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jodai posted:I enjoyed the new Demetri Martin special but he's always been one of my favorites. Not as much music in this one but that's fine, it looks like there's going to be a direct sequel to the stand up special, which is already a funny idea on it's own. I'm going to see him tape the sequel to this special tonight! I'll let the thread know how it was.
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Apr 13, 2024 19:23
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 17:00 |
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Alright, post-special thoughts time! Going to keep it spoiler-free, but I'm going to tag my thoughts anyway just in case people don't want to know how the sausage is made for something like this. Wow, I really was not expecting that to be as long as it was. I had tickets to the late show which was supposed to start at 8:30, but ended up starting close to 10 PM. From what we heard from the employees when we got in, not only did Demetri start late for the first show but had an incredibly long set. I found my seats in the mezzanine, which, protip for anyone going to a taped show in the future, is where you want to be (or the balcony proper) if you want the ability to go use the restroom midset without blocking the cameras with your dumb head. He had a host come on and explain what the deal was: because of how the specials are edited, Demetri has to take many small breaks in the set to reset the shot for a new prop or whathaveyou. He also mentioned that we shouldn't leave our seats immediately when the show "concluded" because they were going to shoot more footage after. The host then did a small set of comedy that honestly, I was pretty stone-faced to. I don't think he was awful and he didn't bomb or anything, but after an extra 90 minutes of waiting all I wanted to see was Demetri. It was a short set though (not sure if it was even a full 10 minutes), and soon enough Demetri was on. The general flow of his set went like this: No Props -> Sketchpad -> No Props -> Music (not gonna say the instrument!) -> No Props So, he was alternating between doing something with a prop and without throughout. Some things of note that happened that weren't jokes: 1. Demetri screwed up the very beginning lines of his set this time and had to rerecord his entrance to the stage. He used this time to apologize again to us for the delay and said that typically, comedians use the second take for their specials so, with all hope, what we got to see was what Netflix viewers will too. If you hear someone finger whistling, it's probably footage from the late taping! 2. That being said, Demetri seemed nervous in a way I wasn't anticipating. I saw him once before in Boulder on his "Wandering Mind" tour in 2019, which I recalled him being a confident dude then and I'm sad that tour never got turned into a special due to COVID. Not going to speculate too much on the anxiety but it's notable because, since it was being taped, he ended up resetting his jokes a lot because of a small stutter or because he wanted to use different verbiage for the joke. 3. Also, I know I wasn't going to say anything about the jokes but I will mention that there were two jokes at least that were very similar to this set he did on Conan twenty years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1hts5eaXTs. Now, they weren't one-to-one retellings of the same jokes, but they followed the same premise and one of them even had the same punchline too. I guess it's fair game at this point since two decades have passed, but I'm wondering if there were other reused jokes that weren't fresh in my mind since the YouTube algorithm pushed this to me before the show. 4. Between the set changes, Demetri was still miced up and would try to give little funny interjections or thank us for our patience as it dawned on us why this was an "incredibly long set." Getting an instrument or canvas out was a whole ordeal because of the cameras. I remember the energy of the room significantly diminishing on the second "No Prop" section of the set (probably getting the first take from the cutting room floor), but the first music section revitalized the audience for the most part. 5. Not only did this set take forever due to stage resets, but there were a couple of continuity resets as well. Once for a curtain accidentally opening in the background, and once for a hair reset lol. All things considered, I don't think I've ever been more exhausted attending an event that straight-up wasn't a multi-day festival. 6. Demetri "finishes" his set with a strong no-prop section that clearly has the closing joke in it, or at least it should be in the special with how they edit it. Now, remember how the host said earlier that they were going to shoot more footage after the show? He comes back on again and reiterates this, and the way he phrases it kinda makes it sound like it's like, some audience b-roll? The host gets to do a little more comedy before Demetri comes back out. Now, this combined with how tired everyone is causes about thirty people I can see in the upper section (not sure about the lower) to leave the show early. 7. Turns out, the host could only get a half-joke in before Demetri came back out and did an encore with a little bit of audience b-roll lmfao. We got a whole extra No Prop -> Sketchpad -> Music section that a good chunk of people didn't see, albeit I was almost falling asleep by the end. Not because the content is bad, mind you (though what ended up being the final joke we heard was way weaker than the presumed special closer), but because it is fuckign 12:30 AM and I thought I'd be home at least an hour ago. So, I don't blame anybody if they had to tap out early. If you see empty seats, it wasn't because the show had unsold tickets! I think that's all I have to say about the show. I am not sure how I'd rate it, and honestly, I don't think I can until I see the final product. So much of it hinged on how it comes together in the editing room that I'm not sure I can recommend seeing Demetri when he's being taped. My experience with the material was probably a 7/10, but if I were seeing it without the constant interruptions or had it started on time it'd easily go up a point or two. There was something special about getting to take a behind-the-scenes look at it though, and you can't really put a score on that aspect of it.
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Apr 14, 2024 17:37
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