Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: All right, here we go stand by ex sound five
Speaker 2: four three two one road track.
Speaker 1: Hey, here's edition listeners. This is David Kabuka, a producer
Speaker 1: for The Daily Show. We are back with another exclusive
Speaker 1: behind the scenes conversation, and I am here talking to
Speaker 1: David Paul Mayer, the director of The Daily Show. One under.
Speaker 2: Move one ready, four move four tank stand by screen
Speaker 2: screens ready five move five tank ready, dissolved two and dissof.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for leaving the control room to join us.
Speaker 1: For sure, we are coworkers, colleagues, yes, but we have
Speaker 1: known each other for ten years. August two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and this is the first time. Wait, firstly, August two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, not to interject, Yeah, I wasn't paying
Speaker 1: attention to the date because you were just some white
Speaker 1: guy from a marriage.
Speaker 2: Yes, I remember it, you don't. I come to Johannesburg,
Speaker 2: South Africa, August two thousand and eight. I'm doing a
Speaker 2: documentary about stand up comedy in South Africa from my
Speaker 2: thesis at the University of Southern California. All of what
Speaker 2: I just said, you assumed I was lying. You guys
Speaker 2: were like we don't believe anything that he says, but
Speaker 2: he does have a camera, so let's see and you're
Speaker 2: told yes. So that's how I met you, and that's
Speaker 2: how I met Trevor. And I realized the last time
Speaker 2: we sat down and had a recorded interview was when
Speaker 2: I interviewed you for the documentary, and we used some
Speaker 2: of that in the documentary and it was quite good,
Speaker 2: and I was thinking, I'm going to get so much
Speaker 2: more with this guy. And then when I came back,
Speaker 2: you were like, no, it's fine. You were like, I
Speaker 2: give you that one interview and I did get some
Speaker 2: stuff from it, but you're like, no, forget me, follow
Speaker 2: Trevor instead. This is essentially what you said to me
Speaker 2: at lunch in Johannesburg. I'll never forget it. And in hindsight,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I took that advice for both of us.
Speaker 1: Yes, you were like, you.
Speaker 2: Don't want to follow me, follow Trevor around with your camera,
Speaker 2: and I did, and then the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Now we're back here working at the Daily Show for
Speaker 1: almost coming to ten years now close eight years. Dave
Speaker 1: is the director of the Daily Show. I said, now
Speaker 1: we're here to talk about your journey. Now, firstly, you
Speaker 1: did not study film as your first that's true, my
Speaker 1: first discipline. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I'm from North Carolina, very rural North Carolina. I
Speaker 2: grew up literally in front of a cornfield. Then I
Speaker 2: moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and I got a degree
Speaker 2: in computer science because I heard there was money there.
Speaker 1: But you always love film, I assume I always love
Speaker 1: the vision.
Speaker 2: You always love film and television, especially because where I
Speaker 2: grew up, Listen, there was a lot of rules around
Speaker 2: what you could watch and not watch because it was
Speaker 2: a very conservative area. Yes, so there was always this
Speaker 2: sort of like, oh, yeah, there's a little danger there.
Speaker 2: What's on the screen when you're watching soap operas and
Speaker 2: tough Yeah, it's crazy that you know that. It was
Speaker 2: the soap operas, yeah, because those are like You're like,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be some potentially PG thirteen sex in what
Speaker 2: I'm watching.
Speaker 1: I mean with that, it's almost like, you know, let
Speaker 1: the soap oper give me this it up. I'll use
Speaker 1: my imagic Yeah, to fill interest, because it doesn't take much.
Speaker 2: It does not take much. It doesn't take much to
Speaker 2: fill in the gap. So, yes, I did the computer
Speaker 2: science thing because you know, this is a responsible way to.
Speaker 1: Have a career. And it was difficult as well, very difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I did well.
Speaker 2: And I was working as a software developer at the
Speaker 2: software company in North Carolina. And then I had support
Speaker 2: from people I was close to at the time to
Speaker 2: just kind of like apply to film school. So I
Speaker 2: applied to the University of Southern California, a famous film
Speaker 2: school as well.
