MAKE YOUR SHOW: theCreators
Actor/Filmmaker Keith Powell
Keith Powell became a familiar face on television playing Toofer on "30 Rock" but his first objective in the entertainment business was to become a theatre director. Following the NBC's hit finale, Keith self-produced the indie series "Keith Broke His Leg", which garnered much praise and many Indie Series Awards, including Best Comedy Series. In an effort to avoid being pigeon-holed and with an ambition to be an artist, Keith jumped into the daunting task of creating, writing, starring and directing his show, perhaps coming full circle and establishing himself as a director and, finally, the artist he always wanted to be.
HELPFUL LINKS FROM THIS PODCAST:
Keith Powell Website
"Keith Broke His Leg" Website
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John Cramer:
The people that we're talking to are primarily actors who want to make their own work. And they're like, "how do you do that?" And you obviously have done that and had success at doing it. So even though you're doing so much stuff besides "Keith Broke his Leg," we wanted to focus on that and talk about why you made "Keith Broke his Leg" and how you pulled it off.
So can you just start out by telling us a little bit about where were you in your acting career when you decided to make your show?
Keith Powell:
The whole show kind of came about after I had left "30 Rock" and I had just moved to Los Angeles with my girlfriend, who became my wife. And so I was newly married and I was in a new home and I was on a new coast. And there was a period of time in that transition of "30 Rock" ending and right before I made this web series where I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted my voice to be. And because my voice was changing, because I was changing, I didn't quite know what it was, but I knew that my style was different than "30 Rock," and I didn't want to get pigeonholed into it. So I was actually blessed to be in in a good place in my acting career. I just wanted to define myself before other people defined me. I was well known in terms of getting work, but I was well known as Toofer on “30 Rock” and not as Keith Powell, the artist. So that's kind of how the genesis of “Keith Broke his Leg” began.
John:
That's so interesting. Right off the bat, you talk about a thing that I feel like when we've talked to other people who have made their own work, they ultimately get to that realization by the end. I think a lot of actors are motivated to make their own work because they see it as a tool. An outcome being hopefully, that they'll have more and better acting work. This is a kind of a different angle that you're starting from, which is you're already doing well. It's funny when you talk to other actors (who’d say), “Man, you've really made it. You're on ’30 Rock’!” You’re thinking there's all these other things I want to do, but to kind of take control, even at a different stage of your career.
KP:
That's really what it was for me. I just didn't want other people to define me. I wanted to define myself. And I really felt like that was the road I was headed down where I was only going to get cast in certain things and only do certain parts. And I always wanted to be a full artist. I didn't want to be an actor. I went to school for acting, I went to NYU, but I got my degree as a director and as a theater director. And thankfully, I was getting acting work while I was still in school, but I wanted to be a full artist. Being pigeonholed after “30 Rock” was not allowing me to do that. So my goal for myself was that I only allowed myself one rewrite. So two drafts. So I wrote all of “Keith Broke his Leg” and I because I wanted it to just be my id coming out on paper to make each episode a very specific crafted episode about something. Even if it wasn't funny, even if it explored the mundane, I wanted every episode to be about something.
Jason:
Did you think of them as, vignettes, like they could stand alone, or did you want them to have an overall arc with characters that you brought in occasionally?
KP:
It was not so much an overall arc with characters. That’s not to say that there wasn't something in my mind going, “this is about one person exploring, relearning who he is after an injury”. I believe that by the 10th episode he gets to a place that is different than he was in the first episode but I was thinking about it more in terms of the little moments and little stories that I wanted to tell. I think I was on a “Mad Men” kick during writing “Keith Broke his Leg”. “Mad Men” to me was so about the overall journey of Don Draper, but also, each episode was about something. I wanted that to kind of go through my work. Ironically enough, I shared the script with Matt Weiner, who created “Mad Men”, because “30 Rock” and “Mad Men” were kind of sister shows, in a way. To get his guidance very much encouraged me to not worry about if the show is funny or not.
John:
So when you say you did a first draft, is that a first draft of the whole season?
KP:
The first draft of the first six episodes. Then I did another six episodes, but I only released four. Then I released two as bonus episodes because they didn't fit. So I wrote them into six episode chunks.
