SNL Retrospective

Boy, do I have many beans to spill regarding Episode 2 of Saturday Nick Lutsko.

I've debated how candid I want to get here, and I've landed on "very."

The stream itself was a bit traumatic. A handful of the live segments felt like a train wreck from our perspective. As a result, the vibe was very tense and gloomy. All of us were shocked to watch the playback and realize it actually wasn't that bad. In fact, it mostly worked!

All of the pre-taped bits from Brielle Garcia, Dan Cupps, Justin Cipriani and Jakey Lutsko couldn't have gone better. They were completed and inserted into OBS early afternoon. I made the last minute decision to extend the Nicole Kidman tour promo segment by adding the AI Fraser acceptance speech. I knew I could use the extra time to create the poll and make sure everyone knew what to do for the next scene. Well, while I was in the middle of creating the poll, the screen went black. Turns out I forgot to swap it out with the new file. This started a chain reaction that had us scrambling for the remainder of the stream.

In retrospect, it was incredibly silly not to do a full dress rehearsal beforehand. But for the few moments that felt a little awkward, so much went right. Here's a breakdown on how everything came to be.

I wrote the script for 'Celebration of Tech' a few days after we did 'Celebration of Country Music.'  I was riding the high of Episode 1, so of course my response was to make the next one 10 times more ambitious and complicated.

I reached out to Brielle to see if she would be interested in directing the "CBJ GETS SUCKED" and "SN(AI)L" segments. She said she would love to go all out on the CBJ segment, but probably wouldn't have any time leftover to focus on "SN(AI)L". Per usual, she absolutely knocked it out of the park. She elevates the source material every time. Truly unbelievable work.

I've been a fan of Dan Cupps' work with On Cinema for a while and have wanted an opportunity to work on something together. I thought his sensibilities would be perfect for the "Greezy Come Back," video and he exceeded my already high expectations. I reached out to Dan in February and figured it would take him about a month. He sent me a finished product like 3 days later! Unbelievable turnaround and an incredibly sweet guy. At this point, I was planning on trying to do SN(AI)L myself using AI generated images. I'm so glad I asked if he was interested, because it's 100000 X better than whatever I would have come up with. He animated the whole sequence word for word based on a prompt I gave ChatGPT to write an episode of Saturday Nick Lutsko. I gave it a quick rundown of the show and its characters and voila. All of the voices are AI generated based on our actual voices (including Jerry Seinfeld). I love the end result so much. A definite highlight.

I started working on the 'Greezy Monologue' right away. I asked ChatGPT to write a monologue told from the perspective of an AI that wants to enslave humanity. It delivered! I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get the AI voices just right. I initially used Biden, Trump, Scorsese, Spielberg, Ernest, Beetlejuice, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Ringo Starr, Johnny Depp, Dan Bongino, Brendan Fraser, Alex Jones and Elon Musk. I had them weaving in and out of each other and was pretty happy with the end result. But then I discovered Greezy has the most amazing AI voice, and I felt like I wasted 3 days playing with all of the other voices. The end result ended up being a combination of Greezy plus everyone else mentioned above. It's crazy how bad CBJs and Desmond's AI voices are compared to Greezy's.

It was around this time that I decided to have Greezy speak telepathically. I figured Eric's time would be better spent working on the new costume and preparing for tour than memorizing the recipe to Olive Garden's Classic Lasagna. We had Adam triggering Greezy's responses off camera during the stream. They both nailed it.

Speaking of Greezy's new costume, Eric's attention to detail is unreal. He spent weeks weaving different threads of yarn together to achieve the classic Greezy look on the new headpiece and arms. The end result is spectacular and the iridescent outfit ties it together beautifully.

My old friend and collaborator Justin Cipriani pitched a handful of ideas a few months back. Halloween Hotline and Cowboy Cam 2.0 worked great for the tech theme and they also happened to be my favorites. He shot Halloween Hotline with Mikey and Jakey in ATL. I called in for some of the shoot and ruined a few takes laughing over the phone. The first cut was 3 minutes long and tonally very different. A lot of beautiful shots ended up on the cutting room floor but it made more sense for this one to fit the classic commercial vibe. Mikey's performance makes me laugh every time.

We shot Cowboy Cam 2.0 on Asa's family farm a few weeks back. It's always impressive seeing Cip and his crews in action. We had a lot to shoot on a tight schedule but Jon rose to the occasion and turned in an A+ performance. We kept remarking on what a ridiculous amount of work was going into one of the dumbest concepts. I always laugh thinking about how Jon might react if I were able to show him everything we're doing now 4 or 5 years ago. Jon is one of the most professional, hardworking people I know and he takes his work very seriously. If you were to tell me 5 years ago that he would be the cartwheeling cowboy in the group, I would have never believed you. I'm really proud of his performance here and everything he's been able to do with the CBJ character over the past year and a half.

Jakey and Riley came over Friday evening to shoot the Greezy monologue and they had a lot of great ideas. Riley had the idea to have Greezy float. Jakey had the idea to blow the fan on Greezy's hair. I'm super happy with how the whole sequence cut together and think it turned out genuinely creepy. It was a great moment to highlight Jakey and Riley's skills as well as Greezy's new costume.

I have way more good things to say about the stream than bad. Jakey has an incredibly difficult job jumping between shots, making sure things are muted when they need to be, making sure the next sequence is queued. We're really attempting to do the same thing TV studios do but with a two man crew and no budget. I wish I could have done a better job of not letting the hiccups get to me. I think we'll continue to learn and improve as we keep going.

I've had a real "Build it and they will come" mentality with Saturday Nick Lutsko, but the turnout for the latest episode really has me feeling pretty down. I need to rethink promo for the next one. I'm looking forward to getting tour behind us so we're not juggling so many projects at once and can give everything the attention it needs.

I'll end on a positive note and say the after-party really lifted our spirits. It reminded us how much fun we can have just hanging out and winging it. I want to prioritize making sure future episodes also have those moments.

Thanks everyone for your continued support and encouragement. We couldn't and wouldn't be doing it without you!

Feliz Navidad,
Nick