Live, With Dolls

Don’t get new fans. Get current fans more engaged.

TBS didn’t come to us asking to convert strangers into new viewers. They had seen a notable drop off of existing fans as each show’s season progressed, and they wanted us to come up with ways to keep fans from wandering off after episode four. So we weren’t advertising for the show. We were tapping into the zany, irreverent vibes of the shows themselves to keep people engaged. And we were going to do it with almost no budget.

We had access to the cast for the premiere (well, most of them — I assume Zac Cregger was off working on early drafts of Barbarian). So we built out a multi-hour Facebook Live stream that, of course, featured trivia and mini-interviews. But we also built something that tapped into the whole Most Dangerous Game theme of the new season: a hand-made Mortal Kombat-inspired game where characters from the show fought each other, with the cast standing by as hype persons.

In each fight, viewers got to vote live for which character they wanted to win and which finishing move they’d unleash on their opponent.

My role, aside from ideation and writing the run-of-show and scripted segments, was co-directing the live event, talking the cast through what was happening and making changes on the fly when plans started going sideways (as they tend to do with a premiere-juiced cast reacting in real time to the audience rewriting the endings by voting).

At the time, the Talking Dead post-show format was the gold standard for keeping fans engaged after an episode’s premiere. We wanted to borrow that concept. But, not having AMC’s budget, we needed hosts who’d work below union minimums. Waaaay below. So we pitched dolls.

Set in a rental cottage called the Barefeet Bungalow, The Guest Book was a strange, borderline filthy show. So for each episode, our doll hosts recapped the action, argued about the outrageous plot points, and ran breakout bits based on whatever had just happened. If the episode had a musical interlude, so did the dolls.

Of course, to paraphrase The Simpsons, live stop motion is a terrible production strain. So we pre-recorded the episodes, while building holes in each one that we could fill as viewer comments and votes came in during the Facebook Live stream.

We had multiple long form scripts to write, and fast. I couldn’t do it alone. So I gathered a cadre of junior writers, plus a few strategists and account folks with creative aspirations. We would meet to sketch out the general flow of each episode, and I’d then assign one writer to work on a draft. We’d take that draft into a round-table read, where we’d all try and beat the jokes and help get the scripts where they needed to be.

Creating a room full of writers, inspiring them, mentoring some of them through their first professional writing assignments? What an amazing experience. What a great job. One I’d happily do again tomorrow.

After we got script sign off from the clients, we built the tiny sets ourselves, shot, edited, and streamed the shows to The Guest Book’s Facebook fans.

• I pitched the format and scripts to the clients
• Assembled and ran the writers room, and assigned the scripts
• Directed each episode
• Produced them, including the set, the props and the dolls
• Cast and wrangled the voice actors
• Co-edited

Then TBS cancelled the shows.

Well, people watched the streams. But not enough people watched the shows. And poof. The shows were cancelled and forgotten. But I’ll always remember the challenge of creating these weird, unique pieces of content, and the satisfaction of gathering and working with a team of office volunteers to get them done.