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Sataere posted:I've never had to sit down and watch videos, but remember that you don't have to watch the whole thing. If they don't get a good laugh 30 seconds in, move to the next video. If it takes them their entire set to build to a good payoff, they aren't ready. Suffering is how I know I'm alive. Honestly, there's plenty of laughter in most of these submissions. It's just not coming from me.
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Dec 21, 2017 07:34
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DoctorDelaware posted:Suffering is how I know I'm alive. Fair enough. Even still, most bookers I know don't watch all the way through. Just keep that in mind. You should know a minute in whether you want to see more. In which case, they are probably worth moving on. I'm told the sign of a really great clip is one you watch all the way through. 
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Dec 21, 2017 16:38
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I did my first five! I can't wait until 2022 when I get good at this.
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Dec 21, 2017 21:27
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number one pta fan posted:I did my first five! I can't wait until 2022 when I get good at this. Lol, truer words have never been spoken. It's amazing how every six months of reflection makes me realize how bad I was before. I just hit my three year anniversary and the best I can say for myself is other comics finally think that I am kinda good.
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Dec 22, 2017 00:32
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Sataere posted:Fair enough. Even still, most bookers I know don't watch all the way through. Just keep that in mind. You should know a minute in whether you want to see more. In which case, they are probably worth moving on. I ran into one of my fellow co-producers yesterday, and he told me basically the same thing. In unrelated news, I did a (slightly more than) 15 minute set tonight and it went really well. I don't know how much of it was me--we had a great crowd tonight, as evidenced by the fact that our first two comics got laughs--but I still feel good.
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Dec 23, 2017 07:02
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DoctorDelaware posted:I ran into one of my fellow co-producers yesterday, and he told me basically the same thing. It's funny how much I have picked up about the production side of things, despite only ever having run an open mic that I barely contribute to, since the main producer handles all the nitty gritty stuff. Oh, and s two week internship for a failed comedy showcase. Is your festival closed for late submissions yet?
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Dec 23, 2017 20:28
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Sataere posted:It's funny how much I have picked up about the production side of things, despite only ever having run an open mic that I barely contribute to, since the main producer handles all the nitty gritty stuff. Oh, and s two week internship for a failed comedy showcase. We really only have the one submission window. Need to have the list sent out by Jan. 1. This reminds me, I still need to edit a clip of mine to use for submissions to other festivals. (A nearby one, Floodwater, closes on the...29th, I think.)
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Dec 23, 2017 22:35
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DoctorDelaware posted:We really only have the one submission window. Need to have the list sent out by Jan. 1. I figured, but I know some places have late registration. What do you mean by edit? All clips should be one long take. I'm sure you already know this, but thought I'd point it out, just in case. Is Floodwater in Iowa? Sounds familiar.
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Dec 24, 2017 02:28
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Sataere posted:I figured, but I know some places have late registration. Yeah, Floodwater's in Iowa. Editing: we recently had a night where all of our sets got taped, so that we could use them for submissions. The file for my set also has the host's on it.
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Dec 25, 2017 12:34
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DoctorDelaware posted:Yeah, Floodwater's in Iowa. I figured it was something like that, but threw it out there just in case. You'd be surprised how many people think a highlight reel is acceptable.
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Dec 26, 2017 22:16
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For those interested, here's the clip I submitted to Floodwater. It's showing me that I really need to (a) record more video and (b) watch/listen to my old clips more often. https://youtu.be/wQBhb-fosUY
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Dec 30, 2017 18:44
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Bad news: I got rejected by Floodwater. Good news: Because people still don't know the difference between "reply" and "reply all," my e-mails have devolved into a conversation about rear end-eating.
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Jan 13, 2018 05:47
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I just got my first paid club gig and now I have to get my poo poo together. It's very annoying. My bio is two lines, because I've done nothing. At least I finally have a headshot.
