9. Perfuct Storm w/ Dan Bain

I sit down with Dan Bain, a writer, director, performer & maker of fun things based in NZ and finally get to pick his brain about his current Improv project Perfuct Storm. I'd been wanting to pull this apart with Dan for years so it was a very exciting conversation about where the seed for the idea started and how Dan's photography and graphic design skills have grown throughout this project. It's a fascinating conversation and Dan is very honest about where he came from and where he feels he hasn't lived up to his abilities in terms of one of the photoshoots. We also talk about where he got the idea for his innovative Instagram feed idea. If you've been a fan of Dan and especially been in to see Perfuct Storm, you won't want to miss this one!

0:00 Intro
1:52 Interview Starts
2:28 Perfuct Storm
35:40 The Perfuct Insta Feed
41:02 Wrapping it up
48:53 Life Update
51:43 All My Covid Jokes Promo

Dan Bain's Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/iamdanbain

His THREE instagram accounts
https://www.instagram.com/noosedoctopus/
https://www.instagram.com/standupinhell/
https://www.instagram.com/perfuctshow/

His two podcasts
https://sleepytime.buzzsprout.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/x-men-the-animated-series-rexamined/id1674510436

https://www.facebook.com/iamdanbain

These are NOT the rules of improvisation
https://ko-fi.com/s/8507fd72fe

Intro Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3tXX2XgjY

I've teamed up with a few other up-and-coming podcasts and we're all helping each other grow by promoting each other's show trailers.
Check out Beyond The Shadows Here!
Check out the Whine Time Podcast Here!

Get in touch with me!
@TaylorRuddleComedy on:
YouTube • TikTok • Instagram • Facebook• Twitter • Patreon • MERCH

Intro Music:
Funky Retro Funk by MokkaMusic

Transcript

good morning Ruddlemaniacs it is your host of Ra- oh I almost caught myself there I almost see the old podcast name this podcast is ruddle me this that's how much I have muscle memory myself into saying rambling with throttle which is the old name of the podcast so welcome to Rattle me this I am Taylor ruddle I hope your Monday morning is going well I hope you are I hope you had a great weekend and I hope you've got a great week ahead of you in this interview we get to hear part two of my conversation with Dan Bain about his show Perfect Storm which is an improvised comedy show done at little Andromeda I give a little bit of a a Spiel on what the show is at the start of the interview so keep listening if you want to find out what exactly that means if this is the first interview that you're listening to you can probably listen to it as a standalone but if you wanted to get some more background on Dan Bain about maybe learn why some of the things he does in this design process of his uh why he does them you can listen to the previous episode which is where we talk about the Radiohead album Hail to the thief but again not mandatory listening this will serve just fine as a standalone interview and I hope you enjoy it once again Dan Bain is a writer director performer and maker of fun things based in Christchurch New Zealand good friend of mine he has done some photo shoots with before and he's done we've done heaps of gigs together I really enjoy chatting to Dan and I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it ladies and gentlemen and everybody in between this is Dan Bain hunt two

[Music] all right welcome back rival Maniacs to part two of my interview with Dan Bain Dan thank you for joining me again pleasure to be here once again the magic of editing it is now a week later I know so in what a week it's been I hope it's been a good week for you so we are talking about in this episode your Opus would you say it's your opus uh it's certainly my current 's main project I guess yeah so that project is perfect storm and do you have an elevator pitch for it or shall I attempt to clumsily explain what it is uh if you could if you could clumsily explain it that we really have we're I can't even explain it at the shop so to my understanding perfect storm is in Eldritch time traveling alternate universe Multiverse improv experience in which three improvises with a combined 60 years of experience have I got that number right um it feels about right three give attack performers with a combined 60 years of improvisation experience ask a single question to the audience at the start of the show and then just build from there now unfortunately I've never been able to get out and see one because Thursday nights I'd basically permanently blocked off for me but I've read all the I'm a big fan of the the advertising and I tend to just keep the show's not for me but I love the posters I love it love the problem so good um so it's basically a long for a long form improv performance with the same three cast members although you've been rotating the map quite a bit recently is that just due to schedules yes just due to schedules I mean we haven't had Kathleen hasn't been available for the show literally all year um with her work at the um with her theater work she's just either been too busy at court she's off and she's at patches in Palmerston North at the moment working for Center Point um I mean it's a good problem for her that's true yeah maybe not so good for you literally one third of the show yeah I'm I'm the one who has to replace them so uh at least it's not a weekly Open Mic rebooking those every week was my the least favorite part of my week trying to find a fresh lineup for an open mic so yeah what was the kind of seed that start because you've been improvising for a long time so I imagine this was a show you've been wanting to do for a long time I know this show was basically built off the fact that I I so I worked for the courtyesters for 20 years as an improvised us six of those years I ran the company um and then in a in a fairly unfortunate uh and unpleasant tune of events um then I didn't do either of them all right yeah

