Project Greenlight – The Leisure Class

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Almost 15 years ago Project Greenlight was the only reality show I really watched. They put out 3 seasons but unfortunately all of the films produced as a result of the show never amounted to anything of next level quality. The 4th season recaptured my imagination and damn it if they didn’t do it again… another dud. Moving forward: Do I still watch the show? Yes. The show itself is great and I’ve always enjoyed it. The problem (maybe it’s not a problem) is that the films they make as a result of the show simply suck. But why?

Is it the director(s) they picked? Is it the scripts? Or is it the producers of the ‘reality show’ that have consistently come up with duds? I’m still on the fence about how I feel about Effie Brown but maybe that’s what Project Greenlight (as a show) wanted? The big question I have is, How much did the producers of Project Greenlight manipulate the ‘show’ for the sake of conflict? And did that actually affect the quality of the final film they created? The lack of quality falls not only on Jason Mann but on Matt and Ben and the Farrelly Brothers… not to mention HBO.

The biggest irony is that Project Greenlight is designed to help launch the careers of young filmmakers and they may have just killed Jason Mann’s.

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Laughing Derby in Louisville

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Last weekend Sept. 24-26th I returned to Louisville, KY to preform at the Laughing Derby Comedy Club. This is significant to me because I lived there for over a year (from 2009 to 2010) and I haven’t been back in over 3 years. It’s like a second hometown. When I lived there I was new to headlining and my a lot of my writing was informed by the their specific audiences. Going back this last weekend was an eye opener. Since I’ve lived in Los Angeles I’ve really tried to focus on the ‘next level’ of joke writing. Being back in Louisville made me feel like I was regressing. The audiences seemed to really enjoy my least creative material and any time I would try to challenge them with a new idea they really clammed up. In fairness, maybe these new ideas are also new jokes and I need to just keep working on them so I can learn how to get these more complicated ideas across to even the least interested crowds. It’s weird to feel like you are going backwards but that’s exactly how I felt. Hopefully I can go back some day soon and draw the types of crowds that will enjoy more challenging/creative humor.

Here is a nice article my good buddy Brent Owen wrote up: LEO Article

Thanks again for having me Louisville. Part of me will always love that town.

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That time I met Judd Apatow…

I have an unsettled relationship with the idea of celebrity. I hate when people give celebrities more attention than they deserve. I think it’s because I’m such a fan of people and if on a human level the “quote-unquote” celebrity isn’t able to connect with you on that basic level then their status as a famous person is totally moot for me. That being said, living in Los Angeles has provided me with interactions with certain celebrities that are not only famous but are also dynamic human beings that I actually admire. Recently I was performing at The Hollywood Improv and right when I walked in, sitting in a booth with his notes, was Judd Apatow (director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and most recently Trainwreck, among many other producing credits). At first I didn’t recognize him. I walked from the bar into the packed showroom, checked in with the host and was informed that Apatow was going to do a set. I got excited. It’s a rare feeling for me, I’m usually pretty dead to the idea of famous people. But for me Apatow isn’t just a famous person. His career is specifically the template for how I’ve been constructing my own career: Start as a stand-up comedian, go into TV writing, then become a highly successful producer and director…

So I go back into the bar area and confirm that the normal looking guy with a touch of grey in his beard was Apatow. I was one of the producers of the show that night so I took the opportunity to introduce myself and thank him for doing our show. Super nice guy, down to earth, incredibly approachable. I told Apatow that my roommate Jason was the actor who played the bully in Freaks and Geeks and that Jason was in the audience that night. Apatow got excited and regaled me with old memories from the show. At one point I built up the courage to ask for a photo and he humbly obliged.

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Here’s where it gets interesting…

Then Apatow goes on stage, has a good set and about half way through goes into a bit about why celebrities don’t like taking photos. In his words it’s because the person who asks for the photo always ends up putting their arm around the celebrity thus inevitably putting their armpit on the shoulder of said celebrity (see photo above) and by the end of the day if they have done 50 photos their shoulder smells like ass. I’m in the back of the audience realizing I just did the precise faux pas that he is talking about just 10 minutes prior. It’s clearly a bit he’s been working on for a while and not about me specifically but still it was a momentarily uncomfortable coincidence. So I go on stage after Judd and open my set referring to the stink shoulder bit and admitting that I was guitly of doing the exact shoulder stinking he was joking about (again view photo above). It gets a laugh and that should be the end of the story.

