INDIE SPOTLIGHT: Interview with TV Comedy ‘Underdeveloped’ Creator, Writer, Director and Actor Brian A. Metcalf

This mockumentary series follows a group of failed and inexperienced producers working together at a production company.

The workplace television comedy is not unfamiliar territory, and goes without saying, is here to stay. At the end of the day, it's a delivery vehicle for a great story, unforgettable characters, and hopefully, stellar comedy. And most importantly, a relatability factor for those of us who have been in similar situations, have worked with similar characters, and thought "You can't write this." 

But it turns out you can! Multi-hyphenate, creative Jack of all Trades, Brian A. Metcalf dives deep into the underbelly of the beast he knows best - Hollywood. While poking fun at these characters and the situations they find themselves in, he's also telling a story with meaning. He shines a light on the bigotry in the entertainment industry, the sexism, the nepotism, and the racism, and delivers it in a way that is easily palatable and consumed - through collective humor. 

Brian A. Metcalf recently spoke with Script about tackling a workplace comedy, the distribution process, the importance of feedback, and why filmmakers should be constantly learning. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: For those who have worked in development offices or production offices, it rings very true. I sense that folks who held those positions or are currently in those jobs will be seen. [laughs]

Brian A. Metcalf: [laughs] Well, it's funny, because a lot of the people, especially the cast that I talked to, they've all gone through the same experiences that happened on the show. Even executives I've talked to have gone through experiences like this. So, it's just kind of fun to laugh at and have a good time with and you don't have to be in the industry to understand the show, because it's more about the workplace environment and the dynamics within the workplace.

Sadie: What was the impetus for you to tackle this this kind of show?

Brian: It started out from years of doing pitch meetings and everything along those lines, I would have the weirdest things and the weirdest meetings that would happen and hear the strangest feedback that I'd be like, ‘I'm sorry, did I hear that correctly?’ I mean, as screenwriters, we all have gotten notes that some of them were bizarre from certain executives, or investors, or even actors would want to change certain things. And I just knew I had to create a show along these lines, but at the same time, create a show that had meaning to it; meaning that this deals with greed and nepotism and whitewashing and racism and sexism. And it touches, based on all these topics, but done in a more comedic way, so you're still being entertained while touching base on these subjects.

Sadie: What was the process like for you approaching this as a comedy TV show, while also wearing multiple creative hats as the writer, director and actor?

Brian: Well, the process for me is obviously I take one step at a time when I'm writing. I'm not focusing, even though I act in this, I'm not focusing on my specific character. I'm focusing on what makes the story work. And the story does focus largely on two characters, Stan and Joe, and how one of them was passed up for promotion and the other one sort of got the job through nepotism, even though he's unqualified. So, in seeing the dynamic of the two having to work together, it's always kind of a fun thing to have conflict, as you know, conflict is always a good thing to have in all the scenes. Because if everyone's getting along, then it becomes boring.

So, the process for me was obviously, creating first and foremost, before you even do any jokes, what is the storyline for this? What is the main storyline? What do you have to achieve? And then you can take that same storyline and make it a horror movie, you can take it and make it a drama, but you just have a main storyline that you follow. And then when you're done following that, then you can add in the jokes in between all that and all the other things.

I kind of like the ticking time bomb situation where there's always something happening, or you always have to push the scene forward, you have to do something, you have to make a goal. And there's always got to be the conflict, like we talked about.

And then moving on to the directing process, then you put on a different hat. Whereas, you're focused on the angles and the shots that you're working on, and what you want to visually show while you're trying to tell the story, and what kind of lenses are you using. Because this is a mockumentary-type show, I wanted it to be very loosey goosey, which is very different than my other film projects where it's a lot more planned out.

And then obviously, for the acting process now that I focus on that character, I focus on what goes on there, but each is its own thing that you're kind of focused on, and then you obviously can go back and fix things. But yeah, that's my process in a roundabout way.

Sadie: What was the process like for you in finding and securing the right distribution channel for an independent show like this?

Brian: So, for the distribution process, I had done a pitch of this, and one of the studios was already interested in the show. I already knew that this had some possibilities. And because the cast came on board so willingly, and we're all hyped up for it, we ended up raising the finances shooting it independently. This is a reason why we're able to also talk, because we don't have the affiliation with the AMPTP. And so basically, from there, we ended up shooting all six episodes, I ended up editing the whole thing, and then pitched it around to different places, and we got some offers in. And so that's kind of how it kind of worked out or for getting the show up and going.

Sadie: That's incredible. What was that whole turnaround from development to post?

Brian: We shot it in December, and we ended up signing the deal right before the WGA strike happened. We did the short form agreement two weeks before the strike. And then one day before the strike, we did the long form agreement. So, we got everything done [laughs] that we needed to at the time. And then the reason why the actors are allowed to actually promote this is because we got a SAG waiver. So, we're openly allowed to talk about this and SAG said, ‘Please, by all means promote it,’ because we are giving the 11% of what the request is - we're agreeing to all of SAG’s terms. But in terms of the distribution, yeah, it was just a matter of getting it all done and locking it. This came incredibly fast. This was extremely fast from December until coming out on the eighth of September.

Sadie: Kudos to you and your work ethic and just getting things done. That’s a lot of heavy lifting. When in post, what are you looking at in terms of comedy, beats, jokes and how can you still see everything with a clear head when you’re so close to the material?

