Lucky Louie (and now Louie)

Started by Ravi, June 09, 2006, 12:42:41 AM

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squints

Louis Bombing in 1989


did anyone watch the rest of the season? My vote for best show on tv for sure.
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

O.

To put context on to his earlier stuff (there are a handful of videos of them online) you should watch this video on how George Carlin changed his act. He essentially says he spent 15 years with the same shitty material and then heard George Carlin on the radio talking about his writing process, yatta yatta yatta, watch it.
superb

squints

I did see that carlin video from the other day. I've been devouring anything Louis lately, just watched this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Ar57R8OvQ



it was fucking awesome
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

wilder

His appearance on Conan from a couple days ago. Dude's putting together a show that will be broadcast only online, through his personal website louisck.net, starting December 10 for $5.

Louis C. K. Plans Online Broadcast of Comedy Concert
via The New York Times

In an epic, farewell-to-New York broadcast of "Conan" Thursday night that featured guest appearances by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert; a rare visit from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog; and the host, Conan O'Brien, officiating a same-sex marriage, the standup Louis C. K. made some news of his own. He announced on the show that he is taping a comedy special that will be broadcast only on the Internet.

Louis C. K., the star and creator of the FX series "Louie," said in an interview with Mr. O'Brien that his upcoming concerts at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Nov. 10 would be recorded and then posted in an edited version on his Web site, louisck.net, on Dec. 10 where it can be viewed for a cost of $5.

Asked in a phone interview on Friday morning why he was not bringing the special to a traditional cable television network, Louis C. K. said: "To me, I flip the question over: Why should I go through a cable network when I can just give it directly to the people who want to see it? It's so much easier, and it's an interesting experiment."

Louis C. K. has been featured in the standup specials "Shameless," which ran on HBO in 2007, and the Emmy Award-nominated "Chewed Up," which appeared on Showtime in 2008. His most recent standup show, "Hilarious," was presented at the Sundance Film Festival and picked up by the Epix cable channel, earning him two more Emmy nominations.

But in recent years, he said, the cable channels have become increasingly difficult and unnecessary platforms for him to present these kinds of shows.

"HBO used to be the thing," Louis C. K. said. "It used to be called an HBO special, even if you had a special on Showtime – people would call it your HBO special. But HBO gave up that. They don't do it anymore. I offered them 'Hilarious,' to broadcast, and they said, 'Well, we don't do any business with you. You don't have a show on HBO, so we don't have a reason to promote you that way.'"

Showtime, he said, "was really nice but they don't really push stuff, they just kind of stick it on." And Comedy Central is "a weird place – they show too many commercials and they cut all the cursing out."

The joy of presenting a standup special that eliminates any traditional broadcast partner, Louis C. K. said, was that this new show "will be available immediately, and universally." He added: "You don't have to have an iTunes account in good standing. You don't have to have your credit card at Netflix updated. You can be a loser and watch this thing. You can be in prison."

Using this strategy, he said, monolithic and intrusive media corporations don't have to be part of the equation, either.

"Everybody is outnumbered," Louis C. K. said, "because everything in your wallet represents all these contentious relationships with these huge companies. If you want to watch one of my specials on Netflix, they start marketing to you, and you start getting Jeff Dunham ads. You try to read an article about Rwanda and a pop-up comes up for Larry the Cable Guy. 'Hey, I heard you enjoyed Louie's special – now we know who you are.'"

He continued: "You can't put an old black-and-white TV set on your kitchen table and turn it on and watch something. You can't throw on a record and listen to music. You have to belong to something. The idea was, let's just make a thing where you stick your five dollars in a slot, and enjoy the show."

Source



Reel

The day has come, someone torrent this biotch.

pete

fuck that and spend the five bucks you pussy.

from louis site:

QuoteTo those who might wish to "torrent" this video: look, I don't really get the whole "torrent" thing. I don't know enough about it to judge either way. But I'd just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without "corporate" restrictions.
Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I'm just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can't stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.
Sincerely,
Louis C.K.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Reel

hey man I'm sure my money will find its way to him somehow, he's the best. For now, I'm broke.

O.

then wait until you scrounge up $5 measly dollars for an hour of good comedy. $5 bucks is nothing, it's a cheap sandwich at quiznos which eventually turns into diarrhea.

i bought it earlier, and watched it. had some great laughs, although i feel he needs to start varying his style and deliveries to something more fresh. it's beginning to feel a little lazy when more than a handful of jokes are on masturbation.
superb

Reel

Louie answers folks questions on Reddit

"I'm not an atheist. I think God is there and that he is watching and he made us. I just don't give a shit."

pete

"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

squints

"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

Reel

Yeah, what a pussy. Another great comedian dead. Who cares?

pete

reelist you've been crashing all through this thread. I feel fat just typing this, that's how strongly I feel about your crashing so far.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

wilder

A post he made to moderated.alt.comedy.standup several years ago describing the pilot process. Edited a bit for readibility.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

March 23, 2006

Someone on the other crazy newsgroup asked me about pitching and selling a pilot. I gave a long-winded answer because I can't get any work done. What I wrote answers lots of questions I've gotten here before, so I'm re-posting it here for you folks who can't stomach the unmoderated group...

