David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Tag: MICF

8 things I learned from my first comedy festival show

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival wrapped up its 30th year late last month. A significant achievement for live comedy in Australia. Although perhaps less impressive these days, with all this “30 is the new 20” kind of talk. Still, it was especially significant for me as it was where I chose to perform my first festival show.

It was a great experience. An emotional roller coaster at times, but I’m certainly glad I did it. Here are some things I learned.

1. Having a festival pass is awesome

As this was my first festival as a participant, it was also my first festival with a coveted “festival pass”. Having one of those beauties gets you into 95% of the shows at the festival for free (unless the show is sold out). It’s an expensive time of year to have so many comedian friends, and in previous years I could usually only afford to see 5 or so shows. This year I saw 15. They were:

Emily Tresidder – Crazy Is
Ryan Coffey – Beat
Dave Warneke – Facty Fact vs. The Audience
John Dore – Revolving Dore
Rhys Nicholson – Bona Fide
Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall – Oh Hey Guys
Peter Jones – This Show May Be Recorded For Quality Purposes
Lisa-Skye – Spiders Wearing Party Hats
Guy Montgomery – Guy Montcomedy
Yianni – The Simpsons Taught Me Everything I Know
James Masters – The King of Humility
Andy Matthews & Matt Stewart – Logistical Nightmare
Andy Matthews – Plenty
Nic Spunde – Asexual Healing
Jay Morrissey & Danielle Walker – Illuminati Karate Party

Every one of them made me laugh. Some more than others, as you would expect. I’ll spare you the minor details as I’m not in the review game any more (they usually result in me being fired from a television show or an awkward conversation years later, so I’ll leave the reviews to the actual reviewers).

2. Poster politics

You know comedy festival has come around again when you start seeing posters of funny people pop up around town. Their placement is the sort of thing you only notice in passing, until you’re tasked with actually putting up some yourself. There are a couple of companies you can pay to put up your posters, but I wanted to keep costs down, so I put all mine up personally. Great way to promote your show. Can’t have a show without a poster. Though you probably could have a poster without a show. Kinda would be a waste of time however.

I had the most success with shop windows on and around Smith Street and Brunswick Street. To my delight, I found that most owners/managers were more than happy to let you put up a poster in their window. Obviously you ask first. I learned pretty quickly not to waste my time with chain stores. They’ve got franchise agreements that prevent them from thinking independently or God forbid, engaging with the community.

Not everyone was up for it, and it was quite funny hearing some of the lazy, nonsensical excuses. People telling me with a straight face they have a “no posters policy”, while standing in front of a dozen posters for other comedy festival shows. Or the guy behind an unnamed bar on Gertrude Street who told me he could only display a poster for a comedy show that wasn’t taking place in Melbourne: “I don’t promote rival venues. If your show was in Ballarat, that’d be different.” Great, I’ll make sure to go back there when I want to advertise a gig that’s happening at least 100km away. At least he was open to the idea of offering SOME help. Provided his help is in no way helpful.

My favourite was the juice bar on Degraves Street in the city. On the wall I saw a comedian’s decaying poster from 2014! It was about 3PM, no other customers, and the guy working there was emptying an entire can of Mortein across every square inch of the place. I asked if I could update his two year old poster with a fresh one. “No mate, we’re closed.” “It’ll just take a second. I’ve got my own blu-tac?” “We’re closed.”

The lifespan of a poster also varies wildly. I reckon some of the ones I put up had been torn down or postered over within a couple of hours. Others lasted the whole festival. The one on the brick wall outside PBS is still there, despite all the thunderstorms. And unless that juice bar gets shut down by the health department, I expect I’ll see that 2014 poster turn 3.

3. Flyering is fun

Can’t do a comedy show without a flyer. It’s like a poster people can hold in their hand and pretend to look at. I spent a few evenings outside the Town Hall and around Smith Street in Collingwood handing out flyers. I was dreading this, but actually, it was pretty fun. I often stood next to the info booth, where one of my posters was conveniently positioned about eye height just on the edge (below the air conditioner). I’d wear the same clothes I was wearing on the poster and just stand there and point to it when people made eye contact with me. Made a lot of people smile. I figure if that was the end of the transaction, that’s better than nothing.

