Successful comedy often comes from a mixture of both: education and intuition; preparedness and improvisation; decisiveness and ambivalence; Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney. These two men and the opposing characteristics they share are what make up BriTANick, the comedy team that’s responsible for the recent sensation Academy Award Winning Trailer and a slew of other hysterical internet shorts. They share the same dynamic, where, in a very harmonious way, there’s no sense or order to the way they work. They simply do. Perhaps that’s why while studying under NYU’s prestigious and traditionally dramatic Tisch School for the Arts, BriTANick made a film titled Eagles are Turning People into Horses, or why they began taking improv classes only after they performed their first live show at the San Francisco Sketchfest.
In a conversation with Poop or Chocolate’s t.j. peters, BriTANick sorted through the how and why of their success, their plans for the future, and the reasoning behind using a Christian ska band to tag their videos.
To get a little taste of the BriTANick brand, take a look at their most recent video, Academy Award Winning Trailer.
[WARNING: This interview contains sporadic notes from me, t.j. peters, contained in brackets. No, I’m not contained in brackets, the notes are. But don’t worry, they are merely a tool to clarify, elaborate, transition, drift off topic, state the obvious, point out my flaws, undermine the traditional flow of an interview, or say almost nothing at all. And don’t worry about the possibility of me being contained by brackets, either. I’d never let that happen again.]
T.J.: First off, I feel like I have to ask: is it BRIT-an-ick or BRI-tan-ick?
Both: BRI-tan-ick.
[CLARIFICATION: The emphasis is on “Bri”, as in BRI-an or BRI-scraper. However, please note that in the correct spelling of BriTANick’s name, the TAN is capitalized, which I believe expresses that it should be shouted. Furthermore, though I can’t confirm this, it’s possible that a soft “j” precedes the “ick”, making the full, correct pronunciation something like—Bri-TAN!-jick (emphasis-shouting-Swedish accent).]
Brian: Thank you for asking. Everyone makes that mistake. We can’t get mad at them for getting it wrong, though.
Nick: No one ever assumes it’s going to be BRI-tan-ick, either. We sort of thought it of it as a combination of our names and the word Titanic and we’re not Titanic-themed, so-
B: There’s no reason why people should have the Titanic on their minds.
N: There’s no. . . it’s a terrible name.
B: It’s not a terrible name, just a complicated one.
T: Maybe it’ll make more sense when your ship is sinking.
N: Right, we named ourselves for the fall of the group.
[TO FELLOW BLOGGERS: Try not to make references to your interviewee’s “ship sinking”.]
T: Did you go to NYU together by intention or did it just work out that way? If one of you decided to go somewhere else would it have affected the decision of the other?
B: Maybe that was in the back of our heads.
N: I didn’t even know that Brian had applied to NYU because I remember calling him and saying “Hey, I got into NYU,” and he said, “Oh, I got in also.”
B: Yeah, I remember talking to you about it a lot but it didn’t necessarily dictate our decision. We made it independently and I think we’re both happy we did.
N: But we really didn’t have any plans. BriTANick wasn’t even a tiny little twinkle in our eye.
B: It wasn’t even sperm yet.
N: No, not even, like. . . what comes before sperm?
B: Don’t even need to worry about it. But yeah, we met out senior year of high school. The kind of interesting story about us is we grew up in Atlanta, went to the same pre-school, played on the same baseball teams, same summer camps, and never met each other until our senior year of high school. After that we became friends very quickly, so we were really happy that we’d both be going to Tisch at NYU. We knew we’d be doing something together, but didn’t know it would be BriTANick specifically.
N: When we first started BriTANick we just wanted to make some funny videos. This was our senior year of college. So we submitted the videos to the San Francisco Sketchfest. I think we submitted three—that we really hadn’t shown to anybody—and they accepted us and said, “Okay, you’ve got a half hour long live show,” and we were like, Shit, we’ve got to come up with a live show.
B: And get flights to San Francisco!
N: And so we created this live show in a really, really short amount of time, put it up in San Francisco and recorded it-
N: Yeah, turned out our first performance was opening for Robin Williams. When we got back to New York we submitted the recording to UCB and they gave us an audition slot. We just did that same show and they really responded to it and gave us a run there right away.
B: So basically, our final semester we started putting stuff on the internet and performing at UCB as BriTANick. It was this great transition right out of college.
