Documentary Now! (Industry Panel)

On September 16th we attended an industry panel with Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono from Saturday Night Live, talking about their new comedic documentary series on IFC. The panel also featured comedian Bill Hader, the series’ creator on Skype. There was around a hundred people there that night. The speaker of the event introduced himself and welcomed Rhys and Alex on stage and welcomed Bill Hader to the Q&A through Skype. They started off the Q&A by screening the very first episode of their series. The episode was a comedic approach to a music documentary about a fictional band called Blue Jean Committee. It starred Bill Hader and Fred Armisen as the two guys in the band. The Blue Jean Committee band is supposed to be a spoof of the soft rock bands in the early 70s, with bands such as Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren and The Eagles. The episode pokes fun at the way music documentaries are presented where it talks about the rise and the downfall of famous musicians. It was almost kind of poking fun at the way VH1’s Behind the Music does their specials. Bill and Fred both imitated the styles of 70s soft rock bands with their hippie-ish outlook and their cheesy pop ballads like there fictional hit song “Catalina Breeze.” Their comedic appeal to the documentary made it an enjoyable experience for the audience watching in the TIFF conference room.

When the screening ended, the speaker started off by asking them about how they came up with the idea of making documentary Spoofs. Hader had mentioned a documentary about The Eagles they watched and how “really tough alpha guys playing super pussy music” made them laugh. The speaker asked how they were able to come up with the interviews using real musicians like Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kenny Loggins as well as unknown actors. Alex mentioned that their approach was to get the actors especially the two musicians to talk about their real life experiences with other musicians. They told their stories and switched the real musicians with the Bill and Fred characters to make it sound as if they were reminiscing on real stories of rock legends. Cameron Crowe, who had actually traveled with The Eagles, was featured on there as well as the real Eagles manager, whose son played a younger version of himself in the archive bit. To me, it was interesting how they got prominent figures in the music industry to get involved in a 44 minute sketch comedy documentary spoof.

They also touched a little on their previous projects with a sketch comedy called Dronez where “they make fun of hipster journalists on Vice” by traveling down to Mexico to track down a drug lord. The short featured Jack Black as one of the cartel guys. Out of all the industry panels I’ve been to, this was my favorite. Alex, Rhys and Bill definitely had a lot to say about their project and hearing them talk about their process in making the documentary was interesting. I also felt that Hader made the Q&A enjoyable to watch with his slapstick humor and his comedic ability to engage with the audience.