Was surprisingly tiring though. I think it was all the smiling. I was quite selective with who I approached (mainly because of the small number of flyers I had printed – I had to go for quality flyering, not quantity). So I only talked to people who looked like they wanted me to. Most either politely declined or politely took one. Some people stopped for a little chat, and asked me questions about the show, or about my experiences. A few people recognised me from my various audio-visual capers, either explicitly or in the “you look familiar” way. One lady came up and asked me if I was Josh Earl. I instinctively said no. I’m kicking myself now I didn’t say yes.

There was really only one nut I encountered. He stopped and chatted for a very long time, far longer than anyone else. After about 5 minutes, I’d pretty much said all I could, and it was at a time between shows where a lot of people were wandering around outside the Town Hall. I wanted to get to some of them while I could. But this guy sticks to me like glue, and keeps with the small talk and the jokes (“Feel free to use that in your show” etc.).

So I say to him, “Well it’s been great chatting, but I really have to hand out the rest of these flyers”. He comes up with an idea to “help” promote my show, and proceeds to start tearing down another comedian’s poster from the wall of the info booth. “Quick, give me some of your flyers. I’ll put them up here!” I clutch my flyers tightly to my chest. “Uh… I don’t think the comedy festival is going to like that.” “Na seriously, come on. I’ll put your flyers up here and everyone will see them!” I start to slowly back away. “Yeah… you know I reckon it’ll be more effective if I actually hand them to people.” “Come on, don’t be an arsehole. Gimme the flyers.” “Yeah… I’ve really got to go. Great to meet you. Hopefully see ya tonight.” “Fuck you man! Fuck you!”

Kinda happy he didn’t show up to my show later that evening.

4. PR was surprisingly hard

As it was my first festival, I didn’t bother putting any money into PR beyond a few bucks to boost some Facebook posts. I didn’t buy any print media spots. Figured I wanted a more low key (and low cost) debut. Also, with that journalism degree and years of media experience and contacts, I figured I could manage to get a little something on my own, maybe a community radio interview or a review from a blog.

Actually, no I couldn’t. I vastly underestimated how competitive it would be. Hence hilariously, I had a media night with no media. But any disappointment in the back of my mind was overshadowed by the fact it just reinforced my opening gag:

“The first rule of Fan Club is… you do NOT talk about Fan Club. I must say the Australian media is doing an exceptional job of following this rule. You open any newspaper in the country, you will not see this show, or my name, mentioned. At all. In hindsight, maybe not the best PR strategy, but too late now. Something to get right next year.”

So no reviews, for better or worse. Did get some lovely tweets though.

5. The stress

The first festival show was always going to be stressful. It’s stressful for every comedian. Even seasoned veterans. One thing’s for sure: there is no better laxative than knowing you’re performing stand-up comedy that evening. Or maybe that’s just me? I’m just a regular guy. Possibly too regular.

Actually though the nerves always peaked just before walking out on stage. Once I’m up there, it’s fine. It’s the waiting to go on that’s the worst.

And something else I experienced for the first time was a strange cartoonish rash on the palms of my hands. It would always appear after a show as a bunch of spots on either my left or right palm. It was either one or the other, never both. And it would always be gone by the next morning. Could be stress. Could be an allergy to one of the metals in the microphone. Possibly some combination of the two. I don’t know. Funny though.

Glad it’s over and I’ve got my evenings back again. For now. If anything, doing the festival this year reminded me of the importance of taking time out to relax and recharge.

6. Playing to small audiences can actually be great

Preparing for this 50 minute show, I started going to open mic nights again. Typical audience numbers range from maybe 15-30. Occasionally, it’d get up to 40 or 50. That’s a nice crowd to perform to. Most people I talk to reckon the more people in the audience, the scarier it is for the performer. Personally, I find smaller audiences much more intimidating.

