YOU MUST LEARN THIS NOW (new video!)

And the videos keep on coming! I wrote this one for Killing My Lobster Learns a Lesson, KML's latest sketch comedy show. This is the first of a series of videos that accompanied the show's sold-out run here in San Francisco.

It's not every day that "What if the Nazis made 'The More You Know' PSAs?" crosses my mind (I swear!), but once it did, show director Jon Barcellos and head writers The Bardi Twins trusted me to go for it. Further props go to to my DP and production partner Jon Burton, VFX maven Ty Bardi (who gave us the amazing visual punchline at the end) and actor Jon Wolanske, who stepped in at the last minute to just kill it.

Aaaaaand Back To The Wacky Stuff

I like the corporate gigs, no doubt, not least of which because they let me cherish the other projects (where I get to cut loose and get silly) all the more. Here's my latest of the latter, Babies on a Plane. Made for the latest Killing My Lobster show, Killing My Lobster Chops Down the Family Tree, it's a parody that you'll get pretty quickly. I made it mostly in Photoshop, mashing up found photos with a still-shoot featuring KML Actor Andy Alabran. Throw in some royalty-free stock music, intermediate-level sound engineering, excellent VO work from Andy, Allison Johnson, and resident KML Voice-Of-God Calum Grant, chuck it all into iMovie, and the rest is comedy. In theory.

Between this, Bowie, and Human Centipede, I'm on my way to becoming the "Still-Vision" (patent pending) comedy guy. 'Cause the big money is in comedy that doesn't move much, amirite?

Enjoy!

Lucha Libre Purim!

Some of my comedy videos, even *I* can't believe I made them. Others, I can't believe how good they turned out. This one is in both of those categories, to the extreme.

Unbelievable because it was inspired by, off all things, the Jewish holiday of Purim, and created for the annual KML show produced in that holiday's honor.

Good because I handed off my outline and few storyboards to the talented Bardi Twins, a husband/wife writing team (who are also an animator and a librarian to boot!).

Ty and Gina turned it onto a killer script with layers of inside jokes, then cranked out an SFX-heavy blood-and-guts ad spot for the ages. In Spanish! Add a pitch-perfect VO from Lobster alum Jon Wolanske and we could do no wrong.

Think we can't do edgy comedy based on something you'd normally see in a synagogue? This video suggests otherwise. Imagine what we could do with Flag Day.

SABADO!

"Coffee Wars" boils over!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMqutKBS5iE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] I've spent a sizable chunk of my spare time this past year writing and teaching for Killing My Lobster, the Second City of San Francisco. And while I feel like I spent the first few months making my bones, earning the respect of my talented co-writers and our equally gifted actors and directors, I like to think I've gone on to acquit myself over this year's shows.

The latest, and possibly most satisfying, example of this is the film I wrote and produced for Killing My Lobster Holds the Mayo, their final show of the year. The film is called The Coffee Wars and it's a Ken Burns parody, showcasing the rivalry between two of the best-known (and my favorite) artisan coffee brands in town.

It's blown up beyond all (well, my) expectations thus far, garnering over 8,00014,000 hits in less than three days, and crazy amounts of Twitter chatter. It's even attracted a hater or two, which is always a sure sign of online heat.

Kudos to director Rand Courtney, actors Fred Wickham and Sarah Mitchell, and the rest of the superb cast, crew, and musicians who made this film such a joy to make and, I hope, to watch. With apologies to Joan Baez.