Who is Dave Hill? Dave is a writer, performer, musician, actor, comedy-type person, artist, and thinking man living in the Big City, New York to be exact.
He has written for the New York Times, Salon, HBO, Blender, The Huffington Post, FHM UK, XXL, Guitar World, Guitar Player, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, VH1, Spike TV, The Learning Channel, Court TV, and a bunch of other people too. He also wrote “The Black Metal Dialogues”, which is the biggest thing to ever happen to the Internet since that one picture of the guy with puke coming out of his nose.
Dave, your Web site says you're "a writer, performer, musician, actor, comedy-type person, artist, and thinking man." Can you shed some light on that description a bit for our readers? What is it you're concentrating on lately?
I’ve always done a bunch of different stuff. I was really into art as a kid- drawing and painting and stuff. I wanted to become an illustrator when I was younger but then got sidetracked playing in rock bands. I still do both, but most of the art I do now is on the computer, doing graphics and stuff for my own crap. My sister, who is a journalist, encouraged me to get into writing, so that was my focus until about three years ago when I started performing at comedy shows. I think my experience playing in bands and writing comedy stuff made performing on stage a sort of easy transition for me. Lately I’ve been busiest performing live and doing on-camera work, but I still write a lot and play music and paint whenever I can.
You just signed on to HBO's new on-line comedy web site, "ThisJustIn.com." What is Thisjustin.com, and what kind of agreement do you have with them?
I actually don’t have an agreement with them. Through my work with HBO, some of the things I’ve shot with them ended up on ThisJustIn.com, which is partly owned by HBO, but other things will end up in other HBO-related places. I shot a bunch of stuff with HBO at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festivals in Vegas and Aspen and then they sprinkle it around as needed, like paprika or something, only better.
You've had a really strong web site and web presence for quite a while now-- going back a ways – how'd you get the jump on all the crazy Youtube kids, and what was your first step toward developing an on-line presence?
I figured having a website would be a good way for people to get a sense of what I’m about without having to actually interact with me or have me send them a bunch of crap. Also, I noticed most performers websites were really serious even if they were in comedy. I wanted my website to be nice and retarded and be full of enough stuff to keep people busy clicking around long enough to get fired from their jobs or something. But the main thing is that I wanted my website to be entertaining rather than just an online resume with my headshot or something. As for YouTube, I put my stuff up there but I’ve yet to have anything become super popular yet or anything. It seems like a video of someone brushing their teeth will always get more hits than any comedy video on YouTube.
Talk about the logistics of the first comedy videos you ever made. Did you buy your own fancy camera?
It was pretty primitive. I’d borrow a camera and then run out with friends and shoot stuff as quickly as possible because usually I had to get the camera back really soon. My first videos were all done with regular consumer cameras, nothing fancy.
Did you teach yourself fancy editing skills? How did you learn to edit video?
In the beginning, I edited everything myself in iMovie, which is super easy. Then I got smart and begged other people to do it for me in Final Cut. But now I can actually pay them to do it, which makes me (and them) happy. I would like to learn how to edit in Final Cut myself though at some point.
What were your priorities for the first comedy videos that you produced for yourself? Who did you expect your audience to be?
I just wanted to have fun and hopefully entertain people in about three minutes if possible. I didn’t think too much about who the audience might be. I usually figure if I like something there must be some other people out there who will like it too.
Do you write out scripts, or have vague plans for the content of a video, or do you just improvise your way through a situation?
It’s a combination of both. For the man-on-the-street stuff, I’ll have some stuff prepared, but usually the videos end up being mostly stuff that just happened on the spot. For scripted stuff, I write up a script but then usually improvise a lot of it as we go.
You went to the Aspen Comedy Festival this year with your own show, "The Dave Hill Explosion"—what is that show all about?
I started the Dave Hill Explosion about a year and half ago. It’s basically a little bit of everything I do plus a celebrity guest interview all slapped together into an hour or so of entertainment. I guess it’s sort of like a one-man variety show that turns into a talk show about half way through. It’s a lot of work but a lot of fun.
You've performed "Explosion" around New York City—how did you first get it booked at the Upright Citizen's Brigade theatre?
