STBD 5-8: Revealed!

It's not every day that a local politician has the self-confidence AND self-deprecation to lampoon himself on a weekly web sitcom, but that's exactly what Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto did in this week's episode of Something to Be Desired.

The Making of "The Mathis / Peduto Debate" involved:

- 4 (loosely) scripted pages

- 90% improvisation

- 45 minutes of raw footage

- 1 three-hour shoot

- 7+ hours of editing

Fun Facts, Scene by Scene:

* The seed for this episode was planted way back in June, when Mr. Peduto was initially introduced to STBD by his friends who work in social media (via the iJustine / Matthew Ebel episode). He mentioned that he'd like to make a cameo appearance, but we weren't sure how to include him in the flow of the show. However, when we hit upon the Mathis 4 Mayor idea, a debate with Peduto seemed like a natural opportunity...

* The entire episode was filmed in the basement of The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, which houses a TV studio for the video production students.

* When Roger (Chadd Zivic) pops in on Bill to prep him for the sound check, Bill is perusing Reform Pittsburgh, the videoblog / political activism site he co-authors.

* Roger's lanyard is the same one STBD creator Justin Kownacki wore at PodCamp Boston 2 two weekends ago. (We suspected it would come in handy again...)

* Moderator Jill Wright is portrayed by Dawn Papuga, co-host of the literary blog / podcast Lyrique Tragedy.

* The Coalition of Ethical Voters is a fictional organization created by STBD fan Brendan Butt, who devised the first (and, thus far, only) Mathis "smear campaign" video.

* The debate itself was almost entirely improvised, and filmed out of order. The responses to Jill's questions are not always the intended responses, nor were the exchanges between Mathis and Peduto always filmed concurrently. Editing creates a whole 'nother reality, folks...

* Actor Rick Hertzig (aka Glenn) volunteered his time to keep track of continuity during the debate. His notes during the improvised sessions enabled Dawn to craft her questions after the candidates had already given their answers.

* The bra-laden cup holder Rich (Erik Schark) lovingly strokes while Peduto introduces himself is the same cupholder Rich lovingly strokes in Episode 5-5, when he and Tabitha (Courtney Jenkins) are filming his campaign ads. In reality, that cupholder remained in Justin Kownacki's car for a month, awaiting its return engagement...

* Nearly all of Tabitha, Liz (Jennifer Koegler) and Roger's dialogue in the booth was improvised as well.

* We would have turned on the TV screens in the booth, but none of us knew how and there were no technologists in the building. Thus, we decided not to break anything.

* Rich's reference to Planet Unicorn is an homage to the greatest web series ever (besides STBD). Rich can actually be heard singing the theme song to himself when he walks in on Caroline (Ann Turiano) and Tabitha in this year's STBD Halloween Special flashback.

* The ending, in which Peduto quits politics altogether, was actually Peduto's idea, suggested at the beginning of filming. He thought it satirically echoed his withdrawal from this year's actual mayoral race.

STBD 5-5: Revealed!

This week's episode of STBD was a drastic departure from the norm. How so? Read on...

The Making of "Pittsburgh Politics" involved:

- 3 scripted "PSAs"

- 9 improvised sequences (of which, 5 made the final cut)

- 30 minutes of raw footage

- 1 shoot in 1 day

- 6+ hours of editing

Fun Facts, Scene by Scene:

* This entire episode was filmed in one day -- the Sunday before the epsiode went live. (Actually, filming only took three hours, including driving time.)

* The PSAs were scripted. Everything else was improvised by Erik Schark (aka Rich Mathis) and Courtney Jenkins (Tabitha), with minimal direction from yours truly.

* We purposely diverged from the standard STBD "look" to obtain a more "documentary" feel, which necessitated the removal of the opening credits sequence.

* The piece of cheesecake Rich devours really did cost more than $8...

