Weekly Write Up: Goth Ghost Music Review and A Beginners Guide to Reddit

*NB- I wrote this last week and forgot to post it! So here it is:

So, this week we learned some beginner lessons in Reddit-ing, and released our most recent Friday sketch, which was specifically made for Halloween:

We really enjoyed filming this one. As much as filming inside one of our homes is fun and all, I'm always much happier with a sketch we shoot on location, and fortunately York has no shortage of old stone graveyards. Unfortunately it meant our lighting and audio took a slight hit, but I think the setting of a vlog parody suits the guerrilla style.

We came up with this idea originally to film with one person, as that week was proving difficult in terms of travel. However, as the sketch evolved, it necessitated multiple characters, and of course the graveyard setting. Originally it was going to be a ghost telling a ghost story about how scary living people are (hence the line about the undead being the living), but it was difficult to find a direction to take it in. At one point we even considered returning to fan-favourite character Mr Harrison; since he is dead in his only appearance, the only way to revisit him is when he is a ghost:

This was also the first week when we have delved into the dizzying world of Reddit. As someone who has never really used Reddit, or indeed any forum, on any regular basis, it was an intimidating prospect, but also one I knew could be an excellent way of reaching a new audience. After speaking with my good friend Jak (of "It's Jak!" sketch fame, found here, as well runner of the excellent 103 Percent Complete Blog, found here), I have put together my top 3 tips for the new Reddit user:

1. Read, Don't Write

As you would expect with forums, people tend to rush there when they have something to say, and scroll through in a bored way when they want something to read. As such, the best thing you can do is find a subreddit you are interested (for example, comedy writing) and then spend some time reading through what people post and, perhaps most crucially, what people upvote. It might sound cynical, but this form of market research means you can not only maximise the payoff from your efforts but also not annoy people but spamming or posting unwanted content.

2: Match Your Content

Finding an audience who are genuinely going to be interested in what you do is vital. We are always of the opinion that it is more valuable to have an engaged and interested viewer than 10 who will watch ten seconds of what we do and then get bored and leave. Therefore, once you have done your reading research, picking the key sub-Reddits to hit will make a big difference. For example, for our Goth sketch, we hit Halloween, Goth, Comedy Writing and Sketch Comedy.

3: Have a slick product

The last part of making a successful pitch on Reddit is making sure what you put out is of a quality you are happy with. This is not necessarily the same as being of the highest quality; after all, you may be limited by time, production quality, resources, experience etc. The main thing is making sure what you put out matches your target quality for that moment. When we started putting out weekly sketches nearly a year ago our standards were a lot lower than they are now, and will likely be a lot higher this time next year. Remember; just because something is of a low quality doesn't mean it shouldn't be shared, but something of a lower quality than are happy with shouldn't be put out there.

- Ben

Weekly Write Up: It's Jak! and Impersonating Robert Smith

So last week we put up a sketch simply entitled "It's Jak!"

This was a sketch that we shot at very short notice, which wasn't too much to our detriment, given the fact it is a very low tech sketch. In fact, we shot it at such short notice it was literally a case of Tom walking through my door and saying "Right, since we've got Jak, here's a sketch about him".

Unfortunately Ryan was unable to film this one with us, which would have made things even weirder, but we made sure to get Ryan in some of the flashbacks to compensate. We also worried that it would look silly having Jak blatantly in different rooms during the flashbacks, but then realised that the idea of him being there all along is stupid enough to carry through, and is in fact amplified by him being in different places. Also, fun fact; Jak bought that t-shirt specifically for this sketch! Well, sort of.

In terms of structure, "It's Jak" has some very silly jokes, but if we had spent more time on the script might have some more solid lines. I think the idea and the execution are solid, but the dialogue is sometimes a little functional. The lack of a proper punchline (settling for the ridiculous anti joke "He's gone bowling") does let the sketch down a bit, though I think the twist of having Jak's name appear at the end instead of the usual WMD sting is nice.

Ultimately I think this is a sketch that is funny if you watch a lot of our sketches, particularly if you go back as far as "Moustache Intervention", but isn't the most welcoming sketch for newcomers. Thankfully, I think we will balance that out with our next sketch, which is our first proper holiday special sketch. We decided to shoot a Halloween sketch about a goth in a graveyard, which I think will go down well for this time of the year. It's one of our most visually distinct sketches and features Tom doing his best Robert Smith. In the meantime, here is the only other time-dependent sketch we did, this one being about the referendum:

- Ben

Weekly Write Up: Skype Etiquette and Upcoming Guest Star

So last week we released one of more "internet culture"-based sketches, focusing on how people interact on Skype, as well as how people probably don't interact on Skype. If you haven't seen it, it can be found here:

I hope this is a sketch people can identify with. We have been toying for a while with the idea of doing a sketch base d around a phonecall, but we felt there was more that could be done with Skype due to the character s  being able to interact visually. I also think there is something funny about characters speaking over video but still treating it as if it's over the phone, hence the joke about being on hold. I always imagine when I am put on hold the person I am speaking to is just having a break from talking to me to do something more interesting for a few minutes. To be honest, I wish we could introduce a face to face variant (actually, I've remembered that we already have smart phones).


It's probably also telling that at the moment I spend a lot of time dealing with external phonecalls, and that may have influenced the topic of needlessly bad customer service. I also know that if I were to encounter anything like that I would respond exactly how Ryan's character does and go along with it out of politeness, as I would sooner suffer in silence that challenge someone. Britishness for the win.


The ending was an example of "hmm, this sketch doesn't have a particularly funny ending". We often joke about how incongruous some of our sketch endings are, and whilst this isn't the worst offender I'd probably put it in the top 5. The most ridiculous by far is in "Subliminal Swearing":

Coming up this Friday we have a very exciting special guest star. I can't really say more without giving away too much of the sketch, but let's just say it'll change your entire perception of WMD this far.

- Ben