The Making of Gigi - Pt. 5 - "We Need a Hooker"

When we looked into casting the hooker for this episode, we thought about several types - large ones, ethnic ones, disgusting ones - but in the weeks leading up to the shoot Josh had been on location with an actress who he thought would work perfectly. Her name was Brit Morgan, and damn was he right.

She had all the elements we needed for this character. She was gorgeous, yes, but after we got her through wardrobe and hair & makeup she was the perfect definition of hot mess. Disheveled and grubby, yet you still might pony up some change to "scare all over her tits."

Brit and I sat down to discuss her character and I could tell right away she was the right woman for the job. We thought up three distinct voices for the hooker - one was her "selling voice," the breathy, sexy tone she uses to lure in her johns; second was her "normal voice," the voice she falls back on when Gigi's antics catch her off-guard; and third was her "coked-up voice," the amped up, crazy bitch she turns into after blowing lines of coke in the bathroom to get ready to do her duty. Brit moved between these voices flawlessly and brought new things to the table that we had never dreamed of, including the "strange rubber ducky" Gigi finds in her purse…

Approaching the element of drug use for Gigi has always been fascinating for us. He's already so confused without the drugs that putting any in his system just ramps up the ridiculous. And ecstasy is a tricky one, because we didn't want Gigi to start petting the hooker and actually enjoy the experience. So we went with the bad trip. And although I'm still waiting for the first YouTube comment to declare, "Ecstasy doesn't give you those type of visuals," I'm happy with how the double exposure came out and feel it accurately portrays what must be going through that poor foreigner's mind.

It was our last day of shooting so we had to hurry through much of the pickup shots of Gigi stepping on the ketchup. I kept muttering to myself, "Goddamn these writers giving me more f*cking fake blood to work with." It was the only episode where re-shoots were genuinely needed after the fact and luckily our prop master Jason came through for us weeks later with matching carpet to recreate the motel room floor in my garage.

Oh I almost forgot - Gigi throwing the vase at the wall almost took out our co-star. Watch the take that made it into the final cut. Kudos to Josh for doing his best Tim Lincecum impression...

The Making of Gigi - Pt. 4 - "Pocket Aces!!"

I've realized that I said this would be a 6-part series, but really its going to be around 12 parts. I wanted to describe each episode as its own part. I have the power to do that through the blog-master license I received at the BMV a while back.

After the first half of the pilot shoot day was spent at Rosa's in her bathroom (you see? I'm even jumping back in time. Blog-master license) we high-tailed it over to a garage where my brothers and I lived at the time on Abbot Kinney in Venice. The beauty part about shooting in this garage was that we didn't need to dress it up at all. It was packed full of shit we just moved aside to make space for a poker table and plopped in our actors.

Luckily the area of action was all centered around the poker table so it made our shotlist fairly simple. But the continuity issue with the playing cards was a whole other unforeseen issue. Our props master Aaron was racing around picking up discarded, tequila-soaked cards while Tyler and Marcus did their best to remember which cards they had in their hands each round. It was madness. Speaking of Marcus, what an amazing find.

Kevin knew Marcus Nel-Jamal Hamm from work and brought him to audition for the part of Lonnie. We needed someone imposing but who wouldn't over play the comedy of the role, we needed someone to be REAL. He won us over in the audition and proved to be the right choice on the day, playing Lonnie flawlessly.

Our props master Aaron had procured some fake pot that is supposedly safe to smoke for actors, but holy shit it felt like inhaling a burning broom that just had a witch's ass riding on it. Kudos to Kevin and Josh for taking it down take after take. Well done fellas.

By the end of the day we had two episodes in the can. Marcus, who was the only non-Nomad in the shoot, performed so well that we knew that if this pilot went to series, it wouldn't be the last time we saw his character Lonnie...

The Making of Gigi - Pt. 3 - "Donate Good God"

When we delivered the pilot to BBC Worldwide in July 2010 they wasted no time in finding MyDamnChannel.com as a partner to launch an entire season. Rob Barnett, owner of MyDamnChannel, proved to be an amazing visionary in the online world and saw great potential in this character. So a 10-episode season was ordered up, and we got to work scripting.

