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Lee Naimo: creating the home of Australian alternative comedy in Grouse House, pitching tips, and advice from an internet elder
4 Plays1 day ago
On today’s episode of Breaking Screen is Lee Naimo. As the Head of Creative for Grouse House, Lee works for Haven't You Done Well Productions, the production company of comedy group Aunty Donna.
As Grouse House says: “Grouse House connects Australia’s most cooked comedians with the freaks who froth it. Curated by Aunty Donna, we produce and showcase internet videos, podcasts and live shows. It’s the home of Australian alternative comedy.”
Throughout the podcast, Lee talks about takeaways from his time at Screen Australia as Head of Online and Games, the upcoming launch of the Grouse House TV streamer, his advice for anyone preparing to pitch (and what Grouse House is looking for), being an internet elder as one third of Axis of Awesome and much more.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Breaking Screen' Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Breaking Screen, a podcast about the Australian screen industry and the creative people within it. I'm your host, Caris Bizzaca, and I'm recording this podcast from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, where I'm very grateful to be a visitor and be able to work on these lands. Always was, always will be.
Guest Introduction: Lee Namo and His Creative Roles
00:00:21
Speaker
Today's episode is with Lee Naimo, who's the head of creative for Grouse House, working for Haven't You Done Well Productions, which is the production company owned by comedy group Aunty Donna.
00:00:32
Speaker
This is not the first time Lee and I have spoken on a podcast. We were both at Screen Australia at the same time while Lee was head of online and games where he managed a number of funding programs and initiatives supporting emerging creatives.
00:00:46
Speaker
For those who don't know, Lee is also a guitarist and was one third of the band Axis of Awesome, whose song Four Chords has hundreds of millions of views online. These are just some of the things we talk about on the podcast, as well as what Grouse House is, their upcoming launch of the Grouse House TV streamer, Lee's takeaways from his time at Screen Australia, his advice for anyone preparing to pitch, being an internet elder, and much more. Here's that chat.
Lee Namo's Early Inspiration and Career Beginnings
00:01:19
Speaker
So we always start the pod, same way, ah same question, um and it's about inciting incidents. So what would be the inciting incident of your career?
00:01:30
Speaker
really love this question and I have the daggiest, cringiest answer to it um because I think we've got to go way back to drama camp when I was in year nine at high school. Wow. And I went to school at um the high school for four years at Daniloquin High, which is a small country town, high school.
00:01:49
Speaker
Town has about 8000 people. So, you know, I would say it's fair to say led a letter probably a pretty ah sheltered life. Is that the word? Yeah. And I just have this memory of at drama camp one night, there was a theater sports presentation. I had no idea what that was. And I was watching some of the other students like make up comedy on the spot. And that was so funny. And I probably was looking like quite wide eyed up at this guy, just adoring this very funny, probably like 11 or 12th grade kid just nailed this improv comedy. And I was at that moment, I was like, I want to be an improv comedian. What a horrible sentence to come out of anyone's mouth. Um, You were like, yes, and.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. See what did there? yeah Yes, and i would like to not earn any money for the first 10 years
Career Progression and Axis of Awesome Experiences
00:02:36
Speaker
of my career. That led me to like pursuing that and moving to Sydney to go to Sydney Uni, to play theatre sports there, to join like the improv scene in Sydney, stage my own improv shows, go to Melbourne Comedy Festival, get frustrated at the lack of opportunities, start the band that I was in. That led me to this and to this and to this, you know, you know the way it works in careers when you're as old as I am, Karis, you've kind of lived a few different lives. But I think that that to me was like the moment when I went, oh, I think I need to be doing that. There was definitely a moment where I said, I think I need to stop doing that. But ah yeah that was a moment at drama camp eat when I was in year nine.
