A year of Gangbusters! part two

Booking the Gangbusters! show is a complicated process. Everyone we know wants to be on every show at all times. One way Jason Van Glass and I bring order to the chaos is by responding to any comic who cold-calls the show with a complicated puzzle that they need to solve in order to get a spot. But I can't find the videos of any of our previous contest winners on YouTube, so another way we sort it out is by just booking rad new comics, like Alex Hanna. 

This is the second in a week of video posts designed to emotionally prepare you for the Gangbusters! 1-year Anniversary Show! this Friday at 11. 

A year of Gangbusters!

This week is the 1-year anniversary of some good work that I've been doing. It's a variety show called Gangbusters! where we pack a little theater full of people every Friday night and then send comedians to the stage to have great sets.

In the run up to the Gangbusters! 1-Year Anniversary Show, I'm going to post a few videos of comics being great.

First up is Keith Carey, who hit the stage 10 seconds after entering the venue when the act before him somehow turned out to not exist.

Bat Night Returns! 11/13!

You thought Bat Night comes but once a year? You thought wrong! We've got a great run of Gangbusters! shows coming up this month, starting this week with our Battest show ever. I can't imagine how we'll top our first Bat Night show, but that's because I haven't seen this new one yet. 

Join us this Friday at 11pm at the Clubhouse, and then come back next week for our 1-year anniversary show, and then come back the week after that for the second annual Los Feliz Invitational!  It's the most prestigious comedy festival in all of Los Feliz!

#2,209: Bridge of Spies

Exam - ★★½☆☆
I was hoping this movie would remind me of Cube, and it kind of does, but it's not as satisfying. It doesn't commit hard enough often enough.

Circle - ★★★☆☆
Where Exam felt like a movie written straight-ahead, front-to-back, based on someone's notion of an interesting way to start a script, Circle feels like a movie written with an outline, maybe even an idea of how a movie might end and constructed from there. The opening here might be a little more clumsy, but it marches swiftly on towards a bold conclusion, which is a much more satisfying thing to do.

Closer to the Moon - ★★½☆☆
This is a kind of interesting story told in a sort of boring way.

Bridge of Spies - ★★★★★
This movie had everything! Spies? check! Bridge? check! A maybe too-safe feeling hero? check! Lovely, deliberate, and motivated camerawork? check!

I had a really great time watching this, especially with all the on-screen spying going on. I was a little disappointed when the bridge finally showed up, because I didn't want to get to the end of the story. I didn't know I could be more satisfied with my movie-going experience until the credits finally rolled and some goof in the back shouted out 'that was terrible!'

Plus, if you live in the US, take your ticket stub to participating Burger King restaurants for the promotional tie-in Bridge of Fries! Mine came with a Tom Hanks of ketchup.

On video journalism...

“Some really good advice I was given at the start, and that stuck with me, is when you go somewhere, to make a film or do an interview or whatever, don’t get your camera out straightaway. Don’t start filming everything. Take your time, get the lay of the land, meet the people, think about the film. You know, build relationships, know what’s what, and then start filming. Get what you need. Be efficient. And then leave.

Don’t walk in, pull your camera out going “oh look at this shiny thing I’m going to film that! Look at that! I’ll ask you a question! I’ll ask you a question! Oh!” That’s what young inexperienced people do. They film everything, they panic, and then they get back to the office and they’ve got like 18 hours of footage and they don’t know what to do. ”

— Brady Haran, Hello Internet #39: Getting Things Done

Two related facts of my life lately are that I'm doing a lot of After Effects-related work and that I'm listening to a lot more podcasts. I liked this part when I heard it, and I thought to myself that more people could use this advice, and that I should write it down.  And so I did.