N: And then after that we started taking classes at UCB, which is not usually how that works.
T: What comes before sperm, right?
N: Yeah, I guess UCB classes.
[NOTE: The concept of UCB classes coming before sperm fundamentally disagrees with everything we know about reproduction, but it does help explain why many women seem to choose laughing at men over having sex with them.]
T: It seems like right around the same time you went to Sketchfest is when “Eagles are Turning People into Horses” happened. What’s the story there?
B: That was my senior year of film school. I wanted to do a drama at first. I thought, I’ve done comedy all throughout film school, I’m going to do something real because I’m a filmmaker. I need to prove myself. And it just wasn’t working out. So it was coming down to the wire and I had spent the entire semester going through drafts that I didn’t like and shit. Then, towards the end of the spring semester Nick and I found this old script I’d written and it was about eagles turning people into horses-
N: Well, at that point the script was The Government Turning People into Horses-
B: Which wasn’t nearly as funny for us. So I pitched it to my class and the teacher thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. I was like the only kid at NYU who didn’t get the allotment that year for equipment and film. But we were like, we don’t care. We think it’s hysterical. So we decided it would be the first BriTANick short film. We filmed it over 48 hours-
N: There was an initial draft and then we re-wrote it over two days, rehearsed it over another two days, pre-production was during all this-
B: It was insane. Once we shot it I showed the dailies to my class and they thought it was funny. But the thing about NYU film school is you can graduate without completing your movie- if you go through the process, you get the degree- so we didn’t finish it. I sat on it for a year. I was too scared to finish it or something. I don’t know what was going on. But then last year for the New York City Sketchfest at UCB we decided to finish it and show it and it went over really well. So this fall we submitted it to South by Southwest and Slamdance, got into both of those festivals and showed it there. It’s been so much fun to do that.
T: You mentioned the idea of being “filmmakers”. I think NYU has a stigma of being a bit pretentious, so was it hard for you as two comedians to go through the program and not be looked down upon?
B: Sure, I’m really glad you brought that up. I went to film school and Nick went to acting school, so he may be able to speak on this in terms of his experience differently. For me, it felt like there were very few comedic filmmakers at NYU. You know, it’s where Scorsese went, so you go there to be a “filmmaker”. A lot of the teachers are a little—I don’t’ want to say old-fashioned, cause they’re great—but they just didn’t understand what I was doing a lot of the time. I’d really have to fight for my ideas. And it was hard to explain that I thought what I was doing was very legitimate because they often wouldn’t think so initially. Hopefully we’re kind of changing their minds.
[IRONIC POWER-UP: Brian’s statement is made all the more satisfying when you consider that BriTANick’s tagline is “Two Guys Wasting Their College Degrees”.]
T: Does that apply to acting, as well?
N: Well, it was different, I think, because it was more about the pressure to not do funny stuff. I don’t’ think it was put on me by anyone but myself, but I remember my sophomore year – everything I had done up until that point had been comedy related – and I really wanted to get away from that. I didn’t do any comedy. All of the scenes I’d bring into my classes were dramatic and I felt like I was smothering myself a little bit that way. There is, I think, and not just at NYU, but in the world, this view that comedy is not important or that really skilled comedic actors are not as talented as good dramatic actors. And I don’t think that’s true at all, I think it’s just different. [LONG PAUSE] I think at some point later in college I just realized how much I like laughing.
B: Took you a long time to figure that out-
N: I never really understood what this thing coming out of my mouth was-
B: He’d just cry because he didn’t know what was going on-
N: It was painful for the first twenty years, then I realized it was a good thing. But no, really, I realized that making people laugh and laughing yourself is so much better than making people really sad. That was my big epiphany. So just to summarize, happy things are happy and sad things are sad.
[NOTE: Noted.]
T: How much different does it feel to work on someone else’s project like you are now, or like you did on Suckerpunch?
B: If we have a good director and a good project we love it. It’s way less stressful. We’re on a movie set right now in Texas called Searching for Sonny with Jason Dohring and Minka Kelly-
B: And Masi Oka from Heroes. It’s a blast. Everyone here is so much fun. Cause normally, like with Academy Award Winning Trailer, we were the director, producer, actors, everything, except for two NYU students-
N: Wonderful friends.
B: I thought we were going to kill ourselves. But here, it’s so nice to do something that we think is going to be really good and just be actors. . . and get treated like kings. That’s sort of nice.