Speaker 1: Well. I went to uscisis some would say the top
Speaker 1: film school. We have listeners of from old schools, so
Speaker 1: we don't like too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I also have to you know, the usc
Speaker 2: people would expect me to say that, but so I'm
Speaker 2: we run a business. But yes, and I also understand
Speaker 2: I am in New York and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: NYU people there, so respect YU. You don't want people
Speaker 2: just switching it off now, Yeah, exactly, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Fair. So one of the top, one of the tops,
Speaker 1: I got accepted. I thought it was a mistake. Called them.
Speaker 2: They were like, yep, no, you really did get accepted.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this was two thousand and six, picked up
Speaker 2: my life, moved to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and eight, the beginning of my third year
Speaker 2: there is when I went to South Africa, met you
Speaker 2: and Trevor.
Speaker 1: You meet me and Trevor. He's just here doing a documentary.
Speaker 1: We don't believe you or not believe you. I mean
Speaker 1: you have equipment. Yes, I say, I'll give you one interview,
Speaker 1: but the real star is Trevor obviously. Yes, you follow Trevor.
Speaker 1: You do a documentary Township to the Stage, Yes, which
Speaker 1: we then renamed. You laugh, but it's true. But I
Speaker 1: love that you call it. That's very niche, right, you
Speaker 1: just said that. Yes, the original name one of those
Speaker 1: you're one of those g's, Yes, exactly, you laugh, but
Speaker 1: it's true. Was the name of it. Yeah, still out there.
Speaker 1: People can watch it. As someone who's only been doing
Speaker 1: comedy for just over two years, I think I'm very
Speaker 1: far from even calling myself a good comedian. I'm just
Speaker 1: okay for now.
Speaker 2: You can watch it on Where's it now? It's everywhere.
Speaker 2: You can watch it for free on YouTube even Oh
Speaker 2: really yeah great, so free?
Speaker 1: And you hit it? Yeah all right, great, you now form.
Speaker 1: Trevor's one of your best friends. This is a known fact,
Speaker 1: and you guys have this wonderful relationship. Yeah. He came
Speaker 1: he lived with you here. Yes, he asked me to
Speaker 1: direct his stand up special. You've directed all of them?
Speaker 1: How many? Like the one I did now in Detroit
Speaker 1: was the eleventh one eleventh stand up specials? You get
Speaker 1: you guys have had? He comes to the Daily Show.
Speaker 1: Then he's like, okay, cool, I gotta call my my boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah he called the Two Davids. Yeah, the Two Davids.
Speaker 1: Is I come through? Come through? And we came through.
Speaker 1: You come to the Daily Show? You work here as
Speaker 1: a first because you just start off as a director.
Speaker 2: Did not start off as director. I worked in what
Speaker 2: at the time was called the field department, So I
Speaker 2: was a field producer. That's where you you know, are
Speaker 2: those classic Daily Show pieces where the correspondents go out
Speaker 2: into the field and tell some new story with jokes essentially,
Speaker 2: And that's where I started because it was actually a
Speaker 2: perfect position for me, having come from a background off
Speaker 2: documentary and also doing a lot of comedy videos.
Speaker 1: What did you learn or what did you express?
Speaker 2: Let's say that that was my exposure to the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: The culture of the Daily Show, you know, the field
Speaker 2: and now they call it the packages team. Yes, but
Speaker 2: that is a very signature part of the daily shows.
Speaker 2: Fabric and culture, in my opinion, are these field pieces,
Speaker 2: because these are still things that you don't really see
Speaker 2: that prevalently anywhere else. So being thrown into that and
Speaker 2: working with all these legendary correspondents, yes, and working with
Speaker 2: a lot of the people here who'd been here for
Speaker 2: a long time, so like Tim Greenberg and Stu Miller,
Speaker 2: who both used to work at the show. They were
Speaker 2: sort of like my mentors when I started, and I
Speaker 2: really got to learn a lot about like what is directing,
Speaker 2: what a story telling? What is writing? What does comedy
Speaker 2: look like? Encapsulated into this thing where you also have
Speaker 2: to be the producer and the director, you have to
Speaker 2: learn how to work with all the other departments, You
Speaker 2: have to get to know everybody. It really gave me
Speaker 2: like a grasp, which I always believe, like with filmmaking,
Speaker 2: same thing with the documentary on Trevor, I was the
Speaker 2: director and the prouser. I did everything from asked Trevor
Speaker 2: questions for the documentary to booking the flights and the
Speaker 2: car rentals, and so it kind of taught me everything
Speaker 2: about creating good art or content whatever you want to
Speaker 2: call it.
