yulinkuang: lies: shipwreckedcomedy: Hey, Shipsters, do you…
lies:
Hey, Shipsters, do you have any questions about our projects/actors/behind the scenes process? Let us know by reblogging and adding your questions, we’re working on a video update for you!
Much love,
Something I wonder about is this: sometimes magical moments occur in movies or videos, moments where there’s some subtle sort of… something… that happens that makes a moment really sing. I’m not describing it well, but anyone who loves film and video knows what I’m talking about; it’s that moment that you look forward to when you rewatch something, a moment that carries so much depth of meaning, is so powerful. It can be a big moment, or a small one, happy or sad, whatever. But it’s special.
I feel like there are a disproportionate number of such moments in the work I’ve seen from the shipwrecked creators. Even though the overall amount of material is relatively small, there are lots of those special moments, and I really love them.
I’m curious how that happens. How much of it is planning and preparation, versus being intuitive and open to possibilities in the moment on set?
Am I even talking about something real, something that you as creators are aware of, that you actively seek to achieve? Or am I just being a gushing dork of a fanboy? I mean, from your perspective am I just talking about something obvious, and there’s no secret or trick to it; it’s just the basic, slogging, incremental accomplishment of someone who’s talented and has worked at something for a long time?
You don’t have to answer any of that, of course. But that’s what I’m curious about.
Whoa, hey, lies, thanks for making us feel validated as artists every time you respond to a post, haha. (Sometimes we talk about you like you’re our Tumblr dad. Because you seemed proud of us from the way beginning and stuff.
It’s cool, no pressure, we just hope you love us always and hey can we borrow the car we promise it’ll be back by curfew.)I’m writing this response because this question came in a little while after sineadpersaud and I finished our tea time Q&A yesterday, but I figured it worth answering because I’ve actually thought all of this about the work of my favorite creators (mostly within film and TV – Wes Anderson, Nora Ephron, Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, Amy Sherman Palladino, to name a few). The first and most important lesson I ever had to learn was that these creators weren’t magic. It’s why I love watching their early work, because you can retrace their creative growth back to their flawed beginnings. They aren’t magic, they’re just talented humans who worked unbelievably hard from a young age and kept coming out with work and grew with every project and learned from their mistakes and developed their voices and eventually got to a point where they could create confidently and consistently in a way that gives off the impression of ease. Aka, magic.
For us, we’re still at the beginning of that journey, so it’s incredibly gratifying to hear that you’re connecting with our work on that level.
As for our particular process for finding those specific comedic beats and those moments that make me fist pump as a director when they land, I’d say that it entirely comes down to the actual magic of finding the perfect collaborative team. Writing can be a somewhat solitary endeavor, but filmmaking requires so much creative trust and collaboration, it’s impossible to make anything good without having a truly solid team on your side. We do usually have scripts, but my favorite part of directing actors is when we transform the scripts through guided improv into something entirely new and wonderful. Then in post-production, working with the editor to build/stretch the moments and add the sound design that help bring out the heartbeat of the scene.
I’d like to add that our actors are some of the best improvisers out there and that means Sean can take the first stanza of The Raven and the direction from me to “introduce yourself to camera, in like an awkward, Masterpiece Theater sensitive poet dude way” and then turn that into what you see in the first episode of A Tell Tale Vlog. Or in episode 6, one of my personal favorite eps of ATTV, my direction was “Okay, so like… a roommate break up, basically. Work in some literary references if you can.” Then after the first take, I gave a round of notes on which moments to focus on and which ideas to build, and then we did a second take, and then we cut between the best selections from each take in post. In case you’re wondering, yes, that is an invitation to rewatch the entire series and marvel at the improv powers of Sean and Sinead. Kissing in the Rain was more scripted due to the nature of the project, but there is still a healthy amount of these improv-based moments which are almost always the ones I’m proudest of as a creator.
Anyway. Hope that answered your question, sorry we weren’t able to get to it in our video, and stay tuned for stuff and things!
Much love,
Yulin Kuang
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Thank you so much for the response! Also, I can think of no higher honor than to sometimes be talked about as Shipwrecked’s Tumblr dad. :-)
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