Witness… The Feats of Athleticism
If it hasn’t been obvious twenty-seven episodes in, I’m a big fan of taking cliches and giving them detours. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how I like giving things the Rian Johnson treatment when it comes to subverting expectations. Before that, I was mostly inspired to do this by Joss Whedon, although that former hero of mine has certainly had a fall from grace, to put it mildly, and now he can go fuck himself. I think the fun of doing such a thing, beyond just an impish need for mischief and playing with the audience, comes from a desire to mostly surprise myself. Just the other day, I was coaching an improv team on how to roll with the punches and how to allow yourself to lean into the crazy instead of question it. That can lead to a cavalcade of hilarity that otherwise would not have been discovered if we played the typical “reasonable character/unreasonable character” dynamic (which does often work and is probably the most common type of improv scene, but it can have some drawbacks, primarily a lack of true, 100% acceptance). It’s not exactly the same thing, but finding a trope, flipping it upside down and giving it grounded justification has been the strategy for pretty much the majority of these episodes. “The Halftime Speech” is no exception.
Writing “Speech” was not difficult narratively, but it was difficult technically. First things first, I needed to know what the hell Coach Mercer was going to ramble on and on about, so his epic monologue came first, and it spanned close to fourteen and a half pages of a Google doc. After that, I wrote the first… well, let’s not call it a draft, but rather a version of the script, which made excessive use of the Dual Dialogue function in Final Draft and lined up the coach’s speech with the team’s commentary. This is where the technical difficulties arose, because so much Dual Dialogue slowed my laptop way the fuck down, to the point where it took maybe fifteen to twenty extra seconds for the computer to process what I was typing, and if I made a spelling error, then I’d have to wait that long before I could delete and retype what I wanted, which meant another twenty seconds of delay. For one of the shortest scripts of the series, it definitely felt like it took the longest. This version, however, was mostly for me, so I would know how the dialogue would line up; to give this version to the performers would have been to induce them with migraines. So, after converting this version to a PDF so I wouldn’t slow down my MacBook to a glacial crawl, I retyped a third version that focused on the team’s perspective and reactions.
An example from Version #2 of the script.
The same moment from Version #3.
Casting the coach was an interesting dilemma. On the one hands, I wanted someone who could personify his gruff yet gentle nature, but on the other hand, I felt guilty about submitting anybody to that much talking. For a while, I considered doing it myself, just to keep anyone from torture. But that felt a little too M. Night Shyamalan, and I felt more comfortable cameo-ing as Referee Gant.
Then, the summer of 2024 brought famed improviser Brian James O’Connell to San Francisco to teach a workshop at Endgames. BOC, as we fans like to call him, is a prolific performer and filmmaker based out of Los Angeles. He taught two respective workshops on both his patented Position Play and the improv format, The Deconstruction, many years ago at Endgames, and I was fortunate to attend both workshops. As he loves improv and loves to discuss and coach improv, he opened himself to those in the workshops and said we could friend him on Facebook and message him anytime. I don’t recall ever doing this, but the fact that the door was open was very meaningful to me, especially back then when I was a baby improviser.
With BOC coming to town, a crazy idea popped into my head: he could be coach. He’s amazing at voices, he gives his all to art, and he’s passionate about others and their art. It was perfect! And the idea that I could record with him in person just made things feel a heckuva lot easier! So I shot my shot and messaged him, and lucky for me, he was game. However, scheduling did not work out in terms of recording together in person. But BOC was not dissuaded from participating, so we Zoomed one afternoon in early July 2024 and set forth on knocking out the epic speech.
True to form, BOC did not disappoint. He even peppered in some brilliant improvised lines that had me howling— if you listen carefully to the moment where Coach compliments his own impression of his mentor, you may hear some out-of-place din behind his footsteps. That’s me failing to suppress my laughter and it bleeding through BOC’s headphones. I did my best to cover it up, but I’m actually a little glad it’s still audible, not just as a nice Easter Egg, but as a testament to BOC’s brilliance. I’m very thankful for him. And hey, on a selfish level, I can now say I’ve directed someone who’s directed Pedro Pascal, so sweet!
The rest of the recording took place over two sessions, one in October with Jason Duval, Sara Goetz and Kriss Wilkerson, the latter being the fourth member of my iO cohort to appear this season, not to mention the most accessible because he lives in San Francisco. The third session was another remote one, with Jeremy Orriss taking on the role of Billy. If that last name sounds at all familiar, it’s because his older sister, Grace, starred in last season’s “The Second Singularity.” I don’t know what their parents fed them as children, but the result was an extremely funny and talented pair of siblings.
So, “The Halftime Speech” is probably the first episode this season that doesn’t aim to tackle anything political or global, at least not on purpose. This is a personal episode that touches on an issue that I actually find myself writing about often: this attraction to the status quo. Or, to put it a better way, the fear of change. I guess that is a universal feeling that can be multi-faceted, but that doesn’t make it any less important. I do feel like I tend to not take big swings in both my professional and personal lives because to do so would mean a disruption of all I know. It would mean adjustments, which means effort, which means exhaustion, which means, in my head anyway, woe. But while my therapist would likely say that this avoidant behavior stems from a fear of failure, which I’m sure we’re all familiar with, I’m not so certain. It sometimes does feel like a fear of success, just as Billy expresses in the episode. That can be almost scarier in a way, because now there are expectations of you, and as someone who likes to subvert expectations in his writing, why the hell would that ever be appealing?
Still, it’s held me back. It’s safe living in the same, sure, but safe doesn’t mean satisfying. This then brings up the idea that, through writing, I should be able to pinpoint these, for lack of a better word, flaws and do something about them. But often times, it feels like having the knowledge is enough. Being comfortable with it all is enough. After all, I’m not hurting anyone… except myself… 😕
To unnecessarily tie it back to the title of this entry (which I decided upon before even writing anything down), the greatest feat of athleticism one can do is probably clear the hurdles of fear and not worry about the consequences as you progress down the track. Because at least then, there is progress. It’s a funny feeling, living in a state where you feel like you’re burning the candle at both ends, and yet the candle doesn’t seem to be melting at all. That’s one reason why this podcast is coming to an end, truth be told: as fun and rewarding as it’s been, there are other things I can and should be doing to move forward, and it’s by time I put my energy fully into those.
Until then, three more episodes to go.
—Andy