uh just in a Twist that apparently everyone saw coming except me um [Laughter] uh yeah which and I'll I'll just leave that that use your imagination [Laughter] but um yeah and then I I mean I kind of was like right well I mean who cares improv is stupid all right um it's it's just I'm gonna do I'll just just stand up it'll just be it'll just be me or whatever I'll go and do that I used to do stand up a lot uh when I first when I first kind of started my career I was like a stand-up in a variety act and then I kind of book and then I became a theater improv person for a considerable amount of time and you know but so I was like okay that's fine whatever I I don't even care I don't even care I just I've got other things I can do I'll go and do that um but a little Andromeda wanted to install a a regular improv show um and so uh the initial kind of concept was between uh kind of myself Keith Lane and Michael Bell Michael really wanted to put a show in uh he'd been talking to Kathleen about it and Kathleen was like okay well we're gonna get it like we're going to get Dan to do it and they phoned me up and we're kind of like do you wanna do you want to do this and I was like uh okay yeah and then yeah uh and then it kind of built off that and we were you know um like one of the big things I'll digress for a second

I'm gonna email uh a couple of weeks ago from uh uh improv company in Wellington saying saying um we've got this fancy pantsy improviser that we've brought into the city uh into the country from overseas and we're wondering if you guys would be interested in um uh they're looking for other opportunities around the country would you guys be interested in having them come down and do a you could do a workshop with them or whatever and I was delighted to be able to send back an email saying hey that sounds great but the code Papa of perfect storm is no meetings no rehearsals uh no workshops ever um [Laughter] so um that's that's because that's kind of how we kind of began it was uh being like we're only gonna have people performing it who can turn up on the night and just do it because we've been doing this for too long to be like let's start it let's do a workshop every two weeks it's still you know it's like not really it's like we can do this um you know in so yeah that I guess that was kind of the Genesis of it was something that and then we were like okay what if it's just there needs to be we need another person who's that gonna be um and yeah then we invited Emma uh to kind of be that that third person um and that's been the that's that's kind of been the core uh the core kind of cast of it um and then we've it's it's expanded out gently a little bit since then with the need for replacing people so we've had um we've had we have Dan Allen whose improviser is based in Dunedin currently uh play a few times uh Henry and Ellis from the court Jesters I've seen him he's he's very funny it's very funny man um very confident um super super not flamboyance not the right word but super these struts you know what I mean like it's I I'd be terrified to move around the way he does it's it's very distant it's pretty Fearless yes that's a bit I'd say that but very very funny um give your head um you had your kind of core Trio there and the name you did actually tell me this uh in privates last year sometime the name came from Kathleen she said she used to use the word perfect thing wanted to call the show perfect um and I if she wanted it to just be perfect um she thought that she thought that was a good name for a show and she'd been kind of and I agreed but I was like I can't I don't know what that I don't know what perfect looks like I don't know how to I don't know how to visually

um represent them or or what kind of the I I don't know what the identity of that is um and so I we I I kind of then started throwing a bunch of kind of thing words basically turns a phrases that use the word perfect yes um but recontextualized um so um I think perfect Perfect Crime um you know uh all the all those all those kind of things um uh yeah and eventually I was like like it's got to be perfect storm because then I can like it can all have thunder and lightning imagery and it feels good that feels it's erotic and evocative sorry um it's the combination and so yeah we that was the that was kind of the and she didn't like that to be honest but I I pushed back aggressively had she pitched any imagery ideas for what perfect could be like just another classic graphic designer can understand the client doesn't know what they want but they know it's not what you've just shown them yes yeah yeah yeah no uh yeah the uh I do most of the what am I saying most I do all of the design work for the show um and the uh when I first started off occasionally I'd get some feedback which was always oh no no no no no and now that now they just kind of leave me talked they've learned but uh you're just gonna do what you're gonna do kind of yeah uh the first promo show I think this no the second promo show that we did which was is that the rain machine one no that was the third one the second one was um we called magicians songs magic so it was we were we're all kind of um Vegas magician kind of like doing like and it was all real um lit kind of blue and red and yeah and we were all doing like moody faces um that that was the original one I wanted to do that for that one was um uh I called fighting invisible ninjas okay