00:03:14
Speaker
So we'll get to the moment where you said you need to stop that in just a second. But before we do, so we obviously know each other from Screen Australia. We both work there. um And ah something that I find quite funny is that just in everyday life,
00:03:29
Speaker
a number of times, people have mentioned this thing called ah Four Chords, which was a viral video. And I find it really amusing because when people bring it up, I'm like, oh, I actually know the person, one of the people that was on the stage in that video. So for anyone that hasn't watched it, what are you doing? um You've missed one of the early viral videos. Go watch it. um But how often do you still get asked about that video or have a situation like I just described where someone just brings it up and you're like, oh, awkward. I was in that.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah. That second one has happened even when the band was going. There's a couple of times when people walked up to, so for context, if you don't know The Excess Orson, we were a musical comedy trio. I was like the dumb one of the band, the comic relief a lot of the time, and the fourth most talented singer in the three of us. So we definitely got a lot more of the limelight and that I'm totally okay with that. But I say that because literally there was a moment we were in Vegas playing, like about to put on a show. There was a huge poster of us that was walking past and someone walked up to us and said, oh,
00:04:41
Speaker
I love you guys, can I get a photo? And handed me the camera to take the photo of the other two. and I'm like, I am right there on that poster behind us. There's three us and you want a poster of these too? That has happened more than once in my life. Wow. funny But even, God, Karis, even at my farewell speech at Screen Ours, I referenced Access of Awesome and someone who I'd worked with for like five years turned to someone else and said, what's Access of Awesome? So people, you know, I feel like I've lived a few different lives. Leave from Access of Awesome, leave from Screen Australia, now leave from Grouse House.
Impact of Algorithms and Return to Comedy
00:05:10
Speaker
It's funny that, yeah, for some people it's really, and I think actually, and my God, I'm going to do a really wanky thing and tie it into the fragmentation of audiences, but everyone's everyone's algorithm them is so unique and so different to everyone else's that you can have really important moments for other people completely pass you by and vice versa. So i think it speaks to how personalised social media has gotten these days. But, yeah, I find it funny. and Now being back in comedy after years of being more on
00:05:39
Speaker
the broader side of Screen at screen oz it's kind of coming back to haunt me a bit as well. People are like, oh, you know I remember that. I watched that in high school or in primary school. I'm like... Cool, thank you. I did see your post recently that said you were called an internet elder on stage at AIDC, which, I mean, yeah you could put that on your LinkedIn, Leigh-Namehry, internet elder.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a great job title. We started posting videos before YouTube was really even a thing. Like our first our first video that kind of took off before YouTube Four Chords was posted on the Sydney Morning Herald website when smh.com.au were doing like video content on the main page. So yeah, and they they had a clause like you can't post this on YouTube. And I think YouTube had been out for a year or two and and we did anyway just under a pseudonym of Panther Boy 360. The only other videos on that that YouTube channel were a few Penrith Panther videos. Yeah. and it was yeah
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, i I am an internet elder. you know I own that. I'm i'm claiming that term. Proud internet elder to um have been there in the early days of YouTube. And so you said that you had the point where you're like, okay, ah no, I'm going to stop.
00:06:51
Speaker
Um, I'm going to stop that, um, that, put that career path.
Transition to Production and Industry Insights
00:06:56
Speaker
Um, so at what point did you decide then to make the switch from being on stage to yeah, working in more like development and production?
00:07:06
Speaker
It was both gradual and really sudden, like gradual in the sense that of the band, I was always the least disorganized of the three of us. So I would be the one who would default to communicating with management, to you know producing live shows, which morphed into producing web series that we'd done.
00:07:22
Speaker
i was the one who was the point of contact to Screen Australia and and other funding places when we were you know going for funding and and being successful in that. So I kind of built those relationships and that that skill set, you know, kind of almost by default, but by disguise a bit as well. Like I wasn't intending to be a producer, but fell into it.
00:07:42
Speaker
And then when the band was wrapping up and I got the job at Screen Australia, that was a very definite moment of like, I felt very odd being the person making decisions and telling people, oh, we're either we're going to fund your project or or we're not.
00:07:54
Speaker
Also, hey, come see my my improv comedy show for 8 o'clock on a Friday night at the Butterfly Club. Kind of hit that point where I was like okay, I think this feels natural. So it was kind of a convergence for a number of things. My wife and I had a kid and I was like, cool, my life is now working and parenting and I was very at peace with that. so There's a few factors, but there was definitely a moment where I was like, I'm going to stop improvising and being a goofball on stage.
00:08:17
Speaker
I think I need to like mature out of that a little bit if I'm going to work for a government agency making funding decisions for a few hundred thousand dollars for people. Yeah, that that's fair. But, ah you know, at the same time, how did, um you know, particularly like when you, I remember being at Screen Australia when you first started there and like the online team, it was only like you and Elise Adams and you were kind of working with a lot of like,
00:08:44
Speaker
I would say either like emerging or like people that were kind of in the online space had a lot of experience in the online space. But so then how does your background as a performer, how do you feel like that influenced or helped you within that role?
