So Victor, where did the idea come from?

I found an old illustrated children’s book about a birthday party, and there was one character in it who, on every page, seemed to be looking out of the pages directly at the reader. The illustration style in those old book makes a lot of the characters look quite creepy, so I thought that would be a good concept for a horror film – that if you’ve seen his picture in the book, then he can see you and can come out of it. In the original book it’s a child, but for our version John is clearly an adult man, yet he’s still dressed as a 1960s schoolboy and for some reason is attending a kids birthday party – so there’s some quite bizarre and unsettling imagery.

Why did you decide to shoot it in the found-footage style?

Partly because I wanted to be in it and this way I could without hiring a cinematographer. But also because it’s a good way of making something when you have no budget.
You don’t have to worry about getting everything to look cinematic because it shouldn’t. Out-of-focus shots! Poor lighting! Bad sound! Yep – that’s all deliberate.

What were the challenges of making a found-footage film?

In terms of the writing, you have to make sure there’s a reason for the camera to be on in every scene. The worst thing about bad found-footage horror films is when someone’s fighting off a murderer with one hand and still recording a nicely framed shot with the other. So, I came up with a special helmet that they wear in this that meant we could get away with filming action scenes and it still be just about believable. And because it’s a comedy you can get away with stretching the logic more than if it was a straight horror.

You have to get everything done in full takes as you can’t cut away, so we all had to know our lines well. We also had to do a lot of practical effects because you can’t do any of the usual editing techniques, so for one of the stabbing scenes we built a fake stomach for one of the characters which was filled with fake blood. And for another we needed a knife to stay stuck into a character’s chest, so we made a special belt with magnets that they wear under their shirt. It was a lot of effort for some pretty brief shots but I think they worked well enough.

Who is Smithy Jones?

Smithy Jones is a character I’ve played for a while who has had brief appearances in some of my other films. He was in “The Actual Truth: Coronavirus” in 2020 complaining about panic buying, and cropped up in a short film I did with comedian John Dredge last year called “Splorry” as a pizza delivery guy, but I’ve always wanted to do something bigger with him as the lead. He’s very geeky and egotistical and, despite only being in his 20s, talks like an old man a lot of the time. So, he’s quite an unusual character and I did worry that he’d be too bizarre for people to accept, but so far audiences do seem to have taken to him.

Why make a comedy horror film?

I’ve never made a horror before but I really like the genre. With this, I wanted to make the horror side of the comedy-horror genuine, so it isn’t just a parody, and the scary bits are actually scary. Tonally similar to shows like “Inside Number 9” and “Psychoville”, or “Shaun of the Dead”, so the world and the characters are real, but it’s also got lots of jokes throughout.

How did you pick your cast?

The cast are all amazing. They’re challenging roles because they need to be able to do both the comedy and the more realistic acting, as well as operating the camera for some scenes and doing quite long takes in one go, so casting was really important. We had loads of people apply for the role of Calvin, including a lot of very experienced actors, but Dillon’s comedic performance style was just perfect for the part. I watched a lot of his sketches, which are hilarious, and his audition sealed it. Rebecca had been in one of my other projects (“The Actual Truth: Cancel Culture” where she played an aggressive woman ranting about freedom of speech), and she was brilliant, so it was great to be able to offer her a bigger role in this. I met Christian at a comedy event (“The Chorts” by The Comedy Crowd) where we both had our sketches screened and I really liked his type of comedy and performance style so invited him to play Marcus based on that. I wanted to prioritise people with a comedy background over those with an acting background so that the humour would definitely come through.

How did you achieve the visual style of John?

It was important to try to capture that creepy vintage illustration style for John and the book. Callum Courtney was our designer and did all the paintings for the book and created the John masks. Instead of painting each page of the book individually, he painted individual aspects which we then composited together digitally, which meant the faces wouldn’t match the bodies and would have much more detail than could be achieved if they were painted to scale. So, this gave all the illustrations a creepy and unsettling vibe. I then had to get the book printed – I have no idea what the publishers must have thought because they didn’t have the context of it being for a horror film; It’s just a kids book that suddenly becomes very creepy and has no ending.

For the design of John himself, we wanted him to look like an illustration come to life, so it took a while to find the right way of achieving this with the costume, and making sure it matched the style of the book exactly. For the masks these were simply paper-mache creations with interchangeable faces for his different expressions. For the rest of the costume, we initially made a jacket out of paper-mache too, but it was too rigid, so in the end we just painted directly onto some ordinary jackets and by layering up the paint and letting it run as it dries, you get a great result.