A small audience creates a completely different dynamic. It’s less like performing to a crowd and more like performing for individuals. And my festival show gave me the chance to perform to some of the smallest and largest audiences of my career thus far.

Some nights, I was performing to 2 people. A couple of them were actually really good. Those 2 people were really into it, and it made for a much more intimate show (obviously). Another night, there were 3 in the audience: A woman from Germany, a woman from Thailand and a guy from Adelaide who was in the year above me in high school who I happened to spot while flyering one night. Needless to say, some of the gags with local references didn’t go so well. So I had to change a few things on the fly, which made things interesting. Had a drink with them afterwards and they seemed to enjoy it (who really knows though, right?).

One of the other 2-person audience nights was made a bit difficult by one of those 2 people being a jerk who was essentially behaving like a human Twitter feed throughout the show. That was about as challenging as it got for me. Was glad to get to the end of that one.

During the festival, I did a couple of 7-minute guest spots with other comics doing the same. One at Boney and one at Toff in Town. Those crowds were something like 80-100, and I got some great laughs. It’s nice when you do the same material to a decent sized audience and are suddenly reminded that the jokes are actually funny.

7. Ad-libbing is great

Having a 50 minute show with a script to fall back on means you can afford to go off on a tangent if the opportunity arises. And often, the funniest things in the show are the unexpected reactions from people in the audience. Plus at times I got a bit sick of doing the same gags the exact same way. So it was great to try slightly different variations on bits and on occasion, just ad-lib something and not think about the consequences. I wouldn’t ever do that at an open mic night because I’ve usually got something very specific to try out and you only get 5 minutes up there.

I went on some very fun tangents this festival. Sometimes, it’s the best thing you can do at the time. Just go with it.

8. Comic comradery

Tony Martin once told me Melbourne is home to the world’s bitchiest comedy scene. That may be true. Well, I mean, it’s true that he told me.

But I reckon there’s a quiet respect between all comedians doing a comedy festival show. Everyone’s in the same boat. Everyone’s show is on at the same time. Everyone’s vying to sell tickets. Everyone’s swimming in debt before they’ve even started. Everyone wants to get a good review. Flyering around the Town Hall, I’d occasionally make eye contact with a fellow comic and exchange a nod of recognition or a handshake. You’re never alone.

This was the first time I’ve ever felt part of the scene and it’s great. Sure there’s a bit of bitchiness. Everyone wants more gigs and we all wish we thought of that hilarious killer line instead. But there’s also support, laughter and friendship.

There’s also Dean Watson:

Thanks Dean for manning the door and sitting through my show 8 times. Thanks also to Antonio Cafasso for his superb graphics and Alexis Kotlowy for the fabulous midi tunes. To Michael and all the staff at Caz Reitop’s Dirty Secrets in Collingwood. And everyone who came along.

I’m not sure if I’ll do another festival show next year. To be honest, I think my heart is still in TV, web and radio-based comedy (10 years today since my first time on radio, by the way!). But I’m sure I’ll do another one some day.

That little voice in the back of my head won’t let me stay off that stage for long.

– David M. Green

May 4, 2016
Something hits/for the fan(s)

It’s happening! My debut stand-up show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (or indeed any festival) is one Earth month away. If you like gags about man caves, poignant observations about umbrellas, questionable advertising campaigns or sitting on a chair in a dark room, you won’t want to miss this for all the gold on the world.

8 shows only, so get your ticket now and scratch a reminder into your fridge.

– DMG

February 25, 2016
Things what I did in 2015

Greetings from Stockholm!

I’m rounding out the year in Sweden with Annika. My first trip to Europe and my first time out of Australia in 10 years. A long overdue chance to see how life works in a place that isn’t Melbourne or Adelaide. For example, being able to insert your credit card in the machine at the supermarket before all the items have even been scanned? Mind blown, Sweden. Mind. Blown.