Until, we are in the bar after the show, it’s packed. Doing my best to make sure I say hello to everyone who came for the show. It’s a bit of a whirl wind. Suddenly, my roommate Jason comes up to me and points at me with an attitude of ‘gotcha’, Jason then exclaims, “Apatow just took a photo with me! And he put his armpit on my shoulder giving me the stink shoulder.” We laughed our asses off. What a random, crazy story and a blast of a night.

So, what does this all mean? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just guilty of perpetuating the very celebrity culture that I have been so critical of, or maybe this is an objectively interesting story? Either could be true, but when I really think about it… working with someone who has accomplishments that I actually admire was inspiring and if a celebrity is first and fore most a good person than maybe I need to be honest with the fact that that’s what I’m aiming for.

…but I seriously have no desire to be famous, I just want to be really fucking good!

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UCLA Success Story

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The good people over at UCLA Extension wrote up a nice piece about me getting my first writing job. I’m a big fan of their programs. If you are thinking about taking one of their classes I highly recommend it. Below is the article and a link to their blog.

From UCLA Extension:

Nicholas Anthony, who we’ve written about before, has landed his first television writing job on the new fall CBS show The Inspectors, which focuses on a family working for the Postal Inspection Service, one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the US.

Nicholas honed his craft in Writers’ Program screenwriting courses before winning Best Original Half-Hour TV Pilot in the 2013 Final Draft, Inc. Big Break Contest for his script Never Famous. Now, he is a paid television writer.

“The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension was the final training I needed to be ready for the professional TV writing market place,” says Nicholas. “The classes I took and the people I met prepared me for exactly what I would need to know once I was on the job. If you are trying to become a professional screenwriter or are looking for the beginning of your education, I can’t recommend their programs enough.”

UCLA Extension Success Story Article

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Why “This Is Working” is not working for me

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Once a week professional screenwriters John August (Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Craig Mazin (Identity Thief, RocketMan, The Hangover Part II & III) produce a podcast worthy of any screenwriters attention called, Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that may be interesting to screenwriters. I highly recommend it. It’s one of the top podcast on iTunes and it can also be found at JohnAugust.com. As a fledgling professional screenwriter myself, I find this podcast to be a great resource for unique industry insights and perspectives outside of my own purview. Even though there are times when I disagree with their specific tastes, I find both John and Craig to be sharp, intelligent people who deeply care about their craft and earnestly want to help other writers.

One thing I specifically enjoy is a segment on their show called, The 3 Page Challenge. This is where they give writers a chance to send in the first 3 pages of their script and for John and Craig to give their critiques. It’s such a popular segment they decided to do a special 3 Page Challenge with an entire screenplay. They picked, “This Is Working” by K.C. Scott, a script that had already been featured during a recent 3 Page Challenge and they made it available for download so that you could read it before you listened to the critique. Now this is interesting to me because of the subjective nature of even professional level screenwriting. It’s hard for me to listen to any writer’s opinion (professional or not) on a screenplay before I’ve either read their scripts, or heard their specific take on scripts that I’ve read. Although I have not read any of John and Craig’s scripts they both have films that I’ve seen, some I really like and unfortunately some a don’t like as much but I’ve never had a specific opportunity to understand their objective tastes as they relate to a piece of unproduced screenwriting. So, for me this is where rubber meets the road with John and Craig. I could finally decide if their general tastes match up with mine. Why is this important to me? Listening to a podcast takes a lot of time and if I’m going to continue to be a loyal listener I want to know, at least on some level, that we’re in the same ballpark when it’s come to what we think is quality writing.

So I read “This Is Working” and simply didn’t enjoy it. With all respect to K.C., it just wasn’t my taste. I believe he has a firm grasp on the medium but the story didn’t grab me. The characters are not people I would want to spend time with for two hours in a dark movie theater and the plotting/structure left me feeling bored. I personally don’t find spoiled rich kids to be interesting unless they or someone around them grows. One exception, but only because the story goes way over the top, is “The Jerk.” In “This Is Working” no one changes and Byron is so sad he even sucks the people around him into his orbit. That, and the clever hipster references didn’t come across as comedy genius to me, they just came across as clever hipster references.

So I didn’t care for the script (Sorry K.C.) and I was looking forward to John and Craig agreeing with me. The podcast starts and to my surprise they both rave about the script. At one point a claim was made that K.C. is such a strong writer he should immediately be on staff for an existing television show. I have to admit my head started spinning. Was I just wrong? Did I not read it properly? This was a real, The King Has No Clothing moment for me. So I continued to listen to the podcast and they proceeded to explain everything they felt could be improved with the script. They cited a number of flaws that I also didn’t like about script. At this point I’m incredibly confused. How could a writer of a screenplay that clearly needs as much work as this script needs still be ready to start working on a television show today?