um which was like the three of us looking like getting uh like a special effects makeup artist and to kind of bloody up our faces and kind of have and and that we were all kind of in kind of these combat kind of stances but um but with no no kind of enemies in because they vetoed that that's quite a common theme I noticed because we've I suppose we'll tie into what I do a little bit with this this one-time shows I've done an episode on it the listeners might remember it but I did a lot of looking into what improvised what uh designers use for improv shows and it was one that I shows up a lot which is real photos of the people that have got like a cartoon sword in their hand or uh arrows flying at them or a dragon in the background or something like that and yeah the the drawn aesthetic over the top of the yes absolutely I did actually try to do some of that but I'm not a good enough artist it just looked because I think those there's a there's a way to make things look ironically bad but mine just looked post ironically bad yes and I yeah you definitely didn't go for that route you went for a very professional look for a lot of The Branding for it even going as far as to making a rain machine for the third shoot as you said yeah I I guess the the I mean the issue is is that how do you take a photo of improvisation yeah right how do you how do you actually visually um convey the idea of what that improv show kind of is and a lot of people fall down the Trap of just like I guess we'll just take a photo of the cast looking Wacker you know like all kind of doing their Wiggles hands and going like oh you know told me about a Tumblr account called scar band or improv trip where they it's just a bunch of photos like that and you have to guess whether it's a scar band or an impromptu exactly so I was gonna ask one other thing so on the poster I guess geez it's a bit late into the podcast now but for the uh visual listeners they'll be seeing the poster on the screen now before the audio only listeners uh would you like me to do a description of it like they did for the show or would you like to take the rings on that one yeah so uh you tell no you tell tell me what this is so the poster and this is about was this your fourth shoot

yeah this yes I think so what we're looking at is yeah yeah it's a square format image and in the background you see an icy Forest that reminds me a lot of the white walkers forest and uh Game of Thrones and at the top and is it bebus new font it's uh it's just it's perfect storm this one thing that I've always been a little bit um surprised at is that you don't have an official logo for the show you just use the the name in a font and then underneath it says comedy two colons improvisation two colons and then not here to play games and I was going to ask you what was the origin of not here to play games not here to play games is kind of a jab at skid scrub boss oh um okay to be honest um because uh I mean it's a double meaning right first of all we're not here to um I should have asked you if this was a swearing podcast

