Sporadic Infrequent - A New Disclaimer

I am becoming more and more unreliable when it comes to keeping any sort of consistency with writing here.  I'm not even able to keep the updates for the videos we do updated with any sort of frequency.  That's why there's a torrent of updates today, that probably isn't the done thing, but anyway, here's the perfect opportunity for you to immerse yourself in the visual works of The ACRE.

Basically, the original purpose for this blog was somewhere I would make a conscious effort to write amusingly.  It was a practice space for me to write, a place I could put it outside of a notebook so that even if ideas didn't come to anything, at least some people might read it and have some amusement.  Since I started this blog, I've graduated Uni, got a job, volunteered in community radio, become active as The ACRE, made a podcast from the recording we took there, started filming little internet videos, left community radio, focused more on the filming aspect in order to get to a point where we are releasing a podcast and a video every week.  It's even got so video-focused that both myself and Dafydd (www.youtube.com/devanssongs) are releasing a (m)vlog every week on top of that.  We've even managed to stock up a backlog of videos that are waiting to be released.

Basically ideas no longer find a halfway house in written posts here, because we tend to use them all, so they appear in film form, or they end up in a podcast.

Because we're focusing explicitly on filming and video-work, other aspects are currently, more or less, in stasis.  That's why there's precious little written updates on this blog, as well as the fact we aren't doing a lot of live work at the moment.  Video is the current priority.

We are working on a longer project at the moment which is called Breath Afresh Chaos.  This is as tiny as teasers ever are.  I will post more as it comes along.

Have a good one.

My Sketchy Bank Holiyesterday

Since yesterday was a day where the banks were on holiday (hence; Bank Holiday = ETYMOLOGYTASTIC!?) both myself and my ACREmpatriots spent the day playing with creative equipment, attempting to bash out some more sketches to showcase on our youtube channel.

Sometimes our slapdash, last-minute approach to sketch writing makes me slightly nervous as to whether or not certain ideas will be funny or not. These nerves are further compounded by the knowledge that if we got a sketch filmed, we would definitely put it out regardless. I think I should've learned to have faith in our funny bones by now.

I was ill in the run up to the filming day, so I wasn't bringing any ideas to the meeting, but luckily my dearth of new ideas didn't spread to my ACREolleagues, who both brought funny nuggets that we spent the day nurturing.

The first idea we worked on, Sampson's, was a parody of old instructional videos. Sampson turned up in combat slacks, so the idea was to have a video helping a soldier reintegrate into society. This sketch will probably seem the most polished by the time we're done with it, because so much of it is done in the editing, specifically a patronising voice over and sound effects (cheesy ones). We observed that the extent to which the video was defined by props that came to hand was ridiculous, but delightful. The various 'steps' of how to reintegrate were almost completely informed by various items we found around the house we were filming in. Hopefully this won't come across as slapdash in the finished sketch, it is, however, meant to seem random. We were quite pleased with the flexibility of the way we film, and how we can adapt the sketch to implement these silly props, but in the end it all depends on how funny it looks. We edited the majority of it together, and we were still giggling by the end, so I suppose that augers well. The voiceover is still to do, and we're planning to release it tomorrow, the same time as the podcast. Fingers crossed.

The second idea was to do another mock-news report using my Benjamin Bold character, which I was quite pleased with. I am glad that we are happy and confident in suggesting that we integrate other members' characters into new ideas. The actual topic of the mock-report, however, would require filming in a variety of locations, and as daylight would likely abandon us mid-filming, we decided to put the sketch on the backburner, until we can plan it properly and dedicate an entire day to the filming. I doubt I'll wear the toothbrush moustache for Bold this time around, perhaps I will research other fascistic facial hair and have it on a rota-system for him.

So in the end we decided to film the third idea instead, which was a much simpler, straight sketch proposed by Dafydd. Writing and practising the sketch, which was just a conversation between the three of us, was reminiscent of the first time Sampson and I decided on the topics of our first material. Hard to believe that was over a year ago now, but it was heartening to realise that we are still committed and on the same path, knowing that the decision to get creative wasn't a flash-in-the-pan fad.