We'd been brainstorming several situations for Gigi to find himself in, so we each choose our favorite and split off in order to pen them individually. We found that the more extravagant the situation (ie. Gigi joins a cult, Gigi goes to jail) the least we felt it showed Gigi in the proper light. The simpler the situation was, the easier is it was for Gigi to slip up. We wanted the people he encountered to be normal and real, only to have their buttons pushed by the ignorance of Gigi and do something they might not normally do.

Episode 2, "Donate Good Cause" was the first that we felt hit the right tone. As the rest of us grappled to get inside Gigi's head, Josh turned in a spectacular script that would highlight the physicality of the character. Only problem - it involved spraying blood all over the hospital set.

I balked. Here we were, working with a decent amount of money to get through two episodes a day and he goes and does this to me. Let's get some fake blood that may or may not come off your skin between takes and spray it all over a set that we may have to paint over afterwards. He assured me that whatever we had to go through it would be worth it. And although I kept trying to put it in the "Let's save this for season two" pile, Josh's constant encouragement that it was doable won me over.

On the day we were getting along pretty good, knocked out everything we could from every angle before we let any blood fly. Then our VFX guy Paul hooked Josh up to a compression tank via a clear tube that would feed from under his shirt and out his rolled up sleeve. We made sure our blocking was such that he could pull the tube from the blood bag and stay seated while the blood flowed. Our first take was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Everyone executed perfectly and I yelped out a sigh of relief rather than "cut." The second take, however, would not go over so well.

We only had one take per lens, so we moved from the medium to the close and did the wide shot last so he could really let loose on the wide take. Except during the close up Josh got blood all over his face, so we had to stop the take right in the middle, wait to clean him up, and then start over with a second take - schedule be damned!! We ended up getting three great blood flowing takes, although the closeup had an immense amount of blood in it - continuity be damned!!

For the exterior we had precious little minutes as the sun went down, and unfortunately I couldn't give Josh and Kevin enough time as I wanted to for them to play around with the Bum and Gigi interaction. All in, for the amount of production headache it could have been, I was really happy with the result. And if it wasn't for Josh's passion for this episode, this tremendous lead-off to our season would have never happened.

The Making of Gigi - Part 2

Since the bathtub we shot the original Gigi sketch in was no longer available, we had to find another one equally dilapidated. We found our friend Rosa's bathtub was perfect, not to say that her bathroom is shabby (our amazing art dept took care of that) but it had the type of layout we needed - open bathtub with a window for Gigi to crawl out of.

In the original sketch, Gigi finished "speak learning english" and danced his way out of the room. For the remake we wanted to add a level of escape for Gigi. Begging the question, who's bathroom is he in? And why did he think it was a good place for an English lesson? That sense of confusion would become a staple of who Gigi was for us and how he would interact with the world around him - misinterpreting his way across this great nation of ours.

And in my own little film school dreamy design I saw the action of him crawling out of the window as representing the birth of Gigi onto our lands. From whence the bathroom egg emerges an innocent babe upon our urban shoreline!!!!

The shoot was fairly painless since we were emulating the original. By now Dan Tischler had joined us alongside Ian at BBC Worldwide. They proved to be excellent partners on the day. Tyler Moore brought the golden voiced Hank "the Rock" Goldberg back to life. We tried some new things out but found we didn't want to shake the tree. Don't fix what ain't broke.

But getting Gigi from the bathtub to the window, now there was some new territory for us to tread. He can't just get up and walk to the window. No, we needed to scare his ass out that window.

The original sketch had an anonymous voice outside the door chime in at one point, so we expanded that to an anonymous couple banging on the door from the outside, wondering aloud to each other who the hell is in their bathroom. This gave us the opportunity for Gigi to make a break for it, frantically tearing the bathroom apart as he made his way to the window. Josh, ever the dedicated thespian, threw himself all over Rosa's poor bathroom. I wanted to give him a helmet or something for god sakes. We had ice packs at the ready in between takes for his knees, elbows, head, you name it he had a bruise on it by the end of the day.