okay you're very good um but yeah we're not we're not there you know we're not there to waste people's time and we're not there to kind of um do experimental kind of like oh what if it was drama like [ __ ] that we're not we're not there to do that we're there for with it a generate comedy it's a comedy show um that's you'll see that that's actually in the order of things that we've put the like it is the priority the priority is not improvisation the priority is good um so yeah uh we got company improvisation and not here to play games and that's I mean it's just a one we're not here to mess around but two we're not here to play it we're not playing improv games We're not gonna get someone up and you be the arms to me right yes or or you know like and then we're going to play the scene again but this time we're all monkeys or that that kind of you know when it was and I mean yeah I've heard no no shame on that because I mean I spent 20 years playing short form improv games and made my made my loving out of it for ages but um there's a show that does that um it does it very well I assume I don't know I haven't been there for five yeah six years um who knows but um uh yeah well I I wasn't interested in it and neither were the others so we made a difference yeah one of my um I don't know which one of my sort of old comedy mentors said this uh might have been reg Blackwood they told me that if I'm falsely attributing this to Ridge I apologize but I think it was really to tell me he said that uh good comedy is rebelling against something so I think in that case it's almost like saying you know this thing here that exists is the exact opposite of what I want to be doing so I'm going to go and make my own my own version of this but how I want it and I think any artist out there comedian painter whatever musician has pretty much felt that uh at one point like I think stand up is an interesting one for this because I think a lot of stand-ups think that they were the only ones who've got it right and everyone else is just missing about so yes I think that's a very relatable sentiment to probably who's listening yeah um so I'll get back to my description of the poster because I've I've never addressed quite a lot so the it's a blue forest and there are three characters in the middle of the uh the forest well there's four one one of which is deceased maybe which is I believe it's Michael Bell isn't it so there is a shirtless person in jeans that has turned blue the same blue as the rest of the forest and slightly covered in snow I assume dead on the ground and then there are three characters in the middle wearing I don't know what this area is is it 1940s 50s it's 40s 1940 zero clothing Dan is in the middle holding a lamp and he is wearing a sort of a Noir trench coat and then Kathleen is off to his left wearing a fur coat like a sort of uh not necessarily a theme for tile but a uh maybe a rich widower kind of um suspicious widower fur coat and I can't quite tell what Emma's wearing because her hand is covering is she wearing a similar jacket she's got a fairly similar kind of fur gotcha like a winter fur and she's also got a little bear right and they are looking they're looking off to the right and looking slightly concerned or confused and then the rest of the image is what Jeff called them the mandatory so it's garage Project logo perfect show logo little Andromeda logo www.perfect.co.nz and the Noose octopus theater logo so I forget why I described it I think we're just going to talk about the actual design of the image what what was the impetus of this because you did more you did quite a big photo shoot with that and you created more Graphics in this kind of costuming and style didn't you yeah we did a bunch of so I um Andromeda releases its uh program seasonally so I decided to do a seasonal program so I did storms from a bunch of Seasons so the one immediately the one the one immediately prior to this uh one was like a a kind of um

sitting at a picnic table and this clearly like heavy gust wind um all the the food is kind of blowing off the table and uh we're all kind of being gusted as well and Michael has been blown off into there yeah yeah uh holding on to his shirt and so this this one was um first of all it was for the winter season so um we gave it this winter aesthetic but also I I kind of I followed a narrative line so it's like what hit so what happened after the last poster like Michael blew away often to the into the sky uh what happened next and so this is us going and searching for them after his after he's been blown away and turns out he's kind of he's which is why he's got no shirt on yeah right

he's landed and he's he's landed away in this forest and kind of his um Frozen into this into the Under the Sun so yeah so the idea is us we're off we're off kind of looking for him and you know uh he's kind of right right under our feet was the um why I guess the narrative underneath that I did not realize there was a continuing narrative so does that mean there was it's I mean was there one before the uh the wind uh series of images was there a story connected to that too no that was the first one that also that was the first one that had Michael in it the other the first because the very the very first one um when I didn't really have a grip on what either what the show is but also the how to kind of um make what I wanted the very first one was kind of just three headshots over a storm background that's right um uh over you know some lightning strikes and and that sort of thing and then the next one was the I got a bit better um and it's kind of the The Magicians kind of one yeah um and then the and then I got much more ambitious and did this massive kind of compositing project for the uh the picnic storm image and then this this one which I think is probably the best one I've ever done which is why I submitted all the best one for this show anyway um uh is actually just it um it's just one photo um it's it's there's very little compositing um the background so they're composited I was gonna ask you how did you create the background but um yeah and a little bit of the foreground is composited but um like I bought a lot of fake snog so uh we when we mixed up about um 20 liters of of fake snow and poured that over Michael um just on a big white Infinity screen so we were on a little roster just up above them we pull it poured all the snow all over him we had a makeup artist come in and kind of icicle his face um and while they're also doing you know the kind of 40s hair and makeup for uh Kathleen and Emma um but yeah it's it's actually um for a lot of them I find sometimes I have to composite uh you know the very the very nature of a photo of three people yes you do need to sometimes like to get all three of them looking good is but that but that's the actual photo you've done really well with it then yeah that one turned out really well has there been an image since that continues this story I'm not quite sure where you're up to with me with the um seasons of the show yeah there is but I actually don't I don't like it very much so I don't use it would you like to talk about maybe like a postmortem like what and yeah sure I'll talk about it um so the last photo shoot that I did was the it's been released online I don't I don't think so yeah there's physical copies of it and Roger but I don't say I don't think I've put it out um uh so it's I did it at the same time that I did the new Saints of comedy series which I'm I was so happy with um which was the individual shots of us kind of looking like uh tarot cards oh you're in that sort of recess on the wall kind of artwork yeah yeah I know that one yeah and it's real it's it's you know it's all flat on and we're holding kind of pseudo-religious iconography and and that sort of thing um and I was so stoked with how that yeah and then I had a I had a yeah I had a group shot that was in the same uh kind of on the same aesthetic um and it just wasn't as good um and uh like uh and maybe if I maybe if I spent another like 10 hours kind of photoshopping it I might have got it to somewhere where I was like Yay I like it now the graphic you put together was you did another shot where all three of you were standing in the frame and you were in those costumes and it was going to be a yeah yeah so yeah so we were all through the three of us were kind of Seated on these on the on kind of a like a Deus like a kind of three-part Throne kind of thing and we were all still holding like a religious or a magic items and uh and behind us Michael was being reanimated and brought back to life story continues yeah yeah and so he was kind of he was kind of floating up and he had this very kind of um like that was probably the most successful part of it was he was kind of up there in this real kind of Renaissance painting um with like like a little kind of Jesus loin cloth that kind of expanded out either way into these big ribbons and on those ribbons with like the show dates yeah yeah it was it was quite cold but the and the actual the kind of hero part of the image the three of us kind of seated underneath it wasn't quite as successful yeah especially and I was just I guess I was just disappointed because comparing back to the individual images from the um from the yeah the individual headshots off the back of it yes all of which I I like I was just like oh this is the best this is the best photo I've ever done yeah oh God I I just beat myself again

