Courtesy of Riley Smith
To set the scene…
I went to interview the crew behind “Reel Talk,” the student-produced talk-show parody from UC Santa Barbara’s film fraternity, Delta Kappa Alpha, on a Friday afternoon. I never knew UCSB had a sound stage on campus, tucked in the corner of the Social Sciences & Media Studies building, much less been inside. There were about 20 students there, dressed in all black (typical attire of those working as crew), and a mound of backpacks piled by the door, next to stacks of empty In-N-Out Burger boxes. The first thing I thought was, “I better not make a sound near this set.”
I spent the next hour talking to crew members outside, as they cycled between their job on set (filming episode three) and chatting with their friends outside. A lot of our conversations began and ended mid-sentence, as they would be called away at any given moment — “Alex, can you tell the musical guest to move their whole set-up this way?”
And then, mid-interview, a stage light fell as I was talking to showrunner and co-producer Alex Yong, a third-year film and media studies and psychological & brain sciences double major. But, as the crew only had two days on the sound stage to film everything they needed, the show had to go on.
“You kind of roll with the punches … It is a learning experience and we are constantly improving,” Yong said amidst the chaos, as the crew rushed around to clean up the debris of the broken glass.
Courtesy of Riley Smith
History
“Reel Talk” was started by Delta Kappa Alpha (DKA) member and recent UCSB alum Brooke Westphal in spring 2024. The series began as a home video style production filmed on a handheld camera, but Westphal wanted to do more. She came up with the idea of a 1970s talk show parody — but right as she was graduating.
“I kept texting [Westphal] and saying ‘Hey, I want to take over this concept you had,’ and it turns out Alex Yong was doing the same thing at the same time and we didn’t know,” fourth-year English major and host and co-producer of “Reel Talk” Curran Seth said.
“I was texting her like ‘Hey, I’m interested in starting this back up.’ [Seth] was [also] texting her like ‘Hey, I’m interested in starting this back up.’ [Westphal] said ‘Stop talking. Talk to each other,’” Yong said.
Yong, alongside Seth, started the production back up again in fall 2024. It was pitched in October and, following two months of assembling pre- and post-production teams, episode two aired on Dec. 27, 2024. The series aims to mimic a late-night talk show style while also including educational opportunities. Episode two featured UCSB alum Julia Nielson, who shared her experience working as an executive assistant at Sony Pictures, and Isla Vista band Monkfish, catering to the wide variety of interests of potential viewers.
Pre-production
“Reel Talk” operates with a rotating, all-student crew, giving members a chance to try out different roles on set.
“Everyone rotates roles. For each and every episode you take on a different role,” Eva Solis Lindholm, a fourth-year film and media studies major, said. Solis Lindholm has worked on costumes, hair and makeup and acted as the first and second assistant director on various “Reel Talk” episodes.
“I know all these people can do a great job, but we want to make sure that everyone can try something new and make sure that we have a consistent style. And if people are swapping roles, then there has to be clear communication about what the expectations are,” Yong said.
With swapping roles and limited time on the sound stage comes stressful situations. Solis Lindholm explained that her job for episode two was making sure everything stayed on schedule.
“It’s so stressful. Especially working with a rotating group of 20 plus people … [there’s] so many moving parts and we’re all such good friends,” Solis Lindholm said. “While it is stressful to try and get everything done in a two-day span, we all do it because we work really well together and also have fun with it.”
Two people who do not rotate are the head writers, third-year film and media studies major Wells Hodder and fourth-year film and media studies major Annabelle Stedman (AB). When asked if comedy writing proved difficult, they laughed in response.
“Not for us,” they said in unison.
It was easy to imagine the two of them working in a writer’s room — their banter flowed naturally, and interviewing them felt like watching a skit.
“It’s because we are in love,” Stedman said.
“We have this weird, ‘will they, won’t they’ thing that’s gone on for a long time,” Hodder added.
“And this is on the record: I am a lesbian,” Stedman finished.
With Stedman and Hodder leading a writer’s room of eight people, all different forms of comedy are bounced around: goofy, caricature, meta or fleshed out cinematic skits.
“Just because we all know each other and are all very comfortable with each other, I feel like it is a very fun set and very fun process,” Stedman said.
Courtesy of Dat Ho
The writers mix typical late-night comedy with “Saturday Night Live” style. Stedman leans towards monologues, and Hodder likes sketches. While the writers do meet before filming to discuss the script, a lot of the writing process is on their own time.
“We usually don’t all write in one time and one space, it’s a collaborative process through the drafts,” said Hodder.
Both Stedman and Hodder talked about creating Seth’s character as the show host.
