Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It? (Part 1)

If you've seen Disgraced TV's web series, Apt1B, you know we like questions...

Is Becky imagining that strange man watching her?

Does Ray really black out for days at a time? What's with all those pills he's taking?

Oh, and a new one I just heard: What's a nice girl like Becky doing sharing an apartment with a guy like Ray? (No offense, Ray.)

I'm not going to take away the fun and answer those right now. What I will do, though, is answer another question I've been getting quite a bit: How did you come up with this?

In the fall of 2008, some of my actors and I were talking about the advantages of doing a film/video project and, frankly, it scared the hell out of me. I was used to taking the slap of what I saw as the relatively modest cost of producing independent theater in New York. If I was spending X to put a play up, I reasoned a shoot would be even more expensive and even more problematic. There were locations to figure out ... and a crew of people whose jobs I wasn't familiar with ... and there was equipment ... and there was a list of things that kept going and going.

But in the late-spring of 2009 I decided to, at least, begin to develop the project. I wanted to figure out how to do something that I could actually make work. I started with the location: I'd develop a story that could be shot all in one place ... one place I knew I'd have access to whenever I needed it ... how about my apartment? Perfect! (yes, Becky, I know "less than perfect" ... I hope I put it back together okay)

My solution to never having my characters leave the apartment was to make the apartment an instrumental part of the story. The apartment is a character too.

I thought about the NYC apartments that had been displayed on television before, like on Friends where part of the joke is that these people's apartments don't exist for young, partially-employed 20-somethings in this city. I wanted to use the tightness, the lack of space you have to share with your roommate(s), the claustrophobia that makes us live a large chunk of our lives here in restaurants, coffee shops and bars, and make a show where the walls might literally close in on our characters at any moment.

Check back soon for Part 2 of this post. In the meantime, check out Apt1B at www.disgracedtv.com (for faster computers) or www.vimeo.com/disgracedtv (for easier downloads).

But If You Try Sometimes... You Find... You Get What You Need.

Making Apt1B was a monster exercise in necessity. We were, it turns out, being ambitious shooting nearly 40 pages of script in 60 hours over 6 days - not unheard of, but, when you do that, you have a clear view of the back of the 8 ball when you start.

Below, I've included a section of the actual shooting script for the sequence just after Becky realizes she's locked in her room. We opted for changing the point-of-view suggested by the script in order to streamline the story/the shooting - but the p.o.v. also changes how we experience this sequence in an interesting way. It's worth a look, if you're interested in what the script-to-screen trip can look like.

Give it a read. Then go back and watch Episode 1 at disgracdtv.com or vimeo.com/disgracedtv again to see what we did with it.

INT. BECKY'S BEDROOM - DAY

BECKY'S EYES scan the room for something that might help.

She grabs her CELL PHONE off the bed side table. But its plug lies next to it unconnected and the phone’s battery is dead. She bangs the phone’s BLANK SCREEN against the side of her hand. Nothing.

She KNEELS DOWN in front of the door and peers at the unmoving latch.

CONT.

She runs her fingers over THE HINGES.

CONT.

She tries to DIG HER FINGERS around the pin in the hinge to pull it out.

CONT.

She BLOWS into the space between the handle and the wall like you’d clean off a CD.

CONT.

She TUGS at the door, one leg up on the wall for extra oomph.

CONT.

She sweeps off all the books of a BOOKSHELF hanging over the foot of the bed.

CONT.

She uses the HARDCOVER of one of the books to try to PRY THE PIN out of the hinge.

LATER

BECKY sits with her back against the door. She WIPES TEARS out of her eyes with the back of her hand.

Her eyes settle on her ALARM CLOCK. It’s not on. She remembers the man from what she is still hoping is last night’s dream.

It sinks in. Her EYES WIDEN.

She looks up and sees that the overhead LIGHT IS OFF.

She looks; the LIGHT SWITCH IS STILL ON.

She gets up and FLIPS IT ON AND OFF. Nothing.

All right. Probably just a power failure. Not some creepy dream guy.

But…

She creases her forehead, eyes moving around the room looking for something…

Something…

And finding nothing, her eyes stop moving.

The room really seems to be CLOSING IN ON HER. She has to get out.

BECKY looks at THE WINDOW.

Whole Lotta Me

Last week, I got the opportunity to sit down with nytheatre.com's Martin Denton and talk a little 2009. Specifically, we talked about my writing and producing projects as I took a year's divergence from theater: Disgraced TV (and our new web series, Apt1B) and Disgraced Comics.

Martin was good enough not to take my shift in media personally and much of our discussion has to do about how similar the experience of producing independent theater in New York City is to doing online comics and an independently produced web series.

I go on at length - but I'm insightful, entertaining and (lest I forget) breathtakingly humble. So, settle down and listen to Nytheatrecast's first podcast of 2010...