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Jan 13, 2018 20:00
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What's up with the 10% of comics who complain incessantly about the thing they've dedicated a large chunk of their life and personal resources to pursuing, and voluntarily continue to? In general you're a lovely bunch but Christ, less cocaine and less complaints for a vocal minority of you. In other news. Doing a workshop. Tonight I did what was for me some pretty ambitious material with a bit of structural flair, my first act-out and a really constructive response which is the happiest I've been with this project so far. It was loosely about promiscuity, monogamy and some of the many reasons society unjustly hates women. Did some improvised exercises and totally loving froze because of the subject matter being a bit close to some difficult life stuff I wasn't prepared to disclose and not being able to spin up an entertaining lie fast enough. Everything I've written and shared so far has been pretty impersonal, even if I'm trying to access a feeling or experience from my life I'll come at it indirectly by talking about something else to make the point I'd be making if I was looser about disclosure implicitly. Even if it doesn't travel, it's there for me when I say it and it's in there on some quantum level. Where do you all stand on disclosure? Do you talk about 'difficult' stuff? What factual honesty level do you work at? Do you tend towards erasure of details towards a more general thing or enhancing/inventing details? Out of your anecdote based material, would the people involved generally recognise the events described as being accurate reflections of their experience or do you keep the core and create something new derived from it? Disclosure: Spent most of the last decade doing something illegal on some level, survived several suicide attempts, constantly flirted with taboo in my life and personal relationships, engaged in some extravagantly self-destructive behaviour, absolutely dripping with trauma, failed painfully at 90% of the things I've tried to achieve. It's tough revealing anything meaningful enough to share about myself without digging into it all because that's the context of all the funny things that have ever happened to me, but I'm also very keen to try and break through it because I think my future best stand up is going to punch on an emotional level and just happen to be funny enough to carry in a club for 7 minutes. There's lots of comedy in there but also a lot of suffering and heavy stuff and potential for 80 strangers wanting a fun night out to feel completely alienated. I feel like I need a few years of developing my skills before I talk about it directly and I'm also a little conscious of it somehow bleeding back into the professional life I'm doing stand up to be better at when I'm well enough to go back to it. The other thing on my mind is I'm being encouraged to work on an opener that addresses whatever about me an audience might notice or wonder about based on the first few seconds of seeing me. This is easy if you're not a very generic looking person with no unusual mannerisms who is constantly trying to drill themselves on positive self-talk. I'm seeing that at least at the level I'm doing at the minute, addressing and working with or against audience presumptions seems to be the path of least resistance and also really effective. How else can you tackle an opening line?
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Jan 14, 2018 19:31
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Was that complaining thing directed at me? Because it was absolutely tongue in cheek. I just like to grumble. I also despise all the non comedy stuff I have to do about comedy. It's like bitching about mowing your lawn. It doesn't mean you don't love your house. Just that some aspects of home ownership suck. As for your other questions, they are all great questions. My belief on disclosure is simple. I believe everything about me is on the table with comedy. I think the best comedy is the most honest. Having said that, my jokes are filled with stuff that didn't happen like I tell it, but I feel captures the truth of those moments. I love telling other comics not to let the truth get in the way of a good joke. Talking about personal stuff is very tricky though. I feel like the best comedy comes from personal pain. However, if your audience sees that it still upsets you, you will just get pity. Pity is the death of comedy. Sometimes, you just need some distance from a joke before you can use it. The biggest thing to remember is that you aren't just selling your jokes, you are selling yourself. Anything that let's the audience get to know who you are only works to your advantage.
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Jan 15, 2018 15:41
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complaining about comedy is cool
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Jan 18, 2018 19:18
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freud mayweather posted:complaining about comedy is cool I can tell you're a veteran.
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Jan 18, 2018 20:55
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Tonight's show is the first one I've ever organized. So of course it's overly ambitious and poorly planned. It's a comedy bar crawl--five comics, each doing five-minute sets, at five different venues (all the downtown brewery rooms.) We should be barely upright/intelligible for the final show at 11pm. Pray for us. (Mostly me, because I'm 90% sure I drink far less than the others.)
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Feb 3, 2018 00:38
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DoctorDelaware posted:Tonight's show is the first one I've ever organized. So of course it's overly ambitious and poorly planned. This actually sounds like a pretty brilliant idea. Let me know how it goes.
