Comedy is like horror - you have to shock something in the viewer's system to make them feel it.
Things that people are doing constantly but aren't thinking about. That's the ultimate 'Portlandia' concept.
I like dry-to-the-bone stuff. I don't know what it is. I was raised on PBS showing weird British comedies.
I went to film school, and I came in when video art was king, weird stuff was king, and there, you don't have a script as your bible.
'Portlandia' is 100 percent improvised, and I came into this business not knowing anything.
There's a thing in comedy where you take one step into a bad idea, but if you take 10, then it becomes a good idea again.
In Portland, it rains all the time - but who cares? That's not funny. That's not universal.
You see a lot of comedic content that's not funny, and you can tell that it's supposed to be funny, but it's actually not funny.
Different actors have different rhythms. My goal as a director is to let these guys get their best work out.
I love the beige, tan, stucco world where the sun bleaches things out to the point that it can look somewhat ugly.
Everything else was snarky and high concept, while 'Roseanne' was just a normal family.
I'm not a big 'scripted comedy' person necessarily. I'm open for wherever comedy can be found.
With comedy, I've always had a pretty good sense of what I like and how to execute it well, but drama has its own rules.