I’m really happy with the end result. It’s creepy but also sort of funny because of his little shorts, and totally unique as a design.

What is next for “It’s John”?

“It’s John” will be released on Halloween 2024 on the Oxar Productions YouTube channel, (and so will the 20 minute prequel “It Was John” starring Amber Doig-Thorne from “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey”). After that, we’ll hopefully be launching on some streaming services. I’m trying to keep it non-exclusive so that it can be seen by as many people as possible, so hopefully it can remain freely accessible on YouTube and any streamers will just be an extra way of a different audience finding it.

I think horror audiences seem to be quite open to trying a new film from an unknown director if the concept sounds good, so I’m hoping people will give this film a try.

And if we get a good response to the films, we will be making two sequels. If we get a bad response, we will make three.

Ready to see the film? Check it out here:

By Tom Worsley

Shared Drive is an audio sketch showcase starring Alex Garrick-Wright, Rob Gilroy, Elaine Malcolmson and Rhiannon Shaw. It’s produced, directed and edited by Tom Worsley and scripted edited by Rebecca Bain. Songs are by Alex MJ Smith. Theme tune is by Katie Butler.

Shared Drive was written by Chris Ballard, Chris Douch, Alex Garrick-Wright, Sophie Hall, Max Kreisky, Paul Read, Vicky Richards, Kalum Wilson, Tom Worsley and Amy Xander.

There’s a distinct lack of sketch comedy – and comedy in general, really – and as many brilliant writers and performers are struggling to find opportunities as the comedy marketplace dwindles, it made me realise that you’ve got a choice – you either get terribly sad and cry about the industry or you decide to make something yourself. After all, creating content and releasing it online has never been easier. So I promptly dried my tears, blew my nose, showered and dressed, and set about getting in contact with the funniest writers and brightest performers I could think of and asking them to be involved in ‘Shared Drive’. Every one of my connections came about through online networking and social media and, incredibly, lots of talented people, all with comedy experience, credits and awards, wanted to be involved; to volunteer their creativity and time to create something funny with me.

The aim was to create a one-off sketch showcase just to get something out there, bringing in as many writers and creatives as I could possibly cram into a 20 minute show without it simply bursting open and drenching everyone with comedy. A showcase that performers and writers could clip for their social media and send out there to whoever would listen.

Shared Drive is a sketch show at a time when opportunities for sketches are limited, and are only continuing to get smaller. More than ever making sketches that are just – well, funny, quite frankly – seems out of fashion. A forgotten branch of the comedy world. We just wanted to get together and make something funny. No themes or with a message. Nothing zeitgeisty or topical. Just funny. Some quick, silly sketches to put out into the world.

Everything was submitted to a shared drive and recorded remotely, relying on a group of writers and performers coming together with passion and a shared drive to make a little audio sketch comedy show to put out across social media… Wait. ‘Shared drive’?… Oh, I get it now. That’s clever… Huh. It’s got two meanings.

Right now this is a one-off. Everyone involved volunteered their sketches and their time because it’s just a small pilot show to see if it was possible to produce some high quality audio sketches from our respective homes. Could it be a recurring project? Could we do more? Like everything, it comes down to money. It remains to be seen whether this could grow into something bigger. But I’m excited to see if it can…

Shared Drive is available to listen to now on Acast, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts!

INDUSTRY JUDGES AWARD WINNER

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER

INDUSTRY JUDGES AWARD WINNER

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This week’s featured creator is Holly Hall, the newly crowned winner of the BBC New Comedy Award’s Digital Comedian of The Year!

Click here to read more »

This week’s featured creator is Ania Magliano, one of the 4 four regular writers on the ‘Have I Got News For You’ Twitter account.

Click here to read more »

This week’s featured creator is Izzy Radford. Izzy is a bold, young and exciting new writer who leads the Scripted department for TV production company ‘Ten66’.

Click here to read more »

Welcome to a new feature where we scour the comedy universe for the most promising and innovative new comedy talent. We want to showcase new creators who are doing something a little bit different, or making use of new trends and platforms, so that we can all learn a little something.

Click here to read more »

Hi. I’m Ed, I wrote my short Mockumentary script “Country Lines”, then recruited a team and project managed the process until the film’s release a few days ago. You can watch the film here. I’m going to try and talk through the pro’s and con’s of making your script, why I think it’s ultimately a good idea, along with some “quite good” advice about what I learn during the process.

Tell me a bit more about you, Ed.