So here's a rough outline of how it works, taking a show from pitch to series...  

The first step is to meet with a development executive at the network or studio and pitch them the general idea of the show. Usually you do this with several companies over a week or so, sometime in July or August. Then the agent fields the offers from the interested people, and you weigh the offers and decide which network/studio to go with according to three criteria:  

•   Who really gets your show and will let you do it without fucking it up
•   Who is actually most likely to pick up the show
•   Who is paying you the most money (the worst reason to go with anyone)

If no one has made an offer, you just go fuck yourself. If you have sold your show to a studio, you now go on another round of pitch meetings with them in tow, to sell the show to a network. If you are able to sell to a network, then you start working, now for both entities. (In my case, I sold the show to HBO Independent Productions, which is making the show for HBO, which are a lot of the same people, so my life is easier.) Then the agent makes your deal and you start working.  

The first thing you have to do is come up with the general story line for the pilot, which you pitch to the executives, first studio, then network. Once the story is basically agreed to, you write an outline, which is just a blow by blow description of each scene in paragraph form, which should include all plot points and any funny details or jokes you already have. You then pass the outline in to the studio, which gives you notes. You take their notes and re-write it and if they are satisfied, you pass it in to the network. They now give notes which you re-write the outline with and then pass it in until the network and the studio are both happy.  

When that happens, it's time to write the pilot script, so you go off and take as long as you need to churn out a first draft. I think this took me a couple of months. Only about three days were spent actually writing. The other fifty-seven were spent driving myself nuts while ruminating about what the show is and how to do it. That's me. Some people write every day, just pounds and pounds of words. I do a lot of work in my head and then just shit it out like fast diarrhea.  

Okay, so you now have a first draft and you give it to the studio. They read it and then you get their notes.  The same thing happens now that happened for the outline only often it takes longer, unless you wrote a good outline. What I mean is that, if you really tackle to story and get it right in the outline, sometimes the script is a lot easier. In any case, you go back and forth between studio and network until everybody agrees that the script is in good shape, unless no one agrees or it is not in good shape. Generally, this is the first failure point for most pilots. The writer, studio and network bat the script around and it gets re-written to death, while other pilots are clicking along and improving. You will start to notice that the executives you're dealing with are showing less and less interest and often you'll just suddenly stop getting calls and your agent will say "Yeah... um... I think it's time to move on." BUT if your script is good, if it stays hot and people like it and you, it'll be declared finished and passed in to the network for consideration for pick up. In other words, the executives you've been dealing with at the network, who are development people, will now give it to the top executives: Les Moonves, Kevin Reilley, whoever. In my case: Carolyn Strauss and Chris Albrecht. They read it and sometimes they have notes. If they have big notes, like they think there are essential flaws in the script, you're sent off to re-write yet again and they read it a second time. Sometimes this is a good sign because if they just don't like it, the project will just die there. If they are giving you notes at this point it's because they think it's worth wasting a little time on it. So you do another rewrite and pass it in.  

Now it's time to break out in hives and hit your children for no reason, because you have to wait. Your script is now finished and on a very big and important desk with, depending on the network, LOTS of other scripts that have been through all the same shit. This point is usually reached, horribly enough, right before the holidays. The network presidents take a bunch of pilots home to read over the holidays, while you spend the holidays not knowing your future.  It's torture. And the Holidays, in Hollywood are a LONG FUCKING TIME. These people go away from about Halloween to New Year. So now you hate all of life and it's about the second week in January. People you know are starting to hear that their pilot has been picked up by the network you're with, and you haven't heard. You spend HOURS on the phone with your agent and friends, trying to read tea leaves that aren't there. You run into someone that tells you they just had anal sex with the network president who told them that he is definitely picking up your show. Then your agent calls and tells you they're passing. OR you get a call from your studio executive who tells you that, congratulations, they're going to shoot your pilot.  

Now it's time to actually make the pilot. Holy mother fucking shit. You have to do the following things as every pilot in the city is doing them simultaneously:

•   Find a studio to shoot in
•   Cast your pilot
•   Find a director
•   Get back to work on the script because now that it's being shot people have a LOT of notes that they held back before, when it was just a pipe dream

If you are a strong enough and experienced enough writer, you are the show runner. But if you wrote the pilot but are a novice, you are also going to have to find a show-runner. In my case, I needed to find a show-running partner because I starred in the show as well as creating it, so once we started shooting I would not be an effective full-time show-runner without some help. So you are trying to get the best actors, director and writer in the world at the same time that everyone else in town is trying...