Speaker 1: For this show. Yes, and just a question that popped
Speaker 1: into my mind. You were a huge fan of The
Speaker 1: Daily Show? Huge fan?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, A massive fan, A massive fan like I.
Speaker 2: When I was an undergrad doing computer science at NC
Speaker 2: State University, Go Wolfpack Cool. Ninety nine freshman year, a
Speaker 2: man called John Stewart took over the Daily Show. And remember,
Speaker 2: I'm coming from the conservative, rural North Carolina world that
Speaker 2: I came from, where TV and all these things are dangerous,
Speaker 2: and here's this guy on television telling jokes, poking holes
Speaker 2: in just like the whole like world that I had
Speaker 2: been brought up in, and like exposing the bullshit to
Speaker 2: use his term, And I was immediately compelled. I was
Speaker 2: a fan from the beginning, watching it in my dorm room.
Speaker 2: And then I remember where I was nine to eleven,
Speaker 2: and I remember seeing John. You know, I know that's
Speaker 2: he's not telling jokes there, but look we all remember
Speaker 2: his what he said. Yeah, we were watching it, and
Speaker 2: I was just like, man, this guy is the best.
Speaker 2: And I just like, I watched it every night. And
Speaker 2: then you know, Obama got elected and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: all our problems are over, so everything is solved. So
Speaker 2: I don't need to watch The Daily Show anymore. John,
Speaker 2: we don't have there's nothing more to talk about, right,
Speaker 2: And in fact, the Daily Show and John talking about
Speaker 2: comedy as catharsis was kind of like a through line
Speaker 2: that inspired me while I was making the documentary in
Speaker 2: South Africa, because obviously the parallel there was during a
Speaker 2: part time you didn't have comedians of color on stage,
Speaker 2: weren't black comedians on stage, and now that it had
Speaker 2: ended and you'd only had comedians on stage for like
Speaker 2: twelve years, maybe at that point when I came there
Speaker 2: was still very much this like cathartic through line of
Speaker 2: like we joke about all this heavy shit that happened
Speaker 2: in our history, and like that was informed, I would say,
Speaker 2: from watching The Daily Show and seeing oh, how you
Speaker 2: take comedy from tragedy these ideas like that, how does
Speaker 2: that work? And then on that trip in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, I said to Trevor, you know, I watched
Speaker 2: the show The Daily Show. You should watch you. She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've heard of it. I was like, nah, dude, you
Speaker 2: should watch it. I think you'd really like it. This
Speaker 2: is in two thousand first time we met. I was
Speaker 2: like you should watch the Daily Show, so imagine the
Speaker 2: full circle moment coming here. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy,
Speaker 2: it's unbelievable. It's crazy. It's truly unbelievable. I'll never win
Speaker 2: a lottery or anything like that because those series of
Speaker 2: events that led to this is the thing, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. The Daily Show very formative for me,
Speaker 2: working in the field team, very formative to me. Eventually
Speaker 2: moved into segment directing, which all that really meant was
Speaker 2: like I directed a lot of the scripted stuff, the
Speaker 2: sketches and things like that, and then the whole thing
Speaker 2: with the pandemic happening.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point, was you sort of took the helm,
Speaker 1: let's say, or eased your way into it, into being
Speaker 1: the director. Yes, during the pandemic, And a large part
Speaker 1: of it had to do with your computer science background.
Speaker 2: Computer science, my history with Trevor, my history making the document.