fantastic kind of mindset we're all innocent that you have to be continuously striving upwards but but we have something that a lot of creators face I think like I know Jeff Jeffries considers his special alcohol course his greatest thing he's ever done and that was like his second special so that's a tricky one to try and constantly be topping yourself isn't it yeah yeah so then I guess what do you feel like you you're presumably gonna do another shoot for the next season what's your kind of plans for are you going to continue the story are you going to go back to the drawing board what's your what's your thought process on what's next I I have a good idea for my the I guess the I have a good idea for individual shots and kind of a wider kind of photo shoot but in terms of the I think in terms of the hero image I might just start um just using one of us for them maybe rather than three of us uh uh because the it's hard to get uh it's hard to get all three of us looking great and like one image Yeah It's Tricky isn't it and one M1 image um that yeah uh but I mean I say that now but who know who knows who knows what kind of comes up but at the moment at the moment and that's probably off the back of what happened on the last one but I've I know I've got another good idea I think for a

for a shoot that is about doing fun portraiture oh um fun individual portraiture so much like the individual portraiture for the the Saints of comedy with the individual ones were so kind of strong um but I'm not sure if it carries over into a group shot or how to make that work as a group shot or yeah so I don't know we'll see maybe I was gonna maybe this word I was gonna ask as well do you feel like these Seasons you've been because you said that you felt like that uh the snow one was your best work in that series do you feel like when you look at a new project you think about it in terms of new skills that you are going to need to acquire to make this look happen because you still do quite a lot of practical effects in terms of actual costumes and uh you know lighting and stuff like that as yeah as each one yeah has each one been a new technique or something that you had to master yeah I said yeah I think I try to I try to do something new with all of them um and this like uh this one which also was um what the the individual portraits that came out with this um snow series were there's this big run of ones through um through like a rainy window yes I do remember yeah and um so some of them were through the window and others were kind of inside the window looking out and there's a reflection of the subject in the thing very much um murder on the Orient Express kind of vibes from those ones that felt I know whether it was intended or not but I imagined that they were on a train right yeah cool cool I for me it felt a little bit um kind of retro futuristic um yeah with the 40s kind of 40s kind of aesthetic but there's a um the there's quite a bit of neon reflected and I can see that in the windows that I put in there's um a particularly uh Kathleen's look how she's been done up she looks a lot like Rachel from Blade Runner um and so yeah that was that really kind of pull so with a lot of his her ones particularly the color the kind of final color grade I gave to them was quite kind of futuristicy slightly matrixy green if they say that kind of um tinge to kind of pull her a little bit a little bit that way um but yeah uh i s yeah I with it with each of them I try and kind of push myself a little bit further in what I can do I think the the biggest step forward was the jump between um uh uh the the um the picnic one and this one yeah I think I'd agree with you there because the the the the picnic one turned out quite well but it was a cool one I remember being really impressed with it yeah but I think it's like I was really working at the edge of what I was what I actually had the technical skill to do so yeah for that uh rose right at the kind of right at the road at the cusp of it and then with it and so it turned out quite well like I'm proud of it um but it was really hard whereas the next one um turned out really well and was actually really easy yeah