I’m here for a whole month so I’ll save up the humorous anecdotes and poignant cultural observations and give you the good ones later.

It’s been a grand year. Back in February I returned to the writing team for season 5 of Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell. Just about the most fun you can have as a comedy writer in Australia. And congrats to everyone on the AACTA Award for Best Television Comedy Series! Greatest team in TV.

Here’s one of my favourite sketches from Season 5 (I assume it’s the right one. Can’t seem to watch this video in Sweden for some reason. Really, The World? Still with the geoblocking?):

Also spent another year behind the control panel at Crocmedia. For my 4th year I worked on the radio flagship “AFL Live” program as well as the new “A-League Live” domestic soccer coverage, and Saturday nights at SEN during the summer. A great job and great people. Which is why I’m still there, obviously.

Here’s me with TV’s Jane Nield on AFL Grand Final Day:

It was also great to actually attend an AFL game this year too. Not just attend, but sit in the Crocmedia commentary box at the MCG to see Hawthorn vs Geelong in Round 20, with Rex Hunt calling with Darren Parkin and Terry Wallace.

Only my second time at the MCG and the third AFL game I’ve ever attended, if you can believe that? FYI, the first was Adelaide vs Geelong at Football Park in 1997. The second was Melbourne vs Brisbane at the MCG in 2010. I’m usually back at Crocmedia HQ pressing the buttons, ya see.

Man, what a view. And fascinating to see the operation from the other side of the ISDN line (Thanks again Jack Heverin!).

No 31 Questions this year (five years and three community TV seasons was enough). But a project I worked on throughout 2015 was my “new” webseries VHS Revue. I’ve been going through old pre-1995ish video tapes and cutting together the hilarious/unusual highlights with some contemporary gags in between. All recorded on period VHS technology.

I made nine episodes this year with the assistance of Nicholas Godfrey and Alexis Kotlowy in Adelaide. With another one I made way back in 2008, there are now 10 episodes on YouTube. Look out for cameos from TV’s Michael Pope and Mark Humphries!

Still a few more tapes in the box I haven’t gone through yet. They’re fun to make so I suspect I’ll make some more at some point. The Adelaide VHS Gang and I have another more complex project in the works for the future, so keep a nose out…

Here’s a clue:

Another thing I returned to this year was stand-up comedy. I’ve kept a pretty low profile. In fact, this is the first I’ve mentioned it online. But I’ll fill you in.

Between 2008 and 2011, I got up on stage to do a five minute spot about a dozen times. A few of those went pretty well. But I was always more interested in pursuing radio, TV and narrative/sketch-based comedy, so I never really took stand-up seriously and when “31 Questions” got up and running, I put stand-up on the back burner. Or rather, took it off the stove entirely.

But there was always a voice at the back of my head telling me I should be doing stand-up. A real comedian should be able to get up on stage in front of an audience at any time and deliver entertainment. I was conscious I couldn’t fulfill that requirement.

With a bit of free time in the second half of the year, that voice got harder and harder to ignore. So at the start of October I put my hand up at “Comedy at the Wilde” in Fitzroy. Coincidentally, it was four years to the day since I last performed.

I was pretty rusty and to be honest, completely terrified. I haven’t been that scared in I don’t know when. I’d forgotten what it’s like up there, with the bright lights and no autocue. I got some laughs. Also got a generous portion of nothing. But I just had to get that return to the stage done and out of the way. And here’s the difference between now and six years ago: I rewrote the routine and got up on stage at “Station 59” in Richmond and did it again. That went a hell of a lot better. Then I tried a new five minutes, and another and another. I got up eight times in two months before I left for Sweden. And you know what? When you take stand-up seriously, it’s really fun. And when you kill? When everything just works? Oh my God, what a feeling. It’s indescribable.

By March, I’m planning to have 45 minutes of fine, hand-crafted comedy.

Why?

Hell yeah! It’s my debut show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival!

