Q&A Interview with David Young (CollegeHumor.com)
So a few weeks back, I posted something called Inception Ending Extended:
In comments,GITS reader FLO! wrote this:
I’m a long time reader of this site AND I wrote this sketch! Such an honor. Thanks for posting it!
So I emailed FLO! and discovered that he’s actually David Young:
As for me, I’m a staff writer at Collegehumor. We’re basically set up like a sketch show you’d see on TV — pitch meetings, etc. The only difference is we don’t really have a long hiatus. I found my way into the Internet while working as an assistant at the Daily show. My buddy and I made sketches in our spare time. This was at the height of the youtube craze and we actually parlayed it into selling a TV show to TBS and making content for Warner Brothers. Once that slowed down, I was offered a full time writing job at CH. I’m now working on a feature and a pilot that will be read by apparently no one (based on the number of specs sold this year).
That’s the very abridged version of my professional life. I really do visit your site daily. I almost wish you’d have days where you’d just post “Nope, nothing today. GO WRITE” because your site is a great way to procrastinate.
Sensing a great opportunity to get David to procrastinate even more, I asked him if he would do a Q&A for GITS readers, as I’m always looking for information about ways you, as writers, can make a living. David kindly agreed. So here we go:
What’s your background as a writer? And if you say you were an English major in college, what the hell were you thinking?
I didn’t major in English (I minored in it). I was a much more responsible and practical student and majored in Television, Radio and Film. That’s right, Radio. Never met a single person who focused on that aspect of the major. Basically, my college experience gave me a chance to figure out what I liked to do: Comedy. I spent four years doing stand up, improv and making short movies until I graduated and realized I needed a job.
How did you manage to become a writer for CollegeHumor.com? And is it true that as a test to work for the company, you had to write something so funny, it actually made Dick Cheney’s lips edge toward the precursor of forming a smile?
That is 100% true. We actually have Dick Cheney on hold every month just in case there is a new hire. If his lips quiver, they get hired. Sort of like a weird version of groundhogs day. The truth is I was doing similar sketch work on a site called “JoeyandDavid.com.” We were enjoying some success through our work (we sold a TV show to TBS and were producing videos for Warner Brothers) and then after that started to slow down, my good friend, who is a senior writer at Collegehumor, mentioned this job opening and I thought it was too good to pass up. My work on my own site proved that I would work well with the collegehumor crowd.
How does the writing / creative process work at CollegeHumor? Is there a writer’s room ala sit-coms where you brainstorm ideas? Work alone? Or are you chained to a decrepit Royal typewriter in a windowless basement, beaten with a whip by a dominatrix nicknamed Blambi?
The creative process is similar to a sitcom writer’s room (Or so I would imagine, I’ve never written for one). We have brainstorm meetings every monday and wednesday where we pitch ideas and then try to come up with stuff right there in the room. It’s a very collaborative process and one that is helped by the fact that we are all such good friends. It’s a very very productive environment and very rarely do we have any weird, passive aggressive writer-y arguments. There will usually be like 10 writers in the room and our president of originals Sam Reich, who leads the way. We’ll then go off and write the sketches that were assigned to us. Whether we write alone or with someone just depends on the idea.
Also, I wonder with a nickname like “Blambi,” what is her real name? An answer we may never know, but it really makes you think…
You wrote the recent CollegeHumor video “Inception Ending Extended.” What was the inspiration for the video? How did you access the footage for the send-up? Were you involved in the production / post of the video? And is the video, in fact, just a dream from a spell you’ve cast over viewers from a spell that Chris Nolan cast over you?
The inspiration simply came from the moment at the end of the movie. I was in the theater and after that last beat, the entire theater groaned. I turned to my fiance (at the time) and said wouldn’t it be funny if…. She disagreed. We called off the engagement. Ok the fiance part isn’t true. We are still engaged, so everyone can relax. But that is basically the evolution of it: Laughed at the idea, my fiance laughed at it, and then I pitched it that following monday.
We are lucky to have an amazing production team at CH. Amazingly, that video was re-shot by our team here. I think they did a great job at recreating it. The writers are usually involved as much as the director wants them to be. We usually give notes on the edits, as well as production elements that might effect the comedy.
Contractually, I’m not allowed to talk about any spells, but I will say this: yes.
Re Inception, in your opinion, did Cobb create a memory-dreamscape with Mal because his love for her was boundless and he simply couldn’t let her go, or is it because Mal’s just like totally hot?
A little of both.
What other CollegeHumor videos have you written?
I’ve written a whole bunch. Here are two: A Windows 7 parody and a much shorter/sillier one.
(Side note — the guy who ends up naked is me).
True story: I’ve been recognized once in my time from my web sketches. It was the first weekend vacation I took with my fiance and a girl working at a store we were at got so excited and wanted my picture. Very small and stupid, I know, but I thought it was a cool thing in front of my fiance. She didn’t. We broke up.
I understand you also write screenplays. Are you sticking with comedies or are you using this as an opportunity to redefine yourself as a writer of tragic, period love stories involving stuttering mimes and an oversexed yak?
Haha. All comedy for me. Like I said earlier, based off of JoeyandDavid.com, I was fortunate to work on a pilot for TBS (that ultimately didn’t get made). It was still an awesome experience and got me excited about what’s to come. For me, I think that’s movies and TV. I know how extremely difficult it is, so right now, I’m just focusing on writing stuff that makes me laugh and hopefully others will too.
In a perfect world, five years from now, where are you career-wise and what are you doing? And why won’t you return my phone calls?
I would love to be working on all different types of projects with my friends. I know that sounds like a far-fetched plan, but I get to do that everyday here, so hopefully it can continue.
Finally do you have any words of inspiration for GITS readers, or should we chuck our laptops, jam a spatula through our forehead, and just give up the whole damn writing thing altogether?
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING WILL COME OFF CLICHE.
I think the best advice is write what you love and don’t wait for someone to make something happen for you. Everything that I’ve done has come from work that I made happen on my own. People talk about getting agents, managers, etc and yes, that’s important, but you need to have the work first. If you have a one page idea, write it and shoot it. If you have a five page idea, write it and shoot it. Basically, with all the accessible technology, there’s no reason everyone isn’t shooting their own stuff nowadays.
And if you do decide to chuck your laptop, the next move does not have to be jamming a spatula through your forehead.
There are all sorts of writing gigs out there. As cliche as it sounds, content is king. You just have to create great stories and get it in front of the right people.
Please drop by comments to thank David for his time. And you can ask him any questions you might have as he’s agreed to respond.
Thanks, David, and best of luck in all your creative endeavors!
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