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| Victorian Ladies |
Becca Schall and Jessica Taylor are Accountable Comedy, a duo who create comedy shorts, micro-series and sketches. One of their current projects, now in its second series, is the paper doll comedy Victorian Ladies. The pair take on full creative control, writing, directing, producing, editing, and performing the voiceovers for the four characters: Abigail, Beatrice, Caroline, and Daphne. Filled with creative wit, Victorian Ladies takes a humorous look at Victorian-Era New York City from a woman's perspective.
Schall and Taylor's other work includes The Wheel, in which two women perform ritual practices for an inanimate object in post-apocalyptic New York City, and Mama Night, about a woman confronted with the need to sacrifice her identity.
In conversation with Eye For Film, following the Slamdance première of the first series of Victorian Ladies, Schall and Taylor discussed the contradictory emotions they experienced, from self-doubt to self-confidence. They also reflected on the British comedy influence, drawing attention to the power of the human voice, and going on a playful journey of discovery.
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| Becca Schall |
The following has been edited for clarity.
Paul Risker: As difficult as the creative process can be, you should take away a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction. How do you look back on the experience of creating the first series of Victorian Ladies?
Becca Schall: This was one of the best examples of our doing that, where we really were looking for something that would be short, fast and fun to make. We just made a list of our stupidest ideas that we thought might not work, but let's just try some things out and be creative.
Something sparked the idea that it would be fun to play with paper dolls together and somehow film it. We were so excited because we both played with paper dolls as kids, and so, we thought this would be fun, let's try it. And I feel that's why people are responding to the series, because they can tell how much fun we had.
Jessica Taylor: The foundation of play is definitely there, and it was literally a list of dumb ideas with this one idea that we thought we could produce. And with a background in improv and sketch, we wanted it to feel like it was an improvised sketch, which I think it does. So, we had the idea; Becca bought a book online; we cut out the ladies, and it just took the next logical step at each point.
In the book, the women were named, which, along with the clothes we picked out for them, informed their characters. Then, we literally played, although I don't think we ever listened back to the recordings. Instead, we thought, let's play and see what happens.
BS: No, we did listen to them back after those first scenes.
JT: Maybe we did, but I think we just tried to remember what worked, like a phrase, a name, a voice, which we then implemented into a sketch. And those first scenes informed almost everything. They informed the characters, the voices we honed and some of the phrases. We improvised Railroad Boy and Papa, as well as the initial plot of Loving Him.
BS: Once we found each of the four characters, we brainstormed a bunch of plot lines, and each one of them came easier than the next. It seemed the world opened up to us and was flowing. It's like the four Sex And The City ladies, where they each have their own personalities, and they bounce off each other. Beatrice and Caroline talk about random things and have these awkward conversations but we just wanted to write fun little moments, which started coming more easily as we went along.
JT: I feel we are these women because we would riff on our own characters, and from there, we took what worked for them. And even though it comes from a place of improv and play, we wanted the episodes to be like written jokes and feel tight.
PR: Was it always the intention that the episodes would be as short as they were?
BS: Our goal was for these stories to be a minute or less. Some episodes will go over a little, but for those initial episodes, we tried to stick to a minute. In trying to do that, we found this format that was extremely fast-paced and tight, and that's where we found the fun. And somehow, with the fast-paced editing, that elevated the comedy to another level.
PR: As new platforms have emerged, we're seeing a growth in the flexibility to give stories the time they need. Yet, unlike literature, which has embraced the short and long form, cinema still prioritises feature films. This devalues the storytelling at the heart of cinema.
JT: I enjoyed watching the shorts at Slamdance because you'll see ten completely different stories with different styles. It's a fascinating roller coaster that's emotionally tiring because you're going from a horror to a comedy, for example. You're just jumping around.
BS: […] Every story needs a slightly different amount of time, and we see 60-minute or 70-minute shorts — all these different lengths for a story to be told.
PR: The charm of Victorian Ladies comes from the voices, which carry so much of the story. This isn't to dismiss the visual side of the series, but it's always a pleasure to encounter something that elevates the human voice, like radio plays once did.
