Q&A with Tynan DeLong ("Family is Stinks")
The sequel to the riotous, “Love is Stinks,” which introduced us to the whirlwind romance of Briant and Edo, begins twenty years after the original. Part two, “Family is Stinks,” finds the couple, now in their 40’s, struggling with family life. We asked director Tynan Delong about his favorite TV tropes, keeping the shoot fun, and ideas for season 3…
1) First of all, wow, what a treat to get a second dose of this web series. Being a huge “Love is Stinks” fan, I was giddy to see the universe expanded here. How did it happen? Was this in the works by the time you shot the first season, or did you come up with all new ideas post S1?
Thank you!! The first one was such a blast, so once I wrapped that up, I knew I wanted to do another one at some point down the road. It's just so fast, cheap and easy, it's really one of my favorite things to do. I feel like I'm constantly chasing the spirit of making wild shit with your friends in high school and this is just another extension of that vibe. So ANYWAY, I kept it in the back of my head while I worked on other stuff and tried to get a vision for the next installment. I thought we had taken the initial idea about as far as it could go, so I knew I wanted take it in a slightly different direction (but only VERY slightly). Then well hell, you know how the song goes: first comes love, then comes marriage...then comes baby in the baby carriage. I felt like This Is Us and a lot of family driven shows were pretty popular so I decided that would be the target. Once I had settled on my target, I just worked out the outline from there!
2) We talked a bit at the live screening of this, about employing a heavy dose of tropes. Can you speak about your interest in throwing in as many cliches as you can, and what are some of your favorite tropes?
I just get tired of seeing the same shit over and over again so it brings me an immense amount of pleasure to tear into that. I feel like we've seen 8,000,000 iterations of a woman finding out she's pregnant and some middle aged dude going "Wow, my boys can swim!!" and it's supposed to be funny still? That's my favorite trope prob. Or the dad doesn't trust his daughter's boyfriend and he "grills" him? It's like, uh yeah, thank u NEXT lol! A lot of this stuff was already ingrained in me because I grew up with these tropes from sitcoms and bad tv, but for this, I watched a lot of Parenthood as a refresher on how those family shows work and you know what? I actually wound up liking that show alright and watching 4 seasons, far more than I had anticipated! Since I grew up with them, I feel like those sorts of shows are just AV comfort food at this point.
3) You shot this whole thing in 6 hours? That’s incredible, 30 minutes of gold content in 6 hours. What’s the secret? Casting? Do you do any special preparation, any rituals or anything?
Yep, 6 hours, I remember cause Joe Rumrill looked at his phone after the last shot and said "6 hours exactly." The secret is to treat it like a hang, not a shoot. No preparation is the preparation. It's just a good excuse to spend some time with my friends doing something silly and dumb with no pressure whatsoever. I guess I would call it unstructured structure. I have the shot list and plots all mapped out, but once the shoot starts, it's just pure fun. Everything is one take. Mistakes are welcome. The series wouldn't work if we weren't having fun, so I try to get a talented group of people together who like each other and can make each other laugh. Making something dumb with your friends, it does the soul well!
4) Any challenges that threatened to derail the shoot day? Any tempers flaring / comedy exhaustion setting in?
Mmmm...we were losing light toward the end so some parts look like absolute shit, but I think it's important for this show to look like absolute shit. Aesthetic choice. Guess that wasn't a challenge, but a boon to our production.
5) What’s next for the “…Is Stinks” universe? Or the Tynan DeLong universe at large?
Gunna cash in on this Bohemian Rhapsody craze and do a Rock Is Stinks!