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think it gave me a lot of legitimacy when having those conversations because I could say, hey, until recently, I was on your side of the fence. I was applying for and either getting or not getting funding and learning a lot of this stuff the hard way, which is there's not really a rule book on how you...
00:09:18
Speaker
produce these projects and and work with stakeholders it it was a lot of it you just kind of learn as you go well I did anyway you know I remember starting at Screen Australia and not knowing what what the producer offset was and things like that because it just wasn't in my like no one sat me down and gone this is what you do i didn't I didn't go to film school or even do internships with the production company so i feel like that that helped me enormously to go well I'm not a bureaucrat I am a performer, comedian, producer, and I've been where you are. So I can speak to you with genuine empathy about the outcome here or what you're struggling with when you're trying to make this project and running up against running out of budget or you know time or whatever it may be. So, yeah, I've always felt that was an asset. And I actually think that agencies like ScreenOz and other funding bodies, commissioning broadcasters, streamers need people with genuine industry experience
00:10:11
Speaker
who have come from that side and may go back out to that side of the fence to help that legitimacy and and help people navigate what's really difficult to make something with multiple stakeholders. So, yeah, I think more people like me should go into those roles and be empowered to to help people and then to go back out into the world, which I'm currently in that phase of like, yeah, yeah, relearning a bunch of things after seven years at Agency Live. Yeah, yeah.
00:10:37
Speaker
Well, what do you feel like were your biggest takeaways then at Screen Australia from being at, working in Screen Australia? Yeah, I think I love that there was a department set up, like online was almost a synonym for emerging at Screen Australia. Like I think a lot of the time, most of the people that we were supporting might have been their first or second time getting funding or the first time getting funding to that large amount. So think For me, the importance of that is really clear. Like you can see it when, and i'm not I'm not naming names here by any means, but like some state and territory agencies have a real dedication to emerging creators and some less so. And you can see that that assistance and support for the next generation, how that feeds into the bigger ecosystem of screen in that area.
00:11:24
Speaker
is vital. and that that So what I'm trying to say is support for people at all stages of their career is really important, not just people who've gotten funding a million times and yes, you can have $2 million dollars to make a feature film because you've already made 17 feature films. like You've got to be supporting people to make their first feature, their first web series, their first video game, whatever it may be. so my my takeaway is like even just having an online department and online someone with that in their job title is is pretty vital.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind
Grouse House's Role in Comedy and Future Plans
00:11:52
Speaker
of funny. ah So I was thinking about actually Aunty Donna um recently in that I think the first time I spoke to them ah when I was at Screen Australia was around 10 years ago.
00:12:06
Speaker
And it's pretty, yeah, it's pretty incredible to kind of see the growth of what started out as something that I believe got online funding to then, I think it was for 1999, it might have been, um that we chatted.
00:12:20
Speaker
But, ah yeah, so, I mean, then talking about, your role at Grouse House and Haven't You Done Well Productions, because there is an Auntie Donna link there. That was my attempt at a segue. um Can you tell me a little bit about about Grouse House, about Haven't You Done Well? So, yeah, it's like Grouse House is subsidiary.
00:12:43
Speaker
And how did you start working there? Yeah, and just to go back to the Aunty Donna link as well, like I was a ah peer of Aunty Donna. was like Axis of Awesome got Fresh Blood funding in the same year as Aunty Donna. Oh, when they did Bikey Wars, the musical? Yeah. Yeah. yeah We did a much worse series that didn't go anywhere with Fresh Blood.
00:13:01
Speaker
This was much better. Okay. well Then Axis got Skip Ahead funding with YouTube and then Aunty Donna got it the next year. For 1999, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Tried similar paths and then I remember meeting Aunty Donna when I got the job at Screen Oz and going, you guys should apply for online production funding. Like you can kind of, it's it's kind of the next logical progression from your skip ahead funding and you can apply for more money. And then that was Glen Ridge.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yes. Secondary college. Yeah. And then that they cite as a big reason that they, ah like a proof of concept for their Netflix series, big old house of fun, like that they could make something of a bigger scale. So i think it's that, that,
00:13:37
Speaker
point, this is a tangent now, but everything is almost a proof of concept for your next thing, like to do something of scale. And now I'm working for them. So, Grasshouse is set up as Aunty Donna's variety channel for Australian alternative comedians. We're using the tagline at the at the moment, the the house where comedians are allowed to be grouse. So, we're kind of empowering comedians to be the best versions of themselves.