I Can Slam Like LeBron

Okay ... This is a little bit off the beaten path, but I thought it was fun.

bb got a commercial audition that turned out to be for a promo spot for the National Basketball Association's All-Star Weekend.

The commercial was going to feature people of all ages and ethnicities doing slam poetry about the contestants in the Slam Dunk competition. There was a slam about Nate Robinson. A slam about Dwight Howard. So on and so forth...

We thought it would be fun for her to come in and bust out an original slam (something, it turned out, that the predominantly pro slammer casting call was probably more than prepared to do as well). But, you know, show off her knowledge of the game and whatnot.

Well, show off my knowledge of the game, at least...

But, as a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, what am I supposed to do: write about Larry Nance? No, no, no...

There's a lot of hand-wringing around this time every year as the NBA - sometimes specific players - try to get LeBron James to compete in the Slam Dunk competition. And he hasn't yet. The idea is: if he wins, it's what everyone expected. If he loses, then it's a huge shame. Plus, he's said he hasn't wanted to risk getting hurt and on and on...

So, without further ado ... my little ode ... apologies to slam poets everywhere:


Oh, yes, yes, yes
I've seen you, Mr. MVP
Ever since Akron St. Vincent St. Mary
And I've seen you flash those thrills
Like diamonds from your treasure chest of skills
I've seen the chase-down blocks
The 25-straight that rocked
Auburn Hills, Michigan
The playoff stuff on Garnett, that cock
And the game winners with no time left on the clock
You're swilling the wine out of Jordan's holy grail-
Know there's no "I" in "team"
And no "me" in "fail"
I'm wit you - witnessing a player who can do anything.
And I've seen you do everything, right?
Well... not ... everything ... hell
It's 2010 now (does that year ring a bell?)
All-Star Weekend's coming up and I'm sure you'll be there
Don't listen to all those sayer saying "nay," that you're scared
We don't want just the same ol' names in repetition
Come on, LeBron, join up for the Slam Dunk competition!


Thanks, and good night...

Get your QUARTERHORSE on!!!

Yes, indeed.
You know when you come home late at night and you see someone rustling around in your garbage ... he's got Tom Waits slurry gait ... but he looks like he's wearing Dick Tracy's trench coat and hat ... and that's definitely a gun he's carrying in his flask pocket and a flask he's carrying in his gun pocket ... and he's yelling something about being on a case ... and HE WON'T STAY OUT OF YOUR GARBAGE!?
You know when that happens...?
Well, comic book detective starved reader, starve no more.
That man in your garbage was probably Max Quarterhorse.
To catch up on what Max is up to in between his late-night investigations into your banana peels and used coffee filter, come on over to Disgraced Comics and read the first five pages of our first online comic book, THE ADVENTURES OF MAX QUARTERHORSE.

A Nice Mention...

We got a mention this week in the Plays and Playwrights blog from NYTE Small Press.

NYTE is the New York Theatre Experience, which is the umbrella under which we find such great entities as nytheatre.com and NYTE Small Press, among others.

Nytheatre.com has long been unmatched in their commitment to covering and reviewing independent theater in NYC. I also review for them on occasion.

NYTE Small Press happens to publish a little book called Plays and Playwrights, an anthology of emerging writers on the NYC independent scene. I have the honor (along with my play ...and we all wore leather pants) of being included in Plays and Playwrights 2008.
You can buy your 17 copies here.

This is why we can't have nice things...

It seemed to make so much sense at the time...
I'd write a web series that could be shot entirely in Becky and my apartment. We wouldn't have to worry about pesky things like securing locations and ... um ... leaving home.
It seemed to make so much sense. And then shooting began. And then we rented a fog machine.



It's disturbing how quickly "my stuff" becomes "the set" and you will nail any one thing to anything else, if it will get the shot. Just get the shot!





That's disturbing, but not so much as the fog machine we rented. A real classic, there was a vessel for liquid on each side of the device. One side read, "Use only fog juice here: NO INSECTICIDE." Reassuring. You can see the picture for what the other side read.

So, we had six days of shooting where between every take Hement or Dodd would yell "Smoke it up!" and we'd fill whatever room we were in fog. Then we'd all sit there breathing in the hot vaporized version of whatever fog juice really is (mineral water based, my initial checks conclude ... and dry cleaning will get it out should it splatter all over something you don't want splattered with fog juice - but it does leave a film that will make your tile floors extremely slippery). It doesn't smell like smoke, but it smells like ... something. Strangely, the fog smelled a little like anywhere between 5-8 people in a room where we couldn't have the windows open, all the doors had to be shut and I'm stuck holding a microphone over my head much longer than I'm used to holding things over my head.

We'd breath all that in as we waited for the fog to settle a bit. Then we'd try to get the shot.