EdFringe Show 1: It's Started!

August 11, 2016

First show down! SO MUCH FUN! It was not super full, but very fun and the neighbor of my life long friend from Vancouver, Wa came! Despite some tech issues with the mics, we had a really good time onstage and everyone seemed to leave happy(lots of laughing, whew!). Already excited about tomorrow and talking about what we are going to add, take out and change. What an amazing experience. What a fun way of celebrating the 5 year anniversary of when we met, by performing together on stage in Scotland. Being at Edinburgh Festival Fringe is literally a dream come true for me. Now we're off to see a play about a rugby tour!

EdFringe Show 2 Update: SO MUCH FUN!

August 11, 2016

‪#‎EdFringe‬ show 2 update: For those that care, we had double the audience of last night. Still not sold out yet but brilliant show! Even more fun than last night, and we got to try some new Scotland stuff on the fly that worked really well. Also got some insane questions. All around a great show that we were proud of!! Thanks Theodora Nicolaou for helping out tonight! It was great having you in the audience! Tomorrow is our day off & after "queuing "(speaking ENGLISH now) most of the day to speak to press, last minute flyering & theSpaceUK party that STARTS at 23:30 (11:30PM) WE ARE READY TO RELAX FOR A BIT!! 😜😀

The only regret of the night is not buying advance tickets to see Set List tonight. It's my fav comedy showcase in the history of showcases. An hour in advance was not enough time! All sold out 💩

EdFringe Update Show #3: Not a bad show, but a "meh" show.

August 11, 2016

Update Show #3: Lighter crowd, which is apparently normal for Mondays. They laughed consistently, we got compliments at the end BUT it was not as good (for me anyway) of a performance as the last two shows here. So didn't leave satisfied. It was mainly an energy issue, and never getting back on the rhythm after my first (newish) joke didn't work. I let it break me down, instead of rebounding into something I know works - which is what I would normally do. Reminder to self: One of the main rules of comedy is to NOT OPEN WITH NEW MATERIAL. The good news, no reviewers tonight (that I know of - oh I hope not).

AFTER the show we went walking looking for any stand up show to watch, we wandered into a free show - that was packed. It was a new comedian to me, but not to anyone else there: Glenn Wool. He is super funny, from Canada, and I can't belive I hadn't heard of him. I cried a few times from laughing. AT LEAST SOMEONE KILLED TONIGHT ;-)

You're only as good as your last show, so I'm glad there is a show tomorrow!

EdFringe Show 4 & 5: "A Tale of Two Shows"

August 11, 2016

Show 4:

After a long & exhausting day passing out flyers in the rain, it was showtime. We knew we only had 4 people, but we've had small shows before and decided to make the best of it and have fun. Some of our best shows have been only a handful of people. (Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota)

I knew we would be in trouble right away. Two people didn't understand English at all. The other two, who sat in the front row, were older couple from London that were "mad dogging" me from the moment they walked in. They rolled their eyes when I tried to give them one of our "question" cards and so we started the show. They looked around disgusted by the empty seats. In retrospect, I wish we would have just refunded them then, and not done a show. However show must go on I went up and did my individual time, and they looked angry throughout my whole set. Then Doug came up, and he tried everything but they just stared blankly. We did the rest of the time as duo, without the interactive bit obviously, and it was more like a line reading after awhile. They refused to laugh, literally, and no matter what material we did they just got angrier and angrier. We tried to interact with them, asked them questions...nothing. After the "show", which was by far the worst in my life. I went up to them, I said obviously you didn't enjoy this at all. We would love to give you a refund. They refused the refund but told us how much they hated us, our trite American humor and they let us know politely that our show would bomb in the UK and no one would appreciate our "jokes". (the day before I posted about how much I love UK audiences, they have the best sense of humor. I still stand by that, just not these two). Also, they suggested I stop doing comedy altogether. They actually made me break down in sobs when they were talking to me. First time that has ever happened. They were very pleased about it, and it was the first time I saw either of them smile all night. We decided to quit comedy forever after that show.