In the final cut we couldn't use most of it since we had to get Gigi out of the bathroom quickly, but kudos to you Josh for sacrificing the body for the sport. And it wouldn't be the last time we'd need ice packs at the ready. And a special thank you to Rosa Graziano for supplying the location!! Rosa and her new Italian Deli on wheels Rosa's Bella Cucina would go on to cater our series shoot. Check em out - https://twitter.com/#!/rosabellacucina

The Making of Gigi - Part 1

by Ty Clancey

The Lost Nomads' new digital series Gigi: Almost American, about a lovable foreigner trying to make it in America, stars Josh Gad and premieres this Wednesday, March 23rd on MyDamn Channel.com. Part of an amazing collaboration between the Nomads, BBC Worldwide and MyDamnChannel.com, Gigi has been quite a journey from an early sketch of ours, shot in a bathtub, to the 10-episode series that is about to be unleashed on the public at large. This six-part blog series is dedicated to that journey.

Before we rolled a single frame of footage on any Nomads sketch, I shot an audition tape of Josh Gad performing different characters he had dreamt up on a stage in Theater Row in Hollywood. Halfway through the performance Josh took on a hunched, eager posture, raised a tape recorder up to his ear and suddenly a booming voice materialized in the front row of the theater. It was Tyler Moore, voicing a radio DJ named Hank "the Rock" Goldberg. Josh had by now fully morphed into Gigi, a guileless foreigner yearning to learn the English language from this pompous shock jock. I watched in awe as Josh and Tyler played this linguistic fun-house mirror game - Hank repeating crass morning DJ lines over and over as Gigi summarily butchered them. I was mesmerized.

When Josh, Tyler, Ida and Kevin, who at that time in 2005 were operating as a stage troupe named Option C, approached me to shoot some of their sketches I was elated to see that Gigi would be among the characters we'd be re-imagining for the screen. So we stuffed Josh into a bathtub over at our friend Michael Sontag's house and rolled on what would become one of our most popular sketches.

Cut to a few years later the Nomads were introduced to Ian Moffitt at BBC Worldwide. We hit it off instantly. Our initial meeting, scheduled for about an hour meet and greet, turned into a multi-hour love-fest. And over the next few years we continued to exchange ideas, mostly over some pints at his birthday every year. In 2009 we began pitching BBC Worldwide concepts for digital series, but the one idea they kept coming back to was Gigi. The sketch practically sold itself.

In late spring 2010 we reached a deal with BBC Worldwide to write and shoot a pilot for Gigi. At this time in our Nomadic journey we had recently finished shooting two webseries pilots with another studio and found that the conventional wisdom of shooting "trailer pilots," meaning shoot more of a 2-3 minute movie preview then a typical episode, wouldn't work in the case of Gigi. This character couldn't really be summed up in a flashy music video type edit. You needed to see this character breathe and unfold before your eyes as the wonderful naive stranger in a strange land that he is.

So we took the budget we were allotted and decided to shoot two full episodes - we'd reshoot the bathtub scene and write a new scene that would require a simple location and revolve around a central area of action so as not to add too many shots on the day. What if Gigi was pulled into an underground poker game? we asked ourselves. Simple enough - interpersonal communication fraught with plenty of pitfalls for Gigi to encounter. We'd find that neither would be as simple as we'd hoped...

The Confused Writer

By Kevin Larsen

Early one October morning Jack awoke to the sound of church bells. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched with a yawn; I’m pretty sure the young boy exclaimed, “Wow, what a beautiful day.” The leaves were falling and I think the sky was grey. His mother cried to him,” Jack, it’s time for breakfast!” She had prepared something for him, I just can’t remember exactly what it was. Without hesitation Jack ran down stairs… no wait, I forgot, he did hesitate a little because he was still tired. And I think he might have changed his clothes first. Anyways, Jack went down the stairs to eat his breakfast… or was it lunch? No, it was morning time, so it had to be breakfast. Jack inhaled his food. He was eating so quickly that his mom stopped him and said, “Jack slow down!” So the boy began to pace himself. No wait… I’m sorry. She said, “Jack chew your food. You are going to choke.” not,” Jack slow down.” … or was it, “Jack, where are your manners?” It’s so hard for me to remember all the details. Let’s see… what happened next? Oh yeah! No wait, that’s not it. Man I feel stupid……………………………………Hey!!! Have you guys heard that new song by SPOON? They just did it on Saturday Night Live. Those guys have been around for a long time. I’ve never really listened to them, but that new song is awesome. I wish I could remember what it’s called. I know you guys know it. I think its crazy that a group can be around for like ten years and have nothing but an underground following, then out of nowhere release a hit song that everyone loves. AFI did that too. It must be frustrating for the loyal fans though, you know the ones who have supported them from the beginning. Because now when they go to the concerts there are all these other people there. I just think it would kind of kill the atmosphere… let’s see, what were we talking about before? I swear it’s on the tip of my tongue. I remember something about stairs… OH YEAH! Did I tell you guys about Jack coming down the stairs yet? Okay. So he did that, then he….. I just had a brain fart, you guys ever had a brain fart? I cannot remember what happens next. I’m really sorry, this is so embarrassing. I do know that Jack favorite color is blue though, if that helps. Um, so, I guess that’s the end of the story. I tell you what, give me a minute to try and remember and I’ll get back to you.