because I yeah like I bought two new pieces of gear which kind of made all the difference um and uh so you know so much of it was able to happen in camera yeah um and the same with the same with the most recent kind of the the tarot card ones 90 of those images are done in camera um and when when I kind of get into the edit it's actually you know it's it's a 40 minute kind of cleanup and highlight and maybe composite and each like I put a snake in Kathleen M4 and one of them because it felt yeah but yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know more work you can do in the camera the less work see you later on isn't it yeah yeah and that was that was kind of the big step up for me um yeah I mean just buying a couple of extra Studio yeah actually it was the that was the core of it so one one last thing I thought we could cover and that's something that initially kind of Drew me to all of your work was your Instagram uh timeline your Instagram grid I'm not quite sure what the correct word for it is so if you're okay with it I might take a video of myself scrolling down the feed and put that on camera now so if you're an audio listener and you want to see what I'm talking about check out perfect show on Instagram or just watch the YouTube version and you can see that there so to sum it up quickly you are going for an approach where rather than necessarily looking at the images individually which you still can do more like you scroll through the entire feed because of the three by three the way Instagram shows it to you three by three you get a picture and each each image is like a small slice of I'm describing this really poorly can you can you take it and save me here yeah I mean yeah it's a con it's a continuous phase right so the the whole thing is designed to be one enormous image as well as how I think it's about 900 individual images make it up at the moment that's what I'm looking at now there we go as long as it's as long as it's a multiple of three I know it's still working um yeah yeah and yeah as you say the the idea is that you can uh [Music] hopefully like hopefully each image kind of works by itself some of them yeah some of them don't particularly when I was first starting out I was just I didn't quite know what I was doing but um uh uh the yeah the idea is that there's there's two layers to it so you can look at it as individual images or you can if you visit the and it was very much Builder profile uh portfolio kind of pace as well um for me it tends to come back to what we were talking about in the Radiohead interview with fear of multimedia I'd still out of the same project so what I've been quite enjoying is you just have a scroll down and the overall color of the image changes and you kind of see it go through the different eras of what your branding look like at the time like I'm kind of been just scrolling down has been talking to seeing I've gotten back to the magician stage where the colors and mainly red red sort of blue and purple and then bits of lightning and stuff in the background and you sort of alternate between going in and out of having like a parchment sort of background and just using the pictures and it's a really fun scroll so I recommend all the listeners if you just open it up on your Instagram app on your phone and just have a little scroll through with your thumb it's I've never seen it done before it's quite it's quite ingenious oh cool yeah I mean I wish I could say it was my original idea I I have seen it done before it's it's you know um but in terms of um I've seen it on yeah not as long and continuous as you've done it like yours literally does not break I really stuck with it yeah yeah you really committed to the best I committed to the BET yeah and so again looking back so the Radiohead thing we were talking about before it's this very interesting experience to see because you use actual photos from the show you have text which tells you like upcoming dates and such but then you also do these little scribbly drawings of I presume just bits and pieces that happened in the show yeah yeah yeah yeah so the the the Breakthrough for me was because if you go right back to the start there's this phase that I call the wall of the Asylum um