I don’t bring all of this up to be critical of K.C. and I don’t bring all of this up to even be critical of John and Craig. I shine light on this because I’m trying to stay sane and go through the process of becoming a professional screenwriter. The more I go down the rabbit hole the more I realize this entire career I’ve picked is potentially ONLY based on peoples opinions and relationships. I want to think that there’s such a thing as objective quality and I want to think that the cream rises to the top but the more and more I watch success, the more and more I become confused. Lately the Krishna quote has been bouncing around in my head, “You have a right to your labor but not the fruits of your labor.” I write this blog because I want to get through through the fog. Do any of their other listeners agree with me about this script? Am I simply way off? When Craig said, “This Is Working” is a 2015 script, not a 1990’s script that doesn’t mean that it’s a story that should be professionally concidered. To me the script doesn’t feel current, it feels trendy and I’m more interested in finding deeper truths without so many ‘arch’ references.

I feel like writing this at all will potentially put me in the lions den with John and Craig but the fear of that isn’t worth allowing the confusion to win. I make a lot of mistakes in my life and in my work but I’ve continued to keep moving forward. This idea of subjectivity being a cloud that confounds me and keeps me from producing more work is something I’m going to fight through. I come to you not as someone who thinks they have the answers, but as a student of the craft and a curious human who just wants to understand. Any perspective on this would be appreciated.

Nicholas Anthony
The MF Citrus Farm
Los Angeles, CA

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Nick’s 2015 Oscar Picks

NICK’S PICK: Michael Keaton

LEAD ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard, “Two Days, One Night”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”
Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”

NICK’S PICK: Rosamund Pike

Director

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Bennett Miller, “Foxcatcher”
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Morten Tyldum, “The Imitation Game”

Supporting actress

Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Laura Dern, “Wild”
Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
Emma Stone, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”
Meryl Streep, “Into The Woods”

NICK’S PICK: Emma Stone

Supporting actor

Robert Duvall, “The Judge
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Edward Norton, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

NICK’S PICK: Hands down, J.K. Simmons

Animated feature film

“Big Hero 6” | Review
The Boxtrolls” | Review
“How To Train Your Dragon 2” | Review
“Song of the Sea” | Review
“The Tale of the Princess Kaguya” | Review

NICK’S PICK: “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya”

Foreign language film

“Ida” (Poland)
“Leviathan” (Russia)
“Tangerines” (Estonia)
“Timbuktu” (Mauritania)
“Wild Tales” (Argentina)

NICK’S PICK: “Timbuktu”

Adapted screenplay

Jason Hall, “American Sniper”
Graham Moore, “The Imitation Game”
Paul Thomas Anderson, “Inherent Vice”
Anthony McCarten, “The Theory of Everything”
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”

NICK’S PICK: “Whiplash”

Original screenplay

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Armando Bo, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”

Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”

E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, “Foxcatcher”

Wes Anderson (screenplay), Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness (story), “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Dan Gilroy, “Nightcrawler”

NICK’S PICK: Birdman

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The Post Roll PodCast w/Collin Moulton

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I’m a firm believer in never allowing fear to control your decision making. That being said, as I get older the fear of physically hurting myself grows. I’ve stopped running because it hurts my back, I’ve stop playing basket ball because I don’t want to roll my ankle and part of me hates that. The other part of me is interested in finding new ways to exercise that aren’t as hard on my body. A couple weeks back my good friend and talented comedian Collin Moulton ask me if I wanted to to Jujitsu and then afterwards to a pod cast. I was immediately interested. Welcome to episode #1 of “The Post Roll Podcast.”

The Post Roll Podcast w/ Collin Moulton: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-roll-podcast-collin-moulton/id956754797?mt=2

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Goonies Comedy Club – Dec. 26th & 27th

UnknownWhen you get tired of dealing with your family this holiday season and you want to come have a laugh, I will be headlining Goonies Comedy Club in Rochester, MN. 2 shows this Friday and Saturday Dec. 26th & 27th. Tickets: $14 in advance, $20 at the door. For more details visit: www.GooniesComedy.com

Emcee: Greg Berman

Feature: Joey Vincent

Headliner: Nicholas “Chocolate Milk” Anthony

Goonies Comedy Club
7 2nd Street Southwest
Rochester, MN 55902

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Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase (Dec. 18 – 20)

The Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase in Michigan is one of my favorite comedy clubs in the country. I will be headlining their brand new location this weekend Dec. 18 thru 20. 1 show Thursday. 2 shows on Friday and Saturday. Ann Arobor Logo

For more details visit: http://www.aacomedy.com

P.S. I can’t wait to go back to Zingerman’s Deli.