N: I just love collaboration. Brian and I collaborating is great, but we’re acting our own writing. And I think that when somebody else acts your writing or you act someone else’s writing that something else comes to it, which is, best case scenario, much better than it would be without that collaboration.
B: Plus, I’m growing a very creepy mustache for this role. They actually put a fake one over this, but man, I look like such a child molester in this movie. It’s so gross.
T: A bit of a departure, but I have to know. How did Five Iron Frenzy’s “Far Far Away” become the song that plays with your logo at the end of every sketch?
B: Okay, let’s start from the beginning, I guess. I have such weird taste in music, Nick will vouch for that. It’s so bizarre.
N: This is where Brian gets most of his music from: Weird “Al” compilation CDs, sound effects mixes, and Ugly Betty promos.
B: Not completely true. It’s kind of true. Anyway, so I was really into the South Park movie soundtrack in high school and towards the end of the album they have Terrence and Philip singing the Canadian national anthem. I got really into a Canadian national anthem phase, as we all do. So I went to Limewire and I downloaded every version of “Oh, Canada” I could find. And there was one “Oh, Canada” by a group called Five Iron Frenzy and I loved it. I downloaded all their songs and one of them was called “Far Far Away”. Hearing that chorus, I remember hearing it for the first time and falling in love with it. And I showed it to Nick and he loved it-
N: Not at first.
B: Everyone else I showed it to was like, “Are you kidding me?” but somehow I got Nick involved and we played it at parties and stuff.
N: We would rock out to this song.
T: I like the idea of you guys looking at each other at the party like It’s time! and throwing that track on.
B: Yeah, we also had this pop’n’lock routine we used to do together. God, that was embarrassing. Anyway, we’d play that song and most people had the same reaction, but then a couple would say, “This is awesome guys.” We get comments on Youtube and emails that say “I love love love love your videos, but get rid of that fucking song at the end.”
N: Or, there’ve also been comments that are like “The only good thing about this video was the Five Iron Frenzy song at the end.”
[FANDOM: When I saw my first BriTANick video, I was in the exact middle ground of the two common reactions. I thought, Man that video was hilarious. . . but I’m not comfortable with the fact that I’m still singing “Far, Far, Away” thirty seconds after it ended. Don’t say anything to anybody. Falling in love with Christian ska bands is a danger all young teenagers face. I was a victim.]
T: There was clearly an upgrade in the production value of Academy Award Winning Trailer. Is that a standard you’d like to keep or do you think you’ll continue to just hold up the camera in front of your faces every once in awhile?
B: We had the idea for the trailer for awhile, but we just never thought we had the funds to do it. Finally we decided, let’s just make it look as slick as possible using the same equipment that we normally use. We had a thousand bucks that cracked.com gave us, which we spent mostly on food and transportation. I never thought we could make something look so good without any money, but it turns out we can. Now we’ve got all these other big ideas we want to do.
N: We’ve had this list for awhile of sketches we’ll do if we have a huge budget. Some will still have to wait because they require mythical creatures and stuff, but others we’re dusting off and saying, this could actually work. Let’s just take a week and actually make this happen.
B: But then again, there are some sketches where you don’t actually need a lot of money. Like there’s one that I’m trying to get Nick to do where it’s a guy making a sex tape – we’ll talk about this later– so not everything has to be as cinematic. We’re actually kind of scared to follow this one up because we feel like the world is waiting now.
T: Any closing remarks?
N: Happiness is good. And sadness, it can be sad, but a mixture of both is nice.
B: Here, I want to say something real. Here’s my advice to aspiring people who are trying to do what we’re doing. People often ask us how we’ve gotten this far and I’ve just said, ”Do it.” You have the technology, everything is available now with the internet, so if you want to make sketches or do a project of bigger proportions, then do it. The resources are there for you so all you need is hard work and talented people. It’s easier than you think.
N: All it takes is saying “Fuck it, I’m going to do it.”
B: Yeah, that’s really it.
T: Alright, fuck it, guys.
N: Yeah, that would be great if we could end with fuck it.
My name is t.j. and it would be great if we could end this interview with fuck it.