00:14:02
Speaker
And weird is an or alternative, ah i guess, some of the the words we throw around. But I guess even broader than that, it's like people who have a real point of view or ah a real, a really clear comedic tone. So you wouldn't necessarily say that Greg Larson is an emerging comedian. We don't work just with emerging comedians.
00:14:18
Speaker
but he has a really clear understanding of what he wants to say and making a series with him was just so easy because he knew exactly what his vision was for it and it was just like, great, all I have to do is kind of keep you on on on the rails. um and And I think we made something really, really messed up and really great. If you haven't seen the Greg Larson show on Grasshouse, please go and enjoy what people described as very, very difficult to watch. 10 out of 10 would watch again. So it's a brand more than anything else. It's a YouTube channel. We have weekly releases of new episodes of new shows and those shows change up all the time.
00:14:52
Speaker
They're a mixture of in-house commissions, acquisitions, producing other comedian shows, agency-funded shows, anything that showcases Australia's online comedic weirdness.
00:15:03
Speaker
We're launching a streaming platform in a few weeks from recording this, which chat about in a second. We've got a podcast arm with, I think we've got seven Grasshouse podcasts, maybe eight now. We've got live shows, we've got merchandise, you know, I want to be producing Grasshouse video games in the future. So it's it's an umbrella brand that my lofty ambition is that people look at it the same way as you look at Adult Swim or HBO and you go, oh, I know what that stands for. And whether that's on a TV show or a movie or a streamer or a showcase or whatever, I know that that means these few things. And for us, that's comedy and quality and weird.
00:15:42
Speaker
And at the moment, Australian. That's something we talk about a lot is like, do we want to limit ourselves to just working with Australian comedians? And for now, that's mostly the path, but there's no reason we couldn't film a series in the UK other other than budget, of course. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that ah that old thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Grouse House, though, it's like, haven't you done well productions is the production company and they also make other content that's not necessarily...
00:16:09
Speaker
comedy or like is it all comedy but Grouse House is kind of this like comedy hub within Haven't You Done Well? Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I guess there's the three brands that we operate. There's Auntie Donna, which are a very established brand and they have their own you know, they do world tours and have their own Patreon and YouTube channel and social media and merchandise and commercial work.
00:16:28
Speaker
Haven't You Done Well is the production company that is more for bigger film and TV projects. And it's comedy with a point of difference. But often Haven't You Done Well projects would be working with other comedians to to make something on a different platform that isn't a platform we own, for example, or isn't a self-release platform. So what I mean by that is we've got a TV show in development with ABC with a couple of comedians. So if that gets picked up, that would then be an ABC six by half hour comedy series.
00:16:58
Speaker
That's the the remit of having you done well comedy with a point of difference, but often empowering other comedians and and making something on a a platform that's not YouTube, essentially. Whereas Grouse House is more about that distribution network, that brand. And a lot of what we're doing now is self-produced content for YouTube and and social media and growing that brand in other ways. So it's, yeah, i'm not sure if I've described that too well, but we know what the difference is for Grouse House project. And often it's delineated by like, is this something that we would make and release ourselves? versus If it's having you done well, it would probably be released by ah a third party.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yep, that makes sense. And what does your role specifically entail? Are you, again, like commissioning things like, or like, you know, similar to ScreenAWS, are you reading applications? Like what's, ah what does your role entail?
00:17:46
Speaker
um Yeah, we do have a very light expression of interest form that's much lower lift than the ScreenAWs online application form. But yeah, that's part of it. There's no SmiteyGrants portal? What?
00:17:56
Speaker
No, no, not SmiteyGrants. Shout out to SmiteyGrants though. You're doing God's work and good on you. It's like ah it's a Google form. It's like half a page. yeah But I think anything like that formalizes it in people's minds. Go, oh, I'm i'm answering questions on a form. I've got to think about this a little bit rather than i'm just ah chucking a few lines into an email to pitch. But yeah, that's part of it. Honestly, like it's it's commissioning internal shows as well. Like there's a bit of a pipeline of shows that Aunty Donna have piloted on their Patreon. So an example of that is this lecture series. So it was born out of Zach from Aunty Donna, was watching Deep Space Nine and wanted to, he thought it'd be entertaining to talk to Broden and Mark about it and bore them about it for an hour and then do a quiz on that to see how much they'd retained.