Well, I’ve been writing comedy scripts for about 5 years. Taking courses, entering competitions, doing the odd smart phone character piece, you know the like. About two years ago I set myself the challenge of making three short films with all the stories set in my home county of Shropshire. I’d call the faux production company “Shropshire Investigates”, with the three films all being mockumentaries. Sounds alright so far. A bit This Country, but all good. I wrote and brought to life the first script – About two siblings inheriting a farm with a small, skeleton crew.

Now it was time to make the second film. I’d had the warm up of the first, this next one felt proper. I wanted to move things up a gear. The running time went from six to eleven minutes, I’d direct, there’d be a bigger crew, with a more complex set of scenes too.

But let’s rewind. You may not be as gung-ho as me, so here are some…

Issues to consider before making your script.

Our friends running the Sitcom geeks podcast have regular discussions on the pro’s and con’s of producing your own script. I’m sure they won’t mind me saying that the conclusion is generally not so positive as there are all of a sudden too many uncontrollables which might tarnish an otherwise good script. This is a huge consideration and here are others too:

Time

Writing a good script, even if it’s “just” a short film, takes long enough. It’ll take that time again, plus some, before your film is actually released.

I began writing my script at the end of 2019, and it’s finally out now (March, 2021). But many factors can play into how long it takes to make your film. Such as; script completion time, aligning many diary’s for rehearsals and filming, the potential abyss of the edit, your main prop; a tractor having a flat tire, a global pandemic, etc.

Money

We’re not talking about getting your mate to film you on their iPhone and knocking it together with iMovie. Money will definitely be a consideration.

There’s a big debate on your local actors and film makers Facebook pages about not paying much (or just expenses) for a film crew. I completely get that it’s an issue that needs to be treated with respect. See what you can afford, be upfront about it and if the script is good enough, you will be surprised the quality of talent who want to have their name attached to your credits

The Other Variables

Going back to the Sitcom geeks point made earlier – why risk your perfectly good script by getting half a dozen others involved who may unintentionally dilute the quality of the portrayal of your script? Well, yes, this can certainly be a gamble. But if you do a solid job of recruiting your team, getting the best crew you can, even with a small budget, then you will all of a sudden have a lot of talented people who will be pushing for this film to be a success.

My reasons for recruiting a team and making my short film.

Maybe some of these will resonate with you.

• Getting a broader look at other departments involved in producing a film

I think this will be invaluable experience for me going forward. I was living a very sheltered life as a solo writer.

• Networking

Living in Shropshire (Up to Birmingham, turn left, keep going, just before Wales) it’s hard to find other screenwriters or similar creatives

• Fulfilment

When constantly writing scripts and sending them off, not hearing, or even if I did hear feedback, it never felt like there was a fulfilling end to all the work I put in. With this film I feel like I have a proper finished piece of work now. Like a painter, or a brickie.

• Marketing myself

It really does all depend on the final piece being a fair representation of your work. Or better than fair, ideally. If so (and it’s a big if), then there is no doubt a film is a far better and easier way of bringing attention to your writing.

Recruiting your team

Other than your script, recruiting your team will be the most important factor in making your script.

Tom, our Director of Photography, was recommended to me. He was brilliant, as were all the team. Looking back, one of the most important pieces of knowledge Tom brought to me, was the use of a “casting call” document. This was an imperative tool in recruiting the team.

A casting call essentially gives all the details about your project such as the genre, planned dates for shooting, estimated running time, expenses paid etc, along with a kind of pitch document about the premise, story line and characters. This is the bible document that I used to send to people who would then have all the details needed to decide if it was something they would want to get involved with. Mine was fairly short at 2.5 pages and I’ be happy to share this with anyone if it might help.

With Tom on board and after spending a bit of time getting the casting call right, I set about using this document on the Comedy Crowd TV site (whoop), which is where I recruited one of the actors from, Sean – he messaged me after reading my project page on CCTV. Actor recruitment websites are really useful too (surprisingly enough) It was all pretty easy to set up the adverts and they are free too. The two or three sites are all similar and ask the same questions. With a bit of luck, actors will then apply for your role as you then look through their profiles. Our actress, Amber came through one of these sites.

Finally, social media. I mainly used Facebook, but I can imagine other socials may be useful. Facebook has lots of groups set up for actors and film crew members who are looking for projects to get involved in. Our music composer came through posting on one of these groups. Again using my casting call document… Have I told you these casting call documents are a good idea?!

I was amazed that we had over 30 applicants for the three main acting roles. All had sent in self tapes for certain lines within the film. I had such respect for their efforts. I gather that although my casting call document was really fantastic, that number of applicants was not actually uncommon for other film makers.

So that’s a bit about if making your script is the right approach for you and the recruitment side of things, now for the quick fire round.