the background the background is kind of white Plaster um and the whole thing is kind of graffiti um and the reason for that is there was such limited resources that we built for the show we'd done one photo shoot and we got like four photos out of it that we were like these are kind of workable um that was very much like I just bought a digital camera and was like I just started doing the photos for it so I wasn't getting a lot of I wasn't getting a lot of juice for the squeeze um and and yeah and so then um so I but I had to do I had to build content and so it was all just kind of graffiti and kind of scribbles um and just kind of a stream of Consciousness kind of hey there's a show coming up don't miss that show whoa you'll be a but kind of done in a uh yeah like kind of as I say like like kind of a lunatic scrolling on the wall of the Asylum kind of thing which I you know hopefully was was kind of compelling but it was based that basically came off the fact that there was no I had no content necessity kind of thing right yeah and then the the the moment we're unlocked was me going oh I should do I should recap moments from the show um because there's there's content there that is uh kind of really imaginative and and amusing that uh hopefully will kind of will kind of be weird or compelling if you weren't at the show you just go what is that that's weird okay like um but so much of what the show is is about generating in joke and so I I kind of hoped that there would be a a follow-up to after the show where you go oh that moment yeah that I love you yeah yeah totally that but was that bit was great for me as well and I really yeah what's quite cool about doing this the whole Scroll of the entire gallery is you actually really can see your photography skills get a lot better yeah the first few looks good that's by the point you're up to now you really have your own sort of visual language established and it's almost like the first few are just good photography with consistent lighting which you know as someone who designs posters like it could be a nightmare when you're taking six different comedians picks off there to Facebook page yeah but the the ones from now are like night and day kind of difference there's just something more I don't know you've you've established a style and I can't exactly articulate it but they all especially like I think again yeah the ones on the snowy background definitely feel like they the most uh encapsulate the sort of um perfect style photography but the again the ones you've done with all the big odds it still feels like it's they belong with the the snowing ones I'm rambling a bit there but yeah I mean no I do and I just the other thing that I really wanted that we're kind of my my skill has kind of caught up with my ambition um it is that I wanted the show to look Lux I wanted it to look Luxe and kind of um real yeah real kind of pro kind of like oh this is real this is going to be good I mean look at look at this picture uh and and trying not to get track because there's essentially there's not anything hugely comedic right about the image it's a dead guy in the snow um but yeah and so those those kind of I don't know those kind of I like the the juxtaposition of that as well like this is the image for a comedy show like because then it says they're like I mean I I never try to hide what a thing is like yeah it's very much like it's comedy like bam there it is some very big levels um but the image is kind of like is it comedy or is it um going to you know uh like as you say you know into the woods of the white walkers yeah I think that maybe helps build a Little Bit of Sympathy for your characters though because a lot of them they the characters don't necessarily look like they're having a good time the look on their faces is quite often of like concern or or afraid or fear you know and a weird way I feel like that builds sympathy because you kind of to me it feels like they're they're these human characters that have been thrust into this kind of hostile world and they're just reacting to it which I mean maybe that's how embrov feels when you're doing it because you're sort of um you know you don't I've heard that the first dip in Denver I've seen is establish the environment and kind of build from there so in a way you're kind of not sure where you are when you start out and then it becomes clearer that the longer the Scene goes on um yeah I certainly think there's we're trying to kind of capture the the tempestuous kind of nature of those things both in the the sh the show title and the the thing and I mean so the other thing is that once we come up with that title it became part of the actual performance itself so one of the things that we really wanted to do was to eliminate the role of the MC from the show right the the an improvised show particularly from the tradition that we all come from is really driven by a host kind of who talks directly to the audience and is like okay well the players just did this thing where they spoke with the Knicks leader of the alphabet and now they go now they're all gonna for the next scene they're gonna stand on one foot yeah and every time someone says ham they're going to stand on the other foot or whatever yeah you know someone who kind of comes and explains the roles and that sort of thing it also goes all right we'll end that there folks that's the end of the soon you know and we're like how do we get rid of that honestly and so we invented this thing which is there's a big button on a plinth and when you push the button it triggers a lightning strike so the lights go out and there's a flicker flicker flicker and there's an enormous um sound effect of a lightning strike and we use that to edit the end of the scene so when the scene finishes there's a lightning strike which turns the lights out and then the lights come back up and the next thing begins we do that we do the next thing without is that one of the performers that pushes the lightning button yeah yeah so as so if so it can either be someone who's not in the scene who's off stage who just kind of reaches them and hits it or it can be someone in the scene going I'm getting out of this and pushing the button or or whatever and we knew that we knew that we wanted to invent that mechanic we knew that we wanted a way to to get rid of the MC but it was the it was actually the Thematic nature of the title and the imagery that created the the the aesthetic of what that button was and what it would yeah and how it would function in the show it is endlessly fascinating talking about the the way that the theme feeds back into the show and the show feeds back into the theme and I feel like we could talk about this for ages but we are coming up on about 50 minutes now so in the in the interest of uh keeping my buzz Sprout account uh manageable in the fees which I do appreciate you recommending me to use I I definitely agree and I should say as of the time of this uh recording I checked my rankings on the Apple the Apple podcast rankings and for comedy interviews in New Zealand I'm like number 55 so that's it speaks more to the fact that there's not a lot out there then uh then it's not it's it's not hard to it's not hard to break than using that words and it it only takes like two or three ratings or reviews to kind of end up in the top team which pushes because uh we are going straight to the Moon with Ronald Miller's