Jason:
And you had written before, right, Keith? This wasn't your first time writing, was it?
KP:
No, it was not my first time writing. I had been hired to write things. I was a professional writer. I was in the WGA and it was a part of my talent that no one ever really knew about or saw. And being a director was not something that anybody knew about or saw. And so that's why I wanted to do this. But when I had the six episodes, then I went, “Well, what the hell am I going to do with them?” And so it began the journey. I met with the DP and I talked to him about what I wanted to do with it, how I wanted to make it and why I wanted to make it. And what I felt like the the arc of the story was and what I felt like it looked like and I wanted to do. At the time, web series were just starting to become an acceptable format. And this actually speaks, John, to what you were saying, that during that time, there were people who were making web series as showcases for themselves, as actors. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to tell specific stories. I wanted it to feel like a cable show. I wanted it to feel like you were watching, not a showcase of “look at me, look at how I can act”, but watching very specific little stories.
Keith and Tracy Morgan on "30 Rock"
John:
So, you obviously came to this experience with some things that a lot of other actors don't when they come to making their series: experience writing, experience directing, being on set and a place in your career where you feel like you've had some success and you want to make a statement about what kind of work you want to do and tell tell specific stories. You're not making a calling card for yourself as an actor.
KP:
Right. And actually, I specifically did not want it to be a calling card. I wanted it to be an exploration of me as an artist. So, I guess you can call that a calling card. I didn't see it as ‘making sure that the world saw my web series’. Now, as we get into this conversation, you'll know that one of my biggest regrets is not focusing from the very beginning on distribution, but at the time, this was an artistic statement.
John:
Sure. Okay. So you've got this idea. You've got a very clear intention. You'd mentioned interviewing a DP. How do you assemble a team of collaborators? Who's helping you make this show, how do you connect with them?
KP:
Beg and steal.
John:
Yeah.
KP:
I didn't do crowdfunding on this show. I financed it all myself. And so I said to everybody who worked on the on the project, I said, the budget is $0. Let's see how far we go over. And I used to teach a class on how to how to create a web series. And a lot of the things that I've done was treating your collaborators as fellow artists and not as employees or people who are there to execute your vision and when you are able to include everybody in the process, along with the art of it, they're more willing to do that to to donate their time. I had a long conversation with the DP, who did want to get paid. So we figured out, you know, what amount of money that he could feel comfortable with in terms of taking off from work and doing it. And we said, okay, what's the minimum amount of crew that we can have? And let me tell you, a lot of times, it depended on the day, but we did have more than two people. A lot of the times it was the DP who was the cameraman and focus puller. He was his own focus puller. That's why we had to do a lot of takes, because we could not always focus right. And the sound guy. And it was just the three of us running up Laurel Canyon and shooting a really quick bit and, you know, trying to make it work. So it was just the three of us a lot of the times. And then, of course, later on we got some help. We had some PAs and then we had a focus puller one day and we kind of built out from that. But for the most part, the core team was just the three of us because that's all I could afford.
John:
Tell us about casting. We obviously know a little bit about some of the actors you involved. But tell us the story.
KP:
My friends. Yeah, when I wrote the scripts, I wrote it with people in mind. And I was making fun of them. There's an episode called “Soup” that I did and that couple is a real couple. That's Alex Weed and Fiona Gubelmann and Fiona or Alex is a vegan. I don't remember which one. One of them was a vegetarian. One of them was a vegan. And I had to make dinner for them one night, and I was just like, “I don't know what to do with you vegans”. And so I wrote a whole script about bleeding into a vegan dish. I don't know where it came from. Alex and Fiona had bought a house at the same time we bought a house so I was like, “wouldn't it be great if we just did this weird Martha Stewart dick measuring contest about our house?” A lot of the writing was just me making fun of my friends.
Jason:
Were did your your leg being broken come into all of this?
KP:
That is completely fictional. That is the only thing that is completely fictional. I created the idea of breaking my leg because I A) didn't want to have to leave my house and, B) in a super arty farty way, I felt like we moved to L.A. and I was getting married and I had bought this house (and it’s) like all of my bones are broken and I'm re-healing into a new person. I said that in passing, like it’s the healing process, like my bones are becoming a new thing. So when I was kind of putting the show together, I was like, well, this is about a person who has broken his bones and is re-healing. I thought it was fun that you never know why, how he broke his leg. I thought that was funny.