The three of us had a meal in The Billygoat's Gruff (pub anonymised) and workshopped turns of phrase for the sketch ad nauseam, until we had a huge list which we cherry-picked from. The assumption there is that we actually came up with some cherries, which, of course, you'll have to be the judge of. I had one single pint of cider with my meal, and devolved into something of a mess, which, as a young male, is something of an embarrasment. It would be very cheap for me if I become an alcoholic. We commandeered the function room upstairs, since Dafydd is an Ogreman at the Billygoat's Gruff (this changing the pub name lark is probably confusing) and so we had the run of the empty room. I had expected the room to be akin to the dingy pits which pass for function rooms in these parts, and so I was very pleasantly surprised. It was genuinely classy up there, which will hopefully add to the sketch, although when I took a preliminary glance at the footage it looked quite dark, so it may end up seeming quite moody and gritty, which will contrast (hopefully comedically) with the actual sketch.

The last sketch was the hardest to film, because it was quite late by this point, and we were all flagging slightly. Not wanting to name any names but Luke Samspon specifically proved a handful, with me and Dafydd having to coax him into action like children poking a spiderweb with a stick in order to rouse the spider. Luckily we all kicked into action eventually, though that episode may prove to be the point where the historians look back and nod sagely and declare that it was all a tragic inevitability.

If our comedy endeavors ever bear fruit commercially, I can envision a time when we will have to struggle with the rampant diva side of Sampson's personality. It'll get us some publicity I suppose.

I don't think I've played it up enough to be really ridiculous here, so the accusation that Sampson is a diva may sound like a real criticism. It isn't meant to be.

The funniest moments of the recording process, for us, often come when we mess up, which is why we put a blooper after every sketch. Quite innocuous things can seem substantially funnier because of the strained and contrived situation that filming/acting is. Because we are so aware of what is meant to happen and what is meant to be said, any deviation from this can be stupidly funny.

It takes us ages to film stuff, far longer than it probably should, because of how dedicated we are to trying to make each other laugh, rather than sacrificing the laugh in the moment to make sure the sketch gets filmed and is funny. It's a similar thing in the radio, when I would sneak hidden abusive messages to Dafydd in the playlist information to throw him off his game when introducing songs. When we were filming the conversational sketch in the function room, Sampson brought us out of our slump and injected energy into the proceedings using two novel methods which I will now outline.

In the first instance, he picked up a number of bar mats before flinging them individually, Gambit-style, across the room at his camera, each time repeating "Muh-fucka". Apparently, this was an impression of Ike Turner.

The second method was to give us a quick run-through of his 'Hitler's Mother Sketch', in which Hitler's mother is characterised as a loud, shrill, stereotypical New Yorker Jewish woman, which is both reductive, xenophobic and mesmerising in equal measure. It is impossible to not get swept up in the passion of the performance, in which Hitler's Mother offers him advice as though shouting up the stairs to her reclusive son, advice such as; "You've got to get ayngree Aydolf, they won't listen to ya if you're not ayngree".

I'm not sure yet which of those will appear at the end of the sketch, 'Hitler's Mother' is hilarious, but possibly offensive. I am uncertain how easily misconstrued that performance would be. We'll see how it looks in the recording.

In other 'me-being-involved-in-comedy-on-youtube' news, the video roundup on the Welsh Unsinged Standup Act (WUSA) Competition from my heat is up now, with me alphabetically placed at the beginning of the video, which is handy for people who want to see me in it (which is everyone, I am the king). My set was edited so that the very beginning and the very end appear on the video, which is interesting because it's a mix of my oldest jokes and brand new stuff I'd only tried that night, and the rude bits from the middle are gone, which means I can show it to my mother. Which is nice.

That video can be found here.

We should be releasing a new podcast and the sketch tomorrow, in which case I will be plugging away to my gut's distress, so keep your bananas peeled for that.

I hope you have a pleasant evening.

@adamgilder
acrecomedy@googlemail.com
www.theacre.net

Yep, It's Still Shining

I probably shouldn't have left it so that my post last week didn't have a conclusion, that was slightly inconsiderate of me. It's the sort of thing that would annoy me as a reader. So my apologies.


The gig went quite well, I did eventually get gonged off because instead of telling jokes I floundered and repeatedly called god a cunt, but in doing so I raised £4 for charity, so maybe there is a god after all. But he is definitely a cunt.


I was able to try out my new story, which was an excellent opportunity as I was then confident enough in it to use on Monday, where I took part in the second heat of the Welsh Unsigned Standup Act competition, which I did really well in, I am through to the semis. I will need to pull my socks up a bit if I want to have any sort of chance in the next round, which is in July.