Okay, so casting. First, you have to hire a casting director. There are only a few good ones and everybody wants them. You have to meet with a lot of people who tell you some ideas of who they might cast in your show. If you click with someone you hire them (if you can) and start casting. You see thousands of horrible actors and hear your pilot script read over and over and over and over again. At the same time, offers are going out to very big named actors, none of which you think fit the parts at all, but you are told they will help your show get on the air. (In my case, HBO doesn't give a shit about that, so we were able to cast people according to their funniness and acting. Hooray for me) At one point, you're told that your pilot is going to star Brendan Frazier and Jody Foster. At the last minute, they both pass and you end up with Kirk Cameron and Shelly Biglachnataps.

The way the casting works is that you make usually three top picks for every part in the show. You now take these people to the studio and they decide if they like your choices. If they do, you take those three folks now to network. They sign what is called a test deal, which means they make their acting deal before the network even sees them. So you have to negotiate a deal with three actors per part, even though only one of them will be hired. So the three actors (per part) go to the network and audition for Les Moonves or whoever. He/she/they pick one person and you are cast. OR (and usually) they don't like any of them, and you have to start all over again and now time is fucking running out and every good actor is already on a show.

Alright, so you cast your show and you hire a director, also very hard because there are maybe one of those that are good and he's working on something else. All of this hiring and setting up takes place over February and March. Some pilots spin out and crash because a good cast or show-runner was never found.  So that day in January, when you got the green light, goes from being the best to the worst day of your life.  But if you survive all of that, you shoot your pilot over some week in March or April (we shot ours in April) The pilot shoot week breaks down like this:  

Monday: Table read

The network and studio come and watch the actors read the script, then give the writers notes.  Sometimes the notes are staggering like "We don't know if the main point of the story is really that good or funny."  And you have to insanely re-invent everything. This is probably not going to be a television show now, just the worst week of your life. Sometimes cast members get fired after the table read, and you now have one day to cast a part that took you a month to cast before. But if the notes are minimal and everything looks like it's basically working, you do your re-write happily as the director rehearses with the actors.  

Tuesday: Run through

The show is acted out on the stage for the writers and the studio. The same thing happens as Monday: you get notes, then you give the director and the actors notes and go rewrite as they rehearse.  

Wednesday: Run through

Now the network comes and watches the show on its feet. They give notes and you rewrite and rehearse again.  

Thursday: the cameras are brought in and you block the show for them, as the director decides how to shoot each scene.  

The actors should all be pretty ready at this point and the script should be stabilized. If you are still rewriting and casting at this point...you're pretty fucked, but it happens.  

Friday: Bring in the audience and shoot the show.  

Some pilots take hours to shoot because no one has worked together, one or more actors are bad, and the network AND studio are giving notes after every single  take so you are doing every scene several times just to placate people. They give the audience pizza but they still leave and you end up shooting in an empty house for half the night. This didn't happen to me, fortunately. We shot the Lucky Louie pilot in about two and a half hours (actually we did it twice).

Okay, so now the show has been shot and people get drunk. Then you start editing, which is a long and difficult process. The director edits first, then the show-runners. You pass in your edit to the studio, get notes, and then the network. Then, when the pilot is totally edited, you wait. How you wait differs from place to place. I did a pilot at CBS and we had to wait while they tested the show. They do all kinds of screwy marketing experiments and they show the pilot to a test audience. You are given elaborate data according to the test and you often have to re-edit the pilot to address the testing data. (HBO doesn't test their shows, so I got to skip that this time).

Finally, someone takes pictures of the cast looking desperate as they all sit on the same easy chair, and the pilot is complete. It is put on the desk of the network president, along with elaborate reports and photos of the cast, along with every other pilot that made it that far. You wait and you wait. If it's a network, you wait until the "Upfronts" when they announce their schedule in New York. Some people are told the day of the announcement that they are or are not going to series. When I did the pilot at CBS, we were told we were in the running until the last second. Someone from Warner Brothers called me literally an hour before Les Moonves made his announcement, to say he wouldn't be mentioning "Saint Louie" although we were strong contenders for mid-season (obviously that didn't happen either). HBO doesn't do up-fronts and they don't do marketing research. It's just two people, Carolyn Strauss and Chris Ablrecht, who watch their pilots and then mull it over for a while and then decide. In our case, we were brought in about two weeks after we'd passed in the finished pilot, to meet with Albrecht and basically defend our thesis. We told him what we learned from doing the pilot and how we intended to execute a series if he gave us the chance.  We left that meeting having NO idea which way he would go. About a week after that, I was picking up my daughter from her daycare when my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was someone from HIP calling to say "HBO has ordered twelve episodes of Lucky Louie".

Now, you think making a pilot is hard, try doing it twelve times in six months.  

LCK  
http://www.louisck.com