I started the Dave Hill Explosion as my showcase for Aspen the year before this most recent festival. I didn’t get in that year but I kept on doing the show ever since and it’s turned out to be a great thing for me. I ended up doing it at UCB because the Aspen festival folks booked it there for me. I had never performed there prior to that. But now I have a nice relationship with the theater. I really like everyone there a lot and they’ve been great to me. I do my L.A. shows at the UCB Theatre out there too.
Clearly you're a wiz at self-promotion. How do you promote yourself and your show? Do you do anything specifically aimed at getting butts in the seats?
Most of my promotion involves sending out e-mails and hanging posters, just like everyone else does. I think the only difference with the way I promote things is that I try to keep it entertaining so that even if people don’t come to the show, they still get a sense of what I’m about through my e-mails, etc. And are hopefully entertained in the process. So ideally the promotion is part of the entertainment if that makes sense.
Do you have different tactics for getting noticed by "the industry"? Early on, did you sit at home frantically writing press releases and pretending to be your own management company, or did you chill out and wait to get noticed?
I think the only way to get noticed by the showbiz people is to just do your thing and make it available to people through the Internet and by performing in places people are inclined to go. Nothing has ever happened for me by me directly soliciting industry people. I did try it early on but was usually met with rejection of some sort. I think if you’re doing something good and people are getting the chance to see it, the right things will just happen naturally. Once I stopped worrying about whether industry people would ever pay attention to me, that’s when stuff started to happen. It’s kind of like if your dog gets loose- the worst way to get him back is to chase him around. If you just go about your business, he’ll eventually just walk right up to you. Not that I think showbiz people are dogs, at least not any more than I am.
You've had special "celebrity guests" at each show—Rufus Wainright, the first Becky from Roseanne, '80s sitcom icon Judith Light, and many more... How have you gone about approaching these folks and asking them to put up with your shenanigans?
In the beginning, my guests were people I had met socially- either friends or friends of friends or friends of friends of friends. Once I had a list of folks who had done the show before though, it was easier to approach people I didn’t really know. Still, most of the guests are usually through some sort of six degrees of separation thing. Generally though, I think people are up for doing the show because it’s something fun and different. And since it’s just a couple hundred people sitting in a basement, there’s not a whole lot of pressure.
You've got a video up on Myspace about you learning at the Actors Movement Studio, that visitors to this site might want to take a look at. But in all seriousness (or some seriousness), have you ever studied… well… anything?
I’ve never studied anything as far as performing goes. I’m a bit of a late-bloomer I guess and I’ve always just done my own thing as I went along. I just started doing this stuff for fun and didn’t really have a plan. But now I’d like to go back and study acting and stuff since now I have to go out and audition for stuff and it might help to know a few things.
You must look at Youtube and have some thoughts about why some videos work and some don't. What do you think people should think about when they're about to push the "upload" button?
Hmmm, that’s a tough one. It doesn’t seem like quality necessarily rises to the top on YouTube, though of course there is some great stuff on there. Like everyone else I’m guessing, I’ve seen some great videos that get very little play on YouTube and I’ve seen videos that I didn’t understand why someone even bothered to film get hundreds of thousands of hits.
But with videos in general, I’d say keep them shorter than longer and run them by a couple friends whose opinions you really trust. They can help you decide what’s crap and what’s not and they might also see something good in something you didn’t notice. Ultimately, the audience is the one who decides whether something works though. It’s fun to play a video for a live audience and see where they laugh and where they don’t. A lot of times I’ll be bracing for the big laugh that doesn’t come and I’ll also be surprised by the big laugh that comes where I didn’t think there was one.
Do you have goals for yourself in the industry—for real? Do you think it's important that entertainers who are personality-driven, like yourself, set goals for themselves at all? Or is it all just a crazy ride?
It’s a little bit of both. I think the goals become clearer as you go. Three years ago I never would have guessed I would be doing this and I can’t believe I actually make a living at it. But I had no goals when I first started other than getting through whatever show I was doing. There are a lot of things I enjoy about what I do, though- writing, performing live, acting, and also doing the more host-oriented stuff, so I have different goals at this point in each of those categories. But I realize I probably can’t achieve all of them, so it’s fun to just see what happens. As long as things keep growing and I’m having fun and can pay my bills, I’m generally pretty happy about things.