The Astronaut Farmer

By Tyler Moore

Once upon a time in a quiet little town there lived a rather curious old farmer. He was so curious in fact that every night after eating dinner and doing his chores he would sit out on his porch with his trusty dog Blue and stare inquisitively up into the night sky. One night after a particularly large supper of turkey dumplings, mash potatoes and double helpings of apple pie, he looked up at the moon and wondered. He wondered what life was really like on the moon. What kind of people lived there, what they looked like, and what crops they grew. He even wondered if they liked chocolate ice cream and butterscotch candies as much as he did.
“I know what I’ll do.” The farmer exclaimed to his four legged companion. “I’ll build us a rocketship so we can fly to the moon and see for ourselves.” Blue licked the farmer and wagged his tail excitedly.
Early the next day, before the rooster even began to crow, the farmer set out to build a rocketship that would take them both to the moon.
“We’re gonna need some money, Blue ole boy. Getting to the moon isn’t going to be cheap.” So the farmer and his pooch jumped into the back of their pick up and headed to the bank.
“I’d like to take out all of my money, Mr. Chambers.” The farmer said to the bank manager.
“Sure. But what are you going to do with your life savings, might I ask?”
“Blue and I are going to build a rocketship and fly ourselves to the moon.”
“It’ll never work,” the bank manager said, “you’re nothing but a dreamer. You should save some money just in case it doesn’t work out”
But the farmer didn’t listen and went on his way.
Next they went to the hardware store where he bought a hammer, some nails and as much wood as he could fit in the back of his pick-up truck.
“Whatcha planning on building with all that wood?” The hardware clerk said.
“Blue and I are going to build a rocketship and fly ourselves to the moon.”
“It’ll never work,” the clerk said, “Wood is flammable you are going to need to use metal if you want to do that.”
But the farmer didn’t listen and went on his way.
Back at home the farmer got to work. He worked tirelessly all day long. Hammering BANG BANG BANG, sawing RIRAH RIRAH RIRAH and painting SPLOOSHA SPLOOSHA SPLASHA. Stopping only, of course, to eat some honey soaked peanut butter sandwiches and feed Blue some kibble. After hours and hours of hard work it was finally finished. The farmer sat back and admired his work. It was truly a site to behold.
“Now to make our space suits.” The farmer said as he went about wrapping blue and himself in what seemed like miles of tinfoil. “There. That ought to do it.”
Just then the farmer’s neighbor, an astrophysicist from MIT and his live-in same sex partner, an aeronautical engineer from Cal Tech showed up.
“What’s with the Tinfoil, farmer?” They asked holding back their laughter.
“Blue and I built a rocketship to go to the moon and these are our space suits.”
“It’ll never work.” The two men said as they gently massaged each others upper thighs. “Even if you do get out of the Earth’s atmosphere you need a space suit designed by NASA, not tinfoil. You will surely die.”
But the farmer didn’t listen and went on his way.
The farmer and Blue entered the space ship, made sure they had packed a lunch of rye bread and sweet cream, fired the rocket boosters and away they went.
Up…up…up they went. Faster and faster they flew. They passed the tree tops. They passed the old church steeple on Cragbury Hill. They passed the clouds and the news channel helicopters. And then do you know what happened?

The farmer and Blue died a horrible agonizing death. Upon reaching the Earth’s atmosphere they were burnt to a crisp only moments before suffocating to death. And do you know why?

Because the farmer never listened to people that knew what they were talking about.

THE END