Speaker 2: All of these things that we've been speaking about led
Speaker 2: up to the moment where it's like, okay, pandemic, everything's
Speaker 2: shut down. We have no studio, we have no cameras,
Speaker 2: we have no audio, we have nothing. We have no
Speaker 2: way to make a television show. But Trevor from working
Speaker 2: with me and seeing the stuff that we had done
Speaker 2: just the two of them. He's like, well, you used
Speaker 2: to make the stuff when it was just you. Do
Speaker 2: you think you could do that in my house? Because
Speaker 2: I've known you at this point that was, you know,
Speaker 2: twelve years. I trust you in my home. Yes, would
Speaker 2: you be willing to help me make this show from
Speaker 2: my home? And I was like, yeah, of course, buddy,
Speaker 2: like this, we've been doing that. That is our history,
Speaker 2: and so we know each other, we have all the shorthand,
Speaker 2: so just that the sort of the one man banding
Speaker 2: it with Trevor that I had been doing for so
Speaker 2: long on so many projects, because we did not just
Speaker 2: stand up specials, but we did our own little sketch
Speaker 2: comedy stuff and all that stuff before I came to
Speaker 2: the show. All our history was what allowed us to
Speaker 2: work with him at his home and make the show
Speaker 2: from his home with just iPhones essentially, which I was.
Speaker 1: Fortunate enough to have been there basically as your assistant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I really saw how good you are with you
Speaker 1: with technology. I was like, completely amazed by your skill.
Speaker 1: It's quite mind blowing. So the pandemic happens, you make
Speaker 1: it one man banding. Yeah, I really it was.
Speaker 2: Two man banding because we were there. You just teld
Speaker 2: me to do stuff, go and get it. Yes, no,
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, maybe a little bit. Push this button here, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: hold this light. Yeah yeah, our in our little COVID
Speaker 2: bubble together. We shot that show for two years like that. Yes,
Speaker 2: with a team obviously, you know, coming in the zoo. Yes,
Speaker 2: if you zoom and we'd send the footage out. Chris
Speaker 2: Trevor had the best internet in the world. Yes, all right,
Speaker 2: we just need to take a short break. We'll be
Speaker 2: right back, ready.
Speaker 1: To dissolve, forma CG one and move forward. Dissolve. If
Speaker 1: you had to do a career day, yes, you know,
Speaker 1: and you go to the children, and then you have
Speaker 1: to explain what a director of the Daily show does.
Speaker 1: That's good. What would you say?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: I always think of my days kind of split up
Speaker 2: in the upstairs portion of my day and the downstairs
Speaker 2: portion of my day. Upstairs, we have writers, we have
Speaker 2: producers coming up with the creative. It always starts with
Speaker 2: the script, right, it starts, well, I guess at the show,
Speaker 2: it starts with the news of the day, the meeting
Speaker 2: where everybody's sitting around watching the news together, cracking jokes,
Speaker 2: a lot of free flowing creativity gems being thrown out,
Speaker 2: kind of like what's happening right here?
Speaker 1: Like what's happening yet? Dropping podcast gems podcast.
Speaker 2: So I'm maybe running like an hour and a half
Speaker 2: after the initial sort of creative meeting, and the writing
Speaker 2: starts maybe an hour and a half after that. Things
Speaker 2: start to come up. Hey, they want to have a
Speaker 2: conversation with the host and a correspondent. The host is
Speaker 2: at the desk, the correspondent is in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: So we have a green screen in our studio that
Speaker 2: allows us to place the correspondent anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: The magic of television, magic of television, and surprising, not surprisingly,
Speaker 2: this is a very funny person. By the way, guys,
Speaker 2: don't be fooled. Yeah, compared to now where I'm boring
Speaker 2: as shit. No, no, no, usually really pretty funny. No.