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Feb 3, 2018 05:29
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That’s a better idea than the sober/drunk gimmick shows I’ve seen.
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Feb 3, 2018 05:30
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Sounds a lot like hitting 5 mics in a night, and a nice night out, but not so much of a show really. Like, does the audience know about it? Are they supposed to crawl with the show? To see repeated sets deteriorating? I don't really see how the crowd benefits other than just tangentially knowing that a similar set was performed better or worse somewhere down the street earlier or later? I had an encounter with something similar with one of those, everyone performs then gets stoned then "tries" to perform again, type shows. It was really depressing how very into it the audience was, but good money for local names only. It reminded me of the youtube Gardening on Salvia poo poo but with way less payoff.
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Feb 3, 2018 13:42
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Why would you have to do the same sets? It seems to me that you set up tickets in advance and have the audience coming along with you for the crawl. Comedy can be a very personal experience and having the crowd get to drink with the comics could really enhance the show.
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Feb 3, 2018 15:56
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The results: we had a lot of fun, and that's the important thing. Overall, it went pretty well. I invited the crowds at each place to follow the show, and a handful of people did. (There were two who came into the first bar just as we were leaving, and followed us for the rest of the night. That was cool.) Also, apparently there was another bar that wondered why they weren't approached, which means I'll have to talk to them about doing some comedy there soon. Hopefully it gets people interested in the local scene, and in our upcoming festival (which I mentioned about a hundred times.) There was some repetition, but we tried to do original sets at each venue. It wasn't perfect, and if we do this again I'll have to change some stuff up (better planning, better promotion, finding a way to get paid in cash instead of drinks--look, I haven't figured out the "comedy as business" thing.) But the comics already want to do another one.
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Feb 3, 2018 16:30
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I'd be curious about the logistics of this. I have never seen something like this in Chicago and I've considered trying to put together a show for a while now. How did you go about setting this up?
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Feb 5, 2018 01:49
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Sataere posted:I'd be curious about the logistics of this. I have never seen something like this in Chicago and I've considered trying to put together a show for a while now. How did you go about setting this up? It came together pretty quick. We already do open mics at two of the five venues, and we've done a couple of shows at the third, so they were all pretty amenable. For the other two, it was just a matter of talking to their events coordinators and saying "Hey, we're doing this thing. You want in?" Another thing that helps is that the brewers are a pretty tight-knit bunch; much more into cooperation than competition. The comedians were easy gather too, since we all hang out a lot. I just asked the local guys who (a) were going to be in the festival, and (b) like to drink beer. Turns out there were just enough.
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Feb 7, 2018 01:06
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DoctorDelaware posted:It came together pretty quick. We already do open mics at two of the five venues, and we've done a couple of shows at the third, so they were all pretty amenable. For the other two, it was just a matter of talking to their events coordinators and saying "Hey, we're doing this thing. You want in?" Another thing that helps is that the brewers are a pretty tight-knit bunch; much more into cooperation than competition. Interesting. I'm going to put this on the back burner for this summer. It could be really interesting.
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Feb 7, 2018 07:38
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Did my first full week of paid work at a comedy club this weekend. It was pretty fun, but man was I off my game all week. I didn't bomb, but I only really have two great sets out of nine.
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Feb 19, 2018 19:53
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We had our festival the weekend before last. It went great--the shows were packed, crowds were hot, and all the comics did a great job. We raised $3100 for the South Dakota Special Olympics (an improvement of $1000 over last year.)
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Feb 27, 2018 05:42
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Congrats, dude. That's awesome. I've finally finished my run of shows and now I have nothing for the immediate future. I have also been thinking seriously about what I need to be doing next. I just had my three year anniversary in comedy, but in a lot of ways, I still don't know what I should be doing. I think I need to start being more serious about the promotional aspect of this. I probably don't get booked as much as I should, because I don't ask or submit most of the time.
