I think it was 1995. I’d graduated secondary school, and took a year out before I went to drama school. Didn’t get the predicted grades I wanted to go to Manchester University which was my first choice. My comedy heroes Ben Elton, Rick Mayall, and Adrian Edmondson My friend Simon, who worked in our local …
Category: Filmmaking
Jun 14
What French Filmmaker Jacques Tati Taught Me About Film
I saw Mon Oncle for the first time in Sweden in 1999. I bought it on video. I’ve since seen Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Playtime. I’ll be honest, it took me a while to get into Tati’s movies. I think he’s an acquired taste. From what I read, he shot his films silently …
Jun 11
That One Time 49 People Thought I Was Having a Breakdown
In 2005, I was experimenting with character monologues instead of just stand-up. I wanted to draw more from my background in theatre. My solo show Please Stop Trying To Kill Me, Dad was more along the lines of stand-up theatre or stand-up storytelling. I had taken it to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004 and was …
Jun 06
Restoration Comedy and Derek Zoolander
This is a period of English theatrical history I adore. When most teenagers in the ’90s were discovering Dylan, The Stones, Hendrix, etc. I was discovering comedy albums on C.D. and vinyl like Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, and periods in comedy history like Restoration comedy, Commedia dell’arte, or comic playwrights like Aristophanes. Out …
Jun 03
Comedy Screenwriting: Set Pieces
“Stories are about fucked up people.” – Judd Apatow When I first started writing scripts, in the early ’90s, I was really into Buster Keaton and The Marx Brothers. Which is great from a comedy history/geek perspective, but not so much when it comes to screenwriting. Keaton’s philosophy was figure out the beginning, and the …
- 1
- 2
Jason Peck, Filmmaker