Production Notes for ‘Know Your Meme: Yo Dawg’
{yo,sup} dawg, I heard you like X, so I put an X in your Y so you can VERB(x) while you VERB(y)
We went through several iterations of this script until I had an a-ha moment the day before the shoot and wrote a Know Your Meme episode inside of the Know Your Meme episode. Chris Menning and I had two long days of scriptwriting including conversations about the work of Kurt Godel, Lewis Carroll, and simple call stacks.
After the basic format was set, Jamie and I went to work on rewriting the script as pseudomath (great idea, Jamie), logically correct but more entertaining than educational. Although the episode clocks in at 3:26, it’s one of our shorter scripts (on paper.) Slowing the story down through mid-tempo beats and montage breaks help make the intricacies of the meme easier to grok with a single glance. Using music beds to set up the punchlines helped deliver jokes that would have gone unnoticed otherwise.
I’m very proud of the work we did on this episode. As Jamie noted in a conversation today, the show is getting tighter. I still would love to have better props and a real set (we shoot each episode in the Rocketboom office, causing a bit of disruption to the workday) but the stories are good and the characters fun to work with.
Written by Chris Menning, Jamie, and I. Research by Chris and Jamie. Hosted by Jamie (and a cameo by me.) Shot by Barry Pousman. Edited by Barry and Andrew Kornhaber.
Related: Andrew has a nice write-up about how the series fits into the larger Rocketboom Universe. One day we’ll have to do a more formal ‘About’ page on kym.com
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