So what is Show&Tell, Huh?
“Show&Tell [Screening Spectacular] started in 2014 when Kyle [Helf and I] were discussing this concept of showing your art and your films to people, but not having a place that we felt like it was open for us to put up whatever. There were a couple of screenings in LA at that time that were incredibly popular for indie filmmakers and creatives. We do comedy shorts, so that’s a very specific type of filmmaker.
As comedy filmmakers, we make sketches, short films, commercials—we make every kind of video. We sometimes screen specs, things that never get picked up. It’s a very wide range of media, but then also very small because the genre is consistently comedy.
It was hard to find a screening option for straight comedy filmmaking. There was Channel 101, but that was very specifically pilots. I didn’t always want to make a five minute pilot. There were other screenings [that would always ask], “what’s a sketches?” There wasn’t really good place to screen sketches. Film festivals don’t want you to put up your internet videos. There wasn’t really a place that we felt like we could gather people and show [comedy videos] in that community and fellowship—what are you up to? What are we up to? Kyle and I missed that from college.
We had essentially taken a show that was on the TV channel that the school was in charge of called TV 32. It was like a broadcast-cable thing. We picked up, there’s a show called The Randumb Show, and we were playing with that concept. When we finished an episode that we really liked there was no input. There’s no congratulations, there’s no constructive criticism. There was nothing.
So when we were at school we started having these release parties and we would try to gather a lot of people. By the time it was our senior year, we’d pack out the auditorium and we would screen all of our sketches. It was a huge to-do, and it was so fun, and we were like, how do we do that in the real world? It’s low stakes because it’s just your friends, it’s your crew. We want to have these little premier parties for your smaller projects. And some of them are bigger projects you’ve spent years working on, but you have nowhere to release.
So we started doing Show&Tell and it felt there was a larger community of people. There’s something more that we can celebrate from finishing a project and sharing it. Now for the past 10 years we’ve been gathering together. You’ve finished that project that you said it was going to be so hard to finish and you did it. I can’t believe you finished it. It’s amazing. And I love it. It’s one of my favorite things to do every month.”
How to Submit to Show&Tell
Lively audience at Show&Tell (including Santa Claus)
Courtesy of Sethward
“Literally anyone can submit. We have a form on our website where it’s just a simple Google Doc where you send in an unlisted link. We had to set up a parameter for Show&Tell that’s what are you up to now? What have you just finished recently? And it is comedy. So our three rules are that you have to be there to present your video.
So we don’t screen anything that has the creators living in another country or another town, and it’s got to be comedy and it can’t be published yet. So it’s this environment that I just finished this, I’m about to release it into the world. What are your thoughts? What do you guys think? And it gives you the opportunity to maybe analyze the audience response, change a few things, or leave it the same or add some things. It’s an amazing place for people to get input afterwards. We hang out and talk about each other’s stuff, what we’ve been going on.
The curation process has gotten much more difficult over the years because of more people knowing about it. And friends, I mean, when we were in the backyard in the beginning it was like, I’m begging people, please don’t put it online yet. Put it on Show&Tell first.
At this point, we’re having to be a bit more selective in what we put in.”
Show&Tell logo
Courtesy of Sethward
“I’m a big deadline guy, so if I don’t have a hard deadline, then I don’t do nothing—not finishing it. Show&Tell was this hard deadline that I better have something to show these people in my backyard in a few days. It forced me to make a video every single month, at least. Some of those Show&Tells—when it was so new and we were excited—I was putting up three to four videos every month.
It’s gotten to the point where I haven’t made any larger projects. I’ve never made a feature film, and I kind of blame it on Show&Tell a little bit because by the time I finish a project for Show&Tell, I have to start making a new project for the next month since it’s every single month. I don’t have this larger arc accomplished.
But I’m figuring that. We play a lot of different stuff. So I could technically cut up every scene of this feature in parts of an episodic journey and play it once a month.”
The Art of Collaboration in Absurdist Costuming
Sethward as a Pumpkin man at Show&Tell
Courtesy of Sethward
“I get into trouble with a lot of my work where I’m covered in slime, or I’m in a costume that’s currently trying to kill me, and then I’m in the middle of filming and being like, oh yeah, I need to direct this so that it’s what I want, or I need to make sure that the DP is getting the right shots, but I can’t move.
Literally yesterday, I’m filming a video that we’re going to put up a Show&Tell, but I’m covered in snot, right? I’m a snot genie, and I couldn’t move because it was so slippery that if I were to walk over to Nate, who’s shooting the film, I would’ve covered his camera in slime. Secondly, I would’ve put him in danger by getting slime over the place. So I couldn’t really see the monitor. I have to trust.
I call it editor brain where I have been editing for days or I’m stuck on a computer, I’m writing emails and stuff, and then I get out and I have to perform. And you really do have to readjust. You need to center yourself because you get too technical. And so I trust the people that I work with. I try to get people to work with that I trust to help co-direct.
So every project I’ve ever done is a community effort. There’s not at any point in my life where somebody will give a note on set and I’ll be like, “excuse you. Stay in your lane. I’m the director here.” I would never in a million years. I understand the concept of too many cooks in the kitchen, but I need it. I need more cooks for what I’m making and cooking. Sometimes I literally just need appendages. I’m in a worm costume or something. I literally can’t touch stuff.
I’ve also had amazing help through the years with real costume designers. Every once in a while I’ll be blessed by the real costume angels and people come in and give me a hand. But for the most part, all the things that you see falling off of my body because it was poorly made, it’s because I did it. And it was usually because I did it right before the camera was rolling.”
Sethward’s Advice for Comedy Filmmakers
Courtesy of Sethward
“Specifically, for filmmakers that do comedy, you can’t get tied up. And by the way, I’m no person to give advice. I have no status as professional comedy filmmaker. But from my years of doing comedy filmmaking, the biggest lesson that I’ve ever learned is that you have to put the comedy first.
Specifically when I say comedy, I say the fun and the silliness. And if you can’t have fun, at least force the silly because then you will then have fun. And because that’s the only thing that matters in comedy, specifically comedy filmmaking, your film can look amazing. It can sound great. You can have an awesome set or a beautiful costume, whatever it is to help support the joke, that’s fine. But truly it doesn’t matter if it’s not obvious to the viewer that you are having the funnest time making it, you’re having the silliest moment with your friends.
In my opinion, that’s the absolute only thing that matters when you’re making a comedy video. That being said, make sure that it comes first. I’ve failed at this many times where I’m like, I want it to look this way, I want the aesthetic and it needs to be a genre bending, blah, blah, blah.
The point of it is that you’re making and creating something with your friends and your community, and I think Show&Tell is a great way to prove that, because it doesn’t cost money to submit. It doesn’t cost money to come to it.
It’s very low stakes. We’re in a backyard. It’s an outdoor screening. The reason why we’re getting together is to laugh at the moment that we remembered you having so much fun and getting to relive that vicariously through other people, and being able to relive that by watching that video in a community. That’s the whole point of what we’re doing,—to share that stupid moment that we have together.
Anyway, I’m a huge advocate for being silly. If you’re not being silly or you don’t have time to be silly, frankly, I don’t have time for you [laughs].”
