The Wish

What's YOUR Soul worth? (0:34)

Prognosis

Jon receives his diagnosis. (0:44)

You’re Welcome, Internet #23

2010-08-02

We’re shooting this weekend. Hopefully, we’ll get back to the normal, bi-weekly shoot schedule as our crazy summer of weddings and conventions calms down.

I was going to give you sneak peak at this week’s skits...but I’m still waiting on scripts from the Daddies. So, this might just turn into a ramble. But, really, how is that any different from other weeks?

The numbers have been really good lately. I’m not sure if we got re-linked or if our fliering at Comic Con helped. Either way, it’s nice that the expected summer dip hasn’t been too bad.

I really loved how JUST FRIENDSHIP turned out. I read the script and just thought it was genius. I don’t know about you, but it was kinda the story of my high school life. And college life.

Alright, I won’t lie to you. It was the story of my life up until I met The Red Head.

I was actually supposed to be in that skit. But due preparations for my pesky little wedding, I couldn’t shoot the day that was filming. I was really bummed when I couldn’t do it, because I knew it was going to be great.

My gauge is based on whether or not I laugh out loud at The Day Job when I first see it. If I can’t read the script without containing my laughter, I know it’s going to be extra great.

Scripts. Y’know. The things I’m waiting for Zach and James to send me. . .

SUSIE AND THE INTERNET was another script that I knew was gold. It had me laughing so hard at work and getting the craziest looks. (Try explaining the premise of that one to your co-workers.)

That was also one where it scheduled out that I couldn’t make the shoot. But I loved the script so much—and knew how great it could be—that I actually convinced Daddies Zach and James to shoot my half on a different day just so I could be in it.

I was actually pretty tricky about it. I told them I could make myself available on a Friday night if it would make their shooting weekend easier. I made them think I was doing them a favor by being in their awesome skit. Can’t believe it worked.

While I’ve met Wendy (who played Susie) we never saw each other for shooting. It’s a testament to her being able to watch my half and James’ direction and editing that it came off as well as it did.

The interwebs seemed to like it as much as I did. It was the featured comedy video on YouTube for a day and got re-linked on Gawker.

Ironically, that’s the video that made me decide to lose weight. This is long before the video posted and the comments started.

I saw a picture of myself in that getup and didn’t like all the extra flab that was poking out from under that T-shirt. I’d worked really hard during my last year of grad school to lose weight. It’s slowly crept back on in the two years I’ve been in LA.

With the wedding coming up I figured if I couldn’t motivate myself to get back down to my pre-grad school weight now, I never would.

With two months till the wedding day (and the premiere of SUSIE AND THE INTERNET) I started a diet and exercise regiment that will, hopefully, be noticeable, by the time The Internet makes his return in a DVD commercial we shot just before Comic Con.

With the honeymoon coming up at the end of this month, I’m hoping I can keep the weight off. Then in November is my high school friends’ annual football game (long time readers will remember my 24-hour trip to Pittsburgh last year); hopefully by then I’ll be fit enough to pound them all in to the ground, thereby resolving old high school issues.

Of course, one of my co-workers brought in a box of cupcakes today. So, we’ll see. . .

Has this week really devolved into a treatise on diet and weight loss?

Or is it my passive aggressive way of getting Zach and James to get me scripts for our next shoot so I’ll have something to blog about?

James! Zach! Send me scripts!!!

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Until next week, stay awesome Super Pals!

Best,
JP
jpnickel [at] gmail dot com
Twitter: @JP_Nickel @JP_Nickel
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jpnickel
www.FiveCentProductions.com

You’re Welcome, Internet #22

2010-07-28

Wow.

Comic Con.

How crazy was that?

It wasn’t my first time down at the convention, but you’re never quite prepared for how crazy it’s going to be.

And every year I go one day longer than the previous. Someday I’ll be able to make all of Wednesday-Sunday. As it was, this year I did Friday-Sunday due to Day Job obligations during the week.

I want to thank everybody who stopped by our booth to say hi. If you took pictures, please, please, please send them to me and I’ll post them in a photo album on our Facebook fan page once I have enough.

I’m sorry I wasn’t at the booth for most of the con. But we had something like three feet of booth space, which was really just enough for Zach to sit there and sketch while James poked his head in from behind the curtain.

There wasn’t even enough room to set up a laptop to showcase videos; James and I couldn’t trade off doing our carnival barker routine and get the attention of people who had no idea who we are.

With that said, I’m told their was a steady stream of people who came by. I even heard that a couple people came by looking for me to sign their DVDs. I’m really, really sorry that I wasn’t there. There just wasn’t the room.

But despite how small our portion of the booth was, didn’t it look AWESOME!?!?! That’s all due to the hard work of Producer Supreme Angel who wanted our booth to look like our website.

Again, if you’ve got pictures, send them to me. The fans who weren’t lucky enough to make the Con need to see Angel’s awesome work!

So, where was I the whole convention?

Forcing fliers upon the unsuspecting masses.

Yeah. I was one of those guys.

But I got strategic about it. Aside just being a people harasser in general, The Red Head and I targeted waiting lines for panels for things like THE GUILD and THE LEGEND OF NEIL with the logic that if you like laughing at those things on the internet, you might like laughing at our things on the internet.

Our logic proved truer than we thought as we got recognized a few times as we were fliering those lines.

My hands down favorite moment of the convention came when I was trying to flier some THE GUILD fans who were refusing a flier and weren’t buying into my spiel:

“Free laughs from the fastest growing sketch comedy troupe on the internet! We’ve got 25,000 YouTube subscribers and over 5 million views since we premiered at a Comic Con after-party last year. All 70 of our videos are online for free. Why not watch some on your phone while you’re bored in this line?”

Just as I was getting the dirtiest look from a person in line I heard: “Hey, it’s JP Nickel! You’re awesome!”

Turns out there was a Super Fan in the line who was familiar with the skits. He and his girlfriend were totally geeked to meet a member of SMBC-Theater. But, truth be told I was far more geeked to meet some fans.

Needless to say, people took fliers after that.

So, my biggest thank you of the weekend goes to Super Pal @FrownsAllAround for making my job easier (and inflating my terribly low self esteem).

There were a couple incidents like that in lines, but that was the one with absolutely perfect timing. To everyone who took a minute to stop and talk: I thank you. If we took a picture together, please pass it on.

I also need to send a special shout out to Yoshi for winning our final contest (and my favorite) of the weekend by screaming her lungs out. Great job!

And that was my Comic Con: a blur of forcing fliers on people, meeting awesome fans, and making sure I was present for a few events that revolve around the Day Job.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll have more booth space when we go to New York Comic Con in October. Not only that, we’re trying to figure out how to get ourselves a panel. If you know anyone associated with that convention who can help us out, please put us in touch.

Until next week, stay awesome Super Fans!

JP
jpnickel [at] gmail dot com
Twitter: @JP_Nickel @JP_Nickel
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jpnickel
www.FiveCentProductions.com

Zach's Plea

2010-01-16