00:18:39
Speaker
So that became a series where each of the Aunty Donna boys lectured the other two about something they felt very passionately about. Broden did like the Melbourne Demons football team. Mark did Soilworks album, like a death metal band, I think from Sweden, did one of their albums and then quizzed the rest of them on how much they'd retained.
00:18:56
Speaker
We adapted that into a Special Interest Quiz, a series of Grouse House with three comedians and a host. We added a host element in the incredibly talented Jordan Barr, The first series has got like Lena Moon, Greg Larson and Anna Wolf. And we filmed six episodes in a day, trapped in a room basically. So it's part like lecture series, part hostage situation. Yeah.
00:19:16
Speaker
um But that pipeline was born out of an Aunty Donna series. So that's part of my job as well, is finding those formats that we think will work with any comedians that we can plug into and adapting them for Grouse House.
00:19:28
Speaker
Honestly, like again, we're limited by budget. We get a lot of pitches for scripted shows, but we just can't necessarily, like we're a small production company. We can't take on anywhere near as many of those shows as we'd like. So, in the future, I'd love to grow that to a point where, ideally, there's a sustainability around Grasshouse. We have that revenue diversification of income coming from live shows and streaming subscriptions and merch sales and maybe branded content to then feed all that money back into making more content in the way that Dropout do in States so well. Like, they've just really nailed that model of, like, They've got a dedicated nailed on fan base. They'll do a tour and sell out those dropout improv tours.
00:20:05
Speaker
They'll like at one point last year, they had a tour of both the East and West coast of the United States with like selling out Madison square garden in New York and doing an improv show on the other side of the country. So it's, it's about building that loyalty and that community of people who, when you go, we've given you all this great stuff for free. Hey, how about giving us five bucks a month for this streaming service? And people go, yeah, like honestly people are saying to us, take more of my money. That's too cheap.
00:20:29
Speaker
and And we will. ah Sure. yeah um And so, yeah, speaking of the streamer, so what is Grouse House TV streamer? How did it come about?
00:20:40
Speaker
So one of the known benefits of YouTube is that if you're consistent with your output and your content and your themes, it rewards that. So if a channel is like, I'm going to do this kind of content and I'm going to upload it once a week,
00:20:55
Speaker
The algorithm knows that and and starts to feed it out to more people. When you're a variety channel like Grouse House, it does the opposite because one week we might be going, here's a 90-second animation sketch show called Longhead. And then the next week might here's a one-hour 50 episode of the most upsetting guessing game of all time filmed in the studio. Then next week we might be going, here's the first episode of a six-part scripted series called Descent.
00:21:19
Speaker
the The algorithm kind of doesn't know where to put us. But we wanted to retain that beautiful variety that we have and that diversity of content that we commission and support.
00:21:29
Speaker
So it was kind of a natural progression to build our own ecosystem. And again, very inspired by Dropout, but also there's other examples like the Try Guys launched a platform with a bit of a cautionary tale of how not to do it. In the first instance, it's a bit of a spin on the Patreon model as well.
00:21:46
Speaker
we figured let's build our own streaming platform and build that slowly over time with that view to sustainability. So Grasshouse TV is going to launch on April 2nd or did launch on April 2nd, depending on when this episode comes out. It's $5 a month minimum subscription fee. There's also, so it's got features like commenting, but we've got a $6 a month tier called the Cuck tier. And the Cuck tier, you can watch everything, but you can't comment. There's a $10 money bags tier. If you think $5 is too cheap, there's a $50 annual subscription fee to say two months free. Basically, we want to make a very low cost, but it's it's a place for all of our content. It's going to have all the YouTube content that we've got already. There'll be bonus exclusive content on there.
00:22:28
Speaker
There's also this wonderful weird layer that we've tried to kind of harken back to the the early days of the internet with things like you can watch an episode of one of our shows and then click a button and have someone from Auntie Donna watch along with you. And so a second window will pop up with with a bit of watch along content. You can earn grouse coins by clicking on a button to just earn grouse coins. And then maybe later in the future, you'll be able to redeem those grouse coins for something.