Brian: Well, one of the things is that we finished editing process quite a while ago. So, I was able to reach out to writer friends, and actor friends and get their opinions on each episode - I got notes down, and I was able to take a step back. It's interesting because even with me playing a character on this, I didn't look at myself as being me, I looked at it as the story as a whole in the editing process. And there would be scenes where I'd be like, ‘I'm cutting this…I'm cutting this…I'm cutting this.’ And I would be cutting too much of my character not even realizing or be thinking about reasons why. But it's been through the help of, I'd love to take full credit myself, but I had so much help from different people giving their two cents and that was my version of a test audience, if you want to call it that, is having different people take a look at it, seeing if the jokes hit. And you just never know 100% how it will hit or not hit, but you just have to kind of feel it and stay as close as you can to what your main vision is.

Sadie: Feedback and how you digest feedback is so important, definitely something a lot of creatives and writers have difficulty with. Having received notes from your quote unquote test audience, did you notice similar notes coming in on moments or jokes they’re bumping on or maybe differing opinions?

Brian: There were comments that some people gave or that everyone gave of the group. And when that happened, I would be like, ‘OK, this is obviously a problem,’ because everybody's giving the same comment on this. And then there are other comments that one person would not like, and another person would like, and so you have to use best judgment from there. But definitely, I absolutely listen. We ended up having to cut the episodes dramatically too. For the first episode, we cut around 10 to 12 minutes.

Sadie: Wow.

Brian: Yeah, because we wanted to make them 20 to 23 minutes long. But initially, before we knew where we were going to go, this is before we had locked distribution, they were over 30 minutes long. And so, we definitely cut them down a lot, which is probably going to make some people angry because their scenes are cut. But I mean, I cut a lot of my scenes out as well, I can.

It's one of those things where you definitely can't take it personally, or have to find a way not to take it personally, when a writer or somebody says, 'I don't get this,' because they're ultimately trying to help you. It's not against you. And it's a hard thing for us as writers to not get offended at first. But to take a step back and be like, 'Well, I like it, I'm sorry, you don't' or something like that. [laughs] You have to really take a step back and realize that these are also working professionals in the business. And they're pointing it out for a reason. And you have to take that into consideration.

Sadie: Do you typically write to direct?

Brian: No, I actually do a combination of everything. There's projects that I'm attached to, at least I was before the strikes, [laughs] that I was attached to that I'm just the writer for. Other ones I'm attached to as just the director, others I'm just attached to as a producer, others I'm attached to as just an actor and others, I'm attached to all four.

I didn't start out writing to direct. I wanted to be a director first and foremost. But I realized, and I kept learning from people I was speaking with that, in order to get your projects off the ground, you have to be able to write. And I had to really learn how to write, because I was very bad at writing at first when I started out, and I had to learn what a good script is, and do a lot of research and reading and everything, along those lines. So, I do a combination of everything, and you need to be able to do everything if you want to survive in this business financially, I feel.

Sadie: 100% yes, I totally agree on that. I know that you started out initially in visual effects, how much of that skill set has carried over into everything that you do from writing, directing, acting, and editing?

Brian: I'm known for starting in this industry in visual effects. But I actually started out doing storyboarding, I actually started out doing things like learning the film camera and doing photography. Everything I could to learn about the business of film, and the industry of film, along with watching so many films all the time and studying the best ones from all the great masters. Visual effects was a very important thing that I had to learn, because I wanted to understand how it worked in the business.

Now that I have an understanding of visual effects, I don't want to be in visual effects for a living, because if you know anything about a visual effects artist, you're working around the clock in that industry. And I just heard that they were talking about unionizing, finally in terms of with Disney and everything like that. So good for them on that whole situation. But the visual effects industry is really tough.

But you need to, if you want to survive and be a really good director, you have to be willing to learn in every area. Whether it's directing, editing - I worked as a professional editor, I worked as a creative director, I did everything I could to learn about the film business and trying to be on set as much as I could and watching other people work, and working with other directors until I started to feel more comfortable that I could do it. And my first film projects, I made a lot of mistakes, I had to learn along the way. And I'm still learning right now. Every new project that I do, I learn something new from somebody else. It's great. And I'm going to continue to learn, I hope.

Sadie: Yeah, I hope so too. It's all part of that development as storytellers. Were there any key takeaways from this project that you learned that you're going to carry with you on to your next project?

Brian: A lot of what I learned on this one is I learned improv dynamics. And I learned when you're acting in particular, you're seeing how it bounces off with one another. And it's kind of different for a serious crime drama, when you're saying the lines there, as opposed to comedy - comedy has to have timing. And I had some great help from my actors, to teach me some of those different things on what was working and what wasn't working just by us going around the room practicing and rehearsing it, and saying, 'Well, why don't we do it this way instead, because you can truncate this?' And I'd be like, 'Of course! That makes absolute sense.'

And that's one good thing is, is that us as writers, when we write long sentences, we obviously want to learn how to truncate it and make it shorter all the time, so it just gets to the point right away. And it was just a good reminder that you also do that in comedy to get to the punch line immediately. But I think even the process afterward was great just learning how to get the SAG waiver, learning to understand about the Writers Guild strike and the importance of that, which I'm a very big supporter of the strikes happening. I think that it's all very important in just keep trying to learn from all these experiences.

Underdeveloped premieres worldwide on Tubi on September 8, 2023.