How we did it: SNL – “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders” (2013)

https://www.alex-buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-the-midnight-coterie-of-sinister-intruders/

by AlphaWeaver • 4 years ago

109 28 4 years ago

alex-buono.com

yial• 4 years ago

When I try to play the linked video, YouTube reports the video as private. I believe this is the video.

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/wes-anderson-h...

AshleyGrant• 4 years ago

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDIAZCwHQE

vt240• 4 years ago

That was one of my favorite SNL episodes. Really interesting to learn about how much work was behind this. It really showed in the final product.

kevin_thibedeau2• 4 years ago

This should be a crime against humanity:

  body { font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; }

dkonofalski4• 4 years ago

Why?

weare138• 4 years ago

When you use fixed font sizes like that browsers can't resize them based on the screen size/viewport. 12px fonts are really small and hard to read on high resolution screens.

tomjakubowski• 4 years ago

My guess is that it's 1 pixel short of a typical 1.5x line height.

unsupp0rted• 4 years ago

In college I was told to use 12pt font and now you and your browser must live with that.

eatonphil• 4 years ago

I'd seen this one before but not the Djesus Uncrossed [0] one they mention here.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqISX2o0a4A

dkonofalski4• 4 years ago

Site got hugged to death.

Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20220512210526/https://www.alex-...

prepend• 4 years ago

It’s funny that while this is Ed Norton doing an Owen Wilson impression, it could very well be Owen Wilson doing Ed Norton.

wozniacki• 4 years ago

SNL must be like bad quality candy that is so part and parcel of one's childhood that one can never quite outgrow it or fail to not cherish it, despite now knowing that nearly candy from any other part of the world has superior, wholesome and more nourishing ingredients than the HFCS-sweetened, off-tasting, peanut-packed kind - the only kind - you've known growing up.

For the most part - and with the exception of unintended humor owing to the broadcasted-live nature of the show - I've never really found SNL to be very funny or talented or thought-provoking. I never quite got what the fuss was all about.

not2b• 4 years ago

It is mostly bad, but occasionally they do something good; I would call this one example of that. Not worth sitting through the whole show, but the better bits can be found on YouTube or NBC's site.

ralphc• 4 years ago

The good stuff will come to you, you'll read about it at Salon or Buzzfeed or see it trending on Twitter.

mcphage2• 4 years ago

Sadly, we’re not all as smart as you.

dylan6042• 4 years ago

Phew, if this is the outlook of one after becoming "that smart", I'm happy being a mindless dolt in comparison. Guilty pleasures in life are a good thing

germinalphrase• 4 years ago

Well, it’s much closer to improv than your standard scripted television comedy. Whatcha going to do - sketch is a niche comedy style.

dylan6042• 4 years ago

to be fair, they have only a few days to create each episode. that's a fantastic amount of work. it's not like they can just download a JS framework and bang out something over a weekend.

agentwiggles• 4 years ago

I largely agree, even the skits that are considered all time classics fall a bit flat for me. (I'm sorry in advance, but the cowbell sketch comes to mind).

There have definitely been occasional hits, though.

JKCalhoun• 4 years ago

Grew up watching shitty 70's game shows. The "Charades" SNL parody was so dead-on ... I cried.

https://youtu.be/lIkQjUMOnmc

Uhhrrr• 4 years ago

Okay, which weekly live sketch show do you prefer?

For me, the virtues of SNL are that Weekend Update usually has good topical jokes, and once in a while there's a sketch like "Potato Chip" or "Monkey Judge".

gaws• 4 years ago

tl;dr: I don't like SNL.

Cool, bro.

j4pe• 4 years ago

It's worth appreciating how fluent all of these people are with their craft to create something of this quality on that timeline.

The director got the script on Wednesday! Look at the set layouts, the lighting plans, and the lens choices that were made on the fly. Not to mention somebody had to actually make those costumes and build those sets in a day - and modify them on demand to make the kitchen 8' longer. They were still editing it while the show was being broadcast!

You don't generally see "improv" in a field with a lot of preparation like filmmaking, or like software. It's cool to witness somebody who is so comfortable with their tools that they can e.g. live-code a hack-the-box solution or build some new web service on a stage and make it look effortless, and it's equally cool to see this kind of fluency in film.

How we did it: SNL – “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders” (2013)

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