Come see me in “Fan Club”. It’s at a nice little cocktail bar called Caz Reitop’s Dirty Secrets, 80 Smith Street, Collingwood. I’ll be doing two shows a week, Thursdays and Sundays 9PM from March 24 to April 17. Book your tickets at TICKETMASTER (CLICK HERE).

It’ll be an evening (well a portion of an evening) of stand-up, a few stories and some live commercial reads. Producing it all myself. Just me and my comedy brain and possibly some other organs. If you’ve enjoyed any of my work ever, or you’re one of those people who’ve been asking me if I’ve got a show in the festival throughout the last decade, I’d be thrilled if you come. But until then, I’ll be round the stand-up traps in Melbourne. If you see me, come say hi.

In other news, I read some great books this year. I’ve been getting back into that too. I particularly recommend “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser and “Catch Me If You Can” by Frank Abagnale and Stan Redding.

Well whoever you are, thanks for reading (this, not the books mentioned above). Hope you’ve had a good year too and all of the best for 2016.

Let us do coffee. Let us do lunch. Let us do all of the things.

– David M. Green

December 31, 2015
31 Questions Season 2, Taping 3: The third taping (of the second season)

April Fool’s Day was supposed to be our regular night in the RMITV studio, but it also happened to be Easter Monday. And alas, the studio was closed. Also, people have families. So we taped our 3rd episode at the special time of Wednesday 3 April, 2013.

I felt this week went better than last week. There was a good vibe in the studio. Though because it wasn’t our regular night, a lot of our regular crew couldn’t make it, so everything took a little longer to set up and it was particularly “stop/start” for most of the taping. Anyone who’s ever been in the studio audience for a non-live TV show would know that you should always expect a “stop/start” kind of night. But 31 Questions Ep 3 was especially so.

It’s difficult to think like an editor. An editor can look at a fairly ordinary piece of raw footage and work out in his or her head how great it’ll be once you cut out all the crap bits. So with my editing goggles on, I reckon Episode 3 is the best episode we’ve done so far. Or at least, it should be, after the editing.

I was particularly happy with some of the physical gags. That’s going to be a real treat for the viewer when that finally goes to air sometime this winter.

Once again we had some great contestants. Though there was a late minute scramble for a female contestant when a miscommunication lead to two male contestants being booked for Ep 3. It’s always been my opinion it’s best to keep the gender quota balanced. Especially as it’s already skewed towards a sausage fest with me and Anthony.

Two male contestants would make it four guys, and Sophie, on the show. Call me sexist, but I want to avoid that kind of “lad’s humour” on 31 Questions (I’ve already got a show for that. It’s called Too Easy).

It doesn’t help that the majority of people banging the door down to be contestants on game shows (all game shows, not just ours), are middle aged white guys.

But like usual, it all came together at the last minute.

It’s amazing how many little jobs exists on a show like this. Sometimes you don’t even notice something’s missing until there’s a problem. A funny one happened this week. Several of our regular crew weren’t there, including contestant coordinator Lucy Downs. One of her jobs was to put name tags on the contestants. Now, you might think that doesn’t really make a big difference in the scheme of things. But the truth is, the name tags are just there for me.

Someone buzzes in, then I say the contestant’s name before they give me an answer. There’s a lot of information on the show. I’m reading questions off the cards, as well as stuff off the autocue, plus I’m making stuff up. And I have a bad memory for names already. So I really do use the name tags to remember the contestants’ names. It’s one less thing I have to remember.

The strange thing is, when we started the opening round, I managed to get to the 3rd or 4th question before I realised I wasn’t saying the contestants’ names. I was just sort of unconsciously saying “Yesssss… you!”

It’s hard to describe. I was confused and I knew something wasn’t right. But it took me a minute to work out it was just because the contestants weren’t wearing name tags. But like most of these problems that pop up, we turned it into a joke later in the show.

Another disadvantage of shooting on a Wednesday last week is that we were in direct competition with about 500 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Shows for audience members.