Here’s some other tips after making my script

• Just keep buying the team food and drinks when you meet up. This has served me well in everyday life too.
• Unless you know a bit about editing, this stage of the process will blow your mind. You’ll feel like you’ve just been shown the internet for the first time. It’s a whole new world and I barely understand any of it still, but I do know editors are very important! Although don’t let that scare you off. Your script can completely change in the edits, communicate regularly with the editor to make sure your vision is followed as best as possible.
• We had three, three hour rehearsals. They were great fun, and each of the actors had a completely different approach. Work with them separately in between rehearsals. It seems only when everyone is fully confident with their lines does the real chemistry start to happen.
• Carefully, carefully plan your shoot days. They will fly by very quickly and those little details can easily be forgotten.
• Performances come across much more relaxed when everyone has settled in. Plan time for warm ups at the start.
• Get as many team members involved as you can manage! I could have really done with a hand on the shoot day to sort out bit and bobs, props, sound – bloody sound! We missed having a sound pro. That ended up being me. I’m not a pro and those booms are damn heavy!
• Make sure you have a very supportive support bubble. Due to blessed Covid, we had to change locations which meant turfing my partner and daughter out of our house (they had somewhere else to stay!) for a day and a night. There are peaks and troughs in the project but in general it’s a consuming process.
• Continuity of set and costume. Be wary of this over multiple days filming.

Thank you reading. I’m always keen to hear from potential collaborators or maybe just to have a chat about some of the above. Here’s my website with further details.

Also, twitter and the film’s instagram.

All the best,

Ed.

To set up a new comedy project and look for collaborators, or to set up your own creator profile and find projects to get involved in, head to Comedy Crowd TV.

We are delighted to have partnered with O2 to produce a series of original sketches showcasing up and coming talent from this fantastic community.

The partnership is part of O2’s campaign to “Do more of what you love”.

O2 and The Comedy Crowd have partnered to enable new creators to make five original comedy sketches which are available now exclusively on Priority. They cover a range of topics including ‘When a Group Chat Joke Fails’, ‘When Fans Forget How To Fan’ and ‘ The Ref Who Can’t Stop Running Backwards’.

At O2, we have a long-standing history of working with up and coming talent. Now we’re bringing the comedy to your living room, through this unique collaboration with our partner The Comedy Crowd to share the talents of new comedy creators and help our customers take some much needed relief.

Maya Murrell, Head of Priority

To make these videos we brought together writers, performers and producers from the Comedy Crowd community, matching them according to their skills and comic style. Our unique approach of working with the community means we can produce tailored content quickly, plus it gives new creators the opportunity to showcase their talents. Creators can sign up for their free weekly opportunities newsletter here to find out more about how to get involved with The Comedy Crowd.

As a new comic used to playing to dusty rooms above pubs with audiences of 8 people, getting this opportunity to create and release my sketch with O2 has been unreal! It’s so exciting that O2 are supporting creators on the grassroots level like this. The whole process has been invaluable and it feels amazing to see my finished sketch on the Priority app!

Jessica Lee, Comedian

Priority is exclusive to O2 customers and brings a collection of invite-only moments to help them do more of the things they love. From exclusive treats and experiences, to early access to the most sought-after tickets in entertainment.

Customers can download the Priority app via the app store, or by texting PRIORITY to 2020. For more information, search Priority on O2 or visit https://priority.o2.co.uk/. 

To watch the five sketches on Priority click here.

By Peter Wright

In April we’re donating half our Comedy Crowd TV channel subscription revenues to comedy clubs to support them during this difficult time. After that if you choose to pay for a year’s access (£12) we’ll use that to support grassroots comedy creators and local comedy clubs

Much of the World is in lockdown, and if you aren’t afflicted by the virus itself you are now suffering the consequences of extended isolation from (or with) loved ones. Here at Comedy Crowd TV we are offering you an escape with a 30 days of free access to a channel which showcases the best of independent comedy shorts, sketch shows and series.

In addition, we’re supporting comedy clubs and organisations who have been hit by the recent restrictions. Participating companies have been given an exclusive code and if you enter it when signing up for your free trial, and then continue your access beyond the 30 days, then they will receive half of your £12 access fee!

To get a taste of the shows you can watch today on Comedy Crowd TV we’ve compiled a little post with 5 of the best. Check that out here.

Join us on Comedy Crowd TV this April, supporting independent creators, local comedy clubs and injecting a ray of comedy into your day. Sign up for your 30 day free trial.

No code for your local club? Or are you a company owner? Get in touch at theccteam@thecomedycrowd.com