This Day Sucks. Right?

This Day Sucks, a web series that may, shockingly, be a dude who's day was worse than yours.

These episodes follow around office workers, day to day, and even goes home with one of them.

Episode two, which starts off with a car crash and ends up with drama, is a fun office comedy.


This Day Sucks Episode 2 - 'The Hot Intern' from This Day Sucks on Vimeo.

Tom Schilz chatted with me about the process a little while back.

When developing the series what were some of the biggest issues you faced?Our biggest issue in the developmental stage was really creating the characters and the concept of the show.  We had the idea that we wanted to make a series and we wanted to base it off of some recent misadventures and wild nights out in New York City.  Then we faced the challenge of how to mold a few funny stories into a show, with interesting characters, that people would enjoy and truly become invested in.  We decided to base the two male lead characters off of ourselves, taking our more quirky traits and really pushing them over the top.  It would be much more relatable for us and real life is often the best source of inspiration, so we wanted to keep it close to home.
With that in mind we decided to go with Rudy and Rayzor as our two leads.  Rudy is a sensitive, ‘typical’ guy, looking for love and working for the man.  His counterpart is Rayzor, a much wilder and freer soul who loves weapons.  We didn’t want an Odd Couple of polar opposites, just two diverse friends with different outlooks on love and life, but also a very tight friendship.We knew the show would have to take place in New York City and really wanted to make the city a character in itself.  So much can and only does happen in the Big Apple.  Of course we wanted to create female leads as well and wanted to bring a female perspective to the series.  Since women find us creepy and we have few female friends we created 2 characters from scratch.  We created Brooke and Devon to mirror the virgin and the whore dichotomy, just not as extreme.  We wanted Devon to be a close friend of Rudy’s and have some conflict with Rayzor.  We also wanted Brooke, literally the “girl next door”, to become Rudy’s love interest. Next, we wanted an antagonist.  A comical, yet irritating fellow who could rival the good natured Rudy- so we created Nigel from our own imagination.  We blended in real life traits from our own friends and enemies into a Frankenstein of oddball traits.  We had the main cast!We also took into account how the real world works and chose to not introduce many of these characters until down the line.  As if the viewer is a ‘friend’ in this world and you don’t meet everyone all at once in the same day.
The fact that we’re in our mid-20s, playing people in their mid-20s and dealing with the dating, working, and the social scene was a real hook for us and something we thought hadn’t been done before.  Plus, we wanted to bring the spin to it that a lot of the time, things just don’t work out.  You’re not where you want to be, with who you want, or have the job you want.  A lot of people are unhappy with their current status.  We figured it’s relatable to everyone at some point in their lives and what better way to deal with it than by turning these circumstances into comedy.
With everything in place we thought we had developed a unique show, with a unique voice, and comedic style that would really appeal to a vast audience.  If nothing else at least I had finally found a hobby.

How much in advance to shooting was everything written?
Almost everything is scripted out in advance.  Initially, we wrote out a loose arc of season one consisting of 10 episodes and a quick break down of what would happen in each episode.  We then started with episode one, obviously, and wrote out a full script.  The script for episode one was done (so we thought) about three months prior to the first day of shooting. As we began to really produce the initial episode we realized we may have been a bit lofty with our ideas and what we could realistically accomplish.  Tracking down certain props, permission to shoot in locations, and a limited budget really hit us when we wanted to turn our first script into an actual shoot.  We took it in stride and re-wrote a majority of the episode so it would be easier and more efficient to shoot. 
We took what we learned and applied it to writing the script for episode two, The Hot Intern, which went much smoother and was a lot more realistic as to what we could do.  This episode was written only about a week before filming began and made for a much quicker and concise shoot.  We also were able to do it with only three locations.
Even though we invest so much time on scripts we don’t always stick to them word-for-word and always leave room for improv.  Some of our best moments from the series come from on-the-fly adlibs or impromptu reactions during a scene.  If things stay loose and actors can get a genuine rise out of each other, the audience can sense it and the fun we’re having will translate on screen. As long as it’s funny we’re all about it, so even though we spend a lot of time writing and nailing down ideal scripts, once the cameras are rolling we don’t lock ourselves into them.
Was the season arc-ed out before hand, or was it an episode-to-episode basis?
It became a combination of the two.  We started developing the concept, tone, and characters for the series almost a year before we ever started filming.  We sat down and arc-ed out all the major events and storylines we wanted to happen in season one.  As mentioned, we hit a lot of snags when it came to actually shooting exactly what we had written, so we had to make a lot of changes and tweaks.  Now we do have a general arc for the main thread and driving storyline for season one, but a very loose episode-to-episode structure when it comes to sub-plots.  We have notes for each episode, but will write out an individual script and make sure we stay true to where we want the series to be.
What were some of the things you’ve learned since the pilot episode?
The main thing we’ve learned is to embrace the challenges of shooting with a low-budget or no budget.  We based a majority of the series off our own real life events and our love of alcohol has a lot of these scenes taking place in packed bars and restaurants.  When it comes time to shoot we need permission from these bars and then have to try and fill the place with extras-mainly friends who can come out and drink at 8am while the bar is closed.  Although our ideal scenarios may include a car chase or a scene on top of the empire state building we’ve learned that our “vision” may not come to fruition, but it doesn’t have to negatively impact the show.  In the end it’s the characters and story that will hook viewers, not grandiose effects or car chases.  Everything is out of pocket for us from equipment, to props, travel, tape stock, hard drives, etc.
In the end it’s not really about the money – it’s about the funny.  We have good laughs making the show and others enjoy watching the series just as much.  It’s even become fun to figure out ways we can get the same point across or make the same joke, just on a much smaller scale.  We’ve learned to be able to work with our limited funds and still put out a quality series that we can be proud of and makes people laugh.
Another thing we learned was how critical the run time of an episode is.  20 minutes might be great for television, but it won’t fly on the internet.  People want to watch and laugh, get in and get out.  Sure people can and do watch full episodes of their favorite shows on different websites, but that’s because they already like them and know they’re guaranteed entertainment.  Being a brand new web series we don’t have that luxury and need to keep our shows quick and jam-packed with funny.  The script for episode one was about 12 pages, but after assembling everything we shot it ran almost 20 minutes.  Way too long to keep our viewers’ attention- so we had to do a lot of editing and cut out any unnecessary scenes.  We’ve already taken this into account when writing episode two and now try to always aim for a target run time of 8-12 minutes.  Enough time to get into some detail in the episode and allow character and plot development, but also ensure we keep our viewers glued to their monitor.
What was the production schedule like?