Speaker 1: The thing I want to say, the reason I'm saying
Speaker 1: that i'm a professional word, the reason I'm saying you're
Speaker 1: laying you're setting that I get it is because one
Speaker 1: thing I think that makes you so great with comedians. Yes,
Speaker 1: you yourself are a funny person. Fair enough and so
Speaker 1: to be in this you have your very intelligent that
Speaker 1: we know, but your sense of humor is what makes
Speaker 1: you makes you understand, at least from my own point
Speaker 1: of view, you like get it.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think I'm always trying to think visually,
Speaker 2: how can I execute this thing on the page visually
Speaker 2: in a funny way. Yes, that's always coming in. How
Speaker 2: do I talk to the to the producers making sure
Speaker 2: that we have those visuals. What are those conversations like
Speaker 2: of terms of like what would be a funny way
Speaker 2: to present this person in Washington, d C. Yes, we're
Speaker 2: always thinking about those in terms of the imagery of
Speaker 2: it for the show. Absolutely, there's a meeting. We look
Speaker 2: at the news. We then we sort of put the
Speaker 2: script together. You come in, you look at the script
Speaker 2: and turn this this script of words into a visual experience. Yes,
Speaker 2: so that starts off with a meeting with the show
Speaker 2: run and some of the other producers who work on
Speaker 2: the show from different apartments. This producer deals with the
Speaker 2: team that works on graphics. This is the producer who
Speaker 2: deals with like, we need a clip from Washington, DC
Speaker 2: that we can use as the background so it looks
Speaker 2: like they're there or whatever. This is the person who's
Speaker 2: the art director, who does props and wardrobe. If there's
Speaker 2: a bit with like we had a bit with Ronnie
Speaker 2: Chang where we had to get a stunt coordinator in
Speaker 2: here so that he could sit on this guy's shoulders
Speaker 2: and wear a big trench coat, the old trench code trick.
Speaker 2: What's your take on ron Desanta's using lists.
Speaker 1: I think it's pathetic.
Speaker 2: Charlamagne, all right, ron de Sanda doesn't needs to stop
Speaker 2: trying to pretend that he's one of us naturally tall guys.
Speaker 1: Ronnie, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: Oh, you want to do some something. No, I've always
Speaker 1: been this tall.
Speaker 2: People just think I'm short because I'm sweet and saut polkan,
Speaker 2: but I'm actually six ' eight. Just that one bit,
Speaker 2: it's like Ronnie's made to look by doing the trench
Speaker 2: code bit. There's a lot of pieces just to that.
Speaker 2: So it's like you got to be like, how are.
Speaker 1: We going to do that?
Speaker 2: Is he's sitting on a ladder, he's sitting a stool. No,
Speaker 2: let's get a stunt coordinator so it really looks like
Speaker 2: he's a weirdly tall person. All these conversations all happening
Speaker 2: at once, and you have to learn how to multitask, yes,
Speaker 2: and you have to learn to talk about a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of different people, and you have to really, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, learn to help empower them to do the thing.
Speaker 2: It's not about you doing all those things. It's about
Speaker 2: you having communicating and same paging a lot of people honestly, yes,
Speaker 2: and then letting them run with those things. And then
Speaker 2: you know, it all comes together and we get to
Speaker 2: execute the script and then I get to put director
Speaker 2: on it and like take credit for all these other
Speaker 2: people's hard work.
Speaker 1: But wait, but it's a joke. But like the show
Speaker 1: is the full staff, Yes, it really is. Meeting one,
Speaker 1: we come up with the script for the listeners out
Speaker 1: this simple We do this script Meeting two, you and
Speaker 1: the show run and a hold on departments. Turn this
Speaker 1: script that is still being written, by the way, Yes,
Speaker 1: you turn this script into a visual experience. Ben, you
Speaker 1: go with downstairs. So that was all upstairs talks. Now
Speaker 1: now we're going downstairs. Now I go into the control room, yes,
Speaker 1: And I go into the studio floor and that's where
Speaker 1: the crew is. And we have the best crew in
Speaker 1: the business bar. None every position are highly trained specialists.
Speaker 1: We're also very funny people, by the way, and great
Speaker 1: at everything from shooting the perfect shot, lighting the perfect shot,
Speaker 1: making sure the audio is perfect on the shot. And
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, here's the script with all these
Speaker 1: visual elements we've discussed downstairs. Let's start looking at them,
Speaker 1: Let's start rehearsing them, blocking them. Making blocking just means
Speaker 1: like let's do the thing, not for real, but like
Speaker 1: let's practice it, practice it. Essentially, let's practice this stuff,
Speaker 1: practice practice. Let's communicate all these things. And so they're
Speaker 1: all working.
Speaker 2: All the people out on the studio floor, camera operators,
Speaker 2: lighting audio, all the people in the audio room, all
Speaker 2: the people in the control room, the guy operating the
Speaker 2: switcher that's switching between cameras, the teleprompter, the person who's
Speaker 2: hitting making sure that the graphics are being hit at
Speaker 2: the time that they need to be hit based on
Speaker 2: me queueing them to hit it. Yes, we're all working together.
