A Night At Lowe's
Finally, something kind of cool to report. Last night my Film Studies professor Carl Kurlander obtained a few tickets to see an advanced screening of Jerry Seinfeld's documentary "The Comedian" and asked if me and a few other kids would like to go.
Seeing as how the tickets for the event cost close to $30 we of course took advantage of the opportunity to go for free. One of the reasons that the cost was so high was because the producer, Gary Streiner, and the director, Christian Charles, both showed up to speak about the film after the screening was over, took questions from the audience, and then invited us upstairs to a private party at the "Lowe's club", which is really just a bar with lots of fancy tables around it on the second floor of the theatre.
Nevertheless, it wasn't too crowded seeing as how the screening audience was pretty small, so me and a few of the other guys got a chance to schmooze with both of them a little bit and learn about the process of how they made the film. They shot over 600 (!) hours of film, and narrowed it down to just two. As Roger Ebert mentioned, I have to wonder if shooting that much tape was really necessary. Can you say, DVD extras?
Both Gary and Christian had very little to their name before doing this project and had, in fact, been making pretty good money as ad executives at some agency that produced the American Express commercials that Jerry Seinfeld had starred in.
Anyway, while they both were on the set with Seinfeld shooting these commercials, they noticed the preparation and the notes and the overall agony that went into preparing for a simple sketch, and asked if they could follow him around for a while, to see if perhaps he was interested in doing a documentary on the life of a comedian. Seinfeld was intrigued by it, and as the project developed, his interest grew and he eventually backed the film with his own money until Miramax picked it up to put into theatres. They shot the entire film with just two store-bought digital cameras.
While it wasn't as "revealing" as I thought it was going to be, it's still a very unique, behind-the-scenes insight into the life of a comedian. Is it worth the 8 bucks? I'm not sure about that. It's akin to the footage you'd see on one of those VH-1 "Behind the scenes" episodes, but without any voiceover. It's just lots of clips of Seinfeld sitting in booths with other comedians, cut with scenes of a cocky, irritating, neurotic up-and-comer named Orny Adams, as well as comedians that we all know: Bill Cosby, Colin Quinn, Chris Rock, Garry Shandling, Kevin Nealon, and so on. Cosby, by far, is the "god" of the group. At one point, Chris Rock sits in a booth in a dimly-lit club with Seinfeld and chatters about Cosby's performance the night before. "2 and a half hours, man! All new shit! Fuckin' hysterical shit, too! 2 and a half hours!" Jerry turns away, looks nervous, worried, and questions the length again. He's been struggling just to nail an hour's worth of material. And not only did Cosby do it once in one day, he did it TWICE. Without a break. That's unheard of, especially at his age.
The reason Pittsburgh got the film so early was because Gary Streiner grew up here and thankfully, the Pittsburgh film office egged him into coming back and showing a private screening. Just dumb luck. His brother, Russell Streiner, is coming tomorrow to speak about Night of the Living Dead, which he produced, and we're screening, as part of a publicity stunt for Pitt In Hollywood. Hopefully the turnout will be impressive.
The rest of my life is boring. I have two papers, a major exam, and a shot-by-shot sequence analysis due in the next few days. Back to reality... (cue Eminem)
Seeing as how the tickets for the event cost close to $30 we of course took advantage of the opportunity to go for free. One of the reasons that the cost was so high was because the producer, Gary Streiner, and the director, Christian Charles, both showed up to speak about the film after the screening was over, took questions from the audience, and then invited us upstairs to a private party at the "Lowe's club", which is really just a bar with lots of fancy tables around it on the second floor of the theatre.
Nevertheless, it wasn't too crowded seeing as how the screening audience was pretty small, so me and a few of the other guys got a chance to schmooze with both of them a little bit and learn about the process of how they made the film. They shot over 600 (!) hours of film, and narrowed it down to just two. As Roger Ebert mentioned, I have to wonder if shooting that much tape was really necessary. Can you say, DVD extras?
Both Gary and Christian had very little to their name before doing this project and had, in fact, been making pretty good money as ad executives at some agency that produced the American Express commercials that Jerry Seinfeld had starred in.
Anyway, while they both were on the set with Seinfeld shooting these commercials, they noticed the preparation and the notes and the overall agony that went into preparing for a simple sketch, and asked if they could follow him around for a while, to see if perhaps he was interested in doing a documentary on the life of a comedian. Seinfeld was intrigued by it, and as the project developed, his interest grew and he eventually backed the film with his own money until Miramax picked it up to put into theatres. They shot the entire film with just two store-bought digital cameras.
While it wasn't as "revealing" as I thought it was going to be, it's still a very unique, behind-the-scenes insight into the life of a comedian. Is it worth the 8 bucks? I'm not sure about that. It's akin to the footage you'd see on one of those VH-1 "Behind the scenes" episodes, but without any voiceover. It's just lots of clips of Seinfeld sitting in booths with other comedians, cut with scenes of a cocky, irritating, neurotic up-and-comer named Orny Adams, as well as comedians that we all know: Bill Cosby, Colin Quinn, Chris Rock, Garry Shandling, Kevin Nealon, and so on. Cosby, by far, is the "god" of the group. At one point, Chris Rock sits in a booth in a dimly-lit club with Seinfeld and chatters about Cosby's performance the night before. "2 and a half hours, man! All new shit! Fuckin' hysterical shit, too! 2 and a half hours!" Jerry turns away, looks nervous, worried, and questions the length again. He's been struggling just to nail an hour's worth of material. And not only did Cosby do it once in one day, he did it TWICE. Without a break. That's unheard of, especially at his age.
The reason Pittsburgh got the film so early was because Gary Streiner grew up here and thankfully, the Pittsburgh film office egged him into coming back and showing a private screening. Just dumb luck. His brother, Russell Streiner, is coming tomorrow to speak about Night of the Living Dead, which he produced, and we're screening, as part of a publicity stunt for Pitt In Hollywood. Hopefully the turnout will be impressive.
The rest of my life is boring. I have two papers, a major exam, and a shot-by-shot sequence analysis due in the next few days. Back to reality... (cue Eminem)