Saturday Nick Lutsko #3: Celebration of Summertime

ICYMI, here is the replay for SNL #3! We're really proud of this one. I feel we're really beginning to find our voice and it's got me really excited to keep making more. I'll try to say a few things about each segment.


Summertime Party In The USA


This was one of the first ideas for the stream, a parody of early Beach Boys surf rock that showcases the band having fun in the sun while Desmond sulks in the background. The first draft didn't have Asa dying or any of the other craziness - it jumped straight from water hose party to boat parade party. I had a hard time finding an interesting turn for the song to take that didn't feel like a rehash of "Fall Time in Tennessee" only summertime edition. Killing someone and bringing them back to life via black magic cracked it for me and Asa has had a "put me in coach" mentally for a while. Zombie Asa was a hit! I'm overjoyed by his performance. We shot this video in 3 days over a 6 week span. Day one was shot at the Parham's pool and I felt like a little kid again slippin' and slidin' and goofing off. Day two we rented bikes and rode around downtown Chattanooga, got snow cones, and rode the carousel (we shot Summertime and Sunshine simultaneously). That evening we drove to Asa's family farm (same location as Cowboy Cam 2.0) and buried Asa alive. We were repeatedly attacked by demon bugs while shooting the reanimation scene - the least enjoyable part of the whole experience. Day three we shot last Sunday on my dad's boat. I can't believe Greezy and Desmond held up in the water as well as they did. The three of us trying to get on the tube and flipping multiple times is a comedy sketch in itself. 

Live Scene #1: Intro


I made the mistake on Episode #2 of focusing on video editing until the very last minute so I had to rely on notes during the actual live portions. I really wanted to prioritize running the scenes multiple times this go around (a luxury we didn't have episodes 1 & 2). I was putting the finishing touches on videos Saturday afternoon, and I was worried I was destined to repeat the same mistakes. Luckily, we were able to run each scene a few times and it made us all feel so much better. Kudos to Clair on making the SEINFELD sign. 

A stray thought that is kind of hilarious. We had so much trouble getting the sunburns just right on the pre-taped footage. In real life, we looked like lobsters, but you could barely tell in the footage we shot. We had to crank up the color correction for it to cut through properly. Because of this, we really laid the red makeup on thick for the live portions hoping that it would show up better. I don't know if OBS has color correction baked in or if iphones just pick up the color better, but I ended up looking like Hell Boy.


Desmond's Down


We shot the pre-taped portion of Desmond looking at the email from House of D / text messages from his mom on Friday morning a long with the final scene where I get attacked by Desmond.


Ceviche Man


I wrote Ceviche Man the day after I returned home from Mexico in May. I  discovered and fell in love ceviche with it on our last day there. I had it for lunch, dinner, and then had it again for lunch the next day at the Cancun airport. I had already written Summertime Party In The USA and Cowboy Cruise (Kokomo) at this point, and I knew I wanted one more summery standalone song. I was excited by the instrumental but I was hitting a wall lyrically. I finally decided just to sing the first thing that came to my mind without any thought... and that was Ceviche Man. I finished and was embarrassed by what I had created. I'm quite certain it's one of the dumbest things I've ever written. It didn't make any sense, it really had no purpose for existing. Then I started wondering whether some sort of opening sketch could justify its existence. I wrote the accompanying Hollywood boardroom sketch and thought at least there was some underlying commentary on not being able to come up with new ideas. I asked Eric if he was interested in portraying Ceviche Man and that's what sealed the deal. He elevated the whole thing from something I debated scrapping entirely to one of my favorite parts of the whole show. Don't even get me started on Dan Cupps' animation. Dan is a marvel. He works so insanely fast and is down for anything. Justin Cipriani returned to shoot the boardroom sketch (with the help of Jakey and Riley) and they brought their A-game. I was very intimidated acting in this for whatever reason. I know I've done a lot of work on camera between SNL, G3:DoD, etc, but I this really felt like my first legitimate acting job. Mikey did an incredible job as did all of the other actors. Really happy with how this one came together across the board and I'm excited to do more like it. Eric pointed out on Saturday that I still have shrimp stuck on the ceiling of the Grotto.


School Board Meeting

I noticed some debate in the chat, so I'll go ahead and confirm that the musical performances were pre-taped. This gave Adam the opportunity to really dial in the sound so we're putting our best foot forward. It also gave us time to make sure everyone was on the same page about what would be happening next during the stream. I couldn't be more happy with what Adam was able to bring to the table with these. I'm bummed that he wasn't able to join in on the Summertime fun for scheduling reasons, but his fingerprints are all over the place behind the scenes per usual. Jakey and his buddy Trevor shot School Board Meeting, Sick and Steal My Sunshine. I handled editing responsibilities on School Board Meeting and Sick while Jakey handled Steal My Sunshine (in addition to Summertime Party In The USA). The ending jam on School Board Meeting was lightning in a bottle improvisation that is one of my favorite SNL musical moments.


