A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dayton...
Want to make a comedy film? Flee Hollywood
AFTER SUFFERING through various crappy jobs, Joel Levinson finally landed the gig that changed his life: dressing as a giant smoothie cup. He got this mascot job by winning an online video contest, and he quickly realized other brands had similar contests that offered cash prizes and little competition. He entered so many that he was able to support himself with the earnings, like the $100,000 he got from Klondike for filming himself scarfing down Klondike bars around the world.
But as online video became too valuable for brands to crowdsource, he grabbed whatever video production work he could get as he pursued his ultimate goal of making comedy films with his brother, Stephen, in Los Angeles. “It was branded comedy; it was short-form comedy; it was web stuff; it was advertising,” Joel says. “[Stephen and I] thought we had something different to say, but there isn’t really a way to say something different in Los Ange- les and have someone pay for it.”
They’ve had some success, releasing the acclaimed musical comedy album 2776, which features a host of semi-big names like Patton Oswalt, Martha Plimpton and Dick Cavett. But Joel and Stephen were married with kids, and supporting their families through piecemeal work was spooky. Once, when Joel was hired to produce a web commercial, the project stalled when he was told a permit to shoot in his front yard would cost $5,000. “You get people super-enthusiastic on the phone or in a meeting who never call you back,” says Stephen, who earlier this year moved to New York City to write for The Tonight Show.
Joel decided he too needed to make a big career move, so he relocated to Yellow Springs, Ohio, a tiny suburb of Dayton. Yellow Springs has no serviceable film industry, but Dayton was the original home of The Phil Donahue Show, so he could hire crew for much cheaper than in Los Angeles. And getting a permit required nothing more than a call to the local precinct office.
In October, with Joel directing and Stephen writing, they shot a feature-length comedy, Boy Band: The Heartthrob Story, about a pop group that reunites after 17 years to record the follow-up to their smash-hit debut. The project was financed by investors in Dayton and 289 Kickstarter donors for $20,000. In Los Angeles, it would have been barely enough money for a week’s worth of craft service vegetable platters; in Dayton, it was enough for an entire film. Stephen likens the experience to a “summer camp.” They’ll have to market it themselves, but they made the film they wanted.
“The only way somebody awesome starts to make movies is if they actually just go out and make their own movies,” Joel says. Like the Levinsons, the Zucker brothers were roundly rejected by Hollywood before producing a film on their own. Three years later, they would release Airplane!
“You need to give people a chance to see what your voice looks like and that it can be a success,” Joel says. “Then somebody might give you a chance to play with your own stuff. For now, we’re just a bunch of guys trying to tell a stupid musical comedy about a fat boy band.”