Actor/comedian/writer/musician Donald Glover is a tough man to pigeon-hole. First of all, he’s spent his entire life not quite fitting into any category. Secondly, c’mon, he’s an ACTOR, COMEDIAN, WRITER AND MUSICIAN! And third, and possibly of greatest importance. . .What the hell is a pigeon hole?
In one of history’s biggest understatements . . . It’s a busy time to be Donald Glover. Let’s use this week as an example: Tonight, you can watch Donald Glover the actor as Troy, the emotionally-evolving ex-star football player on NBC’s “Community” (Thursdays, 8pm). Or, if you’re in Los Angeles, you can pop over to the NuArt Theatre for one of the final few screenings of “Mystery Team”, the feature debut from DERRICK Comedy, featuring Donald the actor, writer, and musician. Then on Friday (March 19) at 11pm you can catch the premiere of Donald the comedian’s “Comedy Central Presents” on, you guessed it, Comedy Central. On Saturday you will likely find Donald the musician, aka Childish Gambino, in his home recording studio putting the finishing touches on the rap album “Culdesac”, his follow-up to the Mixtape series and surprise sensation “I Am Just A Rapper”. On Sunday, God willing, he’ll rest. (Until Sunday night when he performs with the improv group Shitty Jobs at UCB-LA.)
All this from a guy who claims he doesn’t know how to multi-task!
While success is coming on strong, it is not entirely new for Glover, who got his “big break” as a staff writer on NBC’s “30 Rock” after spending his college years (NYU) dominating the internet with the previously-mentioned DERRICK Comedy. Poop or Chocolate’s Ben Axelrad got the fast-paced, fast-rising man-of-many-hats to slow down long enough to discuss where he’s been, where he’s at, and where he’s going. And also, all those hats.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Let’s start with some Childish Gambino questions since everyone prefers talking about their hobbies over work. Your “I Am Just A Rapper” (IAJAR) mixtapes have received widespread positive feedback for their synthesis of original rap music and preexisting indie rock songs. What inspired the idea?
First of all, I was surprised nobody had ever done this before. Indie kids love Jay-Z and The Clipse and Kid Cudi and stuff like that. And I feel like there are a million black kids who listen to indie music, but I know, for me, I was afraid to say I do. Rap is such a club culture now. Electronica and rap have kind of merged into each other because you’ve got this music that’s totally instrumental and syncopated and guys can rap over this loop that people can dance to in the club. And I like that music, but I think it was a problem for a lot of indie kids. They would say, like, “Oh, that MIA song is such a rip from The Clash,” so okay, let’s make one that’s totally The Clash. Let’s make one that has original guitars and drums and stuff that you’re used to hearing in indie music, rap over it and see how you feel. But I also didn’t want to make songs where the drums come in like boom-boom-chk, boom-boom-chk, like Korn or Limp Bizkit, and it’s the obvious “rock-rap” song. I listen to St. Vincent and stuff like that and some songs have no drums at all and the organ is the percussion. Or some songs will be like tom-tom-tom and no snare. Or maybe there’s a clap; or the tambourine is the snare. And there hadn’t been that exploration in rap yet. That’s what got me excited. There had never been a song where it was just a flute coming in like flute-flute-flute, and that becomes the percussion and you rap over it. It’s really cool.
The IAJAR Mixtapes are definitely your most open and revealing albums to date. Were you conscious of that as you made them?
Somewhat, yeah. I realized I was hiding behind things on the earlier albums, whether it be bravado and swagger or choosing an arbitrary thing like pink hoodies to be my “thing.” So on “IAJAR” I decided I would be my “thing.” I’d just do it straight and rap about things I care about. I like clothes; I’ll sing about clothes. People think I’m a weirdo; I’ll call myself a weirdo. And not to sound like the plot to “The Blind Side”, but the more I was me the better it went. And the more I was me the more I wouldn’t blend into the crowd. This culture niche that I am a part of is starving for hip-hop that is cool, but also self-aware. And when you’re open and let people see all of you the best stuff comes out. Like that John Mayer Playboy thing, I don’t think that was him. He was trying to sound witty and smart and cool. And the thing is, if you’re witty and smart and cool you’ll come off as witty and smart and cool just talking about whatever. But more than anything, the more truthful you are the more people tend to like you. Unless you’re a horrible person. And even that’s charming sometimes, because they usually don’t try to hide it. I don’t get it when people try to sound cool. The best shit comes out when you sound geekiest. Thus “I Am Just A Rapper”.