The production schedule can be pretty crazy for us.  We shoot everything on location in New York City, usually without permission.  On average we will have long shooting days anywhere from 8-12 hours.  We also find ourselves at the whim of anyone willing to help us out.  In episode one we shot at a local watering hole we love and the owners said we could get in from 7am until 10 am.  We were up late the previous night shooting some babysitting scenes, but were still there early to shoot Rudy and The Girl on the date.  In those cases whenever we get permission to use a place, regardless of how inconvenient the hours might be, we’re always thankful and make sure to make the best use of our time there.
What were some of the snags that were found?
One big snag for us was scheduling.  We all work full time jobs leaving only nights and weekends to film.  We’re a small crew of five guys with Pat and me usually on camera as Rudy and Rayzor.  We need one of us behind the camera and another to operate the boom mic, so it get’s tough if two or more of us are unavailable.  Mind you we have had to multi-task, booming a scene and running camera simultaneously, but we try to get the core group together to facilitate production.Another major snag we’ve hit is using our friends in the cast.  As stated we don’t have much dough for the show so we usually hit up our friends for various roles and pay them in pizza and beer.  It works great a lot of the time and usually we have a good idea of who would fit what role.  On the flipside, we find it’s a lot easier for a friend to bail on you at the last minute or go M.I.A., where a real actor would be more committed and professional.  It gets tough because although we take the show seriously and now have two episodes out, a lot of our friends thought it was just a “funny movie” we were making and no big deal if they show up later and can’t do it today.  A lot goes into getting all the gear, setting up lighting, etc., and nothing was a bigger pain then when we all locked up a date, time, and place, got the gear and then had a friend tell us they couldn’t shoot.
This often made me want to shoot my friend.
 What kind of crew do you use to make a webisode?
As mentioned we’re a small, tight crew. The core group of This Day Sucks is made up of myself, Pat, Tim, Kyle L. and Kyle B. Pat and I are usually the main writers and portray the main characters.  We then have three other friends, Tim and the Kyles, who will rotate between camera operator, boom mic operator,  etc.  We all have our say and input on everything taking place in front of and behind the camera and all have a lot of production experience.  It comes in handy that we’re all versatile in what crew roles we can film.   Similarly we all take turns when it comes to editing the show and will usually take shifts or break up the episodes to expedite the process before coming together for a group ‘final master mix’ of an episode.
We also have our own musical composer who creates all the original music for This Day Sucks.

What does the web exist as for you?
To us it’s our medium to get our content to the world.  We’ve gotten great feedback from fans and even met people and made new friends who have seen the series.  We have fans from many different countries and of all different ages and a large part of that is thanks to the internet. We just launched and are only two episodes in, yet are already entering some festivals and creating a loyal following.  The good thing about the internet is that anyone can use it, and we have no real barriers or censorship.  We get to call all the shots and have complete control over every part of the series.  Nothing is better than creative freedom and the web gives us that.  We don’t need to answer to anyone or have outside pressures on when the show is due, what is acceptable, etc.

Monetization? How does it work for you?
We’re a brand new series, so thus far we haven’t had the chance to really make any cash.  We’re hoping that as we continue to enter festivals, produce episodes, and generate more and more buss for the show, that we’ll have more opportunities to partner up with sponsors and begin to generate revenue.  It seems to me that internet series’ and web television is the wave of the future and more and more TV/Film producers and production companies are starting to take notice of that.  Hopefully, one day This Day Sucks will be able to get some financial backing to ease some of the burden on our side or maybe even get picked up and become something bigger.