about this sort of thing maybe we could do another episode if you feel like there's more ground to cover with perfect storm maybe when you release your next shoot you want to do another follow-up or something hmm yeah yeah otherwise or I'll start a I'll start a new project with a new kind of a visual idea I think that's something that's something that I really learned from perfect was about um a kind of kind of thematically making a thing that as you say it kind of even though it changes it kind of exists in its own consistent World absolutely yeah and so at some point I'll do another one and uh maybe talk about that fantastic well I appreciate that I hope you have a great rest of the weekend hope the week goes well thank you so much for chatting to Max Taylor appreciate it awesome thank you welcome Back rattle Maniacs I hope you enjoyed that interview with Dan Bain it was a lot of fun for me I definitely enjoyed the portion of the podcast where we talked about Perfect Storm more than the Radiohead stuff but that was mainly because I don't really know about Radiohead and I've known about perfect storm for a long time so these were a lot of questions I had been building up for a long time to ask Dan about if you want to keep up with what Dan's up to you can follow him on his many Avenues of social media all of them links are going to be in the show notes and I'm just going to Rattle through them right now linktree.com I am Dan Bain or you can check out any of his three Instagram accounts noose octopus his main one stand up in Hell a kind of passion project of his and perfect show to check out The Perfect Storm uh feed that we talked about in the last sort of 10 minutes of an interview Dan does two podcasts he has sleepy time mumbles which you find on buzzsprout.com and X-Men the Animated Series re-examined with Javier harkwin from New Zealand living in the UK find Dan on Facebook at facebook.com I am Dan Bain and you can purchase his book these are not the rules of improvisation at the Kofi Link in the show notes below as for me I've been Taylor rattle I'm on Facebook Instagram Tick Tock and YouTube as Taylor comedy super blessed to be able to get all of those all of those sites with the same handle not on Twitter even though I probably should because I enjoy writing jokes if you want to catch me live at a comedy show come out to the spriggan fern and Maryvale Christchurch on the last Thursday of the month from seven o'clock for a show called pizzas pints and punch lines it's 45 dollars per person which gets you a pizza a pint and entry to the stand-up comedy show you can also join us once a month at union Fair in prebbleton which is usually the third Saturday of the month and it is a similar dinner and a show I think it's 55 for entry you get dinner and dessert and Tom the owner and head chef is a phenomenal Chef that is worth every penny there and the comedy show is pretty funny too if either of those tickle you go to facebook.com can docomedy for more info and how to book your seats once again I'd like to remind you to rate and review on Apple podcast if you'd like to help me out and get me as close to that you know I got to be realistic here I don't know if I can do throw in Tom Sainsbury's the number one comedy podcast on the New Zealand charts that's a very important asterisk there New Zealand charts but you know what I'd be happy with top five so if you if you like the podcasts and you're like me and you want to help me out just give me a five star review uh tell me how much you enjoyed listening to the podcast and uh let's let's get rid of me this as close to number one as we can I'd be happy with number three I'd be happy with bronze anyway thank you so much for listening I hope you've had a good time and I hope the rest of your week goes well I've been Taylor rattle we'll catch you next time one last thing before you go on the 10th of May 2023 my first ever mini comedy special goes Live on YouTube for free we filmed it almost a year prior and I'm so proud of the final result the name of the special is Taylor Ruddle all my covert jokes and like I said you can watch it for free on YouTube if you search Taylor Ruddle comedy into YouTube you can find it or you can just visit www.tayloruddle.com/spesh that's s-p-e-s-h and you will be redirected to the YouTube video I'm so happy with the final product especially given that I only did the set like for the first time on the night and I'd love for you to check it out and let's see if we can get it to 500 views before the end of the year

thank you