Happy Town could’ve been dead on arrival. Had creator/director/DP/editor/producer/Vitruvian film dude Jon Mayer not turned his passion papers into a passion project, this would’ve read like just another tale of Millennial ennui in the big city. “Great,” every agent would’ve said. “Do you have anything a little more ‘mainstreamy?’” Instead, Mayer worked to bring it off the page and onto MacBook screens the City over. It hasn’t achieved tremendous view success and it likely won’t. What it has done is demonstrate Mayer’s ability to breathe life in to a beautiful tapestry of true, acutely relatable moments, as series star Anu Valia turns the banal into the essential with a poise that makes me wonder why she’s not on HBO a whole lot more. Happy Town is the perfect justification for web series. More than a path to virality, the digital arena allows motivated, talented creators to prove themselves, potentially redefining genres and winning worth for undertakings that Courier New just can’t justify.
How did you get started in comedy?
Jon: I was talking to my girlfriend the other day, I’m not sure if I’m really “in” comedy, but I write and direct stuff that’s funny. I came from doing plays originally and kind of got sick of spending a year to write something and months to get it up on its feet and then 3 days later it’s gone. Not to mention that only people I know who are my age and go to see theater are people who work in theater. I was also living with Ilana Glazer from Broad City as that was all happening and saw that [comedy] worked pretty well for her and saw it as being one path where you could write professionally. So I started writing videos and this project was just something where I was like “What can I do that I can pay for out of pocket?” I knew all the locations I’d film in and wouldn’t have to pay for them, all of the actors I knew and could pay fairly cheaply, and basically wrote it with that in mind. Originally it was a 22-minute thing pilot type thing, and then as I edited it, I started to realize it would be better as 5 chunks so I edited it and then put it up.
Where did the idea come from?
Jon: It came from thinking who would be the character that would be reaching out to make these connections. Who would be a lonely character that would be interesting to watch? And I thought instead of having her live here for a bit, what if she just moved here today. There was a version with a male lead and a version with a female lead. And being able to get Anu in it really helped dictate where the story went. I don’t think the character was a filmmaker originally, but Anu makes videos so that was put into it. There’s a scene at a bar that was written completely different when it was a male lead so for her I changed it which made it more interesting. I just wanted to do something with a character that was interesting to follow and had these little moments of connections that she either failed or succeeded at.
What was your hope for the series and what is your hope or the series? Is it a passion project or do you hope to blow it out into something longer?
Jon: I don’t know. I think if Anu had any more interest in doing more of it I would be open to doing one more day, and then editing that into 5 more chunks. In the meantime, I kind of think I learned a lot doing this, had a lot of fun, now onto the next thing.
Which is…
Jon: I don’t know it’s kind of one of two things right now. First, I had listened to something with the Duplass Brothers about making their first movie and that got me thinking, “Hey, I could do a feature.” So in my head is that, maybe by next summer, I would be shooting the full-length play that I wrote that never got produced. I think that if I tweak it a little I could make it. And then I also have some ideas for some smaller videos that I need to save money from my day job to pay for. One of them is we want to do a parody of the show Bar Rescue once it gets a little bit nicer outside. And then I have a few other ideas I think I can do for little or no money. And I also have another idea that would be from another one of my plays that would just all be one take and I could submit it to some festivals. It’d be kind of based on those cliché shows that have plots like, “A black person marrying a Hispanic person” and if I can save up enough money and get a steadicam operator for that, it would be the next thing I’d like to have done.
What is your day job?
Jon: It’s kind of like a fun day job. Half fun, half work. I teach how to make videos to high school kids. So just teaching them how to make movies.
Is that in private schools or public schools?
Jon: Mostly public schools. Actually a lot of the schools I work in are called Transfer schools, which are for kids who, for one reason or another, dropped out of school and then re-enrolled. So it’s kind of like second-chance school.
What is the curriculum like for that?
Jon: You’re just teaching them how to make movies in general. The last movie they made was a documentary about the police and all of the injustice that goes on in their world. So we kind of take things from their lives and make movies about them. The only bad part about it is that it’s not a day job I can fully detach from, so it’s not like I can just sit at my desk and write a sketch during 5 hours at work. But the company I work for is really great, a lot of the equipment I used for Happy Town was equipment they let me borrow.
That brings me to my next question, what was the budget like for this?
Jon: All in, I had budgeted it to be $3, 300 and I think I came in under budget right around $3 grand.
And how many days of shooting?
Jon: We did 5 days, but only one of those was a full day.
Wow that’s amazing. And everyone just volunteered their time, I would assume?
Jon: Actually everyone was able to get paid because I saved money by being the person who also edited, sound mixed, colored, and all that. There was one crew member doing sound half of the time and a lot of the time it was a former student of mine I paid about $100 for a half day and $200 for a full day. Everyone got paid a little something, but it was super low budget. That was something I was really happy about, that we got to pay all the actors and crew and even the extras.
And did you direct it as well?
Jon: Yeah I directed, shot, edited, and wrote it.
What’s your writing process like? Since you don’t come from the world of sketch writing, I think a lot of our readers would be interested to know how your process differs.
Jon: When I write anything, I try to remember from college the Aristotle idea that conflict comes from the character wanting something and then something getting in the way of them getting it. So any scene I write–if it’s twenty somethings in New York or something crazy–I still try to think about it like there’s something they want and there’s an obstacle that comes up.
What would your advice be to people looking to break into the digital comedy scene?
Jon: I’d say you just have to make it. To someone out of college I’d say “For $3, 000 I got 22 minutes of footage, which is pretty cheap.” To someone in school still, I would say “Don’t do just one thing. If you can write it, direct it, and edit it, then it’s more likely to get done. If you are an actor but not a camera person, then you need to learn to direct or to produce. Being able to wear multiple hats definitely helps you when you’re trying to turn your idea into a video.”
Here are your three reasons to watch Happy Town…
1. Human
2. Experimental
3. Poignant
Episode #2: JFK/Cab (9 am)
Happy Town feels so real, it’s almost feels voyeuristic.
Episode #3: Bathroom (5 pm)
There are lots of downsides to producing web series: publicity hurdles, tight or nonexistent budgets, the fact that you have to tell people you’re “working on a web series” when they ask what you’re “up to these days.” One decided plus is the ability to experiment with your voice and form shackle-free.
Episode #5: Party/B61
This may be my favorite web series installment I’ve seen this year, not because of how funny it is, but because of how seamlessly–and beautifully– it transitions from horrifying to hopeful. In Happy Town, comedy has a real heart.
Luke is a writer/director for CollegeHumor and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours @LKellyClyne.