Bumpers / Car Countdown

Noah Campagna produced these lovely animated segments. Phil Braun had worked with him on this Mr Coal  segment for Office Hours and introduced us. We're already discussing what he can contribute for Episode #4. Happy to have him on the team!


Live Scene #2: Big Announcement


Mikey and Jon did a ton of heavy lifting on this stream and I couldn't be more proud of their performances. My job was mostly playing defense, reacting to everything that they were saying. Mikey nailed Desmond's breakdown exactly as I envisioned it. I had the idea for a '$100K Band Cruise Line' the day after we finished Episode #2. Couldn't have guessed it was going to take 4 months to bring it to fruition!


Cowboy Cruise Commercial


I asked Phil Braun and Justin Gaynor if they were interested in helping out behind the scenes after the infamous 100 Muppet Challenge. Phil initially pitched a sketch that would have been very funny but schedules got too crazy that we wouldn't have been able to shoot it in time. So I asked if he was interested in writing a Cowboy Cruise commercial for Dan Cupps to animate. We shot Phil's full script plus the copy from the website that Justin came up with and sent it to Dan. Dan sent the full cut while the band was preparing to shoot Steal My Sunshine. We gathered around the monitor and laughed like hyenas.

I can't say enough good things about Justin's website. The infinitely growing number of people ahead in the queue was such a brilliant touch. It'll be hard to change my website back to normal, but it should at least live on at cowboycruise.rodeo


Ceviche Man Greatest Hits

This was an extremely last minute addition where I decided to take footage of Eric improvising the ending of Ceviche Man and add stock music underneath it. I messaged Dan late Wednesday night to see if he could help spice it up a bit and he sent back the finished version within an hour or so of responding!


Sick


I'll be honest, we spent so much time and energy on School Board Meeting and Steal My Sunshine that I really felt like we phoned this performance in. I was pretty bored by it and wasn't super excited to work on it. For whatever reason, adding in all of the silly footage of sea turtles and old beach men gave it a ton of life and energy for me. And I believe I've scene more people remark on it than the other live songs.


Live Scene #4: Betrayal


We tried a big confrontation scene like this on one of the Halloween Zoom parties where I ripped Jon's shirt and broke his vinyl. I knew I wanted something physical to do to really amplify the drama during this scene but we couldn't land on the best summer food that wouldn't make a huge mess. My first choice was a watermelon. Jon mentioned hot dogs the day before and I really feel it was the perfect touch. I glimpsed at the monitor when I tossed the table and I thought the camera missed it, I was so relieved to playback later.


Cowboy Cruise (Kokomo)


This song was the first thing I made for this stream (my demo). Jakey shot this one on a very cloudy day at the "beach" of Chester Frost Park. Some kids saw us shooting and asked if we were making a TikTok. I told them no, it was for YouTube. They asked for the channel name and scurried off. Moments later they returned and asked for an autograph. It was funny because they very clearly had no idea who I was.


Desmond Gets Sucked

Brielle did such a fantastic job with this. It was relatively simple compared to her scene from Episode #2, but the emotional stakes were so much higher. The hologram footage of me was a wonderful touch. And Howie Mandel sneaking out of the shadows singing Gizmo's Lullaby really cracked me up. Check out this amazing footage of her doing performance capture here.


Live Scene #5:


I'm really proud of how this one turned out. We shot it early Friday morning with Jakey, and I stayed up late Friday editing it. Mikey turned in an all time SNL performance and Jon stole the show a few moments without a single word of dialogue. I'm really driving myself crazy because I forgot to mute an audio track for the final replay export so the final version on YouTube has messy, echo-y audio. Hopefully it doesn't bother anyone too badly. It drives me especially nuts as I spent a stupid amount of time trying to perfect it. But I don't think it justifies a whole other upload.


Steal My Sunshine


Jakey did such a great job with this one. It ends the show on such a fun and wholesome note. In addition to editing this, the promos, and Summertime Party In The USA, Jakey also shot Ceviche Man green screen, Cowboy Cruise Commercial green screen, Cowboy Cruise (Kokomo), all of the live songs, and all of the pre-taped segments with Desmond. AND he worked OBS during the stream. True MVP of the stream!

Mikey's maniacal laugh into Steal My Sunshine was such a great juxtaposition and played exactly as I hoped.


That's all I have for now. I can't say thanks enough for all of your support. Your kind words and enthusiasm really keep us going. And of course, we wouldn't be able to do all of this without the financial support of the Patreon. Hopefully its just the beginning!

Feliz!
Nick