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At the end of the day… (An Interview from 2011)

IMG_4049At the End of the Day with Nick Anthony…
By Chad Hamblin and Brian Kuyath

Nick Anthony is one of the most intriguing people I’ve ever met. No wait, scratch that – I’ll go on record stating that Nick is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met that remains intriguing, thought provoking, and limitless in everything he does. I’ll always remember the first time I really had a conversation with the guy. It was in a kitchen, and we were shooting the shit about what we were doing with ourselves. He explained to me that he was a comedian, making a living doing so, and that he was currently working on a number of different projects; one being a short film that he was very proud of and something we talk about in our interview below. What surprised me most about Nick was how much of an effort he was making to get to know who I was, what I was doing with myself, and how I was ultimately trying to succeed. I’ve never met a person who has made such a strong attempt at doing so. His attempt intimidated me initially, but ultimately allowed me to realize that this is who Nick is – someone who strives to succeed in whatever he takes on, and finds happiness not only with succeeding in his own endeavors, but also in the success of the people around him.

With all that said, the great Chad Hamblin and I met up with Nick at Uptown’s Greenmill for a beer and insightful conversation.

Give everyone an idea of who you are and your approach to handling life’s challenges…

It’s just that idea that you’ve got to be true to yourself first for whatever it is you’re going to do. I have to believe that you’ll be that much better of a husband or a boyfriend or a brother or a son or whatever the fuck you decide to be.

… or a comedian?

Or a comic! Exactly. When you don’t have kids and when you don’t have anything like that. Not a lot of people get to have the opportunities that I’ve had. I’m so very appreciative and I feel like I have a responsibility to follow through and see those opportunities to their fruition.

Where did this all start?

I grew up doing close up magic. When I was 12 years old I saw a homeless guy doing standup magic in the streets in San Diego and so I went out and bought my first magic book. When I was 14 I started doing close up magic at a restaurant for people waiting for their food – A really blue collar bar up in Elk River, and learned really quickly that if you didn’t have something to offer they would be like, “Get the fuck out of here!” ya know? I just learned how to deal with people really fast, and really get them to understand what was going on. 16, I competed in an international magicians competition and became the number one ranked junior, close-up magician in the world. 17, signed a deal with an agent and started doing stage shows with magic, and he said, “Well, I can you start doing more comedy? Blah, blah, blah.” Went to film school at MCTC which pound for per pound is the best film school in the country as far as price point. I truly believe there will be a number of students out of Minneapolis that go on to do many good things. But the problem with performing magic is that you never really get to express how you feel about things. You never get to say this is how I feel about something…

Eh?

It just got to a point where I was hanging out with writers, and started reading like, James Joyce and shit, and started to think about heavier shit and how do you express all that with a deck of cards? I love it. It’s fun. I can show you some really cool shit, but at the end of the day I want it to transcend just “entertaining” people.

So how do you parlay that into independent film?

The problem with independent film making right now is that people are just really clever. You’ll watch something and go “wow, that’s really clever,” and you’ll walk away and you’ll be done with it. I want to have something where people walk away and they go, “yeah, they did clever shit,” but then you actually feel something. You actually have some sort of emotion when you walk away from it. There’s an actual tap into something that you can relate to – something that has “truth”. And not to be highfalutin or on a soap box, but to have it be more than just taking a flash-light and waving it in their eyes to entertain people. Having it tap into something a little bit greater.

So, you want to do more Eternal Sunshine rather than Anchorman?

No, no, no. I mean Anchorman has simple truths. I love Anchorman and think it’s an amazing film. I just watched Talladega Nights and laughed literally the entire time. That’s truth. People need to laugh. I’m not a snob. There are some simple things that are just really fun. But I want my shit to have catharsis at the end. I just watched the latest Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s awesome. It’s like a mystery mind ride, but at the end I don’t feel anything. It was cool! They spent so much money on that movie, but for what? At the end of the day when I watch “El Mariacchi” which was made for six thousand dollars, or even a movie like Garden State, which was made for a couple a million – I feel something.

How are audiences feeling your comedy these days?