I think all the fussing and second-guessing that happened last week was definitely worth it, as stressful as it was at the time. It is a process I think I'll have to go through for all new material, just to be certain that I have enough of a grasp on it, although I am hoping that as time goes on the chances of completely blanking like I did in Neath will fall away, eventually becoming 0. I suppose the more material you have the more there is to call upon should things go belly-up. Similarly, the more confident you get as time goes on, the more you'd be able to confidently cover and fill without feeling as though things will crash if you veer from material. Throughout this paragraph I have slowly replaced the term 'I' with the term 'you', I don't know whether this illustrates that my comments are just baseless hypothetical conjecture or whether it's just a trick to distance myself from my own comments.


I automatically use 'you' where I mean 'I' a lot, and it annoys me. It's linguistic trickery, where I remove my agency from the comments, so that it sounds hypothetical and passive, rather than sounding as though it directly involves or represents my opinions.
A little bit of meta-linguistic introspection for you all there, I can only imagine that you are all fascinated and delighted with it.


In only slightly less solipsistic news, we've been slogging away on the sketches, with Hard Reset now joining Just Another Minute on our youtube channel. The feedback we've received has been positive which is great, but I am bracing myself for the eventual, inevitable swathe of 'epic emo gay faggot'-style bile which I figure washes everywhere in the turgid typhoon which is the internet.


When it comes I will say to them (herein referred to as 'The Haters):


Do you know who I am!? I am a Semi-Finalist.


Yes indeed, that'll give them pause for thought.

The Sun Shines Out of Mine

My day today has been coloured by a constant niggling level of nerves, due to having a gig in Swansea tonight.


I've written new stuff to flesh out my set, and been occupying myself by running and re-running through the set in my head, recording it and replaying it to myself and making a bullet point list of the running order of it in a series of tedious attempts to remember it.


My all-in attitude to memorising this new stuff comes from having blanked completely during my last gig and being left on stage open-mouthed and silent, looking like a grade-a bellend, and no mistake.


I've reverted to my old tactic of attempting to mesh the material in a (perhaps somewhat contrived) narrative flow, so that it is less staggered, and therefore, in theory, easier to remember. It seems to be working so far, and actually outlining the blow-by-blow of the material (this is a pun given the nature of the set, so I will titter to myself) has helped no-end in committing it to memory. Of course all this blathering might be hugely premature, only time will tell. I also plan on putting the bullet points on my hand before I go on, which I've not done before, but I think it's necessary, I want at all costs to avoid the complete blank that happened before.


I am a lot happier with the new material than I was with the stuff I had planned to say before I blanked, which I think will also be a lot of help. Being genuinely enthused by the things you want to say is likely a much better catalyst than trying to remember a story that you think people are going to react badly to. I also hadn't learnt it well enough.


This entry has devolved quite quickly into anxious hypothesising, it is essentially the blogging equivalent of rubbing palms together or biting your fingernails.


So in a slight change of focus, I am quite awed by how difficult it must have been to attend far-flung nights without the aid of e-mail, satnav and google maps. I have a spot tonight in a bar which I've never visited, and despite this I not only know exactly where it is, thanks to google maps, I also know where I'm going to park, as well as being aware of several alternatives should those spaces be full.


I am very grateful for all this technology, if I had to potter around Swansea by myself looking for the venue on the night, I think I would be reduced to a gibbering nervous wreck. Even as it is I am not wholly comfortable with the process, I get infused with a mix of excitement, of feeling very grown up indeed, and then with an acute feeling of being very clearly outside my comfort zone, which probably isn't hugely conductive when I am attempting to remember a new story I plan on telling.


I'm sure the only answer is to heed the advice that the Pub Landlord would surely give, which is to SNAP OUT OF IT!


The gig tonight starts quite late, so I am confident that I'll get there with plenty of time to spare, and I will use the time beforehand wisely, running through my set like I should have done before, where instead I sat staring into the middle-distance like a vacant dolt. That's right, a dolt.


This blog is a burst of rampant solipsism, I must apologise. Hopefully it hasn't been too nauseating getting to see the view of the inside of my brain, which seems to be lodged squarely up my own arse.


This has been an exercise in releasing nervous energy, if it's not enough I will have to torture a kitten or something, who knows.


Expect a blow-by-blow post mortem of the gig tomorrow. Actually, don't.