Second City — Masterclass

One of my favorite perks about the industry I am in is the chance to collaborate with amazing humans. I often get to work with incredible Directors, DP’s, and crew that have become good friends. However, it’s not very often that I get the chance to collaborate with another Producer. I was very excited when my dear friend and fellow Producer, Emily Weinstein, approached me about working on a project with her. This partnership was special because it gave us the collective opportunity to create while utilizing our specific and unique talents.

The project was for The Second City, a world renowned improvisational comedy club based in Chicago with alumni such as Steve Carell, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, and Bill Murray (just to name a few). The objective was to create a sexual harassment series for corporate HR departments to use as a resource and training tool. We wanted to elevate the quality of what was currently being used, as well as create a relevant series that touched on real and heavy topics from a light-hearted perspective. We knew we could rely on The Second City comedians to deliver the content with a humorous twist in a nuanced and respectful way. 

The narrative centered around a SportsCenter theme. “Anchors” would T-up topics and then toss to a “Reporter” on the scene of a sexual harassment violation. It was a creative approach that effectively communicated the sensitive nature of this content. To capitalize on our skill sets, Emily and I decided to divide filming up into two parts: 1) the narrative “reporter in the field” reenactments, and 2) the in-studio “news anchor” segments. This allowed us to take ownership of our own piece of the pie, so to speak. Emily brought on Director Emily Barber to spearhead the field reenactments while I brought on frequent collaborator and Director Blaine Hogan to manage the news anchor bits.

While Emily and her production team worked hard filming in various locations around Chicago, my Production Coordinator, Katie Kranz, and I started building our own team. We reached out to our friends at Resolution Studios to secure their main stage for the shoot and engaged a very talented Production Designer, Nick Schwartz, to build a custom set. I also turned to my buddy Bob Lockley and his team at Stage Right to implement the feature component of our set—a curved LED wall with a pixel pitch of 2.8mm. We ended up with an impressive set and final product, and I'm very proud of our collective teams for what we were able to achieve together.