So I’m at the Improv in Chicago, which is like the major leagues of standup comedy clubs. This is where the A level guys go. The Dane Cooks, Christopher Titus, and Seinfield. I got lucky and ended up at the showcase. Anyway, I had a good set, but when you’re in a showcase and there’s 12 other guys and if you don’t kill nothing is going to happen, and after the show I realized that I went to Chicago to get something out of it, and at that point it became a job. And what I mean by that is that the second you start expecting something out of show business is the second that you stop having as much fun doing it. I went down there already thinking, “Well, fuck, I’m going to work for the Improv.” as opposed to, “Oh, fuck, I just love doing stand up.” I forgot, for a second there. I got ahead of myself and I was already thinking about the ‘bitches’ and being on ‘Cribs’ before you just realize you got to love it. I think that the problem with a lot of guys is that is what makes them bitter. I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and I still feel like its day one.

You talked about truth earlier

Truth to me is definitely an obtainable thing. Truth is the idea that there’s something greater. We’re writing our next piece which is a World War I piece and it’s called the “Nihilist”. It’s about a guy who’s trying to kill himself by running into the middle of torrential warfare and given up on life. It’s tough for me because I’ve never been there, but the other directors I’m working with have gotten to that point. They’ve be been there, man. They’ve had the moments where you really have to think deep and really think what you’re all about. For me, truth is not a relative thing – it’s an absolute. And, that inherently will conflict with some people think. There’s a lot of people who just don’t buy into that, and that’s okay, because at the end of the day I truly believe that you can have something that speaks to most of the people most of the time. Truth is subtle stuff. I’m not a religious person at all, but I’m a very spiritual person, and I think the problem is that what keeps people from finding something greater than themselves, a lot of times, is religion. Joseph Caroll talked about the idea that too many people get caught up in the denotation, like, exactly what the words are trying to say, as opposed to the connotation: what the Bible meant. If you take the Bible literally, you’ll end up Amish, and that’s cool-I’m not here to judge your faith-but the bottom line is that the Bible is filled with great truth, and if you can pull truth out and use truth to affect your life positively I think that that is how I choose how to take the Bible, or the Koran, or even something like “Schindler’s List”. At the end of the day when I write my own stuff I want to dig deeper. You look at all these civilizations and how those civilizations, even though they’re completely separated by thousands of years and divided by continents, yet they have the same myths, the same stories. It’s amazing how myth after myth after myth and civilization after civilization have a ‘Jesus’ type story where there is a ‘resurrection’ – there’s these themes, but the stories are based on animals, or phenomena-based it affects the entire disposition of the culture. The Native-American culture was developed around corn, so it affects how they appreciate the Earth. Ours is based on “natural is bad”. It’s a natural thing to want to have sex but we have to push that feeling away, and because of that, we try to conquer nature. And now, when I fly over this country and I look down at the cities, I think: On some level are we just a virus to this planet? Realistically, we’re not a healthy thing for this planet, but yet we’ve taken over and have no respect for the planet, but the Native Americans, because their myths were embedded in the God of the Land, the God of the Wind, they have a respect for it. It determines how you start behaving.

So, the stories a society tells is indicative how society lives its life.

Exactly! What you focus is what you feel.

How do you think our stories reflect on how we live our lives today?

It’s obvious that we’re becoming desensitized. In movies like Saw we have to torture somebody in order to feel anything. That’s kind of dangerous! But it’s still entertainment, and on some level, you have to let art be art. You’ve opened a box, man! This is why my director and I get together. I think the ‘truth’ is something worth talking about.

Would you ever write a part for yourself in one of your own scripts?

I went the acting route before I did standup. Ultimately, for me, I’m a writer, and at the of the day I’m either doing my show or writing scripts. I’m a writer. It’s like a mission statement for me: You need to write, that’s what you need to do. I genuinely feel I could be the best screenwriter in the world. Sacrifice everything and compromise nothing. That’s the key. Be willing to sacrifice everything. If you think about your life… Think about those one, or two, or three things. I don’t want a lot. I want to have a great relationship with my family. I want to be a good guy. I want to put scripts together with money. I want to produce films. And I want to have a family someday. That’s what I really want. I don’t really want… cable. Ya know? I mean, I like cable, it’s fuckin’ cool. I like watching Comedy Central and it entertains me when I come home, but I’m willing to sacrifice those things to have those other things.

People fall in love with what makes them comfortable, and that’s what keeps people from doing anything. Because they get comfortable and feel that they have obligations to these things that really don’t matter, and end up spending their time on things that really don’t matter. At the end of the day it just doesn’t matter.

Ultimately I haven’t really done anything except for lived a passionate, excited, positive life, so, take it all with a grain of salt, but I have to believe that if you give me 10 years and there’s going to be some cool shit.

If there’s anything Nicholas Anthony can say I just really want to be an example of – just fuckin’ living. Like Matthew McCanahay says in Dazed & Confused, “L-I-V-I-N. Livin’!”

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