. So I'm probably not your typical YouTube viewer
Episode number 6 is out now and all about whether the UK is going to catch up with the US and start legalising cannabis...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnavTIGaS8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnavTIGaS8
We took a couple of weeks off whilst everything when to shit in this country, but we're back now with episode 7!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY8ifkUICf4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY8ifkUICf4