Jason:
Was it a conscious decision budget-wise, too? Because if he doesn't leave his house very much, then you don't have to concern yourself with so many locations.
KP:
It was that kind of conscious decision. I didn't let that hinder me because, you know, the show has a lot of locations, actually, but, the main locations are the house. And also it was one of those things where I wanted to include my wife in it and I wanted to shoot in the house. My wife at the time was a former actress. My wife is a visual artist and she got her degree from grad school in acting, but she had stopped acting and I needed a way to slyly get her back in. So if I had said to her that we're shooting in the house, but, you know, you got to say some of these lines, then it would make her easier to see a film crew in her house. And that was really what happened. We would wake up in the morning and I'd say, “Oh, you know, Will, (who was our DP) and Richard, (who was our sound guy), are coming over. Can you just say some of these lines?” It's like, “Oh, do I have to fucking memorize?” And then she won an award for it.
Jason:
We were we were there that year that she won the award, I believe.
KP:
Yeah, I’m so proud of her. So this is what happened. We released all the episodes, and, you know, we won the Indie Series Award for Best Comedy. And then Jill didn't win. And I was like, “I really I think that Jill needs to win.” That's why I released the two unreleased episodes to qualify for that next year. So that next year, when you guys were at that show was really kind of like a victory lap.
Jason:
That's so great.
"I just didn't want other people to define me. I wanted to define myself. And I really felt like that was the road I was headed down where I was only going to get cast in certain things and only do certain parts. And I always wanted to be a full artist."
John:
That's great. Can you tell us a little bit more about locations? You mentioned you had a lot of locations. How did you go about getting all these locations? Was it also favors?
KP:
Yes. I mean, it was driving past places that I knew in the neighborhood and asking them. I’m also a very quick shooter. I knew that time spent in the location would be a major factor, so I devised a complete plan and gave it to these people who I didn't know. Some of the places we shot, I knew the person. The places that I didn't know, for instance we did an episode called “Soothsayer” in an a psychic store, I called them and said, “Here's my plan. We're going to be in and out. We're going to be in and out in 2 hours. So can I do it for (I don't know how much I said at the time), 150 bucks an hour?” And because they saw the plan and they were convinced that I would be fast, that they allowed me to shoot in there. And we were. We did it. We got in and out in 2 hours. So it was presenting a plan to people and trying to reduce the amount of money that it would cost in that location. Sometimes we stole shots. An episode called “Engage”, where we shot on an overlook at the Universal Overlook, stole it. There were some scenes where I shot inside a theater. So I just rented a theater for an hour, just going on Share Space, I think it's called.
John:
I think that's right.
KP:
Really gives you some inspiration on locations. And prices.
Keith on the set of "Keith Broke His Leg"
John:
What kind of experience had you had before making “Keith Broke his Leg” in terms of production? And I guess I skipped a step, you know, pre-production. What kind of experiences you had with this kind of planning before?
KP:
Well, I was trying to transition into TV directing and thank God, knock on wood, I've now transitioned into it. I had shadowed on a number of television shows and started understanding how TV works and how to shoot quickly and how to have a plan and how to make something look good, but also done cheaply. So the major lesson that I learned in all of that is: prep is king. We spent about three times the amount of shoot on pre-production, than shooting. We did an episode a day. So if shooting took six days and it they were spread out over weekends, then I probably took a month, a month and a half in pre-production, and that was a month and a half of diligent planning because we had no money. I made all the call sheets. I made sure that we had enough insurance for X, Y and Z. I did all the planning in that regard because we had no money. I had to do it all and made sure that whatever artists I collaborated with had enough time where I could could collaborate with them and make them feel comfortable about what the shooting plan was. Prep prep prep prep prep prep is your friend. I wrote an article about making “Keith Broke his Leg” and I had said time is the currency of a broke filmmaker. I mean, if you think that you need X amount of time, triple it.