00:22:50
Speaker
But make sure you keep track of your grouse coins on pen and paper because the technology isn't there yet to keep track. online. There's a daily affirmation video you will get. So there's all sorts of these fun little features that we've built in that we want to keep adding to over time to make people not just enjoy the content, but enjoy the user experience of the the platform because these platforms often are very algorithmically driven and you can spend half an hour on Netflix or Disney Plus trying to find something to watch. We want to go, you'll go to Grasshouse TV with the intention of being entertained and knowing that
00:23:24
Speaker
If you like one show, you'll probably like a lot of the other shows we've got and a lot of the themes and tone of the website as well. It's going to be on browser and TVs and devices as well. We're having a big launch party in Melbourne on the 2nd of April. Or we did have a big party and it was a great success. Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker
Depending. yeah Yeah. Yeah. So so it's it's kind of the next evolution, but again, it's one part of the brand of Grouse House. We want that to be ideally in the long term sustainable and and earning us money that we can then spend on commissioning more shows and live shows, people buying tickets to them because they saw a film version of that on the streaming platform and on the YouTube and that format and that show has built a fan base. So Yeah, one of the many arms of Grasshouse that we hope is successful. But look, it's a bit of a punt. It's a big undertaking. But having seen and tested the website, it's really fun and really funny and looks really cool and slick. So I'm i'm really hopeful that it'll resonate with minimum like 5,000 people is all we need to make this kind of sustainable in the first effort. So surely there's got to be 5,000 freaks and weirdos out there who want to pay five bucks a month to to get this content.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah. And, well, something that you said um just before. So we were talking about you being an internet elder earlier. And I was thinking about Aunty Donna's, um some of their over the years. So you had 1999, Glen Ridge Secondary College, Ripper Aussie Summer.
00:24:51
Speaker
And I was just like, is there... Is it just me or is there a running theme around kind of comedy but nostalgia?
Nostalgia in Comedy and Advice for Creators
00:25:00
Speaker
um And I wondered as an internet elder if you could comment. I could speak to that. Yeah. I think there is and I won't talk necessarily to Auntie Donna's creative process and I'm not even sure if that's conscious a conscious decision by them or not. But I do think that nostalgia is such a huge driver of like it it it's an emotion, right? it It evokes an emotion when you watch something that harkens back to
00:25:23
Speaker
the way you felt at that time, like that's, that's a really, that's going to keep you watching. That's that's going to be ah a big hook to keep you engaged. And more important than that, you're probably going to be inspired to share that with the people that you shared that time with. Right. So if you, to take Ripper Aussie summer or 1999 as an example, 1999 is a good one. set in and in an office in the year 1999. I think that's as as deep as the setup goes for It's just a bunch of sketches all set in the one office with the same, like some recurring characters and some new characters.
00:25:54
Speaker
But you would watch that and go, oh yeah, I worked in a shitty office in 1999 and we were all worried about Y2K coming. I'm going to forward that back onto those people that I worked with ah that I still remember fondly. So I think there's a driver of like sharing and and engagement that nostalgia elicits as well that, um, it's one of the ingredients of and viral is not a word that we should use anymore and in in online necessarily but when videos I'm sorry I said it so many times at the beginning of this chat I said that and realized you've used it but I just I think it's I don't again I'm going on a tangent here but I don't think things go viral the way they used to yeah there was such big moments I think some things do like but again even a show like the pit right that's having a moment right now such a great show
00:26:35
Speaker
Again, there's a bunch of people who've never heard of it because they're not subscribed to HBO Max and they don't get that on or argue with them. But nostalgia is one of those ingredients that really helps videos go viral and really elicits that emotion. I think if you're like any art, dare I call online videos an art form? And I will, and I will not be told by you, Karis, that that's not the case. How dare you? I i would never. i'm I'm not entering the timote Timothy ah chat, yeah. Any art.
00:27:05
Speaker
eli It's purposes to evoke an emotion, to get an emotional response. And that's what nostalgia is, right? It's a feeling that evokes that emotion of how you felt at that time. It's also fun. It's fun to harken back and go, let's dress up in those costumes. And there's an inbuilt layer of gags and comedy when you suddenly go, this is set in 1999. Well, what were we doing on the internet in 1999? Or what was yeah what were the big pop culture moments at that time? And I feel like there's that almost a cheat code to to comedy of Yeah, I was alive then or I've never heard of that.
00:27:36
Speaker
Maybe I'll look it up. Yeah, 100%. I feel like I shared a lot of Glen Ridge Secondary College videos for that reason. Yeah. um i used to play handball with my school friends and we'd have those kind of arguments. Yeah. yeah The roll call, everyone's everyone's been there. um And so you you talked about your Google form before, your much more simplified um Google form. Do you have any pitching advice, you know, whether that's for people who are pitching concepts to you or like just generally some like big do or don'ts just in terms of those pitches?