* This episode is only the second, ever (that we're aware of) that DOESN'T feature Leo, Caroline or Dierdre in some capacity. (The first? Episode 4-28, which revolves entirely around Tim's romantic duel with guest stars iJustine and Matthew Ebel.)

STBD 5-4: Revealed!

This week's episode of STBD included some brand new locations, a cameo appearance and the return of a missing cast member. (Not bad for 8 and a half minutes!)

The Making of "Creative or Desperate?" involved:

- 2 mostly-scripted scenes

- 1 mostly-improvised scene

- 1.5 hours of raw footage

- 3 shoots in 3 days

- 10+ hours of editing

Fun Facts, Scene by Scene:

* When STBD first began in 2003, Lacey Fleming (aka Dierdre) smoked a lot more than she does now. In fact, she's nearly quit entirely several times, only to complicate things when Dierdre is asked to smoke on-camera...

* Brent's entry-level fraternity task of calling strange women and asking them for naked photos is directly inspired by a similar type of phone call someone in my own family received this summer. (In case you're wondering, that caller struck out too.)

* The 24 Hour Creative Marathon at Creative Treehouse took place overnight on Sept 28-29. We filmed the scene of Pryce and Caroline working through creator's block at 11 PM on Friday night, and then I edited the entire sequence together, minus the music track, by morning.

I had to leave for Connecticut at 12:30 PM on Saturday, so I transferred all assets from the Final Cut Pro project to my laptop (with its broken monitor) and finished the episode at 3 AM Monday morning.

All of that would explain the original typo in the episode's title, "Creative OF Desperate?," which was typed, bleary-eyed, at 4 AM...

Dearly Beloved: How STBD Got Invited to a Wedding

For our final episode of the season, we at STBD were invited to attend the wedding reception of one of our biggest fans. He suggested that we'd be able to film anything we wanted to within the confines of the PPG Aquarium, where the reception was being held. All he asked in return was a small amount of footage of the reception itself.

This posed an unusual challenge: How could we explain, story-wise, a reason for multiple characters to be attending at a wedding? (And, more practically, how would we explain ourselves to the wedding guests?)

Backfiring Backstory

Originally, we'd intended to orchestrate the event as a full Vanity Press situation -- perhaps one of the authors or an ex-employee was getting married, which would explain the existence of Tabitha, Liz, Caroline, Rich, etc., being there. But when we were asked to keep our head count to 3 or less, we realized we'd have to scale back our idea.

At the same time, we had a continuity issue to deal with from Episode 29: The sequence with Alexxxis and Tim at Torque Denim was moved later in the episode than originally intended, which created a problem -- what was the favor Alexxxis asks Tim in the last scene?

Thus, thanks to a suggestion from Rick Hertzig (Glenn), we concocted an impossibly (and unnecessarily) complex conceit to enable Caroline, Dierdre and Glenn to essentially crash the wedding. We'd intended for Trent Wolfred (aka "the guy who got shot in the bathroom") to make his return at the wedding as well, so we squeaked him in as -- what else? -- the wedding videographer.

All we had to do was maintain a low profile, keep out of people's ways and shoot what we needed to shoot and no one would ever need to know what we were actually doing there.

Open Bar

So we arrive at the Pittsburgh Zoo, which is where the Aquarium is housed, and join the tram-load of guests being shuttled from the entrance to the reception. Since there are five of us, Rick ends up sitting alone. A fellow wedding guest plops down beside him and, feeling gregarious, introduces himself as the father of so-and-so.

Rick nods obligingly.

"And how do you know the bride and groom?" the guy asks Rick.

"Um..."

One bumpy tram ride (and awkward explanation) later, we're no longer anonymous. Thankfully, the guest appears to chalk our presence up to the eccentricity of the happy couple and totters about his business.

We slip into the Aquarium, explore the space and realize two very important things:

1. There are dozens of opportunities for beautiful shots here.

2. Almost none of them will work because the audio is trash.

Being an aquarium, there's a whole lot of running and falling water EVERYWHERE. This is not a quiet process, especially as it cascades off the walls of the interior, creating a white noise echo. EVERYWHERE.

