Comedy Web Series about the Holidays and Bad Customer Service

NOTE: this post is 593 words long and contains two videos, each of which are around six minutes. Doing some math, I would say, this one's gonna take you a good 15 - 17 minutes.  You got that?  But again, 12 of those minutes are slack-jawed video watching.

As as followup to my last post; the web series I have been working on with Scotty Iseri premiered this past Wednesday.  It is a Christmas Carol spoof about bad customer service.  I am very proud of what we did here and while I am bummed that it's kept me from putting out the next Not About Wine episode, I sincerely hope I can continue doing this kind of work.

There's a lot to be said here about doing creative work that mostly uses the web for its distribution.  In some ways, what we are doing here is a very traditional video project - episodic, no audience interaction, linear - and in this way, it may not be that successful.  There's a lot of episodic, non-interactive, linear video out there - on the web and otherwise - and ours is no better than what's already out there.  In fact, in many ways, it is much worse.  You have to watch it here, on the web, for one.

Unless of course you are super-fancy and have an Apple TV or a Boxee Box or a Roku XDS Streaming Player and can play internet videos on your television.

But what was so exciting about working on this project with Scotty in the coffee and beer heaven that is Portland, OR is that even while making something fairly traditional, we were doing it in extremely untraditional ways --

• All of it was shot on prosumer XSLR cameras - cameras you can reasonably buy.
• Our budget was very low for what our product looks like.
• We relied on a network of people from the net to help write, promote, and act in the movie; not people from the film and television industry.
• The project was funded entirely by Zendesk, the help desk software company that I work for.  No production company, just the advertiser.  This is either awesome or horrible depending on your point of view.  I think it is in between.

-- and it was these ways that made me feel like we will be making more web-native projects soon.  Since we aren't relying on traditional processes, we don't need to make a traditional product.

A Holiday Special

But for now we are tackling the most traditional of structures: the holiday special. We wrote this story to be funny and to satisfy two themes:

1. Customer Service - this was the "brand message" that Zendesk wanted the entertainment to carry.
2. Holiday stories - we were releasing it in December.  Seemed to make sense to take advantage of that.

We are spoofing both of them.  The basic idea is that there is this Scrooge like character who has created all the bad customer service experiences we all hate -- hold music, phone trees, hipsters who work at coffee shops. In this story, he is forced to experience at an absurd level all the bad customer service he spawned.  This drives him to drink heavily.  

I play this character. DO NOT WORRY - I went to one year of acting school so everything will be FINE.

Below are episode one and two of the series.  WATCH THEM.  And then go to the Merry Holidays, Please Hold page to sign up for further episode notifications. That way you won't miss the part where I grab somebody's boob and get punched in the face.

OH AND ALSO: we have a thing where you can win an xbox 360 with Kinect as well as some Threadless t-shirts.

Episode 1: The Fred Talks

Episode 2: The Evil Three

Not About Wine Delayed By Demon in Christmas Sweater

While I am trying to get a new episode of Not About Wine out every week, I have been unable to work on the upcoming episode because of people dressed like this:

I am working on a 12 episode comedy web series with Scotty Iseri - the Barton Fink looking genius behind Scotty Got an Office Job. We wrote the series for my employer, Zendesk, and are currently shooting it in Portland. It includes:

• jokes about bad customer service
• a fake Ted Talk
• multiple geese
• a redemptive Christmas Carol spoof
• the above demon in a christmas sweater
• Lawrence Lessig and Leo Laporte singing a Creative Commons Christmas Carol

You know STUFF LIKE THAT.

The upshot is that there will not be a new Not About Wine until after Thanksgiving probably. BUT: it's a doozy.

The web series -- titled Merry Holidays, Please Hold -- will premiere on Dec. 1 on http://zendesk.com. More soon.

Intergalactic Dance Party

I met my friend Kevin Cline for dinner last night and was reminded that MY FRIEND IS A GENIUS.

EVIDENCE OF GENIUS

Kevin is a maker of things; a skill I try and cultivate every day. I make things, but I also let a lot of things get in the way of actually finishing. WAIT YES: what I mean is that Kevin is a finisher of things.