Speaker 2: Now we have the script and we start practicing this stuff.
Speaker 2: Matt on your one, two, three fourth shot, I like
Speaker 2: how you start with the audience, but then you need
Speaker 2: to come around the other way. If you come around
Speaker 2: then I think you'll be out of phil shot. That's
Speaker 2: the other reason not to get to stay back there. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm ready to do one more. Is anybody what George?
Speaker 2: You had something?
Speaker 3: I was just telling you that. We asked for people
Speaker 3: and Benny to care, but they moved like the upright
Speaker 3: part of the mic standoff to the side so that
Speaker 3: it booms a little wait, you know, just on the
Speaker 3: straight on. It's not like a line through.
Speaker 2: It looks good.
Speaker 1: So you start practicing. Then we have a rehearsal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do the rehearsal and we go through all
Speaker 2: that stuff that the script, the visual elements, the practicing
Speaker 2: of it comes together in rehearsal. We look, we see it.
Speaker 2: We're all sort of doing a run through of the
Speaker 2: show together to see how how does this feel? How
Speaker 2: does this feel?
Speaker 1: Road track moved to insert the ots.
Speaker 3: Yes, change across the country and Democrats had been more
Speaker 3: nervous than Justice standby with Sound's memoir.
Speaker 1: Well, last night they got some good news. Tech. I
Speaker 1: thought that opened looked good.
Speaker 2: I think Jet My only wonders if you want to
Speaker 2: once you get all the way across, if you want
Speaker 2: to move and we get a feeling for it, and
Speaker 2: then obviously writers then have their process where they go
Speaker 2: and work on the script of the host, and we
Speaker 2: also rework our stuff too.
Speaker 1: Oh that shot didn't work. It's funnier if we cut
Speaker 1: from this camera to this camera.
Speaker 2: Actually a lot of it's technical, but also a lot
Speaker 2: of it's creative, you know, Like we had a thing
Speaker 2: where Ronnie was on location somewhere and then we wanted
Speaker 2: to change the background to an American flag waving with
Speaker 2: music playing. That's a comedic thing, but and it seems like, oh,
Speaker 2: that'll just be funny, but it's like, no, how long
Speaker 2: is that transition? How long is the fade from where
Speaker 2: he was standing to the flag coming up to the music?
Speaker 2: You know, it's just be a half second, one second,
Speaker 2: three second. We try to figure out what's the best
Speaker 2: way to make sure that visually we're executing the bits
Speaker 2: so that it is as funny and as impactful as possible.
Speaker 2: So we're continuing that as the script is being rewritten.
Speaker 2: Sometimes new things come up that haven't even been on
Speaker 2: the show, and then you just kind of have to
Speaker 2: like trust that, like doing this every single day makes
Speaker 2: you in a place where you can roll with these
Speaker 2: last minute changes, you know what I mean. So, like
Speaker 2: as they come up, it's like, you know what, they
Speaker 2: had to kill that story and add this one.
Speaker 1: What's in it?
Speaker 2: Okay, this graphic of this, Oh, they're gonna do this,
Speaker 2: And a lot of times we're like, let's get it
Speaker 2: the best way. We're not gonna have trance to rehearse it.
Speaker 2: It's just going to be performed for the first time
Speaker 2: in the show. But there's patterns of like how you
Speaker 2: prepare and how you practice that make you able to
Speaker 2: roll with the changes when the show is actually happening.
Speaker 2: What are you doing I'm eight years old. When the
Speaker 2: show is actually happening, what are you doing? So again,
Speaker 2: we have thirtyish people on the show. Each one is
Speaker 2: rare to do their job and they do it better
Speaker 2: than anybody else in the business. But they need someone
Speaker 2: queueing them or telling you basically go go go. So
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways during the show, I'm queuing,
Speaker 2: so I'm saying ready camera two, Take camera two, which
Speaker 2: means ready camera two, you're about to be We're about
Speaker 2: to be using your camera shot. And then when I
Speaker 2: say take camera two, that means punch the button that
Speaker 2: puts his camera online. You're sort of like a coach
Speaker 2: colling place. Yes, I'm like the quarterback calling the plays. Now,
Speaker 2: you know blue fifty two, hut hut top your stuff.