“We are making [Seth], our host, just like the worst guy,” Stedman said. “That is how we are doing the talk show parody.”
“Like current events are called ‘Curran Events,’ and half of them are just about him,” Hodder said.
Seth had no complaints about his characterization. “It’s not as if I have to go up there and be myself. The writers have crafted a character for me, and that’s the best thing in the world, honestly,” he said.
Beyond writing the script and creating Seth’s character (among many others), the writers also act in the skits themselves. Sometimes they even write sketches with specific people in mind.
“We act in sketches, and we also help direct the sketches we write. But acting is the biggest thing we do,” Hodder said.
Both Yong and Seth have also influenced the show’s writing. Because everybody working on “Reel Talk” is in DKA, they had the privilege of choosing writers from an already-known pool. Their styles of comedy are already apparent, and Yong helped match the eight of them together.
Seth expressed that he just wanted all the writers to be passionate about comedy.
“[Their writing samples] proves the type of comedy but also their passion for writing. I want them to be people that write all the time for no reason,” Seth said.
For all writers, a passion for writing is typically synonymous with the Notes app, a place where most single-line ideas go to die. But there are the few that resurface after a boredom scroll.
“I have crazy stuff written in my Notes app. Like facts that I think are funny,” Hodder said. “Anytime I don’t know what to do, I’ll scroll through [my Notes app].”
Stedman shared that 80% of her ideas live “in the depths of my Notes app.” These ideas include the police on horses in I.V., except in this instance, the horses are the police; creating a UCSB microcelebrity; a mockumentary on the I.V. barefooters or a spoof on a fake I.V. band.
Both Hodder and Stedman expressed gratitude for having a space to write actual comedic scripts that are guaranteed to to be shared with a larger audience. Being able to have eight writers they can work with to create these scripts is rare. It gives them a creative outlet while also getting real-life experience.
“It’s pretty much just an opportunity to write and make comedy on a regular basis for something that you know will be made, which is cool,” Hodder said.
Post-production
“It’s about getting the creativity out, and then fixing it later,” Seth said.
While the “Reel Talk” crew only has two days to shoot on the sound stage, they shoot different skits on-site. Episode two featured a tennis match, where they had to bring the film crew to the UCSB tennis courts. So it takes far more than two days to shoot everything.
Once everything has been shot, the editing process begins.
“It just feels like an ongoing project … Every time something comes out, I watch it and I don’t even laugh anymore,” Seth said. “I’m really watching to see, ‘What can we improve?’”
Even after an episode has been aired, Seth still finds things that he could have fixed. It comes with being the creator — the constant need to keep tweaking and fixing. But even with all of this frustration, the feeling of reward that comes from restarting an idea from scratch outweighs the negatives.
“The actual practice of [producing], the experience of it, is very rewarding on its own … For ‘Reel Talk,’ it’s more a chance to try and it’s not a personal story to me,” Seth said. “I really just want it to exist.”
Courtesy of Riley Smith
On Comedy
It is no secret that comedy is subjective. Seth, along with the rest of the “Reel Talk” crew, are aware of that.
“I know that certain things will be funny to certain people. Other things will not be. It’s impossible to have too many voices in the process. In the post [production], that’s where I take all comments,” Seth said.
The majority of the comedy in “Reel Talk” is self-aware, giving the talk show a unique “parody of a talk show” spin. It combines a multitude of different comedic genres — jumping from a serious interview to a sketch, to a fake advertisement, to a self-centered monologue (reflective of the personality of the show host character). But at the end of the day, comedy or not, the writing is earnest and true.
“They write about what matters to them … they push the boundary there more than anywhere else,” Seth said about the “Reel Talk” writers. “You have to be on the limit, because otherwise you’re not actually doing comedy.”
Future of ‘Reel Talk’
Seth and Yong have created a six-episode road map for “Reel Talk” and are hoping to bring on more high-profile guests as the show progresses. As the show combines comedy with educational opportunities, they plan to bring on a range of guests — alums, professors and hopefully industry professionals.
“That’s for sharpening up our crew. Prove to yourselves that when there’s no obligation from the guest to you, that they want to be here,” Seth said, discussing his hope to have industry professionals on the show. He also hopes to include a narratively compelling episode down the line, expanding the range of the talk show parody.
“You know when kids shoot a movie in elementary school with their friends? It feels like that,” Hodder said of his experience working on “Reel Talk.”
Check out the most recent episode of “Reel Talk”: “She’s Back, B*tches” featuring creator Westphal, on @ReelTalkDKA on Youtube.
This article appeared in the May 1 print edition of the Daily Nexus.
