Todays Specials
All jokes aside, stand-up is getting artful onscreen.
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The very first thing that happens is the budget.
From there, its building a team: hiring the designer, the director, and the lighting designer.
Then its presenting an idea and bringing it to fruition.
The comics learn fast what they like and what they dont like.
Back in the old days, you had a week to shoot a comedy special.
Now, two days is a luxury.
COVID has been the biggest challenge of my career.
I was slated to do a Netflix comedy special in 2019.
We got as far as doing a scout, which is where the key people go to the venue.
Then the pandemic happened.
Then we had an attempt No.
2, and we had an attempt No.
3, and finally we just shot it in November in New Jersey.
The biggest obstacle was that the artist did not want the audience to wear masks.
Shooting comedy is not as easy as it looks.
Its a skill set, and it takes a village to move a mountain.
If you go back and look at old comedy specials, they put a lot of money into them.
Sometimes Ill ask if they have any visual inspirations.
I dont care what you do.
I have no creative input.
Ill just show up and lets do it.
We had about 140 vintage tungsten can movers that we found in storage that dont exist anymore.
and he just walked in and out of light for the whole special.
Then Ill do a semi-technical drawing that I can distribute to producers.
Sometimes weve had it where after a half-hour of looking at things, it looks great.
Other times, like withMake Happy, we spent two full days going through every single lighting cue.
Sometimes we have to do things in a way thats never been done before.
Attempts to shoot in the round have been really unsuccessful in comedy for decades.
That way, each camera on each dolly had really big zooms on it, 24-mm.
It became a really beautiful choreographed dance.
I think were at a fork in the road right now.
Generally the producer whos calling me will give me a rundown of whatever has already been discussed.
But for something like Jerrod Carmichaels8, for instance, that venuewasthe production design.
The challenge then became adapting the venues personality to what we were trying to do.
So youre seeing all the imagery, but the sensor is not picking up on the grid pattern.
Those are some of the magic moments.
Usually Ill get called in after comedians have already finished shooting their specials.
I have a process of how I tackle things.
I pull audience reactions if there are audience reactions.
A lot of times I can clean up a flub within the show.
I can grab a word and insert it somewhere if they messed up to correct it.
Or if they said something twice, I can just go to a different angle and cut that out.
Maria BamfordsOld Babywas a very unique one to work on.
I like it when comedians are hands-on with the edit.
Ive worked with so many great comedians, and sometimes well watch it through together and theyll give notes.
Bob Saget was very involved in the edit because his shows were very, very different.
That made it really challenging to get the best of both shows.
One of my favorite compliments Ive ever gotten from a comedian was from Tiffany Haddish.
She told me I was the Beyonce of editing.
My role on a special typically starts right at the end after the show has been recorded and edited.
I spend a significant amount of time editing out extraneous noise from the crowd.
Occasionally a microphone will go bad, or sometimes somebody will bump a microphone at a key moment.
Even something like a comedians microphone technique can make a difference.
Some comedians are better at holding the mic, and some are not as careful.
For the most part, its fun to work with them.
Some give absolutely fantastic notes, although some get a little nitpicky.
It was very challenging to balance their microphones in a way that sounded natural.
I had to use a lot of sophisticated noise-reduction software.
Moving laughter is somewhat of a sensitive topic with comedians, but we do whats called sweetening.
We have a guy who specifically works on laughs.
But its all very subtle.
Its usually not a case of adding in a laugh where there was no laugh.
In general, theres a big challenge with how loud you mix the laughs.
Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