Update on October 7, 2010 by Matthew

I forgot to mention the BEST LINE:

Now, this is a party in space, so we'll want to dress it up a bit.

Star Wars Yoga, a VIDEO-TAPED RENDITION

I am currently ON VACATION and gasping for breath in the absurd Rocky Mountain climate, but I am happy to report that the Star Wars Yoga video tape I shot with Time Magazine's pretty wonderful Techland blog has been edited, titled, voice-overed, and posted.

MAY I SAY that I am just as horrified at my R2-D2 impression as you are. But, Time.com must not have noticed as they have made Star Wars Yoga the TOP NEWS OF THE DAY:

The Next Campaign - Star Wars Yoga at New York Comic Con

I will not keep my plans a secret. I want to teach a Star Wars Yoga class at New York Comic Con; and then from there SKYWALKER ranch. If you are a nerd who would take such a class, let me know in the comments here or by communicating with me on Twitter. Enough interest and it is possible they will HAVE TO LET ME DO IT.

Not About Wine, an Experiment in Making a Wine Show

Experiment 1: Video (with very little structure)

I have been thinking for a while about turning my McSweeney's-based Wine Column into some sort of audio or video show. The idea was more an anti-idea (as most of my ideas are): I wanted to do a wine show that wasn't about wine; at least not about wine in the way most wine content is, which is to say, about what it tastes like and what it goes with (even if how they are saying it seems totally new and irreverent). But of course take away the wine talk and you're pretty much just left with talking. And drinking.

Hypothesis: Talking AND Drinking

In order to better find out just what kind of show I am able to make (and make well), I am starting a series of Episode Experiments. In this first episode experiment, I shot some video with my friends Craig and Kevin.

The structure and approach was most definitely inspired by You Look Nice Today, an audio podcast that is very funny and is really only something that makes sense on the internet or public access. You Look Nice Today features 3 guys doing some hybrid of improv comedy and talk radio in short little bursts. This is not the meandering brilliant conversation doodles of a Best Show - it is conversation origami (somehow)

My plan for the show was this:

1. I would show up at a friend's house with a bottle of wine.
2. We would talk while consuming this bottle of wine.

Hell of a plan.

Results

I discovered two things:

Shooting video is quite hard and editing it is even harder.

Luckily I had Craig to help with the shooting and Kevin to help with the editing; but neither of them is available for a regular thing. This means that as long as I am a one-man band, video is probably out.

Just showing up with a bottle of wine wasn't enough.

Even with Kevin, one of the funnier people I know, the talking bit got off to a slow start. We tried to organize our talk around some use of Wikipedia's Random Article Generator, but it didn't flow like I had hoped. We eventually got into a rhythm, but next time, I am going to be working with a much clearer structure.

After a number of editing sessions, I showed the video below to a small group of friends and got some really good feedback, some of which is up above. One other item that some folks wanted more of was: more wine info. I'm not sure how I will incorporate that.

The Experiment

The video below is long, 20 mins, so I don't really expect you to watch it all in front of you computer. However, perhaps with a bottle of wine, I can tempt you to stay. Feedback welcome. Anything to help the experiment.

An experiment by Matthew from McSweeney's Stained Teeth to make a Wine Show not about wine. Instead there is drinking and talking and some dancing at the end.

Let's Get Real... with Wine! (No. 1)

As I indicated earlier, You Will Not Believe is now open for your questions about wine. I understand that the world of wine can be confusing and life-threatening; and so, I have decided to put my copious credentials in this area to good use.

To ask a question, you may either call YWNB by clicking the "Call Me" widget in the right column of this publication; or by posting your question to @mattlatmatt.

Our first question comes from @theguru42 from Twitter:

Well @theguru42, I'm about to save your life.

Matthew from McSweeney's Stained Teeth Column About Wine answers your wine questions.

Some Public Speaking: Stained Teeth at Ignite

Recently, I gave a talk at an event in Idyllic Amherst MA called Ignite - an evening of 5 minute talks accompanied by slides. The slides progress automatically every 15 seconds - just like my brain.

I spoke about the possibility (and difficulty) of writing about wine from an experiential stand point. It is in conjunction with an upcoming web project whose name shall simply be PROJECT DRUNKARD.