Show 5:

We took the morning to recover. Literally, almost cancelled the show that night because no one had bought tickets yet, and I was still traumatized from the night before. However, 2 tickets were sold so we decided we needed to get out and work it. We put our brave faces on and went out to flyer like mad all day. We were determined to have fun no matter what. Our 2 tickets had grown to 7 tickets sold, and we didn't have any more strength to flyer so we went to the show before ours. A really great comedian and impressionist was doing his show, "Rubbish Rebel". We laughed, had fun, and it was time to set up and take tickets. A few people came in, then more and more and more - until only had a few seats empty! Each of us went up (and I have to admit I was struggling with a little fear from the night before) but we both killed, destroyed and I even did a bit about our "American lovers" from the night before. George Cameron Keys came to the show also, and it was great seeing a MAUI face! We had tons of questions, our duo set was super fun, everyone laughed and several were from the UK. We went a little past our time, but had fun and were flying high from the adrenaline. We got some great twitter reviews after the show, and spent quite a bit of time talking to people from the audience after as well. Lots of performers were there along with the normal crowd of young and older married couples. We decided to maybe not quit comedy.

We literally went from our worst show ever in the history of either of us doing comedy to one of my favorite shows. #Edfringe is an experience to be sure. A great one, a learning one, I'm excited that Doug Wyckoff is filming all our sets because I think it will make for a really interesting contrast.

Every day is new though, we have only 2 tickets presold for tonight, so we did some promo stuff this morning, had a really exciting interview for a publication that will publish in a few days and now are going out in the still rainy weather to pass out more flyers.

Time Traveling Hobo Cop

August 1, 2016

There are three distinct sections to this short. It has somewhat of a disjointed story line. It is not really a true beginning, middle and end type short film. It’s more of a short film introducing a story line for a longer movie or series.

The first part is a voice over explaining the status of the world and setting the time frame for which the film takes place. It also gives some information about Hobo Cop, who he is and why he is on a mission to save the world.

The second part begins with two men sitting across from each other in chairs with a folding table between them. One man appears to be interrogating the other, as if he is a detective asking questions. The other man is answering as best he can. The story is moved along by this dialogue between the two men. One interrogating the other. We see photos and video clips also being used to help tell the story and give as much information about what is going on. We learn what Hobo Cops mission is specifically and what is expected to happen after he completes it. As the interview comes to an end we find out that this has been a practice run for a real interview with a police detective after Hobo Cop completes his mission. We also find out the fate the higher powers have planned for Hobo Cop after he has honorable done his duty and achieved the task he has been sent back in time to complete. The man being interviewed is being sent back in time and his mission is to be the witness that makes sure Hobo Cop is framed for the missing person and possible murder of…the Trump voter.

The third part is a montage of photos showing the night hobo cops mission was to come to fruition. The night a murder was supposed to have taken place. It looks like the man that has been sent back to frame Hobo Cop has been there awhile but is definitely in place to do his part. He has befriended the targeted victims as well as hobo cop and the fembots. It looks like a great night of partying and fun being had by all. The montage ends and cuts to a close up shot of the man who was being interviewed. He has long hair and beard and talks directly into the camera as if by doing so he is talking to the people in the future with the video recording. He clearly is shaken and scared. He looks over both shoulders and then stares directly into the camera and says…..

Sundance Film Festival 2016 Park City Utah. The Egyptian Theatre.

How "Time Traveling Hobo Cop" was created.

August 1, 2016

This project started out with just some video clips that we took while walking around our house on the Jordan River Parkway trail. Our friends and married actors Doug Schnieder and Jessica Scherr had just arrived in town from NYC and were staying with us in SLC before we all headed up to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival.

As we walked around getting some fresh air and them shaking off jet lag, we all said that we should make a film together sometime soon. So I playfully took out my new IPhone 6s and started recording video. We improved some scenes and played around with no real movie or script in mind. Jokingly it became about a Hobo Cop who travels back in time to stop Donald Trump from destroying the world when he wins the presidential election in 2016.

Getting into character. All the good actors do it. Even the dog looked sad and in character.

We came home from our walk and I used the IMovie app on my IPhone to create a movie trailer with music and credits in about half an hour. The trailer didn’t really make any sense and just had a lot of action scenes through out. “It did look like a movie you would watch but the trailer doesn’t tell you much”, was a comment we got a lot after showing it to people.