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good question. i most useful one I can give is just know who you're pitching to. I think there's a tendency to go well, I'll take this out to Netflix and Stan and Grasshouse and ABC and SBS and like people will just kind of scattergun that pitching And i don't think that's super effective because I don't think there's many projects that would sit on all of those services or broadcasters necessarily unless they were pretty heftily shifted to to that direction. So I think if you're going...
00:28:44
Speaker
And this maybe comes back to like know your project really well, like know what it is you're pitching and who you want to pitch it to. Because, i mean, I get pictures that are like, this is like a, you know, a light comedy, but mostly it's quite dramatic and it's about this couple in the breakup or whatever. And I'm like, that's just not like, have you looked at what Grasshouse does? That's not what we do. and therefore, yeah this is kind of a waste of it.
00:29:06
Speaker
respectfully a waste of your time and my time yeah yeah if you're gone oh okay i can see on their youtube the last five shows they're done have all been shiny floor shows with comedians in uncomfortable situations like this this and this i don't have any ideas for them or i can pitch them something that that is in their wheelhouse so that's that's my most basic one is just like know who you're pitching to and But i think I think part of that comes from like it's such a limited landscape. There's so few places to pitch to that people go, well, i'll pitch to all of them. So that that I think is a bit of a trap. Like better to do a targeted, really specific pitch to one or two places that really hits what they're looking for that has come with research and conversations and and understanding of what they're after versus the scattergun approach.
00:29:47
Speaker
And can I ask what Grouse House is after if people do have a great comedy idea? Yeah, I think we're looking for projects that are really clear in their tone of voice and know what they want to say, which for us would be to entertain. Like we're not trying to put out deeper, meaningful messages to the world.
00:30:08
Speaker
So something that is out and out comedy and even beyond that quite – and i again, I hesitate to use the word weird because I think you can it can be a trap of like weird for weird's sake or it's got to be you know it's got to be like the most upsetting guessing game, which is comedians for hours on end trying to guess these party quirks that we've set them up with.
00:30:26
Speaker
That's not necessarily what we're looking for more of. We want things that are like – We talked the other day about like, well, if a comedian's sensibility and style is gross, we want to let them be gross. If they're really niche, we want to let them be niche. If they're really nerdy, we want to let them be nerdy. Like we want to empower comedians and creators to to be funny.
00:30:44
Speaker
And we're very like backseat in terms of notes and creative. We really hesitate to give many notes on things. So kind of if we commission something, we kind of want to commission it in a pretty good shape to know that it's ready to go and knows what it wants to do. That said, again, to talk about limitations of budgets, we can't be commissioning things with huge numbers of cast and really long episodes that are really expensive. So it's got to have a mind to how is this feasible on a very small budget? Does this sit with the Grouse House audience's sensibilities? Like have a look at our YouTube channel and what's like, what's popping off over there?
00:31:19
Speaker
What's something that isn't the same as that, but maybe scratches that same itch for our audience? It's that same need of people who want something that broadcasters and streamers aren't giving them. And again, this is something you would have heard us talk about ad nauseam at ScreenAus, the nicheness of the internet and how more niche you can be, the more specific you can be. It does ring a bell. Yeah.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Probably only like 17 podcast episodes with me and Elise that we recorded that said that over and over. But it's true. Like if if you can be niche and specific and and speak to an audience, and often if you're part of that audience as well, if you're a fan of the content you want to make, that really helps too. We're not commissioning huge numbers of stuff at the moment. A lot of what we're doing is with our kind of Grouse House family members, like comedians that we know and work with a bunch, like like Greg Larson or Lena Moon or Hot Department or Ben Russell, people that are like,
00:32:07
Speaker
in that layer of family that we work with and know our sensibilities. But I do see that growing over time, particularly once the stream ah the streaming service is launched, to hopefully allow us to push that out a little bit more and go, well, you like this part of this show. Here's something that's like maybe going to hit 20% of that audience, but we know that they're going to like that as well. So start to broaden a little bit. But again, I always want to be niche and I always want to be talking to a specific corner of the internet with Grasshouse because I think otherwise you you try to be everything to everyone and you'll be nothing to nobody.
00:32:37
Speaker
o Yeah, that makes sense. And ah in terms of like just a ah general advice question, do you have any advice for creatives listening, you know, particularly comedy creatives?
