Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/957795
DGA QUARTERLY 55 It's worth noting that Live on the Sunset Strip was Pryor's 17th com- edy album. Chappelle has similar rock-star status, comedic stagecraft and creative output. The Age of Spin was the second of four Chappelle hours in 2017, the first called Deep in the Heart of Texas, shot in 2015 at Austin City Limits, while the other two are Equanimity, shot in September at the historic, 2000-seat Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., and The Bird Revelation, an accelerated effort that seized on the Harvey Weinstein scandal that exploded in October. The latter was shot in the cramped, 70-seat Belly Room of L.A. Comedy Store in late November and delivered two weeks later. "We had probably two weeks to set up the shoot," says Chappelle's longtime director-producer Stan Lathan, who adds that their intent was "to be as intimate and inside the experi- ence as possible." Lathan has known Chappelle since he was a young D.C.-based comic braving the stage of Def Comedy Jam, the hip-hop-meets-standup TV franchise that Lathan developed and produced with founder Russell Simmons. As Lathan notes, Def Comedy Jam pioneered the collapse in physical space between audience and per- former, with a thrust turning the stage into something like a boxing ring. At the Hollywood Palladium, a ball- room, Lathan and Chappelle emptied the space to cre- ate a mini-stadium, complete with a thrust that takes Chappelle, who tends to walk the stage for blocks, any- way, out into the house. "There are networks that believe audiences should be heard and not seen," Lathan says. "That goes against what I personally feel is part of the TV experience. He's performing for these people, not for these cameras. Why don't we see that along with him?" For Equanimity, Lathan used 10 Sony 4300 cameras: "three jibs, two handhelds, four peds and a Steadicam, which gave us a 360-degree look at the theater. Instead of relying on typical audience cutaways, we included Dave in those shots whenever possible." Seeking Connection and Meaning Maria Bamford is more apt to place her hands on the invisible wall between performer and audience and wonder what the wall is and why it's there. Bamford performed her 2012 special—called The Special Special Special!—in front of a live audience that con- sisted of her parents on a couch ("You've known her from birth!" went the intro). Old Baby continues this conceit of mocking a comedian's deep need for validation, or what director Jessica Yu calls Bamford's pen- chant for "playing on the idea of comedy being something that could be performed anywhere. She wanted it to reflect that approach, and her sense of wanting to build community." Yu didn't have to leave her house to get to know Bamford's set for Old Baby, because Bamford performed the entire show in Yu's kitchen, just the two of them. They met first as friends, through Bamford's artist husband. Yu, whose TV directorial work includes drama (American Crime) and comedy (Parenthood), directed an epi- sode of Bamford's Netflix series Lady Dynamite. As they discussed venues for Old Baby, Yu says, she thought it would be fun to bookend the special with Bamford performing in front of a mirror at the beginning and end in an artificially created stadium. "Everything in the middle, that really reflects how she performs her comedy now," Yu says. "ONE OF THE BEAUTIES OF STANDUP COMEDY, IS THAT ONE PERSON STANDING ON A STAGE CAN TRANSFIX AN AUDIENCE. " -STAN LATHAN PHOTOS: (TOP) LESTER COHEN/NETFLIX; COURTESY OF STAN LATHAN