John:
I'm just going to put this out there: that piece that you wrote was for Indiewire. That was a helpful article, I think, for people who want to make their own show. In terms of your planning, was there anything that you needed to learn or do that you didn't already know how to do from your shadowing experience? And how did you learn how to do it?
KP:
I guess I did. I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I kind of just jumped into the deep end of the pool of that situation and started figuring it all out. I do believe that shadowing on television shows is a wholly boring but informative experience. I knew from all the things that I learned that I felt confident jumping in and knowing how to begin. Then once I was in it, if there were things that came up because I was prepared enough that to know that crazy shit will happen and that you can't plan for it, then you just kind of dealt with it as it came. You know, I feel like me and the crew had a very, got into a rhythm and started understanding each other and understanding what our our quirks were. So it helped us as we moved on. I also think that spreading it out over various weekends helped us to kind of do mini-postmortems so that we could do better the next weekend.
John:
Yeah, that's great. So you had mentioned that you would do things differently next time.
KP:
My number one piece of advice to any person who is making a web series is be an artist first. Make sure you're telling a story. Keith And I guarantee you it needs a rewrite. I guarantee you, even after you've done the rewrite, I guarantee you it needs another one, guaranteed. The hardest part is just in the conception of making it and making sure that your scripts are as tight as possible. Because I see a lot of web series that go on way too long. You don't want to kill your babies. Make sure your scripts are as tight as possible, then give yourself the extra time to shoot it. A big regret was making the artistic experiment that I did, which I only did one rewrite. I wish I had rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it. I mean, I wish I had gone through several more drafts, but this show was, you know, just my id. And I also wish that I had spent more time in post. We spent a long time in post, like four or five months, and that was because I wanted to make sure that the color grading was correct and I wanted to make sure that the sound was good because bad sound will show bad, bad movie making in a millisecond. And I wanted to make sure that the edits were as tight as possible. I think we spent way more time in post because I didn't do rewrites on the script. A lot of the editing was about cutting it down and making it as tight as possible to tell the story. And then I really, really, really wish that on day one of making “Keith Broke his Leg”, I had a distribution plan. So much of my trying to get “Keith Broke his Leg”out into the world took years because I did not have a distribution plan at the very beginning. I did not think about how the world was going to be able to see it. And so, so much of my time working on “Keith Broke his Leg” was just years of promoting it. And if I had a plan going forward, it would have made the journey much easier and faster. And would have made sure that people got to see it much sooner.
"I gained my artistic life. I learned who I was as an artist working on it. I learned how to be a better director. I learned how to be a better communicator in directing. I learned how to be a better writer. I learned that everything I do going forward has to come from me deep into my soul and not to be in service of someone else, but to be in service of that little voice inside of me that will help someone else. And all of that came from 'Keith Broke his Leg'".
Jason:
What would you have done differently? I mean, as far as a plan.
KP:
I would have put a list together with somebody in post. I found a producer who helped me kind of create a marketing and distribution plan and marketing and advertisement plan along with distribution. And we sat down and we went through all the ways that we can market the show, posters, postcards, knocking on doors. UCB hosted the first a screening of the first few episodes. And then there was a Q&A with my celebrity friends about it afterwards that we were trying to get the word out. But because we scrambled for that, we weren't able to get the word out as as wide as we wanted to. I wish that I wasn't thinking on the fly about all the people in the press that I knew that I could go and ask for, because a lot of them came back to me and said, I wish I had more lead time to talk to you about because I can't do it now. I wish that I had partnered with Vimeo on “Keith Broke his Leg” at one point. Vimeo came and interviewed me and I went to the Vimeo offices and interviewed and they created a marketing plan for how to get the word out for them on their platform. And that all happened at the last minute.
John:
So have a plan when you go into the project of where it's going to end up. I think that a lot of times you would talk about in the creation of a thing, you think about what you want the end result to be. But again, this is a huge process with a lot of moving parts, a lot of different people. And (with) your intention going in to make this artistic, creative expression it’s hard to think about marketing at the same time as art sometimes.
KP:
So yeah, it's hard. It's really hard.
John:
So I guess that kind of brings us full circle a little bit, which is, do you feel like you met that original goal and that intention of making this artistic expression? What did you gain, do you think, from this process? What would you do differently?
