After last week’s screening of the first Duck TV episodes, the remaining shows anticipated their debut that took place last night. This past week, I followed the cast and crew of Inside Story as they pushed to meet their deadline.
Last Wednesday, I watched the crew as they shot a house party scene. Extras crowded into the kitchen to stay out of the way as the cameramen shot take after take of Rase hitting on a girl at the party.
Producer Sam Connell gives actors direction for Inside Story's party scene.
Producer James Peterson (right) stands by with actors waiting for the party scene to begin.
Although shooting was stressful for producers and cameramen, the crew finished the scene that night, continuing on with their film schedule for the rest of the week.
Head producers Steve Zegalia and Sam Connell expected setbacks in the production of their first show, but they remained calm and flexible throughout their shoots.
Cameraman Mansour Albadran and producers Sam Connell and Steve Zegalia figure out how to best shoot the scene.
The hard work paid off last night as Inside Story sparked applause and laughter from the audience. “When you’re editing it, you have your own ideas about what’s funny, and when you see it on the big screen, it gives you an idea of how it works with an audience – what parts hit and what parts don’t,” said Zegalia after the screening.
Furthermore, two of the show’s actors, Clifton Rase and Ryan Hoefle, won acting awards. “I was hoping that Clif was going to win an award, and I know Ryan won the overall Force Award last term, so he’s got a lot of potential this term as well,” said Connell.
Rase, a journalism student at UO, starred in Inside Story as their Person of the Week, portraying the hilarious character of Hot Roddy. This character left him a lot of room to improv. “It was a ton of fun,” Rase smiled. “While lot of it was off the cuff, the reason it worked was because of the people I was with. I did the improv, but all of it was structured around these ideas that they had.”
The show originally started out with a real script, but after technical issues and the reworking of ideas, much of the content changed. “The script became an outline for scenes,” Rase explained. “The producers would actually tell me what they wanted to hear basically, then I would kind of frame [my character] around that.”
After the first screening of Inside Story, Zegalia and Connell realize there are still many improvements to be made. “We can’t do anymore jump cuts, so we have to figure out how to totally rework our shooting,” said Zegalia.
However, as the crew heads back to the drawing board to start the production of the next show, they know they are off to a strong start. “Finding that right amount of continuity and flow with the show is what we’re going to be focusing on,” explained Connell.