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think, again, this is advice I feel like I've given a lot, but I think make stuff like go and make something like it's it's. hard to put yourself out there.
Persistence and Feedback in Creative Success
00:33:00
Speaker
There's a comedian, actually, not' not I wouldn't even call him a comedian, a creator out there at the moment, arvan yap Avan Yap. he's um He's from Queensland and he's on this creator journey of like, he's going to upload content, something every day. And a lot it's under consciousness and stuff. Follow him on Instagram and LinkedIn. I think it's a really good lesson in just like, he set himself this challenge and
00:33:20
Speaker
He's doing it and some of his stuff is really popping off and he's learning a lot about what his tone of voice is. I think that's one way to do it, but just by making something, you'll learn like what it is you want to say and how you want to say it, what the challenges are.
00:33:35
Speaker
And again, when you're coming to people like me or someone at a funding body or a commissioning editor, one of the questions they're going to ask is what have you made? And if you can point at some stuff and go, well, I've made this series and it looked like this, maybe it didn't get heaps of views, but I had learned a bunch from it. And then I made another thing based off that. And that got a few more views and I'm building this audience and this understanding of my tone.
00:33:56
Speaker
So yeah, to go back to like TLDR of the actual advice, Just make something, make it at the cheapest, easiest version you can and then learn something and then go make something else. And then don't even apply for funding until you've made like five things and can go, cool, I i get it. I know what I want to say. And the fifth thing I made had a slightly bigger crew and a few more people pitching in to help.
00:34:19
Speaker
think I'm ready to make something with like twice that size now. Yeah. Okay. Well, that brings us to the final segment of the podcast, which is the pay it forward segment. So I'm going to give you a question from a previous guest, um, or in this case, a future guest. Um, Because we've recorded some things out of order and you'll come up with a question for the next guest. ah So the question that I have, it's from Popjoy, who is ah the creator of new SBS series that's coming out called Home Bodies.
00:34:55
Speaker
And so AP's question is. I really want to know. What is like the one sign that an idea you have has legs?
00:35:06
Speaker
Like, is it a feeling? Is it an image? Like, what is the sign you get where you think, oh, I have to make this or otherwise I'm like going to die. Like I have to make this and I'm prepared to spend years making it happen. Like what is the thing, what is that sign for you that you get when you come up with an idea?
00:35:22
Speaker
Thank you, AP. And I'm very much looking forward to watching Homebodies when it comes out. I was part of the funding team for that when I was at Screen Australia. And it's such like the the scripts and the development of that was so clear and exciting. So if I can just plug Homebodies for a second, everyone should go watch it when it comes out on SBS On Demand. AP is wonderful, very talented. um Okay, I think for me it's a few things. I know you said one thing, but the number one thing for me is that I can't stop thinking about it. Like that's the idea that like when my brain is resting, it pops back in and kind of knocks on my brain's door and goes, yeah, like it won't it won't go away. and it often takes me a while to turn over an idea in my head before I'll even have the courage to pitch it to someone else and go, okay, I think I've i've like i've shaped this a little bit.
00:36:09
Speaker
And so then it's almost a snowball effect. to Like if I can pitch it effectively to somebody and feel like I'm excited about it and they can see that and share that excitement, like that's often a snowball effect. Like I'm very collaborative. I need someone else to kind of, very needy. I need someone to go, oh I like that idea too, to then for it to gain a bit of weight and for me to gain a bit of confidence in it. So it's that persistence.
00:36:31
Speaker
And then can I use that to bring other people on board with it? And I'm talking about an idea necessarily, not not even... ah story idea but it might be like a creative way to try to think of like even yesterday I was like oh I have an idea of how I can apply for that grant and what angle I can use that grant for to make a good creative case in that application and ran it by somebody and felt that excitement come back at me so that to me is when I go yeah cool someone else believes in this too so those two things I've got to believe in it enough to pitch it and for it to be persistent and then for it to kind of be mirrored back at me with with that excitement
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Well, ah that was all my questions. um So we'll leave it there. But thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Caris. Great chat.
00:37:19
Speaker
That was Lee Naimo, head of creative for Grouse House. And a massive thanks to Lee for joining me on the podcast. This episode was produced and edited by myself with logo design by Shara Parsons and music by Seb Sabotaj Gavrilovic. If you enjoyed listening, please hit that subscribe button and leave us a review. See you in a fortnight.