The very first movie trailer.

The Sundance Film Festival Main Street in full swing.

We went to the Film Festival and now we had a project that we were pitching at Sundance every time someone would ask what we were doing here I would whip out my phone and show them “Time Traveling Hobo Cop”. It was fun to see the expressions of people faces after they watched it. They couldn’t tell if it was serious or a joke.

We showed it to Kristian Bruun and Ben Kronberg and talked them into being in the short film.

Our entire group that we were hanging with (Actors and Comedians) were in on it and we all pitched it as if it was a real project that we were looking for a deal to make the tv series or movie happen. We posted on social media pictures of us pitching the idea to people.

We got a selfie with Molly Shannon but she was unable to screen the trailer.

Even a pic of Judd Appatows back when we were in the same Eddie Bauer comfort suite as him.

We said that we were meeting with people about "TTHC" to see what they thought. The thing is once you post something on social media platforms you make it become “Facebook Real”, it becomes real to many people. I don't know how they could be confused. Does this picture look like we are having a meeting with Judd? Maybe, kind of, ok it does but we didn't.

We came this close to having a pitch meeting with Judd Apatow.

Last year when people asked why are you here? I would say for the free stuff and food. That was great until at one party it was the company rep. who was putting on the party and he didn't find it so funny that I was just there mooching his expensive stuff. (Still got the free swag, a T- shirt, and I wear it all the time in public #filmworthy, thanks Kodak). So what started out as just having something silly and fun to show people at Sundance this year when they asked “what are you doing here?” actually started getting attention. I had several people ask when the film was coming out and when could they see it. This lasted through the entire film festival and I thought it would die down when it was over but after it was over I would still randomly get asked about it. Enough that I would keep thinking about it and decided it would be a fun project to test out my new IPad and see what I could do with the videos we had taken through out Sundance film festival. I ended up writing a script to help piece together the videos we had with somewhat of a storyline. My friend, fellow comedian and actor Joe Everard stepped up and played a key role in getting the footage we needed to finish the short film. I was then able to piece together and edit what we had into a short film/ pilot.

Here is a trailer for the completed short film. This one makes a little bit more sense and explains the story a little bit better. Funny how if you have a plan it takes less time and works out better usually.

There are three distinct sections to this short. It is somewhat of a disjointed story line. It is not really a true beginning, middle and end. It’s more of a short movie introducing a story line for a longer movie or series.

Fembots played by Teresa Wyckoff and Jessica Sherr.

Detective and Witness played by Joe Everard and Doug Wyckoff.

We see photos and video clips also being used to help tell the story and give as much information about what is going on. We learn what Hobo Cops mission is specifically and what is expected to happen after he completes it. As the interview comes to an end we find out that this has been a practice run for a real interview with a police detective after Hobo Cop completes his mission. We also find out the fate the higher powers have planned for Hobo Cop after he has honorable done his duty and achieved the task he has been sent back in time to complete. The man being interviewed is being sent back in time and his mission is to be the witness that makes sure Hobo Cop is framed for the missing person and possible murder of…the Trump voter.

Sundance party scene. All actors practiced hard method acting for this shoot.

The montage ends and cuts to a close up shot of the man who was being interviewed. He has long hair and beard and talks directly into the camera as if by doing so he is talking to the people in the future with the video recording. He clearly is shaken and scared. He looks over both shoulders and then stares directly into the camera and says…..

Thanks for reading this blog post and all your support in making this project. The short film "Time Traveling Hobo Cop" will be having it's premiere release on September 7th 2016.

Interesting Fun Facts:

Some interesting fun facts about this project is that all the video was shot with an IPhone 6s. All the editing was done using IMovie on an IPad. All the music was created using GarageBand on an IPad. The script was written in Word on an IPad, well the half with a script. Also the short film/ pilot episode was technically made backwards. We just started filming then decided on a storyline, I wrote the script using the video clips that we had shot already and then filmed some more stuff to fill in the blanks of the storyline. Edited the entire movie together and showed it to the actors, then got permission from all the actors to use their likeness in the movie after they had watched it. Thanks to all who participated and sent encouragement during the process to get this project completed. Especially my beautiful supportive bride Teresa.