Understandably, we were were pretty light for audience, so Anthony and I pulled the old “go out onto Swanston Street and drag in some strangers” technique. Amazingly, we managed to convince a couple of girls. Also, we found two girls for the audience.

There was a feeling in the control room that we hadn’t quite nailed Episode 3 – a contrast from the previous week where the control room thought it went great, but it didn’t feel right for me.

As I write this blog entry, we’ve actually already taped the 4th episode. And man, we nailed that one! It was a faster turnaround with only 5 days in between studio dates, instead of our usual week. So I’ll do a proper wrap up when I’ve got the photos from Ep 4.

Unfortunately though, just before we taped Ep 4, I got the bad news that Episode 2 has been lost. There was a technical problem as simple as an incorrect setting on the master tape deck. It recorded audio. But no vision. And obviously, the best television game shows have both of these things.

But wait! Weren’t we also iso-recording on separate tapes on ALL the cameras? Unfortunately, we only had back-up tapes in 3 of the 5 cameras. So we’ve had to face the reality that Episode 2 is not recoverable.

It’s always a shame when this sort of thing happens. It’s happened to us before on a smaller scale – Losing a few vox-pops or dodgy audio here and there. But we’ve never lost a whole show. Really, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

To be honest, it couldn’t have happened to a better episode. If it happened to the first one, we wouldn’t have been able to assess our technique for the future episodes. And if it happened to Episode 3 or 4, which I was really happy with, I’d be a lot more irritated. But Episode 2 is gone. We lost some really good gags. But there were also a lot of things that didn’t work so well, and that I’m actually glad are no longer on record.

But it’s all okay. We factored this into our plan: Shoot 8. Deliver 6. So we’re still good, so long as we don’t screw up any more. And there’s even a chance we might get to the end of our 8 shows and go back and re-record Episode 2. And do it better.

I’ve got an incredible team. And it’s finally all coming together.

This Monday 15 April, we’re taping Episode 5. You’re rapidly running out of opportunities to see 31 Questions live in studio!

Join the event on Facebook, or come on down:

8.30PM
Studio A, Level 2, Building 12
RMIT University
on Melbourne’s fabulous Swanston Street
(near the corner of Franklin Street).

Be there or you’re dead to me.

Na, you’re okay.

PS. Last night I saw “Aunty Donna and the Fax Machine Shop” at the Comedy Festival. They’re a sketch team who’ve previously appeared in a Channel 31 show called “Lost Dog TV”. I’m not easily impressed, but these guys have got “it”. They’re hilarious and I recommend you pay money to see them.

Of course, I also recommend you don’t pay money to see MY show. The 31 Questions experience is completely free of change.

Kind regards,
David M. Green
No stars.

April 12, 2013
31 Questions Season 2 Episode 1 Taping

We were back in the studio on Monday 18 March for the first taping of 31 Questions Season 2.

It was the first time since 17 May last year that we entered the studio with the intent of actually taping an episode, so I was a little rusty. And with some new faces on the team and a few changes to the format, it was a bit of a bumpy start.

Last year, we were fortunate enough to have the studio for 8 hours at a time, which meant we could shoot 2 episodes in one go. This year however, the fabulous RMIT University studio is in high demand, so we’re only able to get 5 hours. And that’s just not enough time to set everything up, pack everything away AND shoot two episodes. For starters, you wouldn’t do it in that order. Obviously you’d leave the packing up til the end. But my point is we’re forced to shoot just the one episode per week.

But this has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Although it’s going to take us more weeks to finish our 8-episode schedule, we can focus more attention on each episode. There were a few times this week where something didn’t quite work as well as I thought it could, and we actually had time to go back and do it better. There were many times during season 1 where we were in a similar situation, but we had to push on because we just didn’t have the time.

It’s amazing, show business. You wait for months to find out whether it’s all going ahead. You spend weeks preparing everything and waiting to do it. Then it all happens at once and it’s all over in a flash of lights. But it’s all worth it.

