No Sketch Group Is an Island

As a group we've been going on and off for a while now, but I'd probably say we've been seriously making things (like our weekly sketches) for a solid year. In a way I consider our effort to be about a year old. And that year has involved a hell of a lot of work. Getting something off the ground is extremely difficult. I always tend to correlate it to working on a band - starting a band is incredibly tough, getting other people to join your band once it's rolling is a little easier. As we've grown and developed our body of work, we now find ourselves desperately hungry for other people to work with.

These guys tried starting a sketch group for years. Genuinely found aeronautics easier

When you start making something like this, everything has to be done by you. It's like you've not earned enough credibility at this point for people to trust putting their time into the project, so at the very beginning, you have something to prove. This bit is a real uphill struggle and that hill is itself a learning curve. You want a cool design for the next transition? Cool, well I hope you can design things well, because if not, your choices are: A, it looks crappy. B. It is stolen (I mean sometimes it's both)

Even something painfully simple like this has to be designed because no program default lettering looks quiiiiiite right

Myself and Ben are ostensibly writers and performers, but in order to display those skills, we have to learn a whole host of different skills in order to get something even close to a finished product. I'll definitely have missed out some, so a small selection of what we've learned mostly through mistakes (and in no way mastered) includes: 

• Directing
• Video Editing
• Graphic Design
• Music Programs
• Lighting
• Song Writing
• Social media promotion
• Make Up
• DIY Special Effects
• Location Scouting
• Camera work
• How much of a pain literally all of this stuff is

Nothing in that list is funny. You can edit things in a certain way to emphasise timing, or an effect or a song can have a humourous outcome, but they're not jokes. Actual jokes. 99% of the work involved is just graft trying to make what you're doing even function let alone achieve the result you want. All those credits at the end of everything that is professionally made, that's because there are people, or whole teams of people, whose full time jobs it is to oversee even just one of these roles. And here we are just trying to sling it all together on the fly. I'm alright on the guitar. And I mean okay. But I knew exactly zero about music production, recording or the programs you use to create it all, and what you end up with is incredibly rough as a result.

When this was finished I was like. "Ah, it's perfect." The next day I listened again, and was like, no wait, wtf, of course it isn't

This now sounds a little bit like I'm complaining, but I'm not. (well maybe a bit). But a lot of that graft is actually really exciting and fun. It's a case of constantly encountering new challenges and going, oh man, how do we achieve that? Well let's find out quickly, cause it's literally just us doing it, and the deadline is in two days. But even when we do manage to work though a problem we've never encountered before, the result is usually less than perfect just because the given task is outside of our skill-set. So if you're reading this right now. We want you. Badly.

If you're somebody who likes making things, get in touch with us! We're actively looking for different people to collaborate with. 

Do you perform: "Finally sketches with more than 3 characters!"

Do you make music: "How well do you know the 5 chords?"

Know anything about film: You can definitely help us. Even if you just want to lend a hand.

Can you draw/design: We're honestly constantly looking for logos and funny transition stuff

Do you make balloon animals: I guarantee we will need something like this at one point

Honestly, whatever you do. If you're another sketch group up for a collab, a creative looking for other artists, or just a person who likes our stuff and wants to be involved at all; we are always looking for other people to work with. I can't count the amount of times I've needed a voice over for a sketch (and it can't be one of us) and I've had to just rope in my housemates to record something.

BUT WAIT WHAT ABOUT....

"Pay artists who do things for you." ~ Artists everywhere

Good point. 

We're looking for people at a similar level to us. We don't make any money from WMD and can't afford to pay anyone. One thing we can offer is a work exchange. We have a pretty decent camera/sound set up and are competent at using it. So in the past we have worked with other performers and in return come to their gigs and filmed their material for showreels or just to playback and learn. We also would be happy to lend a hand in any project you might have going on, that you think we would be useful for.

This for us is day one. Collaborating with other people is just yet another skill we are trying our hardest to get our heads around and this is the first step. An open call to anyone that is interested in doing stuff with us. Send us a message on facebook: Facebook(dot)com/wmdcomedy or an email: WMDcomedy(AT)gmail.com.

Here's an example of some work we did with our friend Jak from University last week. He just happened to be up, he's a comedian and writer and was well up for being involved in something very stupid:

Even if you just have a home, or office, or cool location and would happily invite us into it in exchange for beer/food/gratitude. I'm so so sick of filming in my damn living room.

Thank you