The Ups and Downs of Comedy

For this video I still didn't have a clear idea for the shows format. I had booked Cameron Dyson and Austin Train for my show at the Royal Dive, and I was interested in talking to Cameron about a recent slump he had gotten himself into. Both of them talked about the ups and downs of comedy that all performers go through. Cameron had ben hitting the open mics hard and he felt like it was starting to wear on him, so I shaped that into the focus of this interview. Both Cameron and Austin are regulars at The La Jolla Comedy Store.

Going into this video it is important to understand that doing comedy means regularly going to open mics for 3 min and talking to people to hopefully got longer spots on real shows. Sometimes you get to a point where you plateau, feeling your comedy is not improving or not being able to make it to the next step.

The First Episode

This is the very first video I ever made. Back then I had a different vision, but I knew I wanted to do something where me and my friends talked about comedy. This episode was filmed in the green room of the Royal Dive Bar in Oceanside, where I used to produce a bi monthly show. The green room had a popcorn machine with a sign that said "salt your own popcorn". Fellow comic Chase Brocket suggested we use that as the name. I liked the idea of "salt your own popcorn" as a symbol for making the best of the tools at hand. For example I'm salting my popcorn with this project by creating a web show with the limited tools and trying to make it better. You can see a big change as the videos progress.


This episode is all about on and off stage personalities. One comment that comes up a lot with introverted comics is "You don't look like a comic" or "you don't seem that funny".  When I picked Jimmy Wolpert and Hayli Nicole to be my first guests, I realized the thing we all had in common was that we acted like different people on and off stage. Watch the video for more details.