rfrancis and I had this discussion on Dino a week or so ago, and I’ve been mulling my thoughts on the subject to clarify them before releasing them into the wilds of the intarwebs.
My thesis statement: When working on a Pendant show, you don’t work WITH most of the people on the show.
Now, let me clarify that statement somewhat before everyone jumps on me like rfrancis did. When I say ‘work with’ I don’t mean ‘have input from’. I mean ‘have a back and forth discussion which leads to a better relationship (at least, better working relationship)’. In the case of Pendant, that ends up meaning better shows. By this definition, I have worked with Jeffrey, Tom, Jared, and Bruce. I may be considered to have worked with Philip, simply because I had conversations with him regarding his roles. I never had a conversation with Ryan about his acting, nor Susan (except one case where I asked for a retake of some barfing), nor Daniel, nor Rene, Perry, Steve nor any other actor in the shows I’ve directed. I’ve asked a couple actors to send in specific lines for a recent episode of Dixie (the crowd grumbling about Billingsly winning the science fair was 3 actors I asked in the chat to send in lines). I’ve asked for line re-takes for line quality or pronunciation issues. That’s hardly working with them on a long term basis.
Now, I BELIEVE (and I know he’ll correct me if I’m wrong) that rfrancis was suggesting that the idea that they’re sending him lines and he’s using those lines is sufficient to say that they are working together. Or an even more extreme case, when he, Tom, and Pete were in the same scene during Ex Tempus, he considers that working together. I don’t. There was no interaction. The three actors sent in their lines independently of each other, with (to my knowledge) no prior discussion about how the lines should be done, no rehearsals, no discussion with the directors about how they felt about it, etcetera.
Another way to look at ‘working with’ would be ‘receiving input about style/technique/etc from’. Again, I don’t think I’ve had that happen. I’ve asked a few times to people, and only when they were training me to replace them was there any feedback about my style/technique/etc. Jeffrey has done it based on the episodes I’ve sent him, but I’ve already stated that I consider myself to have worked with him.
Yet another way would be the managerial side of things, where someone like mamamoira rides herd on the slacking directors and actors, and rfrancis on the slacking writers. There is somewhat of a give and take with that, but it’s more just schedule management. They do a valuable job, not one I would like. But mamamoira has fine tuned it into a set of form letters (which I think is the most sensible thing) and “all” she has to do is keep track in a spreadsheet (I put the quotes because I don’t believe it’s all that easy to do). There’s some interaction there, but it’s not relationship building nor filling the creative needs of the shows. It’s filling the needs of the production staff, and is very valuable, but … not really working WITH the creative teams.
I don’t mean to bash Pendant here, I think there are some excellent shows, and the staff do a bang-up job of managing the process. But when you are producing the shows in the manner that Pendant does, you don’t have the luxury of bouncing your acting off the co-stars of your scene. You don’t end up with the chemistry that comes with face-to-face acting, like, for instance, Decoder Ring Theatre does. With the release schedule that Pendant has, it’s very difficult to generate the rehearsals that would aid in this endeavor (again, not bashing Pendant - the release schedule is for the most part fucking brilliant, except for this one flaw).
Anyway, that’s why I said what I said, and if you don’t like it, or if you do, there’s a convenient “comment” button somewhere over that-a-way.