JT: It's interesting because it's such a stripped-down piece. Obviously, we have paper dolls, and we have voices, and we have amazing editing by Becca, which is so much of it. But it does draw your attention to how powerful the voices are, right? When you're watching a feature film and there are human bodies in front of you and voices and music, you're not always thinking about this. By removing so many of the elements, you are forced to recognise their importance.
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| Jessica Taylor |
BS: One of the fun things was we discovered what was funny about it along the way. We really didn't know when we bought the paper doll book whether it would be funny or super boring. We thought about how these are flat two-dimensional images and asked ourselves whether we could make it into something entertaining. And by keeping the episodes to a minute, it helps ensure it's not boring.
The pacing of it has to be fast, partially because you have to create this illusion of energy, since they are literally static. Their facial expressions, body positioning and outfits don't change. Sometimes you'll occasionally see us moving them around, but there's only so much moving around that helps. We discovered when filming that it's funny, at least to us, if you go in on a close-up of their faces. And when we cut them out and put them in a blank world and filmed them, there was also something undefinably funny about it. But we discovered it as we played, and so, the spirit of play was essential.
We found the tone of the comedy in the way that we naturally talk to each other. We had not done a lot of straight improv with each other before this. We had done sketches and had played around, and there's some improv inherent in our previous sketches and characters. But we hadn't often sat down and just recorded an improvised scene. That was one of the first times we did this, and we didn't know if our improv voices would blend together.
PR: You can never predict how the audience will respond, especially with comedy that relies on a visceral reaction. Also, creating and sharing anything is an act of making yourself vulnerable.
JT: It has been so much fun to share it with an audience. Obviously, I was nervous when it was screening, but I felt that vulnerability the least here because I was confident in the fact that this was funny. And I honestly feel that if people don't get it, then that's fine.
BS: I think because of how minimalist it is, we didn't feel like we had spent so much money that we were hoping the sound and colour would be okay. Of course, I want those to be okay, but I'm not worried about it because it's not the central point. The only thing I cared about was whether people were gonna laugh at the jokes. But I felt pretty confident because we had shown it to other people, and they enjoyed it. And since I liked it, I felt I didn't need validation from the audience to know that it's funny, and that's a good place to be in. […] Also, there wasn't this pressure of having given a dramatic performance and worrying whether it is going to translate. And I didn't produce this and desperately need it to play well in front of audiences. So, there weren't those stakes.
JT: The original idea was to do a no-stakes thing. Let's spend no money, let's have no pressure, and if it doesn't work then there's nothing lost, only experience gained.
BS: It's just meant to be fun and likeable and make people laugh and feel happy and joyful, silly and playful. And that's the response we have had from almost everyone.
PR: Watching Victorian Ladies, the thought occurred to me where does this land on the spectrum of British and American humour?
JT; If I may be so bold as to say, I think there is something a little British about it, because I feel you guys are weirder and a little more open to strange things, and you often go darker, although this isn't very dark.
BS: I would say there's more of a bleakness.
JT: You guys say stuff with a straight face, and you say things that are so authentic and honest. But I do feel you're open to weirder or quirkier things. We are definitely American and, obviously, these characters are living in New York, but I hope we're on the sliding scale — not one hundred percent American, maybe we're 25 percent.
BS; This is set in the Victorian era in the United States, a time when all of these ladies were influenced by Europe and whatever was happening in England. This is what they're copying in some way with their outfits and their choice of phrases, and I do a slightly transatlantic accent with a British influence. But the Victorian ladies were products of that time period, and I associate it with English influences.
JT: I hope the quirkiness is [associated with that] too, and I do think there's something weird about it.
BS; Oftentimes there's a quietness and a subtlety to British humour that we love. We try to capture this with jokes that fly under the radar, that you don't hear the first time because somebody just quietly says something. That's such an awkward British thing. Or the fast-paced jokes where you don't quite hear the end of the joke. Instead, it just blows by you. I do think that's very often a British thing that we do because we love that type of humour.
Victorian Ladies is available to view here.