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Feb 27, 2018 20:23
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Sataere posted:Congrats, dude. That's awesome. I've finally finished my run of shows and now I have nothing for the immediate future. I have also been thinking seriously about what I need to be doing next. I just had my three year anniversary in comedy, but in a lot of ways, I still don't know what I should be doing. I hear you. My three-year mark is this summer, and I'm in the same boat. I need to learn more about the business side, so I can start getting gigs on my own instead of getting calls from other comics. My calendar is filling up a bit for March, though. Just got a hosting gig for St. Pat's Day, plus some (sadly unpaid) shows coming up.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:54
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DoctorDelaware posted:I hear you. My three-year mark is this summer, and I'm in the same boat. I need to learn more about the business side, so I can start getting gigs on my own instead of getting calls from other comics. Unpaid shows are fine. Half of what I do ends up being unpaid. If I have a crowd and am able to work a longer set, I consider the opportunity to test jokes in front of non comics to be an investment in my future. My Zanies gig made me realize how far off the ball I am. I'm pretty drat good when compared to other open micer / bar room showcase comics, but that is a terrible bar. Watching guys like Sam Morril and Pat McGann for a week made me realize just how far I need to up my game.
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Feb 28, 2018 01:06
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I have basically stopped doing comedy for like... 8 months. I've had a lot of other stuff going on (I have a full-time career that I don't intend to leave for comedy and I started teaching part-time, working on some extra post-secondary for myself too, just basically filling my time with school)... any advice on how to get back into it? I'm glad I have recordings of my old sets because I seriously forgot several bits, too.
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Mar 6, 2018 05:05
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Go to mics
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Mar 6, 2018 16:15
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HEY NONG MAN posted:Go to mics This
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Mar 6, 2018 20:39
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I got talked into doing open mic for the first time last Thursday and it went okay, I wasn't the funniest person but I definitely wasn't the worst one. I did it again yesterday at a different venue and while I know I did poorly, I did get a few human reactions to a few setups that I think are useful in telling what's engaging. I'll probably read through this whole thread over the next few days but I'm finding comedy to be an interesting experience. If anything, it gets me out of the house and out in town at different places.
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Mar 8, 2018 01:21
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I just did RAW Comedy in Australia. (Our biggest open mic comp). Crowd was great, got some big laughs. I didn't even make it past the first round disappointing but not the end of the world. BUT I still killed and had fun! Better than that though, I came back rejuvenated. I'm writing a poo poo load of new stuff and I was even offered a paid gig. If you get the chance to go out of town for open mic trip, especially if you're in a smaller city, just run with it and have fun, it makes you so much more confident when you get back to your regular scene.
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Mar 9, 2018 10:05
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My best friend and I just got done doing a fun small tour and it was a blast. I suggest if anyone here can block out the time just go and explore some new venues just outside of your regular mic area. We also lucked out and had a super talented friend of ours make us a sweet poster that we were able to sell for booze and gas money.
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Mar 18, 2018 18:05
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I run an open mic and we just had a twelve year old come and do stand up for the first time. He did the following... 1) Complained about how many people showed up 2) Accused a comic of stealing his joke 3) Ran the light Kids grow up so fast.
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Apr 2, 2018 06:42
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Later today, I get to drive from Sioux Falls to Aberdeen, SD (a 3+ hour drive in good conditions) in the middle of a projected two-day storm. It's already raining hard, and expects to become snow later today. Comedy! Edit: Hail, too. DoctorDelaware fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 13:00
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DoctorDelaware posted:Later today, I get to drive from Sioux Falls to Aberdeen, SD (a 3+ hour drive in good conditions) in the middle of a projected two-day storm. It's already raining hard, and expects to become snow later today. I'm in the tropics, so a torrential downpour as a Cyclone passes the city has ruined more than a couple of expected turn outs for us here. I feel ya! Just after the last lot of flooding I drove 4 hours for a 5 min unpaid slot haha. (because the city its in has a lot of paid gigs opening for big comedians) so I'm trying to get in with that group for a few more paid spots. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with my Comedy though. Made the local paper, Opening for Jacques Barrett in June and it looks like I MIGHT be able to take a full 45/50 mins to a small comedy fringe fest in August.
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May 9, 2018 00:31
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