KP:
I gained my artistic life. I learned who I was as an artist working on it. I learned how to be a better director. I learned how to be a better communicator in directing. I learned how to be a better writer. I learned that everything I do going forward has to come from me deep into my soul and not to be in service of someone else, but to be in service of that little voice inside of me that will help someone else. And all of that came from “Keith Broke his Leg”. “Keith Broke his Leg” also helped me get my first episode of television to direct. And frankly, when I did that first episode of television, I ignored the advice, I ignored the lesson that I learned on “Keith Broke his Leg” and it didn't go as well for me. So thankfully, by the second time I did my episode of television, I went, “I need to go back to listening to this little voice inside of me and helping that in the process rather than trying to do what other people want me to do.”
Jason:
That's great. So would you do it again?
KP:
No, it was hard. It was hard and it was hard. And it was years of work. Years of work I enjoy, I actually went back and watched “Keith Broke his Leg” and I went and you know, there are some things I would definitely do differently artistically, obviously, because I've grown as an artist since then. But I went back and I went, this is a weird, quirky, wonderful little show. It’s so weird.
Jason:
I watched it yesterday and that's what I thought. So that's coming through. It's coming through.
KP:
There. It's odd and it's a little off in a way that I very much am proud of.
Jason:
That's you. Yeah.
KP:
Yeah, exactly.
John:
So, Keith, I'd love to hear. What are you working on now that you would love to to tell people about?
KP:
I'm now directing for television full time. There’s an episode of “Dickinson” that I directed that is one of the most creative experiences of my life working in television. It's a music themed episode.
John:
Who wrote that episode.
KP:
Alena Smith, who is a genius. Elena created the show and asked me to come in and direct one of the episodes. And she's my writing hero. I mean, she's just an incredible, incredible person and an incredible writer. And then I directed an episode of a show called “Single Drunk Female” on Freeform that I'm very proud of. And then I directed a movie, a Christmas movie for Hallmark called “A Holiday in Harlem”.
Jason:
Congratulations.
KP:
And it's a fun, little, lovely, heartwarming story.
John:
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Jason:
It's always interesting to hear people's impetus for writing things and sharing their work. And certainly “Keith Broke his Leg”is unique in its conception and I'm so glad it did so well.
KP:
Thank you. Thank you. I'm very I'm very proud of it. Even in the artsy...you know, I think the show is thoughtful. And I think that that's what I like to bring into it. So I'm very proud of it. Thank you.
John:
Well, Keith, Thank you so much for taking the time to to chat with us. It was really great.
KP:
It's a pleasure. Thank you.
Jason:
Thanks so much, Keith.
KP:
Bye.
John:
Take care.
Keith Powell is an American television actor, writer, director, and web series creator, known for his role as James "Toofer" Spurlock on "30 Rock", and for creating and starring in the web series "Keith Broke His Leg", for which he won several Indie Series Awards in 2016.
His producing credits include New York productions of The Mouse That Roared, Enter Pissarro and Indra & Agni Collide. Powell was the resident director for Equalogy, a professional touring company promoting social change, for which he directed two plays by August Schulenberg. Other directing credits include Dutchman, Quality of Silence and The Visit.
As an actor, Powell has appeared in numerous national network commercials. His theatre credits include Romeo & Juliet, Kidding Jane, Macbeth, As Bees in Honey Drown, and The French, among others. Powell launched and starred in a self-funded web series called "Keith Powell Directs a Play", chronicling Powell's foray into directing Uncle Vanya at a fictional repertory theatre group. In 2014, Powell began a recurring role on the television series "About a Boy" as Richard, Will's workaholic friend, accountant, and business manager. He recurred on the final season of "The Newsroom" and appeared in the feature film "My Name Is David".
In 2015, he created, wrote, directed, and starred in the web series "Keith Broke His Leg". The series went on to win several Indie Series Awards, including Best Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Comedy.
Powell began his television directing career with the the NBC television series "Superstore". He has since directed episodes of "Dickinson", "Single Drunk Female", "Interview with the Vampire", and "So Help Me Todd".
Keith lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jill and their two children.