Speaker 1: The problem change stand by loose.
Speaker 3: The problem is actually the phrase pro.
Speaker 2: Life animate off center, Ready effects move, Let's go live to.
Speaker 1: The Ohio State House with Grace Coolie. Ready boxes take.
Speaker 1: So do you have a visual idea of what the
Speaker 1: script is? Yes, I'm iving your mind very much, so,
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 2: So. What I've learned with with with directing is you
Speaker 2: have to trust the image in your head. Okay, you
Speaker 2: have to see the thing playing out in your head,
Speaker 2: and you have to, as best you can in the moment,
Speaker 2: execute that thing that's in your head.
Speaker 1: You have to be very.
Speaker 2: Present to your own sensibility of comedy to execute it
Speaker 2: at the time, but also be present to the sensibility
Speaker 2: of the host who's performing it. So I had the
Speaker 2: shorthand with Trevor. I've done a specials, I've edited his comedy.
Speaker 1: I've done all of that so much.
Speaker 2: And the key to doing all of this is you
Speaker 2: really once you're doing the show, now, taping the show
Speaker 2: in front of a studio audience, the key is we
Speaker 2: follow the host's lead.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's what I do.
Speaker 2: I follow the host's lead. And by doing that with
Speaker 2: fIF you know, for so many years with Trevor, it
Speaker 2: became very easy, came second nature. Now we have hosts
Speaker 2: coming in every week who have their own history, have
Speaker 2: their own background in comedy or whatever, who have their
Speaker 2: own style of performing and very little time. So the
Speaker 2: big way my job has changed from when Trevor was
Speaker 2: on the show to these guests host is now I
Speaker 2: have a very small amount of time to try to
Speaker 2: get in because you're following your own sensibilities, but even
Speaker 2: more so, you're following the host's sensibility and their performance
Speaker 2: and their rhythm. And how do I wrap my head
Speaker 2: around the host's performance style to make sure that we're
Speaker 2: hitting the jokes in the way that feels true to
Speaker 2: the host.
Speaker 1: Right. So that's this challenge.
Speaker 2: And before we started doing the guest host Jen had
Speaker 2: the idea of, like, let's break down all of our
Speaker 2: processes through the day and really rethink what we do,
Speaker 2: when we do it and why we do it. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that came out of it was
Speaker 2: we should do a run through at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the week in the studio where we have a test
Speaker 2: script where we kind of go through all the examples
Speaker 2: of all the different visual things that we can do
Speaker 2: on the show. We put it into a test script.
Speaker 2: We have this person who's there for a week come
Speaker 2: down and run through it in the studio, and it's
Speaker 2: only maybe thirty forty five minutes, but it really gives
Speaker 2: me like a heads up. It gives me a feel of, oh,
Speaker 2: this is how they are. This is how they retele aprompter,
Speaker 2: this is how they look, this is how they smile,
Speaker 2: this is how they move their body or whatever to
Speaker 2: make a punctuline. I start studying and absorbing, and really
Speaker 2: a lot of it is shutting up and listening and
Speaker 2: watching and observing the host and then taking that into
Speaker 2: the rest of the week.
Speaker 1: Also, a wonderful thing we do is we do music. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, which is which doesn't seem like an obvious
Speaker 1: quote unquote fit for a political satire show, right, But
Speaker 1: every now and then we get we get a musical performance,
Speaker 1: and you really have taken those to another level. Didn't
Speaker 1: Brandy Carlisle get some nomination?
Speaker 2: We got a nomination, I got a Director's Guild nomination
Speaker 2: off of the episode where she came and did a
Speaker 2: performance of the music.
Speaker 1: Yes, So I mean so you know and music is
Speaker 1: close to your heart. Yes, So how do you tackle that?
Speaker 2: So music is a beautiful thing, and like, yeah, it
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily make sense when you think New satire, but
Speaker 2: when you think Late Night, which we're kind of both,
Speaker 2: it does make sense sometime. It's like a fun thing.
