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ZACHARY LEVI
LIBERTY MUTUALS ONE-MINUTE SHORT FILM SERIES
by: Lisa Steinberg
Q. Has comedic timing come naturally to you or is it something that you've studied or worked at?
A. Excellent question, and thank you, thank you for liking my comedic timing, I appreciate it! Most people will tell you as far as comedy is concerned with comedic timing, it's something that you either get or you don't. You're either born with it or you're not, I guess. Not that comedic timing can't be improved upon or found. Just growing up I was always a ham, I was always a spaz. We moved around a lot when I was a kid so I was always having to make new friends and the best way to do that to make people laugh I suppose. From an early age it was always a crash course in being a jokester. The television for quite some time was my babysitter and I've learned just by watching old episodes of "Three's Company" with John Ritter and numerous other television shows or cartoons. Sometimes I feel like I am just a walking cartoon, and I don't know if that's good, but I enjoy it. I watched so many as a kid and I think you look at companies like Pixar and just how amazingly they are able to capture those moments. Last night I was watching the newly remastered Snow White and there is this moment where all of the Seven Dwarves, after they've rescued Snow White, pop their heads up. They pop their noses up at the foot of the bed and I think I literally just did that in an episode of "Chuck." I was like, "I just did that where I pop my nose up at the end of the bed, I am a walking cartoon. I think any time I watch anything it's just always about being fun creatively. You want to watch things and take them in and even from a young age I would look at something and dissect it and go, "That was funny, why was that funny? Oh, it's funny because of this or that." I would try and remember that and incorporate that and get a better understanding of comedy in general. Comedy is fifty percent timing, forty percent talent, and thirty percent math.
Q. What did you find challenging about putting your short together for the Liberty Mutual Film Short Event?
A. The most challenging thing about it was just trying to accomplish all of the shots and getting it all shot in the two day period that we had. Just juggling all that stuff with locations and when exactly we could get into a location and how much those locations would cost. All of the little technicalities of being able to put something together like that. Fortunately I had a really great team, my producers Dave Coleman and David Landau. Also the producers at NBC, everyone was awesome, everyone worked hard, and we were able to work out all of those technicalities. On the day just working with variables and seeing what we needed and how we could accomplish it. All of that stuff I think is the most difficult, but it's also kind of the most rewarding because of that within directing. Just problem solving and it keeps you on your toes and it keeps the process organic. I think that any time when you set out to make something like this, you have an idea of what you want it to be, and what it ends up being is whatever the combination of what you as a director brought, what your actors bring, what your writers bring, what your crew brings, your camera operators, grip, and electric and everyone. Of course the regular variables that you will deal with on a day with sunlight or people in the background or whatever the case may be. All of those things come together to make ultimately what your finished product is going to be. It's just a matter of having faith that that's what it was supposed to be. It might be different from what I originally envisioned it to be but it's better because it's unique.
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