Fortunately, Trent and Ann find the penguin area, which is shared by another large fish tank. Due to the acoustic arrangement, this is essentially the only "quiet" area in the building, despite the echo. This became the host locale for both their scene and an unused sequence with Glenn, Dierdre and Rob Sharp (egad!), whose cameo appearance remains (mercifully) on the virtual cutting room floor.

After the After-Party

Once we were sure we'd filmed everything we needed (or as sure as we could be, since the shot list was accidentally left in the car, which was a full tram ride away), we attempted to wrap things up in the elevator back to the top floor. As you might guess, trying to film dialogue in an elevator at a wedding reception is bound to not go smoothly. Thus, we retreated to the escalators at the zoo entrance, where -- in three takes, involving several escalator round-trips -- we nailed the final scene.

Coincidentally, this also happened to be the final evening of shooting for the season. After doubling back to Caroline & Dierdre's apartment to wrap things up with Leo, we headed out to a self-congratulatory celebration of our own -- a midnight breakfast at Ritter's Diner.

From champagne and wedding cake to black coffee and greasy home fries: STBD does it all in style.

(Should we mention that nearly every line of dialogue in this episode was improvised by the cast on the spot? Just thought you'd like to know...)

On the Fly

Rick Hertzig (Glenn) wonders if Courtney Jenkins (Tabitha) and Ann Turiano (Caroline) are making it all up...
Wondering how much of an average STBD episode is improvised?

Let's look at the three most recent episodes:

Episode #23: "Lonely Boy"

Scene One: Rich asks Dierdre about "the guy who's always writing in the corner"
Source: Scripted (except for Rich's opening and closing lines, "Hey, Stretch..." / "Whatcha Twittering?")

Scene Two: Alexxxis and Caroline (almost) discuss Lloyd
Source: Scripted

Scene Three: Tim tells Dierdre about his online dating ploy
Source: Scripted

Scene Four: Tim introduces himself to "LonelyGirl69"
Source: Improvised

Scene Five: Alexxxis and Caroline give Chloe sex advice
Source: Scripted

Scene Six: Tim and "LonelyGirl69" stay late after Dierdre closes up
Source: Improvised

TOTAL: 4 scripted scenes, 2 improvised scenes

Episode #24: "The Notebook"

Scene One: Caroline lobbies to borrow the notebook from Dierdre
Source: Scripted

Scene Two: Caroline reads Glenn's writing
Source: Scripted

Scene Three: Caroline and Leo argue about... Leo
Source: Improvised

Scene Four: Tim rambles to Dierdre about his "date"
Source: Scripted

Scene Five: Caroline and Leo conclude their argument
Source: Improvised

Scene Six: Glenn enters, Dierdre stalls him, Caroline arrives w/ the notebook
Source: Scripted

TOTAL: 4 scripted scenes, 2 improvised scenes (actually filmed as one large scene)

Episode #25: "Further Review"

Scene One: Tabitha reveals the "bad news" to Caroline and Dierdre
Source: Scripted

Scene Two: Leo and Liz read the book reviews
Source: Improvised

Scene Three: Rich states his case against the RIAA
Source: Improvised

Scene Four: Leo fails to get more money from Liz / Vanity Press
Source: Improvised

Scene Five: Caroline and Todd lament their lives
Source: Improvised

Scene Six: Caroline and Todd come home to find...
Source: Scripted

TOTAL: 2 scripted scenes, 4 improvised scenes

What Have You Learned?

1) On average, half of any STBD episode is improvised...

2) Most scenes involving Leo (at least recently) have been improvised...

3) Most scenes in which we felt a natural conversation would work best were improvised....

4) Most scenes in which we... um... didn't have time to write a script... were improvised...

5) You can do that when you have a talented cast that know how to think on their feet.