Once again we’ve got an outstanding crew who are all working for free. We’ve also got a new director, Antonio Cafasso, and under his direction we’re making much better use of the studio.

We’re now using five cameras, up from just four last year. And best of all we’ve got a crane shot this season. From what I’ve seen on the monitors, it looks sensational. I don’t think there are too many opportunities in Australia, let alone the world, to have free reign in a television studio with such amazing equipment. But hey, that’s RMITV and it’s why I moved to Melbourne.

Antonio has also worked out how to “iso-record” on the important cameras, which last year we were told was “impossible”. So if crucial vision is missed during the taping due to the switcher (also Antonio, by the way) taking an alternate camera feed, we still have a back-up on a separate tape.

TV production, folks. Fascinating!

As for the content of the show, it’s mostly the same. But in a nutshell, there’s more of the stuff that worked. And less of the stuff that didn’t. We’re putting the focus on the “game” aspect of the show. And building our comedy around that. There were some things we needed to get out of our system (eg. man wearing a dress, guy getting a pie in the face, etc.) and that’s what a first season is for. But now we’ve got the rare opportunity to shoot a second season. So it’s time to step it up a notch.

We’ve changed the opening sequence. Established new running gags and jokes around the set. Expanded Sophie’s role on the show, because she’s damn talented. The scoreboard looks like a scoreboard now, instead of a whiteboard. We’ve got two new producers who are working on important things behind the scenes. New graphics (Also Antonio. Also amazing). And new theme music (which is fantastic, by the way).

We’ve also altered the rules in some of the segments. In “Word on the Street”, contestants can now buzz in anytime, rather than having to wait until the vox-pop video finishes playing. This is how this segment should be run. The only reason we did it the other way last season was because we were told (by someone no longer with the show) there was a technical reason preventing us from doing it. Antonio found a way.

With the movie quote round, renamed to “The One Where They Quote The Movies”, Anthony, Sophie and I are now acting out three group scenes, instead of three individual quotes and one group scene. Like I said, more of the stuff that worked. Less of the stuff that didn’t.

But I can assure you, it’s still the same old 31 Questions 😉

We’re also putting a greater emphasis on quality control. If there’s one thing I hate about community TV, it’s people who say: “Oh well, it’s just community TV” as if that’s an excuse for the show being crap.

I don’t believe you need a lot of money to make a good TV show or a funny TV show. Sure, money helps in the sense you can use it to hire the best people and use the best equipment. And it means you can work on the show without having to worry about how you’re going to pay your bills. But if you throw a hundred thousand dollars at a crap idea, it’s still going to be crap.

This season, I’ve allowed more back and forth with the team of writers and more rounds of drafts. I have the unique privilege of being host, head-writer AND producer. This is generally unheard of in Australian television. It basically means I have final say over what’s in the script, what I say on the show and how the show works. So I’m not wasting this power (because I may never get this opportunity again). I’m using it to make sure the show is the best, the funniest it can be.

We’ve had more production meetings and a proper table read, which we didn’t do last year. And we are going to be brutal in the editing room. Firstly, we’re hoping to shoot eight episodes but only air the best six on TV. So the weakest two shows won’t be broadcast. And the other six are going to have every aspect questioned: “Does this need to be in the show?”

I want 31 Questions to be the show RMITV is remembered for.

Thanks also to our wonderful studio audience who came down to see our first Season 2 taping. It was great to see my old friend from Adelaide, Voice-Over’s Tim Wray in the audience, as well as a few people who don’t know anyone involved with the show – just fans. That’s great. It’s a reminder the show is actually beamed “out there” where anyone can see it. The next studio audience opportunity is tomorrow night for Ep 2.

8.15PM, Level 2, Building 12 of RMIT University on fabulous Swanston Street, Melbourne. RSVP to the event of Facebook if you’d like to join us. It’s free! Oh come on, have a laugh.

Surplus David M. Green & Moderator Mugs are also available for $20.

See ya round like a record.

Kind regards,
David M. Green
Beats watching Q&A

March 24, 2013