Speaker 2: Especially if the guests that you have on is a musician,
Speaker 2: then it kind of makes sense. Yeah, let's have him
Speaker 2: perform the song. So the thing that I love about
Speaker 2: doing mus us because it does give me a different
Speaker 2: experience from the general day to day of making the show,
Speaker 2: and that is we get to collaborate with artists outside
Speaker 2: the show, and each artist is different. Some of them
Speaker 2: are kind of like they're just like I'm going to
Speaker 2: perform the song like this and that's it. Whatever the
Speaker 2: visuals are, that's fine. In the case of Margot Price,
Speaker 2: she had some ideas and so I took that and
Speaker 2: then I pitched to her some visuals and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I love it. I did have one pitch because I
Speaker 2: watched the live performance of it that you did at
Speaker 2: the church. There was a moment and if I think
Speaker 2: it's actually the last lyric you looked into the camera, okay,
Speaker 2: And so I'm pitching that as like at some point
Speaker 2: in that line for you to feel it, it would
Speaker 2: be the one that's pretty much right in front of you. Benny,
Speaker 2: our stage manager who's on the floor, will show you.
Speaker 2: But that's I'm just pitching like if you feel it,
Speaker 2: like look into the camera for that line. You're working
Speaker 2: with artists and their teams, and then I'm working a
Speaker 2: lot with our assistant director Adrian to break down the
Speaker 2: song so that we're sort of counting out the song,
Speaker 2: the rhythm of the song as I'm directing, So there's
Speaker 2: sort of like we're kind of singing in the control
Speaker 2: room almost as I'm queuing cameras. In a way, there's
Speaker 2: like a cadence to it, right because on the one hand,
Speaker 2: the one is sort of your following a script and
Speaker 2: you're just sort of like hitting making sure you're hitting
Speaker 2: the jokes that had already written with the music. You
Speaker 2: really get to sort of delve into a lot of
Speaker 2: My background in filmmaking was in like narrative filmmaking, working
Speaker 2: on set, not necessarily in a control room. This lets
Speaker 2: me do a little bit of that, and that I'm
Speaker 2: sort of sitting down, I'm watching this song I'm writing.
Speaker 2: I'm coming up with a shot list beforehand, based on
Speaker 2: a creative pitch for it. I work with our lighting
Speaker 2: designer George a lot on those, and we come up
Speaker 2: with We get to have these creative conversations about how
Speaker 2: do we want to show this song being performed? What's
Speaker 2: the lighting, what's the imagery?
Speaker 3: So what I'll do is I won't bring up the
Speaker 3: key lights there. I'll wait till it until she starts
Speaker 3: singing reading the key lights, and now lights go. The
Speaker 3: second HUO that I had was bringing up those beams
Speaker 3: behind her she started singing.
Speaker 2: But if you want all that to come up when
Speaker 2: you starts singing, I would say, actually, because she's gonna
Speaker 2: do harmonica at the top.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess we have to have her lit somewhat
Speaker 1: so we see what's going on? Should we try another
Speaker 1: run through? Here? Does she want to do one?
Speaker 2: All?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Here we go, Okay, let's go to Silhwett please and
Speaker 3: stand by lights.
Speaker 2: It's its whole separate thing. And then you're working with
Speaker 2: the with the artists and their team and you're working
Speaker 2: with the camera operators, and it's it's all very compressed
Speaker 2: into a very tight timeline, and you're already trying to
Speaker 2: make the rest of the show on the same day.
Speaker 2: So it's definitely like a special sort of deviation. But
Speaker 2: I love it because it unlocks even more creativity. Ladies
Speaker 2: and gentlemen, this has been David Pool Maya, thank you,
Speaker 2: he's cold. He got a nickname when he got your
Speaker 2: DPM DPM if one calds him depa. They were like,
Speaker 2: that's too many words. It's a little too extra. You
Speaker 2: go and buy three names. So we're going to shorten
Speaker 2: agen our showrunner game yet and it has stuck better
Speaker 2: than any nickname I've ever had.
Speaker 1: DPNPM and I will say that you are a perfect,
Speaker 1: perfect director for a show called The Daily Show. That's
Speaker 1: very kind of you, David, And it was a pleasure
Speaker 1: sitting with you. Thank you, wonderful pleasure.
Speaker 2: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 2: searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 2: Ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime
Speaker 2: on Fairmount Plus.
Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcastow