THE WHOLPHIN
WE'VE ALL BEEN
WAITING FOR.
- - - -
A few months ago, we introduced the viewing public to Wholphin, our young and hungry DVD quarterly of unseen films. Now, at last, there is a reason to eject Wholphin No. 1 from your DVD player, or to pause it and purchase a supplemental entertainment system for your home. That reason is Wholphin No. 2, which is now shipping to subscribers. To subscribe, click here. You can also buy No. 2 by itself, if you'd like. Either way, you can expect a lot: big guys (Steven Soderbergh, Andy Richter, Donald Trump), little guys (a tiny Japanese man, innumerable baby squids), a member of the Coast Guard trying to cry while a woodworker tries to cry first, Oscar-nominated animation, a documentary so contentious that it comes on a separate disc, an eel-gumbo recipe, and still more. Laughter and tears, beauty and truth, and dinner or lunch—it's all on there. To see some clips, go to wholphindvd.com. Or stay here and read an interview with Andrew Jay Cohen, the director of American Storage—soon to be a feature film, but, for now, a short found only on Wholphin.
- - - -
Q: Was that a real paintball gun? Don't those things hurt at close range like that?
ANDREW JAY COHEN: That was a real paintball gun. I still have 9,992 paintballs left—we didn't want to run out. We used very rudimentary "movie magic" to create the appearance that the paintball explodes on Martin Starr's chest. For the shot of Steve Carell, he fired the gun at a stuntman wearing a vest. For the shot of Martin getting hit, at the start we put a couple of frames of Martin wearing a clean shirt—then we cut to a shot of him wearing a paint-splattered shirt. So the paint just magically appears, complete with a sound effect of the gun going off. That special effect cost us $0.
Q: Did you send a script to everyone cold or did you pitch them verbally?
AJC: We all kind of know each other through projects we've worked on, so it was more like, "Hey, you want to make something together?" I really wanted to make a short with Martin Starr, who I met through producing the Freaks and Geeks DVD and who I think is hilarious, and then Martin hooked us up with his friend Dave Krumholtz, who is insanely funny.
I had worked with Steve on Anchorman, and in addition to being one of the funniest guys ever, he's quite possibly the nicest guy ever, too. At the time, Steve was writing The 40-Year-Old Virgin with my boss Judd Apatow, so I just asked him. He was kind enough to say yes. We then rewrote the part for him and sent the actors the script.
Q: How long did it take to shoot?
AJC: Three days. Everything went wrong. The cops interrupted us shooting on a street we weren't permitted for, and my producer Beau Bauman had to talk to them while we shot Martin jaywalking across the street. The last day, the power went out and we were forced to shoot close-up shots using power generators.
Q: How did you choose to go with "Sweet Emotion" for the end scene?
AJC: We needed a song that would build during the last scene of Martin and Maya talking—and then explode on the last shot. "Sweet Emotion" explodes like few other rock songs. You can't listen to that song without wanting to run a marathon or stand up to a bully or fly a spaceship. It worked perfectly. Every other song we tried paled by comparison.
Q: Were you ever worried it was going to cost some poor start-up DVD magazine of unseen things a month's wages to clear that damn song? No, you weren't. That wasn't a question.
AJC: Truthfully, the last thing I expected was to be contacted by Wholphin. That's like the Met calling you up and saying they want to exhibit a crayon drawing you made.
Q: What did American Storage teach you?
AJC: That I need to keep doing this for the rest of my life. I spent all my money on this short, so now I have to make it back.
- - - -
OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
- - - -
The Wholphin We've All Been Waiting For
Alternative InSPOT E-Cards to Anonymously Inform Your Partners That They Might Have Been Exposed to an STD By Jay Dyckman
Secret Shoppers Report on the U.S. Senate By Kate Hahn
Gilgamesh, King of Uruk in Babylonia (2700 B.C.), Responds to Advertising's Biggest Questions By Russell Bradbury-Carlin
In Response to Accusations That My Memoir, I, Ellie Kemper, Borrows Numerous Passages From Rigoberta Menchu's Memoir, I, Rigoberta Menchu By Ellie Kemper
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.