A charming behind-the-scenes look at Saturday Night Live’s team of cue-card writers. Their process is lo-fi, but it works better than technology: it’s more reliable, and it’s easier to fit to the beats and the physical needs of the sketches. (It’s hard to imagine wheeling a teleprompter around some of the tightly blocked, single-shot sketches that feature in the video.) #
two posts about comedy
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Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian, Innovator, Micromanager
Jerry Seinfeld being interviewed in HBR (a very strange sentence) produces this gem:
You and Larry David wrote Seinfeld together, without a traditional writers’ room, and burnout was one reason you stopped. Was there a more sustainable way to do it? Could McKinsey or someone have helped you find a better model?
Who’s McKinsey?
It’s a consulting firm.
Are they funny?
No.
Then I don’t need them. If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it – every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life.
I can only imagine the beat between “Are they funny?” and “No”. #