I recently had a great experience working with Ithaca College and their Creative Director, Kris Miller, to help create a unique visual aesthetic for the school’s quarterly magazine (which happens to be distributed to throngs of grads entrenched in the entertainment field all over the world).  Our subjects were the up-and-coming sketch comic troupe, The Birthday Boys (www.thebirthdayboys.com).  Six of the seven members were graduates of Ithaca College and had formed their relationships all the way back in their days at the school.  Hailing professionally from the famed Upright Citizens Brigade, this group of phenomenally talented sketch-comedians built their reputation on Funny or Die among other popular online video sources.  The showcase of their creative, over-the-top satires on entertainment/pop culture landed them a 10 episode order of a sketch comedy show on IFC (Portlandia) which will debut this October.

Tasked with shooting a conceptual narrative for the cover & lead-in, including portraits of a seven-person comic troupe certainly presented logistical and technical challenges.  However, the collaborative juices were flowing from all who were involved and each creative challenge met a logical and ultimately, expressive solution.

Shot amidst their writing process for the first season of the show, we set out to create a hyper-realistic, whimsical view of the literal “eat/drink/breathe” and tireless exchange of ideas within their “Writer’s Room”.    We aimed to create a comic strip vibe and allowed the members of the troupe (Chris VanArtsdalen, Mike Mitchell, Dave Ferguson, Jefferson Dutton, Mike Hanford, Tim Kalpakis, and Matt Kowalick) to improvise their own narrative within their highly blocked surroundings.  These creative ingredients formed the visual recipe culminating with the fashioning of their “Big Idea” while bleeding both color and laughter into the night.